page_title: Ophites
section_title: Origen
hierarchical_section_title: Ophites / Origen
caption_attribution_description: Ophite Gnostic Diagram of the Universe
context_page_description: The Ophites or Ophians were members of a Christian Gnostic sect depicted by Hippolytus of Rome in a lost work, the Syntagma.
  It is now thought that later accounts of these "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.
  Apart from the sources directly dependent on Hippolytus, Origen and Clement of Alexandria also mention the group. The group is mentioned by Irenaeus in Adversus Haereses.
context_section_description: Origen (c. 185–254) is led to speak of the Ophites (Contra Celsum 6:28) by an accusation of Celsus that the Christians counted seven heavens, and spoke of the Creator as an accursed divinity, inasmuch as he was worthy of execration for cursing the serpent who introduced the first human beings to the knowledge of good and evil. Origen replies that Celsus had mixed up matters, and had confounded with the Christians the Ophites, who so far from being Christians would not hear the name of Jesus, nor own him to have been so much as a wise and virtuous man, nor would admit anyone into their assembly until he had cursed Jesus. It may be doubted whether Origen has not here been misinformed about a sect of which he intimates that he knows but little. According to all other authorities the Ophites claimed to be Christians. Elsewhere Origen classes the Ophites as heretics of the graver sort with the followers of Marcion, Valentinus, Basilides, and Apelles (Commentary on Matthew 3:852). The identity of the nomenclature shows that for Origen, these Ophites of Origen are a branch of the unnamed sect described by Irenaeus.
caption: Reconstruction of Ophite Diagram from Histoire critique du Gnosticisme; Jacques Matter, 1826, Vol. III, Plate I, D.
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