We come to the creation of man which the Ophites attributed to the act of Ialdabaoth and the other planetary powers, and represented as taking place not on the earth, but in some one or other of the heavens under their sway[[182]]. According to Irenaeus—here our only authority—Ialdabaoth boasted that he was God and Father, and that there was none above him[[183]]. His mother Sophia or Prunicos, disgusted at this, cried out that he lied, inasmuch as there was above him “the Father of all, the First Man and the Son of Man[[184]]”; and that Ialdabaoth was thereby led on the counsel of the serpent or Ophiomorphus to say, “Let us make man in our own image[[185]]!” Here the Greek or older text of Irenaeus ends, and our only remaining guide is the later Latin one, which bears many signs of having been added to from time to time by some person more zealous for orthodoxy than accuracy. Such as it is, however, it narrates at a length which compares very unfavourably with the brevity and concision of the statements of the Greek text, that Ialdabaoth’s six planetary powers on his command and at the instigation of Sophia formed an immense man who could only writhe along the ground until they carried him to Ialdabaoth who breathed into him the breath of life, thereby parting with some of the light that was in himself; that man “having thereby become possessed of intelligence (Nous) and desire (Enthymesis) abandoned his makers and gave thanks to the First Man”; that Ialdabaoth on this in order to deprive man of the light he had given him created Eve out of his own desire; that the other planetary powers fell in love with her beauty and begot from her sons who are called angels; and finally, that the serpent induced Adam and Eve to transgress Ialdabaoth’s command not to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge[[186]]. On their doing so, he cast them out of Paradise, and threw them down to this world together with the serpent or Ophiomorphus. All this was done by the secret contrivance of Sophia, whose object throughout was to win back the light and return it to the highest world whence it had originally come. Her manner of doing so seems to have been somewhat roundabout, for it involved the further mingling of light with matter, and even included the taking away by her of light from Adam and Eve when turned out of Paradise and the restoring it to them when they appeared on this earth—a proceeding which gave them to understand that they had become clothed with material bodies in which their stay would be only temporary[[187]]. Cain’s murder of Abel was brought about by the same agency, as was the begettal of Seth, ancestor of the existing human race. We further learn that the serpent who was cast down got under him the angels begotten upon Eve by the planetary powers, and brought into existence six sons who, with himself, form “the seven earthly demons.” These are the adversaries of mankind, because it was on account of man that their father was cast down; and “this serpent is called Michael and Sammael[[188]].” Later Ialdabaoth sent the Flood, sought out Abraham, and gave the Law to the Jews. In this, as in everything, he was opposed by his mother Sophia, who saved Noah, made the Prophets prophesy of Christ, and even arranged that John the Baptist and Jesus should be born, the one from Elizabeth and the other from the Virgin Mary[[189]]. In all this, it is difficult not to see a later interpolation introduced for the purpose of incorporating with the teaching of the earlier Ophites the Biblical narrative, of which they were perhaps only fully informed through Apostolic teaching[[190]]. It is quite possible that this interpolation may be taken from the doctrine of the Sethians, which Irenaeus expressly couples in this chapter with that of the Ophites, and which, as given by Hippolytus, contains many Jewish but no Christian features[[191]]. Many of the stories in this interpolation seem to have found their way into the Talmud and the later Cabala, as well as into some of the Manichaean books.
So far, then, the Ophites succeeded in accounting to their satisfaction for the origin of all things, the nature of the Deity, the origin of the universe, and for that of man’s body. But they still had to account in detail for the existence of the soul or incorporeal part of man. Irenaeus, as we have seen, attributes it to Ophiomorphus, but although this may have been the belief of the Ophites of his time, the Naassenes assigned it a more complicated origin. They divided it, as Hippolytus tells us, into three parts which were nevertheless one, no doubt corresponding to the threefold division that we have before seen running through all nature into angelic, psychic, and earthly[[192]]. The angelic part is brought by Christos, who is, as we have seen, the angel or messenger of the triune Deity, into “the form of clay[[193]],” the psychic we may suppose to be fashioned with the body by the planetary powers, and the earthly is possibly thought to be the work of the earthly demons hostile to man[[194]]. Of these last two parts, however, we hear nothing directly, and their existence can only be gathered from the difference here strongly insisted upon between things “celestial earthly and infernal.” But the conveyance of the angelic soul to the body Hippolytus’ Ophite writer illustrates by a bold figure from what Homer in the Odyssey says concerning Hermes in his character of psychopomp or leader of souls[[195]]. As to the soul or animating principle of the world, Hippolytus tells us that the Ophites did not seek information concerning it and its nature from the Scriptures, where indeed they would have some difficulty in finding any, but from the mystic rites alike of the Greeks and the Barbarians[[196]]; and he takes us in turns through the mysteries of the Syrian worshippers of Adonis, of the Phrygians, the Egyptian (or rather Alexandrian) worshippers of Osiris, of the Cabiri of Samothrace, and finally those celebrated at Eleusis, pointing out many things which he considers as indicating the Ophites’ own peculiar doctrine on this point[[197]]. That he considers the god worshipped in all these different mysteries to be one and the same divinity seems plain from a hymn which he quotes as a song of “the great Mysteries,” and which the late Prof. Conington turned into English verse[[198]]. So far as any sense can be read into an explanation made doubly hard for us by our ignorance of what really took place in the rites the Ophite writer describes, or of any clear account of his own tenets, he seems to say that the many apparently obscene and sensual scenes that he alludes to, cover the doctrine that man’s soul is part of the universal soul diffused through Nature and eventually to be freed from all material contact and united to the Deity; whence it is only those who abstain from the practice of carnal generation who can hope to be admitted to the highest heaven[[199]]. All this is illustrated by many quotations not only from the heathen poets and philosophers, but also from the Pentateuch, the Psalms, the Jewish Prophets, and from the Canonical Gospels and St Paul’s Epistles.
