ophite

English - English

Definition of ophite in English English dictionary

{n} marble with spots like a serpent

Member of any of several Gnostic sects that flourished in the Roman empire in the 2nd century AD and for several centuries thereafter. The sects shared a dualistic theology, opposing a beneficent and entirely spiritual Supreme Being to a chaotic and evil material world. To the Ophites, the human dilemma resulted from the mixture of these conflicting spiritual and material elements in human nature. Only gnosis, the esoteric knowledge of good and evil, could redeem one from the bonds of matter. See also dualism, Gnosticism

So called from the colored spots which give it a mottled appearance

A mamber of a Gnostic serpent-worshiping sect of the second century

Of or pertaining to a serpent

A greenish spotted porphyry, being a diabase whose pyroxene has been altered to uralite; first found in the Pyreness

Hyphenation

oph·ite