Ophites

The Ophites , Ophians (from Greek ὄφις óphis, "snake") or Naassener (from Hebrew נחש naħaš , mostly modern: nachasch , "snake") were a direction of Gnosis , which ascribed the snake in paradise ( Gen 3.1 LUT ) a divine nature.

The commonality of the various Gnostic sects of the ancient church was that they cultivated a snake cult following the Near Eastern and Egyptian ideas, and in various ways based themselves on the Old Testament snake in Paradise.

In Irenaeus the Ophites saw in the "serpent -shaped " ( Ophiomorphos ) Ilda-Baoth, the "son of darkness", whose mother, Sophia Achamôth, the daughter of Sophia, was the divine wisdom. Other ophites developed this idea further that the snake finally appeared as the highest object of a mystery cult , as a symbol of the world soul , which writhed through all the opposites of physical and spiritual life . Some Ophite sects kept live snakes in their temples to which they made offerings.

The Perats were a 2nd century Gnostic sect whose system belonged to that of the Ophites; H. who recognize a divine being in the snake in paradise. Their name is derived from Perat, the Semitic name of the river Euphrates .

Israel Meir Freimann takes the view "that the Gnostic sect of the Ophites is not Christian, but reaches up to early Judaism with its origins , touching the teachings of the Cabbala and the main work for it, the Zohar and the Talmud ."

literature

Israel Meir Freimann: A Contribution to the History of the Ophites. Ducal Saxon. Gesammt-Univ., Diss., Jena 1865, 142 pp.
Johann N. Gruber: The Ophites. Wuerzburg 1864.
Adolf Hönig: The Ophites. A contribution to the history of Jewish Gnosticism. Freiburg im Breisgau 1889.
Johann Lorenz von Mosheim : History of the snake brothers of the first church or the so-called Ophites. In: Johann L. vom Mosheim: An attempt at an impartial, thorough heretic history. Helmstedt 1748.
Tuomas Rasimus: Ophite Gnosticism, Sethianism and the Nag Hammadi Library. In: Vigiliae Christianae , vol. 59, 2005, pp. 235-263.
Wolfgang Schultz : Documents of the Gnosis. Diederichs, Jena 1910; Matthes & Seitz, Munich 1986, ISBN 3-88221-229-2 ; Bechtermünz, Augsburg 2000, ISBN 3-8289-4839-1 .
Bernd Witte: The ophite diagram according to Origines' Contra Celsum VI 22–38. (= Works on late antique and Coptic Egypt. Vol. 6) Oros, Altenberge 1993, ISBN 3-89375-090-8 .

Remarks

↑ As with many Hebrew words and names (e.g. Chizqija = Hezekiah, Yeruschalayim = Jerusalem, Jeschua = Jesus, Shim'on = Simon etc.) , the Greeks and Romans get lost in the transliteration on the way via the Greek and Latin phonemes were strange. Thus also the German foreign appear voiceless fricative pharyngale ח (Chet) : (phonetically [⁠ ħ ⁠] in Greek as an accent between the two) a s and in Latin no longer. The sh-sound (phonetic: [⁠ ʃ ⁠] ) is simply the letter " Σ reproduced" or "S".
^ Johann Gustav Stickel in his report on Freimann's dissertation. Here after Biographisches Handbuch der Rabbis: 2 parts, Michael Brocke and Julius Carlebach (eds.), Carsten Wilke (arr.), Part 1: 'The rabbis of the emancipation period in the German, Bohemian and Greater Poland countries 1781–1871': 2 vols ., Munich: Saur, 2004, Vol. 1 'Aach - Juspa', p. 333. ISBN 3-598-24871-7 .

[1] As with many Hebrew words and names (e.g. Chizqija = Hezekiah, Yeruschalayim = Jerusalem, Jeschua = Jesus, Shim'on = Simon etc.) , the Greeks and Romans get lost in the transliteration on the way via the Greek and Latin phonemes were strange. Thus also the German foreign appear voiceless fricative pharyngale ח (Chet) : (phonetically [⁠ ħ ⁠] in Greek as an accent between the two) a s and in Latin no longer. The sh-sound (phonetic: [⁠ ʃ ⁠] ) is simply the letter " Σ reproduced" or "S".

[2] Johann Gustav Stickel in his report on Freimann's dissertation. Here after Biographisches Handbuch der Rabbis: 2 parts, Michael Brocke and Julius Carlebach (eds.), Carsten Wilke (arr.), Part 1: 'The rabbis of the emancipation period in the German, Bohemian and Greater Poland countries 1781–1871': 2 vols ., Munich: Saur, 2004, Vol. 1 'Aach - Juspa', p. 333. ISBN 3-598-24871-7 .