Abraxas: The Unity of Opposites and the Masonic Quest

Exc.^.. Bro.^.. Aksel Suvari 18°

Date Published: 9/16/2025                        

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Abraxas stands as a symbol of primal unity, where light and darkness, good and evil, spirit and matter are reconciled. To the Gnostic and the Mason alike, He embodies the mystery that opposites are not abolished but fulfilled in a greater Whole. He is both lion and bird, storm and calm, rough stone and perfect ashlar. If wisdom lies in the union of contraries, will you look upon Abraxas without fear?

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In the dim corridors of Gnostic speculation there stands a figure of profound and enigmatic grandeur: Abraxas. To the superficial eye, He is but a curious name inscribed upon ancient gems, a relic of superstition and half-forgotten cults. Yet to the discerning mind, Abraxas reveals Himself as a symbol of that primal unity wherein contraries are reconciled, and wherein the antinomies of human thought, light and darkness, good and evil, spirit and matter, are gathered into a single ineffable Source. He is not merely a forgotten deity of the heterodox; He is the emblem of the perpetual problem of human existence: how to grasp that the highest reality lies not in one-sided purity but in the mysterious conjunction of opposites.

The Basilideans, who flourished in the early centuries of our era, proclaimed Abraxas as the Supreme Power, transcending even the familiar God of Scripture. For in their doctrine, the God of the Hebrews was but one emanation among many, a limited being bound by law and justice, while Abraxas stood above, the fountain of all emanations, the abyssal origin of both the aeons of light and the rulers of shadow. His very name was formed of seven letters, whose numerical value, 365, was held to signify the totality of the days of the year, and thereby the fullness of the world’s cycle. Thus, in the figure of Abraxas, time itself, with its burdens and its blessings, was comprehended. He was not confined to the realm of abstraction, but impressed His mystery upon the calendar of human toil, weaving the endless cycle of days into a single symbolic whole. The Gnostic did not tremble before this dread power. He knew that Abraxas, uniting opposites within Himself, was both terrible and salvific. He is the roaring of the lion and the song of the bird, the storm that devastates and the calm that heals. He is above the gods, yet present in every fragment of existence. The mystic who grasped this symbol understood that salvation lay not in denying the darkness of the world, nor in embracing only its light, but in beholding both as offspring of a greater Whole.

The symbolic thesis that emerges is that Abraxas embodies the unity of contraries as the necessary ground of human and cosmic existence. He is not to be understood as a “solution” that cancels opposition, but as the higher order that makes opposition possible and meaningful. In Him, spirit and matter, joy and pain, justice and injustice are not reconciled by being abolished, but by being subsumed into a greater harmony which surpasses comprehension. This thesis, once apprehended, opens itself to numerous illustrations. In philosophy, it recalls the Heraclitean teaching that strife is the father of all things. In religion, it parallels the paradoxes of incarnation and sacrifice, where divinity embraces mortality in order to redeem it. In moral life, it instructs man that wisdom is not the sterile refusal of conflict, but the capacity to endure its polarities without despair. And in Freemasonry, it finds a close analogue in the Lodge’s symbolic drama, the oppositions of light and darkness, square and compasses, rough ashlar and perfect stone, all point toward a hidden unity beyond the apparent struggle of opposites.

Freemasonry, though far removed from the speculations of the Basilideans, shares with Gnostic imagery a profound sense of symbolic reconciliation. The initiate enters the Lodge in darkness and ignorance, yet is gradually led toward light and knowledge. But the light does not abolish the darkness; it gives it meaning. The rough stone is not despised, for it is the necessary foundation from which the polished stone is fashioned. Similarly, the twin pillars at the entrance of the Temple do not oppose each other destructively, but stand together as the gateway to wisdom. Masonry thus teaches that contraries are not to be feared, but to be understood in their relation to the Whole. Abraxas, as the figure who unites storm and calm, terror and blessing, represents this same principle on a cosmic scale. The Mason, laboring in the quarry of existence, confronts hardships and joys alike as raw material for the work of self-perfection. Just as Abraxas is both lion and bird, so the Mason must learn to reconcile strength with gentleness, severity with mercy, justice with compassion. To ignore one side of the duality is to cripple the work; to integrate both is to approach the ideal of the Perfect Ashlar.

