ABSTRACT
The Ophites, according to Clemens Alexandrinus, were founded by one Eucrates at the beginning of the Christian era, and were a well-organized fraternity early in the second century. Their doctrine, though to some extent corresponding with that of the Mandaites, or followers of John the Baptist, was very Osirian, or Serapian, with Semitic names for the Coptic ones. Hippolytus, the Greek historian, styles them: “The Naaseni who specially call themselves Gnostics. But inasmuch as this deception of theirs is multiform and has many heads (a play upon their name of serpent-followers), like the hydra of fable, if I smite all the heads at once with the wand of Truth, I shall destroy the whole serpent, for all the other sects differ but little from this one in essentials.” Their strange-sounding title, “Naaseni,” “Followers of the Naas,” the only way in which the Greek, from its want of aspirate letters could write the Hebrew word Nachash, “Serpent,” was literally rendered by “Ophites,” the name which has ever since served to designate them. They first assumed a definite existence about the same time as the Basilideans, in the second century.
