Ophians definition of Ophians in the Free Online Encyclopedia.

Ophites (ō`fīts) [Gr.,=believers in the serpent], group of Gnostic sects notorious for extreme cultism and inverted morality. Certain of these sects were known as Naasseni. Almost all that is known of Ophitism has been gleaned from St. Irenaeus, Origen, and other writers opposed to Gnosticism Gnosticism , dualistic religious and philosophical movement of the late Hellenistic and early Christian eras. The term designates a wide assortment of sects, numerous by the 2d cent. A.D.
..... Click the link for more information. . The Ophites carried to extremes the teaching of Marcion Marcion , c.85–c.160, early Christian bishop, founder of the Marcionites, one of the first great Christian heresies to rival Catholic Christianity. He was born in Sinope. He taught in Asia Minor, then went (c.135) to Rome, where he perfected his theory.
..... Click the link for more information. that an essential hostility exists between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. The Ophites held that the Old Testament villains were actually heroes and revered Cain, the Sodomites, and the Egyptians. Specially worshiped was the serpent, as the creature in Eden that tried to give Adam and Eve the knowledge withheld from them by Jehovah. Much of the serpent worship and the occult ritualism was probably symbolic of certain esoteric knowledge. The Ophites acknowledged Jesus as the savior, but rejected the importance of the crucifixion; Christ came to reveal gnosis (knowledge), not to die for people's sins. One Ophitic hymn, the Hymn of the Naasenes, survives.

Bibliography

See E. Buonaiuti, Gnostic Fragments (1924); R. M. Grant, Gnosticism and Early Christianity (1959, rev. ed. 1966).

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