The numerical value of Abraxas, 365, reminds us that all human existence is bound within the cycle of time. The Mason, like all men, lives within the days and years, within labor and rest, within beginnings and endings. Yet the cycle itself points to eternity, for what repeats endlessly must draw upon a source beyond time. In the Lodge, the sun is seen to rise and set, but the Master of the Lodge holds a gavel that transcends the hours, symbolizing eternal authority. Thus, in Abraxas, the temporal and the eternal meet. The Mason who perceives this learns to regard his labor not as a fleeting toil, but as participation in a work that outlasts the ages.

To the superficial mind, evil is a scandal to faith, an objection against the possibility of divine order. But in Abraxas the existence of both good and evil is comprehended. He is not evil Himself, nor merely good, but the principle from which both spring. In Freemasonry, the initiate is taught that light is revealed only through contrast with darkness. The drama of Hiram Abiff, slain by the unworthy and restored by fidelity, is but an allegory of this same truth: evil is permitted, that good may be tested and made manifest. The Mason, instructed by this allegory, learns not to deny the reality of evil, but to endure it as part of the greater Whole from which true wisdom emerges.

Abraxas is at once the transcendent power and the immanent presence in every fragment of existence. He is neither pure abstraction nor mere material force, but both together. Masonry, in its symbolism, reflects this union. The square is the emblem of the earthly, the compasses of the spiritual; together they form the proper instrument of the Mason. To emphasize one without the other is to distort the craft. Thus, the Mason, like the Gnostic, is taught to unite contemplation with labor, prayer with building, faith with works. The union of spirit and matter is no contradiction, but the very ground of the Masonic vocation.

Abraxas remains for us a daunting emblem, a reminder that the highest truths shatter our categories and that the Divine exceeds the petty moralities by which men seek to bind it. He is the eternal riddle: at once creator and destroyer, blessing and curse, the unity that lies hidden beneath the ceaseless struggle of opposites. To invoke Abraxas is to risk confusion, for the mind recoils from that which transcends its schemes. Yet to meditate upon His mystery is to gain a deeper wisdom: that life itself is not to be explained by one principle alone, but by the interpenetration of contraries within a single Whole. The Mason, too, is warned against facile solutions. He is not told that the world is simple, but that it is orderly. He is not instructed to flee from pain, but to endure it with fortitude. He is not assured that good will triumph without struggle, but that through struggle the soul is fashioned. In this sense, the figure of Abraxas, however alien in form, stands as a profound allegory for the initiatic path.

In the end, the symbol of Abraxas directs us toward a vision of the cosmos as a Lodge eternal, where every contrary finds its appointed place, and every opposition serves a higher design. The days of the year, the alternation of light and dark, the contest of good and evil, the interplay of spirit and matter, all are but the working-tools of that Great Architect whose plan surpasses our comprehension. The Mason, laboring in this cosmic Temple, must learn to recognize in both joy and sorrow, in both success and failure, in both birth and death, the hand of Abraxas, the unity beyond opposites, the mystery of the Whole. Thus does an obscure figure from the recesses of Gnostic lore prove to be more than a curiosity of antiquity. He is a living symbol, a guide for the thoughtful, a challenge to the complacent. To contemplate Abraxas is to contemplate the deepest truth of human existence: that in the reconciliation of opposites lies the key to wisdom, and that the Great Work of the soul is to behold unity where the uninitiated see only strife. This is the lesson of the Gnostics, and it is also, in another tongue, the lesson of the Masonic Lodge.