Clement of Alexandria incidentally mentions Cainites and Ophites,[6] but gives no explanation of their tenets. Nor do we suppose that there is any reason to connect with this sect his reprobation of the use of serpent ornaments by women.[7]
Reconstruction of Ophite Diagram from Histoire critique du Gnosticisme; Jacques Matter, 1826, Vol. III, Plate I, D.
Origen is led to speak of the Ophites[8] by an accusation of Celsus that the Christians counted seven heavens, and spoke of the Creator as an accursed divinity, inasmuch as he was worthy of execration for cursing the serpent who introduced the first human beings to the knowledge of good and evil. Origen replies that Celsus had mixed up matters, and had confounded with the Christians the Ophites, who so far from being Christians would not hear the name of Jesus, nor own him to have been so much as a wise and virtuous man, nor would admit anyone into their assembly until he had cursed Jesus. It may be doubted whether Origen has not here been misinformed about a sect of which he intimates that he knows but little.
According to all other authorities the Ophites claimed to be Christians. Elsewhere[9] Origen classes the Ophites as heretics of the graver sort with the followers of Marcion, Valentinus, Basilides, and Apelles. The identity of the nomenclature proves that these Ophites of Origen are a branch of the sect described by Irenaeus, and therefore justifies our application of the name Ophite to that sect.
Hebdomad
The names of the seven princes of the Hebdomad, as given by Origen, agree completely with the list of Irenaeus.
Origen also gives the names of the seven demons. Irenaeus only gives the name of their chief, but that one is enough to establish a more than accidental coincidence, since it is a name we should not have expected to find as the name of a demon, namely, Michael. The name Prunikos is also found in the report of Origen. Origen gives what must have been one of the valuable secrets of this sect, viz. the formula to be addressed by an ascending soul to each of the princes of the hebdomad in order to propitiate him to grant a passage through his dominions. Perhaps the secret would have been more jealously guarded if it were not that in addition to the use of the formula, it seems to hare been necessary to produce at each gate a certain symbol. These would only be in the possession of the initiated, and we may imagine that they were buried with them. He gives the formulae in the inverse order; i.e. first the formula to be used by a soul which has passed through the highest heaven and desires to enter the Ogdoad; next the formula to be used in order to gain admission to the highest heaven, and so on.
Diagrams
Origen also gives a description of an Ophite diagram, which Celsus likewise had met with, consisting of an outer circle, named Leviathan, denoting the soul of all things, with ten internal circles, variously coloured, the diagram containing also the figures and names of the seven demons. Many have attempted to reproduce the figure from Origen's description, but in truth Origen has not given us particulars enough to enable us to make a restoration with confidence, or even to enable us to understand what was intended to be represented. Origen names Euphrates as the
Ophites 91
introducer of the doctrine of the sect which he describes, and the sect may have been that branch of the Ophites who are called Peratae.
In Hippolytus
A lost earlier treatise of Hippolytus appears to have contained a section on the Ophites, following that on the Nicolaitans, with whom they were brought into connexion. Philaster has mistakenly transposed this and two other sections, beginning his treatise on heresies with the Ophites, and making the Ophites, Cainites, and Sethians pre-Christian sects. The section of Hippolytus appears to have given a condensed account of the mythological story told by Irenaeus. In giving the name Ophite, however, he appears to have brought into greater prominence than Irenaeus the characteristics of the sect indicated by the word, their honour of the serpent, whom they even preferred to Christ, their venerating him because he taught our first parents the knowledge of good and evil, their use of the references to the brazen serpent in the Old and New Testament, and their introduction of the serpent into their Eucharistic celebration.
Philosophumena
The great difference between the earlier and the later treatise of Hippolytus is that the former was a mere compilation, his account of the opinions of heresies being in the main derived from the lectures of Irenaeus; but at the time of writing the latter, he had himself read several heretical writings, of which he gives an extract in his treatise. In this book he makes a contemptuous mention of the Ophites in company with the Cainites and Nochaitae[10] as heretics whose doctrines did not deserve the compliment of serious exposition or refutation.
And it is strange that he does not seem to suspect that these heretics have any connection with those who form the subject of his fifth book. In that book he treats of sects which paid honour to the serpent, giving to the first of these sects the name Naassenes, a title which he knows is derived from the Hebrew name for serpent. Possibly Hippolytus restricted the name Ophites to the sect described by Irenaeus, which has very little in common with that which he calls Naassenes. This book contains sections on several other Ophite systems, that of the Peratae, Sethians and of Justinus.
Ophite teaching was, most likely, dying out in the days of Hippolytus; in the time of Epiphanius it was not absolutely extinct, but the notices in his work would lead us to think of it as but the eccentric doctrine of some stray heretic here and there, and not to have counted many adherents. In the 5th century Theodoret tells[11] of having found serpent worship practised in his diocese by people whom he calls Marcionites, but whom we may believe to have been really Ophites.
In Epiphanius
“
They have a snake, which they keep in a certain chest--the cista mystica--and which at the hour of their mysteries they bring forth from its cave. They heap loaves upon the table and summon the serpent. Since the cave is open it comes out. It is a cunning beast and, knowing their foolish ways, it crawls up on the table and rolls in the loaves; this they say is the perfect sacrifice. Wherefore, as I have been told, they not only break the bread in which the snake has rolled and administer it to those present, but each one kisses the snake on the mouth, for the snake has been tamed by a spell, or has been made gentle for their fraud by some other diabolical method. And they fall down before it and call this the Eucharist, consummated by the beast rolling in the loaves. And through it, as they say, they send forth a hymn to the Father on high, thusconcluding their mysteries.[12]
”
Ophites 92
References
Notes
[1] Stromata, vii. 17, § 108.
[2] Adversus Haereses i. 23-28.
[3] i. 30, 6.
[4] De Is. et Osir. 47.
[5] Orig. Adv. Cels. vi. 22.
[6] Strom. vii. 17, p. 900.
[7] Paed. ii. 13, p. 245.
[8] Contra Celsum. vi. 28 sqq.
[9] Comm. in St. Matt. iii. 852.
[10] viii. 20.
[11] Haer. Fab. i. 24.
[12] Epiphanius, Panarion, i, 37, 5. Campbell and Abadie, 296.
Bibliography
• Joseph Campbell, M. J. Abadie, The Mythic Image (1981), Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey.
• Francis Legge, Forerunners and Rivals of Christianity, From 330 B.C. to 330 A.D. (1914), reprinted in two volumes bound as one, University Books, New York, 1964. LC Catalog 64-24125.
External links
• The Ophite Diagrams, briefly by the christian Origen and Pagan Celsus. Emanations and angels reveal Persian influence. (http://www.gnosis.org/library/ophite.htm)
Sources
• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Salmon, George (1887). "Ophites"
(http://books.google.com/books?id=e3DYAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA80). In Smith, William; Wace, Henry. A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects and Doctrines. Volume IV. London: John Murray.
pp. 80–88.
• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911).
"Ophites". Encyclopædia Britannica (Eleventh ed.). Cambridge University Press.
• This article incorporates text from the 1901–1906 Jewish Encyclopedia, a publication now in the public domain.