The Valentinians and
Ophites (Sethians), "regarded Seth as the first of the race
of the perfect ones, the spiritual in opposition to the
material (Cain) and Abel (the psychic). Seth was, no doubt, well
suited to become the great prophet of the Gnostic race,
various attributes of prestige being ascribed to him in
apocryphal traditions about the Old Testament: image of God,
heir of Adam, inventor of astronomy.
His sons were to be the 'Sons of
God' who, upon Mount Hermion, led a pious and secluded life
cherishing the nostalgia for Paradise."
- Jean Doresse, The Secret
Books of the Egyptian Gnostics
Adam "had indeed many other children, but Seth in particular. As
for the rest, it would be tedious to name them; I will therefore
only endeavor to give an account of those that proceeded from
Seth. Now this Seth, when he was brought up, and came to those
years in which he could discern what was good, became a virtuous
man; and as he was himself of an excellent character, so did he
leave children behind him who imitated his virtues.
All these proved to be of good
dispositions. They also inhabited the same country without
dissensions, and in a happy condition, without any misfortunes
falling upon them, till they died."
- Flavius Josephus,
Antiquities of the Jews Bk I, Ch II, Sn 3
"The wickedness of Cain is repeated in Ham. But the descendants
of both are shown as the wisest of races on earth; and they are
called on this account 'snakes', and the 'sons of snakes',
meaning the sons of wisdom, and not of Satan, as some divines
would be pleased to have the world understand the term. Enmity
has been placed between the 'snake' and the 'woman' only in this
mortal phenomenal 'world of man' as 'born of woman'.
Before the carnal fall, the
'snake' was Ophis, the divine wisdom, which needed no matter to
procreate men, humanity being utterly spiritual. Hence the war
between the snake and the woman, or between spirit and matter."
- M. P. Blavatsky, Isis
Unveiled
The Ophites reputedly said:
"We venerate the serpent because
God has made it the cause of Gnosis for mankind.
Ialdabaoth (the
Demiurge who was the 'god of the Jews') did not with men to
have any recollection of the Mother or of the Father on
high. It was the serpent, who by tempting them, brought them
Gnosis; who taught the man and the woman the complete
knowledge of the mysteries from on high. That is why [its]
father Ialdabaoth mad with fury, cast it down from
the heavens."
- St. Epiphanius, Adversus
Haereses
"...No one can be saved and rise up again without the Son, who
is the serpent. For it was he who brought the paternal models
down from aloft, and it is he who carries back up again those,
who have been awakened from sleep and have reassumed the
features of the Father."
- St. Hippolytus, Elenchos
V. 17
The Ophites "made a very special cult of these reptiles:
they kept and fed them in baskets; they held their meetings
close to the holes in which they lived. They arranged loaves of
bread upon a table, and then, by means of incantations, they
allured the snake until it came coiling its way among these
offerings; and only then did they partake of the bread, each one
kissing the muzzle of the reptile they had charmed.
This, they claimed, was the perfect
sacrifice, the true Eucharist.
"Where is it - in the Dionysiac orgies, in the cult of Asclepios,
or in the mysteries of Sabazios which, according to Arnobius
(Adversus nationes, V.21), also made use of the image of
the serpent - that one must look for the origins of such
practices? Or do they not remind one even more of the cults of
certain pagan sects which made a special cult of the serpent of
the
constellation Ophiuchus (if
we are to believe the Astronomica of Manilius, 5;
389-93)?
Like our Ophites, these adepts held
the reptiles to their breasts and caressed them, as living
symbols of the celestial image that they worshipped."
- Jean Doresse, The Secret
Books of the Egyptian Gnostics
Set/Seth, the Egyptian God of Chaos
In Egyptian tradition, the god Seth or Set "stands for the
forces of chaos and destruction, or energy misplaced. He was the
manifestation of Apep or Typhon, opposers of the power of
light."
- Murray Hope, Practical
Egyptian Magic
"In the Pharaonic religion Seth was the great enemy of the other
principal gods; of Osiris, of Isis and of Horus. In this
character he was ritually cursed in the great myths and in
ceremonies held in the great temples. However, he also had his
own cult, in some places officially: some of the Pharaohs - The
Sethi - even claimed him as the patron god of their dynasty.
We can read, in Plutarch's treatise
on Isis and Osiris, an exegesis of the mythical relations
between Seth and Osiris, derived from sources which seem to have
been quite authentically Egyptian, in which we find what is
almost a Gnostic dualism.
In the magic of the later period
Seth is identified with the monstrous Greek genie Typhon, son of
Tartarus, who has a serpent's body. He is supposed to have an
ass's head, a feature which recalls the elongated snout and long
ears of some African animal, with which Seth is sometimes
represented in Pharaonic iconography. More often he seems to be
identified with a sort of headless demon whose eyes are placed
in his shoulders, the Akephalos."
- Jean Doresse, The Secret
Books of the Egyptian Gnostics
"...Seth-Typhon is the principle of all which burns, consumes.
He has red hair, for example, for he represents the desert
rocks, arid and sterile."
- Lucy Lamie, Egyptian
Mysteries
"The original Priesthood of Set in ancient Egypt survived for
twenty-five recorded dynasties (ca. 3200-700 BCE). It was one of
the two central priesthoods in predynastic times, the other
being that of HarWer ('Horus the Elder'). Unification of
Egypt under both philosophical systems resulted in the nation's
being known as the 'Two Kingdoms' and in its Pharaohs wearing
the famous 'Double Crown' of Horus and Set.
"Originally a circumpolar/stellar deity portrayed as a cyclical
counterpart to the Solar Horus, Set was later recast as an evil
principle by the cults of Osiris and Isis. During the XIX and XX
Dynasties Set returned as the Pharaonic patron, but by the XXV
Dynasty (ca. 700 BCE) a new wave of Osirian persecution led to
the final destruction of the original Priesthood of Set.
When the Hebrews emigrated from
Egypt during the XIX Dynasty, however, they took with them a
caricature of Set: 'Satan' (from the hieroglyphic Set-hen, one
of the god's formal titles)."
- Murray Hope, "The Temple
of Set FAQ"
"In the Gnostic myths which transform the
God of Genesis into an evil
god, and similarly turn various other values of Biblical
doctrine upside down, this Seth - the enemy of the chief
Egyptian gods - acquires a definite position. One may even
wonder whether, perchance, some of these myths did not bring him
into such contact with his homonym, Seth the son of Adam, as to
create some confusion between them."
"...Certain Egyptian theologies reported by Plutarch
(essentially in the De Iside) set up an antithesis
between Seth and Osiris, closely analogous to that which the
Gnostics developed between Ialdabaoth-Sacla and the
divinity of the light. A Greek Hermetic text even suggests that
in the Roman epoch, the Egyptian religion, arraigned its
Gnostics as 'sons of Typhon'."
"Seth... is known in Islam, and usually assimilated to
Agathodaimon, who is one of the great figures of Hermetic
literature. The prophetic prestige with which the Gnostics
endowed him, he still possesses, especially in the traditions of
various Shi'ite groups, therefore chiefly in Mesopotamia or in
Iran. In these particular doctrines the survival of Gnostic
themes is ubiquitous and seems immense..."
- Jean Doresse, The Secret
Books of the Egyptian Gnostics
