Ophites: Encyclopedia - Ophites

Ophites

The Ophites is a blanket term for numerous gnostic sects in Syria and Egypt about 100 A.D. The common trait was that these sects would give great importance to the serpent of the biblical tale of Adam and Eve, connecting the Tree of Knowledge (of Good and Evil) to gnosis. In contrast to Christian interpretations of the Serpent as Satan, Ophites viewed the serpent as the hero, and the regarded the figure that the Bible identifies as God instead as being the evil demiurge.

As the Bible doesn't actually identify the serpent more than being a serpent, the Ophites felt perfectly justified in their position, pointing to the serpent's trying to cause Adam and Eve to gain knowledge, and the forbidding of this knowledge by the figure which the bible identifies as God. Christians supporting the church orthodoxy viewed gnosticism as their arch enemy, and took particular offence at the Ophites turning their views on its head, eventually persecuting them out of existence.

Due to the church orthodoxy destroying (in the 4th century) the Ophite's own manuscripts and texts, most information about the ophitic sects must be gleaned from what their enemies said of them: Hippolytus (Philosoph. v.), Irenaeus (Against Heresies. i), Origen (Contra Celsum vi. 25 seq.) and Epiphanius of Salamis (Panarion. xxvi.). A few ophite texts have been recovered from discoveries such as the Nag Hammadi find.

Ophites - Ophite sects

• The Naasseners (from Hebrew na'asch = snake)
• The Sethians.
• The Mandaeans are considered an ophite religion that has survived (upto and including the present day).
• The Perates (from the Greek language peras, "to penetrate")
• The Borborites

See also: gnosticism

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Ophites", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki