Ophites

See also: Ophite (homonymy)

The ophites or ophiens (of the Greek ὄφιανοι > ὄφις, Snake) are a gnostic sect appeared in Syria and Egypt about the year 100 of our era. The common point of these sects was to want to give a broad importance to the symbolic system of the snake in the reading of the Genèse, and to establish bonds between the gnosis and the tree of the knowledge of the good and the evil. Contrasting with Christian interpretation making of the snake a Satan the ophites saw in the snake a hero and a figure of God instead of the devil Démiurge.

Sects ophites

Because of the destruction of the gnostic writings by the orthodoxe Church at the 4th century, which preserved the manuscripts and texts ophites, the majority of information on the sects ophites come from the writings of their enemies, Hippolyte ( Philosophe ), Irenee of Lyon ( Against the heresies ), Origène ( Contra Celsum VI. 25 seq.) and Épiphane de Salamine ( Panarion . xxvi.). Some texts ophites originals nevertheless could be put at the day at the time of archaeological excavations, as with Nag Hammadi.

Diagrams ophites

The diagrams ophites are ritual and diagrams esoteric used by the sects gnostic ophites. It sometimes also transfer in the god of old testement the demonic representation of the god Yaltabaoth. Celsus describes the diagrams, like 10 circle separate and circumscribed one in another, the world of the hearts, Léviathan, divided by a fine line black, the Tartar , the whole in a square where " is written; doors of the Paradise ". Moreover, always according to celsus, the ophites added dires Prophète S between the circles, with some thing of private individual of the writing inside largest and of smallest the circles cosomologic, representing respectively, god the father and god the son.

See too

the diagrams Ophites in English with the Gnostic Society

References

Francis Legge, Forerunners and Rivals off Christianity, From 330 B.C to 330 A.D. (1914), reprinted in two volumes bound ace one, University Books New York, 1964. LLC Catalog 64-24125.
The Diagrams Ophite, briefly by the Christian Origen and Pagan Celsus. Emanations and angels reveal Persian influences.

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