See the edict of Constantine, which Eusebius (_Vit. Constantini_, cc. LXIV., LXV.) quotes with unholy glee, prohibiting the Gnostics from presuming to assemble together either publicly or privately, and commanding that their “houses of prayer” should be confiscated and handed over to the Catholic Church. Eusebius (_ibid._ c. LXVI.) says that the result of this was that the “savage beasts crept secretly into the Church,” and continued to disseminate their doctrines by stealth. Perhaps such a result was to be expected. CHAPTER VIII POST-CHRISTIAN GNOSTICS: THE OPHITES Although the Ophites were one of the most widely-spread and in some respects the most interesting of the heretical sects which came to light after the foundation of the Christian Church, we know nothing at first hand about their origin. Philastrius, or Philaster of Brescia, writing about 380 A.D., includes them among those “who taught heresies before the Coming of Christ[79]”; but the phrase does not perhaps bear its apparent meaning, and the late date at which he wrote makes it unlikely that he possessed any exclusive evidence on the point. A more plausible tradition, which is common to St Augustine[80], to the tractate _Against All Heresies_ which passes under the name of Tertullian[81], and to the similar one attributed to St Jerome[82], is that the Ophites derived their doctrines from Nicolaus or Nicolas of Antioch, the deacon mentioned in the Acts[83], and that they are therefore alluded to under the name of Nicolaitans[84] in the address to the Church of Ephesus in the Canonical Apocalypse. Origen, on the other hand, in his _Discourse against Celsus_ says that they boasted of one Euphrates as their founder[85]; while Hippolytus declares that their tenets were said by themselves to be due to “the very numerous discourses which were handed down by James the brother of the Lord to Mariamne[86].” From which contradictory statements we may gather that the “heresy” of the Ophites was, even as early as 230 A.D., a very old one, which may have appeared even before Christianity began to show its power, and that it was probably born in Asia Minor and owed much to the Pagan religions there practised and little or nothing to any dominant personality as did the systems of Simon Magus and the heresies treated of in the succeeding chapters.