see later. Generally speaking, it may be said that the Ophites seem to have been the first to bring about any kind of amalgamation between the popular religions of the Near East and the rising faith of Christianity. By interpreting the “mysteries” or secret rites of Asia Minor and elsewhere in their own sense, they supplied Christianity with a mythology which it would otherwise have lacked and the absence of which must always have proved a bar to its propagation among other than Semitic peoples. At the same time they greatly exalted the figure of Christ, who in their system became much less the personal teacher and master of the Jewish-Christian communities[281] than the angel or messenger of the Supreme Being sent from above in pursuance of a vast scheme for the redemption of the human race. In this capacity it went some way towards identifying the historical Jesus with the great god of the Mysteries and towards giving the sacraments of the newly-founded Church the secular authority of the rites practised in them. The influence of the Ophite system or systems upon the sects which succeeded them is at present hard to define, but there can be little doubt that some of the documents, which have come down to us in the Coptic MSS. before mentioned and will be more fully described in Chapter X, can only be explained by reference to them. Footnote 79: “Eorum qui ante adventum Christi Haereseos arguuntur.” Philastrius, Ep. Brixiensis, _de Haeresibus Liber_, c. I. vol. I. p. 5, Oehler. Footnote 80: Augustinus, _de Haeresibus_ (cf. _ad Quod vult deum_) _Liber_, c. XVII. I. p. 200, Oehler. Footnote 81: Pseudo-Tertullianus, _Adversus omnes Haereses_, cc. V., VI. p. 273, Oehler. The writer was probably Victorinus of Pettau. Footnote 82: Pseudo-Hieronymus, _Indiculus de Haeresibus_, c. III., vol. I. p. 285, Oehler. Footnote 83: Acts vi. 5. It will be noted that Epiphanius, who himself belonged to the sect in his youth, interposes only the Basilidians between them and the followers of Saturninus, the “heresy” of which last he derives directly from that of Simon Magus. Footnote 84: Rev. ii. 6, 15. Footnote 85: Origen, _cont. Celsum_, Bk VI. c. 28. Possibly the Euphrates called “the Peratic” or Mede by Hippolytus (_op. cit._ Bk IV. c. 2, p. 54, Cruice). Footnote 86: Hippolytus, _op. cit._ Bk V. c. 7, p. 141, Cruice. This Mariamne is doubtless the sister of Philip mentioned in the Apocryphal _Acta Philippi_ (c. XXXII., Tischendorf), which have, as is said later, a strong Gnostic or Manichaean tinge. Celsus knew a sect which took its name from her. See Origen, _cont. Cels._ Bk V. c. 62. Footnote 87: The Canonical Apocalypse is not earlier than 70 A.D., and was probably written soon after the fall of the Temple of Jerusalem. Hippolytus and Origen wrote 130 years later. Footnote 88: