Ophites

The Ophites, whose name derives from the Greek word for "snake," were an early Christian Gnostic sect known today primarily through the writings of their orthodox critics like Hippolytus, Irenaeus, and Pseudo-Tertullian. Their most distinctive belief was the veneration of the serpent from the biblical Garden of Eden. Unlike mainstream Christians, the Ophites viewed the serpent not as a deceiver, but as a heroic purveyor of divine wisdom. They believed that the creator god of the Old Testament, whom they referred to as Ialdabaoth or the Demiurge, was actually an arrogant, lesser deity who sought to keep Adam and Eve enslaved in ignorance within the material world. By encouraging humanity to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, the serpent helped them rebel against this tyrannical creator and awaken their higher spiritual consciousness. The sect featured a highly complex cosmology involving a supreme spiritual Father, a divine feminine figure named Sophia (Wisdom), and Christ, whom they believed was a pure spiritual being that temporarily descended into the human Jesus to deliver the ultimate saving knowledge required to return to the divine realm.

Pseudo-Tertullian (probably the Latin translation of the lost Syntagma, written c. 220) is the earliest source to mention Ophites, and the first source to discuss the connection with serpents. He claims that the Ophites taught that

Christ did not exist in the flesh (Christum autem non in substantia carnis fuisse; 2.4); that they extolled the serpent and preferred it to Christ (serpentem magnificant in tantum, ut ilium etiam ipsi Christo praeferant; 2.1); and that Christ imitated (imitor) Moses' serpent's sacred power (Num 21:6-9) saying, "And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up (John 3:14)" (Haer. 2:1). In addition, Eve is said to have believed the serpent, as if it had been God the Son (Eua quasi filio deo crediredat; 2.4).

They have a snake, which they keep in a certain chest—the cista mystica—and which at the hour of their mysteries they bring forth from its cave. They heap loaves upon the table and summon the serpent. Since the cave is open it comes out. It is a cunning beast and, knowing their foolish ways, it crawls up on the table and rolls in the loaves; this they say is the perfect sacrifice. Wherefore, as I have been told, they not only break the bread in which the snake has rolled and administer it to those present, but each one kisses the snake on the mouth, for the snake has been tamed by a spell, or has been made gentle for their fraud by some other diabolical method. And they fall down before it and call this the Eucharist, consummated by the beast rolling in the loaves. And through it, as they say, they send forth a hymn to the Father on high, thus concluding their mysteries.

— Epiphanius,  Panarion 1:37