Cross vs. Serpent. Different approaches to the interpretation of the theme of Serpent and Cross (Gen 3; Num 21; John 3. 14) in early Christian and Gnostic sources

The article examines the peculiarities and fundamental differences in the approach to the interpretation of a group of biblical narratives, united by the theme of the serpent and the tree, in the exegesis of the Gnostic sects of the "Ophite" (from Greek ophis - "serpent") currents and in Christian typological exegesis. The interpreters who belonged to the Grate Church (as opposed to "heretical" movements) were guided by the text of John 3:14, where Jesus compares Himself to the brazen serpent who had saved the people of Israel in the wilderness from death caused by the bites of poisonous serpents. The correlation of this text with the complex of prophetic "testimonies" about the Saviour "hanging on a tree" allowed them to see in it a reference to Christ's crucifixion. However, the same image of the brass serpent evoked inevitable associations with the story of the temptation of Adam and Eve, which also featured the "tree" and the "serpent". The soteriological doctrine of most Gnostic sects was based on the idea of salvation through "knowledge", so the Gnostics did not share the biblical concept of the Fall of Man, considering the access of Adam and Eve to the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge as a beneficial act and reassessing from this point of view the role of the biblical serpent, which in church sources was associated mainly with the Devil. The most interesting position in this respect was taken by the followers of the sect of "Perates", who regarded the "ancient serpent", the bronze serpent of Moses and Jesus as epiphanies of the divine Son-Logos, i.e. the spiritual Christ. In the biblical story of the Tree of Knowledge they saw the reflection of the conflict between the God-Demiurge together with his subordinate archons, who were hostile to human salvation, and the higher spiritual power acting through the serpent, which was further reproduced in the story of the transformations of the rod of Moses, in the story of the Brazen Serpent, in the story of Joseph and his brothers, and in the story of Jesus, who was crucified by the Jews, the worshippers of the Demiurge. In contrast to the Ophites, the Church exegetes sought to exclude the possibility of establishing a symbolic link between Christ and the serpent of Genesis. Taking the figure of the Brazen Serpent as a type of the Crucifixion, they correlated it not with the image of the Tree of Knowledge, but with the image of the Tree of Life, from which they developed an independent line of types of the Lord's Cross, based on the adjoining motifs of tree-wood and staff-rod, which in turn determined the character of the typology of Baptism, where the two above-mentioned motifs were combined with the motif of water.