October 2017 – Page 26 – TrueFreeThinker

Midrash

Rabbinic writings – serpent seedline of Satan as Jewish fables

In Disambiguating the serpent seedline of Satan theory in Genesis 3, part 1 of 2 I noted that the serpent seed of Satan theory certainly qualifies a fable such as that referenced in Titus 1:10-16 which notes that:

…many unruly and vain talkers and deceivers…Whose mouths must be stopped, who subvert whole houses, teaching things which they ought not, for filthy lucre’s sake…Wherefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith; Not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth.

Herein, I will provide some references to such fables (and I have already written much about the Targum Pseudo-Johnathan’s employment of this fable, see Serpent Seed of Satan theorist on the original text of Genesis 4:1, part 1 of 2).

B.Z. Goldberg wrote the following in his 1930 AD book The Sacred Fire, pp. 109-110, Chap. V, “Love’s Hidden Ways”:

In Sunday school, we learn of the serpent in his glory. He did not crawl over the surface of the earth but had legs to stand upon. In fact, he walked erect like Adam and Eve and was equal in height to the camel. He could talk and was in the habit of conversing with the first woman on earth. He was clever enough to meddle in the life of the first humans and to offer them the benefit of his counsel.

To be sure, it was bad advice; slyly he induced Eve to desire the fruit of the forbidden tree. Gently and cleverly he pointed the way to disobedience of the divine command. And as the woman slid downward, she pulled man down with her. It was by the guile of the serpent that Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden of Eden to a life of toil and pain. Like Samson of a later day, the serpent itself shared the ruination it caused. By the fall of man, it was crushed and left to spend its days crawling upon the earth.

There is more to the story than is told to the Sunday school class. The serpent was in love with Eve. He had seen Adam and Eve in their conjugal act and was animated by a passion for the woman. He hoped to get Adam out of the way and to take Eve for himself. The serpent is the first illicit desire of sex, the first thwarted passion of love, the first struggle of the male with the male for the female.

The reference to the Genesis 3 serpent being equal in height to the camel surely plays off of Rabbi Moses ben Maimon aka Maimonides aka Rambam’s circa 1190 AD book Guide for the Perplexed, Chap. XXX which actually does not refer to the serpent’s height:

…noteworthy Midrashic remark of our Sages is the following: “The serpent had a rider, the rider was as big as a camel, and it was the rider that enticed Eve: this rider was Samaël.” Samaël is the name generally applied by our Sages to Satan…In describing how the serpent came to entice Eve, our sages say: “Samaël was riding on it, and God was laughing at both the camel and its rider.”

The Palestinian Targum aka Targum of Johnathan ben Uzziel aka more accurately Targum Pseudo-Johnathan (600s AD) is not a simply translation of the Hebrew Old Testament into Aramaic but a paraphrase which includes much Rabbinic folklore. In its rendering of Genesis 3 it has Samael “the angel of death” in place of the serpent. However, Satan is not Samael as Satan is not the “the angel of death” and, in fact, is not even an Angel but rather, is a Cherub (Ezekiel 28:14).

Well, in any case, it seems to me that as is specified in Revelation, chaps 12 and 20, most succinctly “that old serpent” is “called the Devil, and Satan” (for another aspect of this see On satan, divination and metal.

Now, you will note a tinge of the serpent seed of Satan theory added in by asserting that “The serpent was in love with Eve” had “a passion for the woman” wanted “to take Eve for himself” and this lead to “the first illicit desire of sex.” We are not told that the serpent had sex with Eve but that there was some rivalry for her between the serpent and Adam (at least in the serpent’s mind).

Also, note that Goldberg seems to misidentify an illustration of that which he terms, “Serpent worship in early Christian art” (no citation is provided). It appears to simply depict a man making his offering to God with the serpent looking on as “Cain offered, of the fruits of the earth” which was rejected by God (Genesis 4:3).

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The circa 400-500 AD Talmud Bavli aka Babylonian Talmud states the following (I am bracketing the Talmud’s footnotes):

Yebamoth 103a:
R. Johanan stated: When the serpent copulated with Eve [In the Garden of Eden, according to a tradition], he infused her [I.e., the human species] with lust. The lust of the Israelites who stood at Mount Sinai [And experienced the purifying influence of divine Revelation], came to an end, the lust of the idolaters who did not stand at Mount Sinai did not come to an end.

Abodah Zarah 22b:
R. Johanan said: When the serpent came unto Eve he infused filthy lust into her. If that be so [the same should apply] also to Israel! — When Israel stood at Sinai that lust was eliminated, but the lust of idolaters, who did not stand at Sinai, did not cease.

