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70 - Ophites

The first appearance of the Ophite heresy in connection with Christian doctrines can hardly be placed later than the latter part of the first century; within the limits of S. John's lifetime. It is not probable that the system of the Cainites was formulated as early as this. But the first beginnings of it were there; and it is by no means impossible that I John iii. 10-12 was written as a condemnation of the principles on which the Cainite doctrine was built. Be this as it may, the prodigious heresy, although it probably never had very many adherents and died out in the third century, is nevertheless very instructive. It shows us to what results the great Gnostic principle, that matter is utterly evil, when courageously followed to its logical consequences, leads. And it therefore helps us to understand the stern and uncompromising severity with which Gnostic principles are condemned, by implication in the Fourth Gospel, and in express terms in these Epistles.

The Ophites existed as a small Gnostic sect in Egypt before the time of Christ, and afterward adopted a perverted type of Christianity, but retaining a larger measure of oriental theosophy than any other system. Dualism pervaded their doctrines. The Pleroma develops itself in eons, and from the fourth eon there floats a ray of light, which combines with matter and becomes the Achamoth, the Sophia, or world soul. The first production of this union is the Jaldabaoth, the maker of the world, who is a limited and wicked being, but capable of ministering to the great divine plan. He corresponds with the demiurge of other Gnostic speculations. He is inflamed with evil desires, and is a rebel. Ruler of the world of stars, which are themselves principal spirits, he invokes the six stellar angels to create man. Man is then created, or evolved, but receives a spiritual breath, by which he rises above and beyond his creator. To defeat man's destiny the serpent is prepared. The serpent becomes the type of all wisdom, and is worshiped. Hence the term Ophites, applied to the sect.1 Man, through his fall, arrives at the consciousness of freedom and mastery. The evil spirits contend for supremacy over him, but he defeats their purposes and advances constantly. The heavenly Christ passed through the seven heavens and was united with Jesus at his baptism, but withdrew from him at his death. A vein of pantheism pervades the whole system of the Ophites.

There were two minor Ophitic sects - the Cainites and the Sethites. The former took their name from Cain, the son of Adam, who, according to them, was the first to distinguish himself against the God of the Jews. The one who carried this battle to a successful close was Judas Iscariot. Both Cain and Judas were rated by the Cainites as sons of the Sophia. The Sethites taught that there were originally two races of men, one from Cain and the other from Abel. Abel was defeated and slain, but, to take his place, the Sophia created the pueumatic Seth, the first of all the Gnostics. The second appearance of Seth was as the Christ, who came as Savior of the spiritual world.

The name of the extravagant Cainite Gnostic sect varies considerably in different authors who mention them: Cainistae, Caiani, Cainani, Cainaei, Cainiani, Caini, and possibly other varieties, are found. The Cainites were a branch of the Ophites, one of the oldest forms of Gnosticism known to us. Other branches of the Ophites known to us through Hippolytus are the Naassenes (Naash) or 'Venerators of the serpent,' the Peratae, 'Transmarines' or 'Transcendentalists,' the Sethians or 'Venerators of Seth,' and the Justinians or followers of Justin, a teacher otherwise unknown. Of these the Naassenes, as far as name goes, are the same as the Ophites, the one name being Hebrew, and the other Greek in origin, and both meaning 'Serpentists' or 'Venerators of the serpent.'

All the Ophite sects make the serpent play a prominent part in their system, and that not out of sheer caprice or extravagance, but as part of a reasoned and philosophical system. In common with almost all Gnostics they held that matter is radically evil, and that therefore the Creator of the material universe cannot be a perfectly good, being. The Ophites regarded the Creator as in the main an evil being, opposed to the Supreme God. From this it followed that Adam in disobeying his Creator did not fall from a high estate, nor rebelled against the Most High, but defied a hostile power and freed himself from its thraldom: and the serpent who induced him to do this, so far from being the author of sin and death, was the giver of light and liberty. It was through the serpent that the human race were first made aware that the being who created them was not supreme, but that there were higher than he; and accordingly the serpent became the symbol o1 intelligence and enlightenment.

