The Devil Regarded as a Benefactor of the Human Race.

The Ophites were a sect who, like most Gnostics, regarded the Jehovah of the Old Testament with great abhorrence. Regarding the emancipation of man from the power and control of Jehovah as the most important end, they considered the serpent who tempted Eve and introduced "knowledge" and "revolt" into the world, to have been the great benefactor of the human race. They worshipped the serpent, and sought to engraft Ophism upon Christianity by causing the bread designed for the Eucharistic sacrifice to be licked by a serpent which was kept in a cave for the purpose, and which the communicants kissed after receiving the Eucharist.