It is more strange, to think that in the primitive Church there were certain Hereticks call’d Ophites, took their Name from Ophis[[420]], who worshipped the Serpent that betray’d Eve, and ascribed all sorts of Knowledge to that Animal, maintain’d ’twas a good Creature, and that our first Parents were instructed by it to know Good and Evil. Yea, they believed, “the Serpent that tempted Eve was the Christ, who afterwards came down and was incarnate in the Person of Jesus: That it was Jesus, but not the Christ, that suffer’d; for which reason they made all Proselytes to their Sect, to renounce Jesus[[421]].” If a Sect of Christians speak after this manner, what Ideas must the Heathen form of things?
[420]. A Greek word that signifies a Serpent.
[421]. Calmet.
One of the Fathers speaking of these Hereticks, observes how they affirm’d,——That Wisdom made itself a Serpent——had given Knowledge to Man, and that the Position of Man’s Bowels, winding about like Serpents, shews that there is in us a hidden Substance that engenders the Figure of Serpents[[422]]. Surely those Fathers of the Church were Children in Understanding, that gave way to such mystical Conundrums. Call them no more Fathers, but Children of Antiquity.
[422]. Irenæus adv. Hæres. (lib. 1. cap. 34.—sophiam serpentem factam—) who flourish’d in the close of the 2d Century.
These Hereticks, in the Consecration of the Eucharist, always had a Serpent ready in a Box, which they produced on that Occasion, making it come out by certain Charms, and lick the Bread, and having kissed the same, they eat it[[423]]. Another Historian expresses it thus, viz. “When their Priests celebrated their Mysteries, they made one of these Creatures to come out of his Hole, and after he had roll’d himself upon the Things that were to be offer’d in Sacrifice, they said Jesus Christ had sanctified them, and then gave them to the People to worship them[[424]].” N. B. I don’t apprehend how the Learned Abbot makes them bring in the Name Jesus here, a Name which in the same Page he says, they obliged their Proselytes to renounce.
[423]. Bingh. Index Heret.
[424]. Calmet’s Histor. Dict. vol. ii. p. 668.
This strange Superstition seems to be derived from the Heathen, who at the Feasts of Bacchus, used to carry a Serpent, and to cry, Evia, Evia[[425]]: And Evia, says Clemens Alexandrinus, if it be asperated, Hevia, signifies in the Hebrew, a female Serpent. Dr. Lightfoot observes, that there being no such Word in the Hebrew, Clemens must mean the Chaldee, in which Hivia signifies a Serpent.
[425]. Ευια, ευια.