Note 233 — Chapter VIII · POST-CHRISTIAN GNOSTICS: THE OPHITES

ἐπιγεγραμμένον διάφραγμα πελεκοιειδεῖ σχήματι, Origen, op. et loc. cit. The πέλεκυς or double-bladed axe was the symbol of Zeus Labrandos of Caria, and is often met with on the coins of Asia Minor, while it seems to have played a prominent part in the worship of Minoan Crete and in Mycenae. See Arthur Evans, Mycenaean Tree and Pillar Cult, 1901, pp. 8-12. Ramsay, Cities, etc., I. c. 91, thinks that Savazos or Sabazios was called in Phrygia Lairbenos, which may be connected with the word Labrys said to be the name of the double axe. He found a god with this weapon worshipped together with Demeter or Cybele in the Milyan country, op. cit. pp. 263, 264, and he thinks the pair appear under the different names of Leto, Artemis, Cybele, and Demeter on the one hand, and Apollo, Lairbenos, Sabazios, Men, and Attis on the other throughout Asia Minor. He points out, however, that they were only the male and female aspects of a single divinity (op. cit. 93, 94). Is it possible that this is the explanation of the double axe as a divine symbol? The axe with one blade was the ordinary Egyptian word-sign for a god (see P.S.B.A. 1899, pp. 310, 311) and the double axe might easily mean a god with a double nature. If this idea were at all prevalent in Anatolia at the beginning of our era, it would explain Simon Magus’ mysterious allusion to the flaming sword of Genesis iii. 24, “which turns both ways to guard the Tree of Life,” and is somehow connected with the division of mankind into sexes. See Hippolytus, op. cit. Bk VI. c. 17, p. 260, Cruice. A very obscure Coptic text which its discoverer, M. de Mély, calls “Le Livre des Cyranides” (C. R. de l’Acad. des Inscriptions, Mai-Juin, 1904, p. 340) gives a hymn to the vine said to be sung in the Mysteries of Bacchus in which the “mystery of the axe” is mentioned.