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 .