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	Ophites - Encyclopedia.com
		Ophites [Gr.,=believers in the serpent], group of Gnostic sects notorious for extreme cultism and inverted morality.
		The Ophites carried to extremes the teaching of Marcion that an essential hostility exists between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament.
		According to the gnostic sect of Ophites he had a head resembling that of a reptile, he typified the superconsciousness, and resided in the eastern quarter of the heavens...
	www.encyclopedia.com /doc/1E1-Ophites.html (624 words)

	Ophites - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		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 regarded the figure that the Bible identifies as God instead as being the evil demiurge.
		The Ophite Diagrams, briefly and distainfully described by Heretical Christian writer Origen and the Pagan Celsus.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Ophites (345 words)

	Ophites - LoveToKnow 1911
		It was particularly offensive to Christians as tending to dishonour the Creator who is set over against the serpent as bad against good.
		The Ophite system had its Trinity: (I) the Universal God, the First Man, (2) his conception (g vvoca), the Second Man, (3) a female Holy Spirit.
		There are some resemblances to the Valentinian system, but whereas the great Archon sins in ignorance, Ialdabaoth sins against knowledge; there is also less of Greek philosophy in the Ophite system.
	www.1911encyclopedia.org /Ophites (445 words)

	Wikipedia: 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.
		However, the honour paid by Ophites to the serpent was particularly offensive to Christians as tending to dishonour the Creator who is set over against the serpent as good against bad.
		The Ophite Diagrams, briefly and distainfully described by Christian writers Origen and Celsus.
	www.factbook.org /wikipedia/en/o/op/ophites.html (279 words)

	Ophites: Free Encyclopedia Articles at Questia.com Online Library
		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.
		According to the gnostic sect of Ophites he had a head resembling that of a reptile, he typified the superconsciousness, and resided in the eastern quarter of the heavens...
		The Ophites glorified the serpent, who tempted Eve to break Gods commandment not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge, as the liberator of...
	www.questia.com /library/encyclopedia/ophites.jsp?l=O&p=1 (891 words)

	JewishEncyclopedia.com - OPHITES: (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		Such sects existed within Judaism probably even before the rise of Christianity; and as there were Ophites who rejected the Gospels it would be proper to make a distinction between Jewish, Christian, and anti-Christian Ophites were not the sources, which are all post-Christian, too confused to admit of even approximately positive discriminations.
		Philaster, an author of the fourth century, places the Ophites, the Cainites, and the Sethites at the head of all heresies (ch.
		The Ophites, Cainites, Sethites, Naasseni, etc., declared the serpent of paradise to be wisdom itself (σοφία), since wisdom had come to the earth through the knowledge of good and evil which the serpent had brought.
	www.jewishencyclopedia.com /view.jsp?artid=83&letter=O (730 words)

	Ophites - Definition, explanation
		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.
		However, the honour paid by Ophites to the serpent was particularly offensive to Christians as tending to dishonour the Creator who is set over against the serpent as good against bad.
		The Ophite Diagrams, briefly and distainfully described by Christian writers Origen and Celsus.
	www.calsky.com /lexikon/en/txt/o/op/ophites.php (286 words)

	Jewish Origins of Gnosticism (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		Ophites, Caanites, and Sethians all derive from the Jewish Diaspore.
		Indeed, Filastrius numbers the Ophites, Caanites, and Sethians among the sects that flourished in Judaism 'before the advent of Jesus." It is obvious that these sects could not have originated from within Christianity, from the very fact that their chief doctrines are derived from the Old Testament rather than from the New.
		Further evidence concerning the Ophite Gnostics in Palestine, according to Friedlander, is afforded by the prescription in the Talmud that the gily6nim and the 'Books of the Minim' are not to be saved from the fire but are to be burnt in their place, along with the 'azkarbt (divine names) occurring in them.
	www.sullivan-county.com /nf0/nov_2000/jew_gnostic.htm (5827 words)

	Ophites
		Ophites One of the earliest Gnostic sects, flourishing in Egypt in the 2nd century and using as their sacred symbol the serpent (ophis) as symbolizing the Christos immanent in man.
		It is to this "Healer" and "Saviour", therefore, that the Ophites referred, and not to Jesus or his words, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so it behoves the Son of Man to be lifted up" - when explaining the meaning of their ophis.
		Term for Iao-Jehovah, whom the Gnostic Ophites regarded as an emanation of Ildabaoth, the son of Sophia Achamoth.
	www.experiencefestival.com /ophites (1172 words)

