15. Such are the opinions which prevail among these persons, by whom, like the Lernæan hydra, a many-headed beast has been generated from the school of Valentinus. For some of them assert that Sophia herself became the serpent; on which account she was hostile to the creator of Adam, and implanted knowledge in men, for which reason the serpent was called wiser than all others. Moreover, by the position of our intestines, through which the food is conveyed, and by the fact that they possess such a figure, our internal configuration333 in the form of a serpent reveals our hidden generatrix. 333 The text of this sentence is hopelessly corrupt, but the meaning is as given above. 934 Chapter XXX.—Doctrines of the Ophites and Sethians.