The moral outcome of such a system has been already indicated, and the Cainites are said to have openly accepted it. Everything that the God of the Old Testament forbids must be practised, and everything that He orders abjured. Cain, the people of Sodom, Esau, Korah, Dathan and Abiram, are the characters to be imitated as saints and heroes; and in the New Testament, Judas. These are the true martyrs, whom the Creator and His followers have persecuted. About Judas, as about Jesus Christ, they seem not to have been agreed, some maintaining that he justly caused the death of one who perverted the truth; others, that having higher knowledge than 'the Eleven, he saw the benefits which would follow from the death of Christ, and therefore brought it about. These benefits, however, were not such as Christians commonly suppose, viz. the deliverance of mankind from the power of the serpent, but the final extinction of the dominion of the Creator.

Carpocrates built his system out of Buddhism and Neoplatonism. He placed all faiths on the same plane. The better men whom each produced - Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato, Christ - occupied the same moral position. The Platonic system was the source of his ideology. He held to a preexistence of the soul, to a rule over the nations by finite spirits, from whom all the religions have come, and to a divine power in Jesus by which he wrought miracles and reached the highest unity. Carpocrates had a son, Epiphanes, who exerted such an influence and gained such a following that divine honors were paid him. The Carpocratians practiced magic and surrendered themselves to wild libertinism.

A late form of the Ophite heresy was one of the first to enter into rivalry with the Catholic Church. It seems to have sprung from a combination of the corrupt Judaism then practised in Asia Minor with the Pagan myths or legends prevalent all over Western Asia, which may some day be traced back to the Sumerians and the earliest civilizations. Yet the Ophites admitted the truth of the Gospel narrative, and asserted the existence of a Supreme Being endowed with the attributes of both sexes and manifesting Himself to man by means of a Deity called His son, who was nevertheless identified with both the masculine and feminine aspects of his Father. This triad, which the Ophites called the First Man, the Second Man, and the First Woman or Holy Spirit, they represented as creating the planetary worlds as well as the " world of form," by the intermediary of an inferior power called Sophia or Wisdom and her son Jaldabaoth, who is expressly stated to be the God of the Jews.

Hippolytus goes further than any other author by connecting these Ophite theories with the worship of the Mother of the Gods or Cybele, the form under which the triune deity of Western Asia was best known in Europe. Attis is, after the syncretistic fashion of post-Alexandrian paganism, identified with the Syrian Adonis, the Egyptian Osiris, the Greek Dionysos and Hermes, and the Samothracian or Cabiric gods Adamna and Corybas. The commentary of Hippolytus tried to explain or "interpret" the different myths there referred to by passages from the Old and New Testaments and from the Greek poets dragged in against their manifest sense and in the wildest fashion. Most of these supposed allusions, indeed, can only be justified by the most outrageous play upon words, and it may be truly said that not a single one of them when naturally construed bears the slightest reference to the matter in hand.

Cybele, called also Agdistis, Rhea, Ge, or the Great Mother, was said to have been born from a rock accidentally fecundated by Zeus. On her first appearance she was hermaphrodite, but on the gods depriving her of her virility it passed into an almond-tree. The fruit of this was plucked by the virgin daughter of the river Sangarios, who, placing it in her bosom, became by it the mother of Attis, fairest of mankind. Attis at his birth was exposed on the river-bank, but was rescued, brought up as a goatherd, and was later chosen as a husband by the king's daughter. At the marriage feast, Cybele, fired by jealousy, broke into the palace and, according to one version of the story, emasculated Attis who died of the hurt. Then Cybele repented and prayed to Zeus to restore him to life, which prayer was granted by making him a god. The ceremonies of the Megalesia celebrating the Death and Resurrection of Attis as held in Rome during the late Republic and early Empire.