Abraxas

A philosopher with an interest in gods.

"Charcoal" Abraxas is a naturally resilient man who tended to smell of singed clothing and burnt hair. Struck by lightning possibly sixteen times at the last count, and "still not giving up", although there is a sighting (admittedly by the blind philosopher Didactylos) of a pair of sandals with smoke curling up out of them, just outside his house. So it is possible that the sixteenth lightning strike was meant to be more than just a warning.

He spent years researching his scroll On Religion, which included a trip into the desert to find the lost city of Ee, where temple carvings and frescoes provided the missing evidence to support his theory about the natural life cycle of a God.

Around the Godde there builds a Shelle of prayers and Ceremonies and Buildings and Priestes and Authorities, until at laste the Godde dies. And this may not be noticed.

Abraxas always said the gods like an atheist, as it gives them something to aim at.

Annotations

It may well be the case that, having built a shell of prayers and litanies, bells and smells, liturgies and vestments around a god, the origins and original thoughts die, to be replaced by the said symbols and paraphernalia. Witness the lack of real fire in many of the vicars in the Church of England: many churches are shells going through the motions without so much as a personal faith in sight...

On Roundworld, Abraxas was in fact a god. Known primarily as a Serpent God and as a euphemism for the "Male Principle", he has qualities of the sort of Trickster God who attempts to get people thinking for themselves through painful and instructive deceptions and practical jokes with a point.

There's also the terribly-named film Abraxas, Guardian of the Universe, starring ex-wrestler Jesse Ventura.

Oh, and don't forget the album Abraxas by Santana.