	Satanic Reds
		Philaster, an author of the forth century, places the Ophites, the Cainites, and the Sethites at the head of all heresies (ch.1-3) because he holds that they owed their origin to the Serpent (to him, the Devil).
		The Ophites, Cainites, Sethites, Naasseni, etc., declared the serpent of paradise to be wisdom itself (Sophia), since wisdom had come to the earth through the knowledge of good and evil which the serpent had brought.
		The last mentioned is the son of the fallen wisdom (Yalda Bahut means son of chaos), and from him proceeded, in successive generations, Jao, Sabaot, Adoneus, Eloeus, Oreus, and Astaphaeus, which are said to be manifestations of the God of the Old Testament.
	www.geocities.com /satanicreds/dd-jewish.html (8527 words)

	Jewish Origins of Gnosticism
		Ophites, Cainites, and Sethians all derive from the Jewish Diaspore.
		Indeed, Filastrius numbers the Ophites, Cainites, and Sethians among the sects that flourished in Judaism 'before the advent of Jesus." It is obvious that these sects could not have originated from within Christianity, from the very fact that their chief doctrines are derived from the Old Testament rather than from the New.
		Friedlander distinguishes the Melchizedekians from the Ophites and Cainites, suggesting that the former were not so aggressive in their antinon-danism as the latter.
	www.dhushara.com /book/consum/gnos/jgnos.htm (5561 words)

	* Ophites - (Esoteric): Definition
		Such is contained in the ancient Science and Art of Sexual Alchemy, which was the great secret of the Egyptian Magicians, the Gnostics, the Ophites, the Initiates of Mithras, the Knights of the Temple, the Freemasons,...
		Gnostic teachers such as Basilides propagated the idea along with other groups such as the Carpocratians and Ophites, and it was popular among various Neoplatonists such as Alcinous, as well as taught by the archetypal magician, Simon Magus.
		Several sects branched off from the main stem of Gnosticism, such as the Valentinians, the Ophites (serpent worshipers), and the Adamites.
	en.mimi.hu /esoteric/ophites.html (161 words)

	O :: The 3 Heads of the Elephant :: Sebastián Salado Web Page
		The Ophites worshipped to the “snake”, because she taught Adam that if he ate of the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of good and of evil he would elevate immensely his to Be, by the knowledge and the wisdom that thus would acquire.
		The “snake” or Kundalini is at the same time good and evil, depending on the type of the process of elevation that his energy be carried out by means of.
		The Svastika dextrogyrate, represents the material regression, to the involutive man, in which its right arm aims toward the land and its left arm toward the sky, investing completely the positive sense by the retrograde one: ‘As in the Land is done in the Sky'.
	www.sebastiansalado.com /eng/gloso.htm (975 words)

	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 regarded the figure that the Bible identifies as God instead as being the evil demiurge.
		The Ophite Diagrams, briefly by the christian Origen and Pagan Celsus.
	www.dejavu.org /cgi-bin/get.cgi?ver=93&url=http%3A%2F%2Farticles.gourt.com%2F%3Farticle%3Dophites%26type%3Den (316 words)

	History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene Christianity. A.D. 100-325. \| Christian Classics Ethereal ...
		The serpent, far from being the seducer of the race, was its first schoolmaster and civilizer by teaching it the difference between good and evil.
		So the Ophites regarded the fall of Adam as the transition from the state of unconscious bondage to the state of conscious judgment and freedom; therefore the necessary entrance to the good, and a noble advance of the human spirit.
		Origen speaks of a branch of the Ophites, who were as great enemies of Jesus as the heathen Celsus, and who admitted none into their society who had not first cursed his name.
	www.ccel.org /ccel/schaff/hcc2.v.xiii.xvii.html (952 words)

	The books by Gilles C H Nullens - Part A: Old Craft - A.9 The Ophites (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		The Ophites doctrine was similar to that of the Valentinian Gnostics.
		Serpent in Greek is "ophis" from which the Ophites took their name to mean that they were the followers of the wisdom-serpent.
		The use of the serpent led the orthodox Christians to condemn the Ophites as blasphemers although the serpent, as a symbol of wisdom, is common in many cultures such as ancient Egypt and Greece.
	www.nullens.org /content/view/148/49 (524 words)

	The Norwegian Pentagram VII (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		The Ophites, a Christian Gnostic sect worshipped Jesus in the form of a serpent.
		The Ophites "made a very special cult of these reptiles: they kept and fed them in baskets; they held their meetings close to the holes in which they lived.
		They arranged loaves of bread upon a table, and then, by means of incantations, they allured the snake until it came coiling its way among these offerings; and only then did they partake of the bread, each one kissing the muzzle of the reptile they had charmed.
	www.norwegian-pentagram.com /gbsnake3.htm (865 words)

	Heresies & Secret Societies: Ophites & Nazareans
		Glancing rapidly at the Ophites and Nazareans, we shall pass to their scions which yet exist in Syria and Palestine, under the name of Druzes of Mount Lebanon; and near Basra or Bassorah, in Persia, under that of Mendæans, or Disciples of St. John.
		Both were the Logoï of the Ophites; or the unity as Logos manifesting itself as a double principle of good and evil; for, according to their views, these two principles are immutable, and existed from all eternity, as they will ever continue to exist.
		This symbol accounts for the adoration by this sect of the Serpent, as the Saviour, coiled either around the Sacramental loaf or a Tau.As a unity, Ennoia and Ophis are the Logos; when separated, one is the Tree of Life (Spiritual); the other, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
	www.wisdomworld.org /additional/christianity/OphitesAndNazareans.html (2007 words)

	Orphites and Phibionites
		The Ophites (from the Greek word ophis, “serpent”) reinterpreted the mythological theme of the Fall of Man in Genesis.
		According to the Ophite view, the serpent of the Garden of Eden wanted Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, to eat from the tree of knowledge (gnosis) so that they would know their true identities and “be like God” (Genesis 3:5).
		The serpent, thus, is interpreted as a messenger of the spiritual god, and the one who wanted to prevent Adam and Eve from eating the fruit of the tree of knowledge is viewed as the Demiurge.
	www.luminist.org /church/Orphites_and_Phibionites.htm (239 words)

	OPHITES. (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		Of the country in which the Ophites first appeared, and where to the last they had their strongest following, there can, however, be little doubt.
		As the first Ophites had contrived to make an amalgam of the fervent and hysterical worship of nature in Anatolia with the Jewish and Christian tenets, so no doubt these daughter sects contrived to fit in with them the legends of the local cults among which they found themselves.
		But such comprimises were not likely to last long when the Catholic Church began to define and enforce the orthodox faith, and the Ophites seem to have been one of the first to succumb.
	www.antiqillum.com /texts/bg/Qadosh/qadosh059.htm (3914 words)

	17. THE SONS OF THE SERPENT TRIBE. (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-24)
		The subjects of this chapter, the Ophites, and, in general, the Serpent Cult, is no exception.
		True, Gematria did not come into vogue until much later, but the Sethian Ophites regarded Seth as the Anointed One, the Messiah; and Seth, we have seen, is syncretized with Agathodaimon, by the Harranians.
		It is, then, in the sect of Ophites that we find the earliest forms of the "Authentic Christianity" -- or, should we say, The Authentic Tradition in Christianity -- as far as the Initiatic Tradition is concerned.
	www.antiqillum.com /texts/bg/Qadosh/qadosh052.htm (1021 words)

	The Light & the Dark: Volume VIII - summary
		The patron of the Ophite sect is the snake, an animal that is supposed to be possessed of a supernatural Knowledge.
		It is impossible to shortly describe the complicated mythology of the Ophites: suffices it to say that there is fight between Light and Darkness, between Good and Evil.
		The Ophites and the sects related to it, the Ophians, the Cainites, and the Archontics, are all plainly dualistic.
	home.wanadoo.nl /piet.fontaine/volumes/vol8.htm (1062 words)

	CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Gnosticism
		Among the Gnostics the Ophites were particularly fond of representing their cosmogonic speculations by diagrams, circles within circles, squares, and parallel lines, and other mathematical figures combined, with names written within them.
		Dositheus, Simon Magus, Menander, Cerinthus, Cerdo, Saturninus Justin, the Bardesanites, Sevrians, Ebionites, Encratites, Ophites, Naassenes, the Gnostics of the "Acts of Thomas", the Sethians, the Peratae, the Cainites may be said to belong to this school.
		This Euphrates, whose name is perhaps connected with the name Peratae itself, is said to be the founder of the Ophites mentioned by Celsus about A.D. The Cainites were so called because they venerated Cain, and Esau, and the Sodomites, and Core, and Judas, because they had all resisted the god of the Jews.
	www.newadvent.org /cathen/06592a.htm (10684 words)

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