nevertheless they crucified instead of him Simon the Cyrenian, who assumed his shape. He himself returned to his Father. By means of the Gnosis which he taught men’s souls are redeemed, while their bodies perish.--The development of one of these systems into the other might be most simply explained by assuming that the one described in the _Elenchus_ of Hippolytus is the original and that its reconstruction was brought about by the overpowering intrusion of current dualistic, emanationistic, and docetic ideas. All that had there been said about the great Archon must now be attributed to the Supreme God, the _Pater innatus_, while the inferior archon might keep his place as ruler of the lowest planetary heaven. The 365 spiritual worlds had perhaps in the other system a place between the two Archons, for even Hippolytus, vii. 26, mentions in addition the 365 heavens to which also he gives the name of the great Archon Abrasax.--It is a fact of special importance that even Irenæus and Epiphanius distinguish from the genuine disciples of Basilides the so-called =Pseudo-Basilideans= as representing a later development, easily deducible from the second but hardly traceable from the first account of the system. That with their Gnosis they blended magic, witchcraft and fantastic superstition appears from the importance which they attached to mystic numbers and letters. Their libertine practice can be derived from their antinomian contempt of Judaism as well as from the theory that their bodies are doomed to perish. So, too, their axiom that to suffer martyrdom for the crucified, who was not indeed the real Christ, is foolish, may be deduced from the Docetism of their system. Abrasax gems which are still to be met with in great numbers and in great variety are to be attributed to these Basilideans; but these found favour and were used as talismans not only among other Gnostic sects but also among the Alchymists of the Middle Ages.