The Ophites, also called Ophians (Greek Ὀφιανοί Ophianoi, from ὄφις ophis "snake"), were a Christian Gnostic sect depicted by Hippolytus of Rome (170–235) in a lost work, the Syntagma ("arrangement").
It is now thought that later accounts of the Ophites by Pseudo-Tertullian, Philastrius and Epiphanius of Salamis are all dependent on the lost Syntagma of Hippolytus. It is possible that, rather than an actual sectarian name, Hippolytus may have invented "Ophite" as a generic term for what he considered heretical speculations concerning the serpent of Genesis or Moses."In fact, because the Pseudo-Tertullian Ophite entry is the only one in the catalogue that discusses serpents, Hippolytus may well have used 'Ophite' as a generic term for heretical snake speculations in his Syntagma." Rasimus 2007, p. 432.
Apart from the sources directly dependent on Hippolytus (Pseudo-Tertullian, Philastrius and Epiphanius), Origen and Clement of Alexandria also mention the group. The group is directly mentioned by Irenaeus in Adversus Haereses (1.30).
Pseudo-Tertullian
Pseudo-Tertullian (probably the Latin translation of the lost Syntagma, written c. 220) is the earliest source to mention Ophites, and the first source to discuss the connection with serpents. He claims that the Ophites taught that
The name "Jesus" is not mentioned in the account. Epiphanius's account differs from that of Pseudo-Tertullian only in a few places. According to the former, the Ophites did not actually prefer the snake to Christ, but thought them identical.Rasimus 2006, p. 804.
Hippolytus Syntagma This 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 connection. 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 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 word for serpent ("Nahash"-נחש). 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.
Irenaeus Against Heresies
Irenaeus (died c. 202) gives, in what seems intended for chronological order, a list of heresies, beginning with Simon Magus and ending with Tatian, and adds in a kind of appendix a description of a variety of Gnostic sects deriving their origin, as Irenaeus maintains, from the heresy of Simon Magus (Against Heresies 1:23-28). This chronology is not considered historically accurate by most modern authors.Couliano.
He details what has been identified by subsequent writers as an Ophite cosmogony.Turner, p. 193. Creation began as a series of emanations:
The True and Holy Church: Bythos (Depth): Father of All (the First Man): Ennoia, the Son of Man (the Second Man): The Holy Spirit, the First Woman: Water Darkness The Abyss Chaos
Of the beauty of the Holy Spirit, both First and Second Man became enamoured, and they generated from her a third male, an Incorruptible Light, called Christ.
Sophia But the excess of light with which she had been impregnated was more than she could contain, and while Christ her right-hand birth was borne upward with his mother, forming with the First and Second Man the True and Holy Church, a drop of light fell on the left hand downwards into the world of matter, and was called Sophia (Wisdom) or Prunikos, an androgynous being.
By this arrival the still waters were set in motion, all things rushing to embrace the Light, and Prunikos wantonly playing with the waters, assumed to herself a body, without the protection of which the light was in danger of being completely absorbed by matter. Yet when oppressed by the grossness of her surroundings, she strove to escape the waters and ascend to her mother, the body weighed her down, and she could do no more than arch herself above the waters, constituting thus the visible heaven. In process of time, however, by intensity of desire she was able to free herself from the encumbrance of the body, and leaving it behind to ascend to the region immediately above, called in the language of another sect the middle region.
Ialdabaoth Meanwhile a son, Ialdabaoth, born to her from her contact with the waters, having in him a certain breath of the incorruptible light left him from his mother, by means of which he works, generates from the waters a son without any mother. And this son in like manner another, until there were seven Archons in all, ruling the seven heavens;See also the Mithraic representations of seven heavens and an eighth region above them (Contra Celsum 6:22). a Hebdomad which their mother completes into an Ogdoad.
Ialdabaoth (possibly from Hebrew yalda bahut 'son of chaos'), the Demiurge Iao Sabaoth Adonaios Elaios Astaphanos Horaios (from Hebrew or 'light')
But it came to pass that these sons strove for mastery with their father Ialdabaoth, whereat he suffered great affliction, and casting his despairing gaze on the dregs of matter below, he, through them, consolidated his longing and obtained a son Ophiomorphus, the serpent-formed Nous, whence come the spirit and soul, and all things of this lower world; but whence came also oblivion, wickedness, jealousy, envy, and death. Ialdabaoth, stretching himself over his upper heaven, had shut out from all below the knowledge that there was anything higher than himself, and having puffed up with pride at the sons whom he had begotten without help from his mother, he cried,
On this his mother, hearing him, cried out (1:30, 6),
When the heavenly powers marvelled at this voice, Ialdabaoth, to call off their attention, exclaimed, "Let us make man after our image."This is a direct quotation from Genesis 1, 26. Then the six powers formed a gigantic man, the mother Sophia having given assistance to the design, in order that by this means she might recover the Light-fluid from Ialdabaoth. For the man whom the six powers had formed, lay unable to raise itself, writhing like a worm until they brought it to their father, who breathed into it the breath of life, and so emptied himself of his power. But the man having now Thought and Conception (Nous and Enthymesis), forthwith gave thanks to the First Man, disregarding those who had made him.
At this Ialdabaoth, being jealous, planned to despoil the man by means of a woman, and formed Eve, of whose beauty the six powers being enamoured generated sons from her, namely, the angels. Then Sophia devised by means of the serpent to seduce Eve and Adam to transgress the precept of Ialdabaoth; and Eve, accepting the advice of one who seemed a Son of God, persuaded Adam also to eat of the forbidden tree. And when they ate they gained knowledge of the power which is over all, and revoked from those who had made them. Thereupon Ialdabaoth cast Adam and Eve out of Paradise; but the mother had secretly emptied them of the Light-fluid in order that it might not share the curse or reproach. So they were cast down into this world, as was also the serpent who had been detected in working against his father. He brought the angels here under his power, and himself generated six sons, a counterpart of the Hebdomad of which his father was a member. These seven demons always oppose and thwart the human race on whose account their father was cast down.
Adam and Eve at first had light and clear and, as it were, spiritual bodies, which on their fall became dull and gross; and their spirits were also languid because they had lost all but the breath of this lower world which their maker had breathed into them; until Prunikos taking pity on them gave them back the sweet odour of the Light-fluid through which they woke to a knowledge of themselves and knew that they were naked.
The above is clearly a variant of the account of the Creation given in chapter 1 of The Book of Genesis – but with the major difference that the single, omnipotent God of the original Biblical story is here depicted as Ialdabaoth – one of many Divine beings, and not the most important of them, with his claim to exclusive Godhood described as an arrogant and false usurpation.
The story proceeds to give a version of Old Testament history, in which Ialdabaoth is represented as making a series of efforts to obtain exclusive adoration for himself, and to avenge himself on those who refused to pay it, while he is counteracted by Prunikos, who strives to enlighten mankind as to the existence of higher powers more deserving of adoration. In particular the prophets who were each the organ of one of the Hebdomad, the glorification of whom was their main theme, were nevertheless inspired by Sophia to make fragmentary revelations about the First Man and about Christ above, whose descent also she caused to be predicted.
Redemption