The connection of such a system with orthodox Christianity seems at first sight remote enough, but it must be remembered that Hippolytus was not endeavouring to explain or record the Ophite beliefs as a historian would have done, but to hold them up to ridicule and, as he describes it, to “refute” them. Yet there can be no doubt that the Ophites were Christians or followers of Christ who accepted without question the Divine Mission of Jesus, and held that only through Him could they attain salvation. The difference between them and the orthodox in respect to this was that salvation was not, according to them, offered freely to all, but was on the contrary a magical result following automatically upon complete initiation and participation in the Mysteries[[200]]. Texts like “Strait is the way and narrow is the gate that leadeth into eternal life” and “Not every one that saith unto me Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven” were laid hold of by them as showing that complete salvation was confined to a few highly instructed persons, who had had the sense to acquire the knowledge of the nature of the Deity and of the topography of the heavenly places which underlay the ceremonies of the Mysteries. Such an one, they said after his death would be born again not with a fleshly but with a spiritual body and passing through the gate of heaven would become a god[[201]]. It does not follow, however, that those who did not obtain this perfect gnosis would be left, as in some later creeds, to reprobation. The cry of “all things in heaven, on earth, and below the earth[[202]]” that the discord of this world[[203]] might be made to cease, which the Naassene author quoted by Hippolytus daringly connects with the name of Pappas given by the Phrygians to Sabazius or Dionysos, would one day be heard, and the Apocatastasis or return of the world to the Deity would then take place[[204]]. If we may judge from the later developments of the Ophite teaching this was to be when the last spiritual man (πνευματικός) or perfect Gnostic had been withdrawn from it. In the meantime those less gifted would after death pass through the planetary worlds of Ialdabaoth until they arrived at his heaven or sphere, and would then be sent down to the earth to be reincarnated in other bodies. Whether those who had attained some knowledge of the Divine nature without arriving at perfect Gnosis would or would not be rewarded with some sort of modified beatitude or opportunity of better instruction is not distinctly stated, but it is probable that the Ophites thought that they would[[205]]. For just as those who have been admitted into the Lesser Mysteries at Eleusis ought to pause and then be admitted into the “great and heavenly ones,” the progress of the Ophite towards the Deity must be progressive. They who participate in these heavenly mysteries, says the Naassene author, receive greater destinies than the others[[206]].
It might seem, therefore, that the Mysteries or secret rites of the heathens contained in themselves all that was necessary for redemption, and this was probably the Ophite view so far as the return of the universe to the bosom of the Deity and the consequent wiping out of the consequences of the unfortunate fall of Sophia or Prunicos were concerned. A tradition. preserved by Irenaeus says that Sophia herself “when she had received a desire for the light above her, laid down the body she had received from matter—which was, as we have seen, the visible heaven—-and was freed from it[[207]].” But this seems to be an addition which is not found in the Greek version, and is probably taken from some later developments of the Ophite creed. It is plain, however, that the whole scheme of nature as set forth in the opinions summarized above is represented as contrived for the winning-back of the light—for which we may, if we like, read life—from matter, and this is represented as the work of Sophia herself. The futile attempt of the arrogant and jealous Ialdabaoth to prolong his rule by the successive creation of world after world, of the archetypal or rather protoplasmic Adam, and finally of Eve, whereby the light is dispersed through matter more thoroughly but in ever-diminishing portions[[208]], is turned against him by his mother Sophia, the beneficent ruler of the planetary worlds, who even converts acquaintance with the “carnal generation” which he has invented into a necessary preparation for the higher mysteries[[209]]. Thus Hippolytus tells us that the Naassenes
“frequent the so-called mysteries of the Great Mother, thinking that through what is performed there, they see clearly the whole mystery. For they have no complete advantage from the things there performed except that they are not castrated. [Yet] they fully accomplish the work of the castrated [i.e. the Galli]. For they most strictly and carefully preach that one should abstain from all companying with woman, as do the castrated. And the rest of the work, as we have said at length, they perform like the castrated[[210]].”
So far, then, as the general scheme of the redemption of light from matter is concerned, there seems to have been no fundamental necessity in the Ophite view for the Mission of Jesus. But they assigned to Him a great and predominant part in hastening the execution of the scheme, and thus bringing about the near approach of the kingdom of heaven. We have seen that Sophia provided in spite of Ialdabaoth for the birth of the man Jesus from the Virgin Mary, and the Naassene author said that
“into this body of Jesus there withdrew and descended things intellectual, and psychic, and earthly: and these three Men (i.e. the First Man, the Son of Man, and Christos) speak together through Him each from his proper substance unto those who belong to each[[211]].”
The Latin text of Irenaeus amplifies the statement considerably and says that Prunicus, as it calls Sophia, finding no rest in heaven or earth, invoked the aid of her mother the First Woman. This power, having pity on her repentance, implored the First Man to send Christos to her assistance. This prayer was granted, and Christos descended from the Pleroma to his sister Sophia, announced his coming through John the Baptist, prepared the baptism of repentance, and beforehand fashioned Jesus, so that when Christos came down he might find a pure vessel, and that by Ialdabaoth her own son, the “woman” might be announced by Christ. The author quoted by Irenaeus goes on to say that Christ descended through each of the seven heavens or planetary worlds in the likeness of its inhabitants, and thus took away much of their power. For the sprinkling of light scattered among them rushed to him, and when he came down into this world he clothed his sister Sophia with it, and they exulted over each other, which they (the Ophites) “describe as the [meeting of] the bridegroom and the bride.” But “Jesus being begotten from the Virgin by the operation of God was wiser, purer, and juster than all men. Christos united to Sophia descended into Him [in His baptism] and so Jesus Christ was made[[212]].”
Jesus then began to heal the sick, to announce the unknown Father, and to reveal Himself as the Son of the first man. This angered the princes of the planetary worlds and their progenitor, Ialdabaoth, who contrived that He should be killed. As He was being led away for this purpose, Christos with Sophia left Him for the incorruptible aeon[[213]] or highest heaven. Jesus was crucified; but Christos did not forget Him and sent a certain power to Him, who raised Him in both a spiritual and psychic body, sending the worldly parts back into the world. After His Resurrection, Jesus remained upon earth eighteen months, and perception descending into Him taught what was clear. These things He imparted to a few of his disciples whom He knew to be capable of receiving such great mysteries, and He was then received into heaven. Christos sate down at the night hand of Ialdabaoth that he might, unknown to this last, take to himself the souls of those who have known these mysteries, after they have put off their worldly flesh. Thus Ialdabaoth cannot in future hold holy souls that he may send them down again into the age [i.e. this aeon]; but only those which are from his own substance, that is, which he has himself breathed into bodies. When all the sprinkling of light is thus collected, it will be taken up into the incorruptible aeon. The return to Deity will then be complete, and matter will probably be destroyed. In any case, it will have lost the light which alone gives it life[[214]].
What rites or form of worship were practised by these Ophites we do not know, although Epiphanius preserves a story that they were in the habit of keeping a tame serpent in a chest which at the moment of the consecration of their Eucharist was released and twined itself round the consecrated bread[[215]]. Probably the very credulous Bishop of Constantia was misled by some picture or amulet depicting a serpent with his tail in its mouth surrounding an orb or globe which represents the mundane egg of the Orphics. In this case the serpent most likely represented the external ocean which the ancients thought surrounded the habitable world like a girdle. But the story, though probably untrue, is some evidence that the later Ophites used, like all post-Christian Gnostics, to practise a ceremony resembling the Eucharist, and certainly administered also the rite of baptism which is alluded to above in the tale of the descent of Christos. Hippolytus also tells us that they used to sing many hymns to the First Man; and he gives us a “psalm” composed by them which, as he thinks, “comprehends all the mysteries of their error[[216]].” Unfortunately in the one text of the Philosophumena which we have, it is given in so corrupt a form that the first German editor declared it to be incapable of restoration. It may perhaps be translated thus: