Note 214 — Chapter VIII · POST-CHRISTIAN GNOSTICS: THE OPHITES

Irenaeus, Bk I. c. 28, § 7, pp. 238-241, Harvey. This again is given almost verbatim. The stay of Jesus on earth after His Resurrection, and His teaching His disciples “quod liquidum est,” that is, without parable, is also told in the Pistis Sophia, but His post-Resurrection life is there put at 12 years. Irenaeus’ Latin translator has, as has been said, evidently here got hold of some later developments of Ophitism not known to his author at the time that the Greek text was written. Yet some tradition of a long interval between the Resurrection and the Ascension was evidently current in the sub-Apostolic age. Irenaeus himself says on the authority of “those who met with John the Disciple of the Lord in Asia” that Jesus’ ministry only lasted for one year from His Baptism, He being then 30 years old, and that He suffered on completing his 30th year; yet that He taught until He was 40 or 50 years old. See Irenaeus, Bk II. c. 33, § 3, p. 331, Harvey. Some part of this statement appears in the Greek text.