Ophites
(Gr.)
A Gnostic Fraternity in Egypt, and one of the earliest sects of Gnosticism, or Gnosis (Wisdom, Knowledge), known as the “Brotherhood of the Serpent”. It flourished early in the second century, and while holding some of the principles of Valentinus had its own occult rites and symbology. A living serpent, representing the Christos‐principle (i.e., the divine reincarnating Monad, not Jesus the man), was displayed in their mysteries and reverenced as a symbol of wisdom, Sophia, the type of the all‐good and all‐wise. The Gnostics were not a Christian sect, in the common acceptation of this term, as the Christos of pre‐Christian thought and the Gnosis was not the “god‐man” Christ, but the divine EGO, made one with Buddhi. Their Christos was the “Eternal Initiate”, the Pilgrim, typified by hundreds of Ophidian symbols for several thousands of years before the “ Christian” era, so‐ called. One can see it on the “Belzoni tomb” from Egypt, as a winged serpent with three heads (Atma‐Buddhi‐Manas), and four human legs, typifying its androgynous character; on the walls of the descent to the sepulchral chambers of Rameses V., it is found as a snake with vulture’s wings—the vulture and hawk being solar symbols. “The heavens are scribbled over with interminable snakes ‘ writes Herschel of the Egyptian chart of stars. “The Meissi (Messiah?) meaning the Sacred Word, was a good serpent”, writes Bonwick in his Egyptian Belief. “This serpent of goodness, with its head crowned, was mounted upon a cross and formed a sacred standard of Egypt.” The Jews borrowed it in their “brazen serpent of Moses”. 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. Tertullian, whether wittingly or unwittingly, mixed up the two. The four‐winged serpent is the god Chnuphis. The good serpent bore the cross of life around its neck, or suspended from its mouth. The winged serpents become the Seraphim (Seraph, Saraph) of the Jews. In the 87th chapter of the Ritual (the Book of the Dead) the human soul transformed into Bata, the omniscient serpents says:—“ I am the serpent Ba‐ta, of long years, Soul of the Soul, laid out and born daily; I am the Soul that descends on the earth”, i.e., the Ego (TG).
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Shortly: A Gnostic Fraternity in Egypt, and one of the earliest sects of Gnosticism, or Gnosis (Wisdom, K...