Shabbath 145a-146a:
Why are idolaters lustful? Because they did not stand at Mount Sinai. For when the serpent came upon Eve he injected a lust into her:

Rabbinic Jewish mysticism’s text Zohar (H. Sperling and M. Simon trans., The Soncino Press, New York, 1933 AD):

I, 28b
Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field, etc. (Genes. III, 1.) “More subtle” that is towards evil; “than all beasts” that is, the idolatrous people of the earth. For they are the children of the ancient serpent which seduced Eve.

I, 28b-29a
At that time the mixed multitude shall pass away from the world..The mixed multitude are the impurity which the serpent injected into Eve. From this impurity came forth Cain, who killed Abel…Various impurities are mingled in the composition of Israel, like animals among men. One kind is from the side of the serpent…there is none so cursed among them as Amalek, who is the evil serpent, the “strange god”…his twin-soul is the poison of idolatry, the two together being called Samael (lit. poison-god). There is more than one Samael, and they are not all equal, but this side of the serpent is accursed above all of them.

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The Jewish Encyclopedia’s entry for “Eve” by Emil G. Hirsch, Solomon Schechter, Hartwig Hirschfeld notes various and sundry bits of Jewish fables from which I will glean:

Midrash Genesis Rabbah, circa 425 AD, XII:
Eve became pregnant, and bore Cain and Abel on the very day of (her creation and) expulsion from Eden.

Yalkut to Genesis, 12th century AD, XXV; comp. Flavius Josephus, “Antiquities of the Jews,” 93 AD i. 1, § 4; Ab. R. N. i.; Pirke De Rabbi Eliezer, 830 AD, XIII:
Samael, prompted by jealousy, picked out the serpent to mislead Eve, whom it approached, knowing that women could be more easily moved than men.

Pirke De Rabbi Eliezer XXI., XXII, XX: Cain’s real father was not Adam, but one of the demons…Seth was Eve’s first child by Adam.

[Of course, Satan is not a demon]

Soṭah (treatise in the Mishnah, Tosefta, and Babylonian and Palestinian aka Jerusalem aka Yerushalmi Talmuds) 9; Genesis Rabbah XVIII: …the serpent was induced to lead Eve to sin by desire on its part to possess her.

[I am unsure if “possess” is meant in the manner of demonism or as in have her sexually—or, both]

Yalḳut Genesis 28, 130 and Talmud tractates Yevamot 103b and Avodah aka Abuda Zarah 22b and Shabbath 146a:
…it [the serpent] cast into her [Eve] the taint of lust.

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Wars of the Jews

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Demons in Augustine of Hippo, part 9

Herein we continue, from part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4, part 5, part 6, part 7, part 8,considering info on Demons in Augustine of Hippo (354-430 AD). The fuller complete result consists of quotations of those sections within the text that refer to Angels, Cherubim, Seraphim, Devil, Satan, demons, serpent and dragon. The point is not to elucidate these references but to provide relevant partial quotations and citations. See my section on Angels here, Cherubim and Seraphim here, Satan here and Demons here.

Demons in Augustine of Hippo’s The City of God, Books XI and XVIII.

Book XI
Chapter 14 But when he had said, “I have called,” then, as if some one were seeking proof of this, he demonstrates the effectual earnestness of his prayer by the effect of God’s hearing it; as if he had said, The proof that I have prayed is that You have heard me.

Book XVIII
Chapter 5 Yet it was no great thing for the demons, in order to deceive them, to show to a cow when she was conceiving and pregnant the image of such a bull, which she alone could see, and by it attract the breeding passion of the mother, so that it might appear in a bodily shape in her young, just as Jacob so managed with the spotted rods that the sheep and goats were born spotted. For what men can do with real colors and substances, the demons can very easily do by showing unreal forms to breeding animals.

Chapter 9 Then Neptune, being enraged, laid waste the lands of the Athenians, by casting up the waves of the sea; for the demons have no difficulty in scattering any waters more widely…Thus that city, the mother and nurse of liberal doctrines, and of so many and so great philosophers, than whom Greece had nothing more famous and noble, by the mockery of demons about the strife of their gods, a male and female, and from the victory of the female one through the women, received the name of Athens; and, on being damaged by the vanquished god, was compelled to punish the very victory of the victress, fearing the waters of Neptune more than the arms of Minerva.

Chapter 12 Let the one in books that speak the truth edify religious men, and the other in lying fables delight impure demons.

Chapter 13 Some, indeed, write that this Liber was both conquered and bound and some that he was slain in Persia, even telling where he was buried; and yet in his name, as that of a god, the unclean demons have instituted the sacred, or rather the sacrilegious, Bacchanalia, of the outrageous vileness of which the senate, after many years, became so much ashamed as to prohibit them in the city of Rome.

Chapter 15 During those times the kingdom of Argos came to an end; being transferred to Mycene, from which Agamemnon came, and the kingdom of Laurentum arose, of which Picus son of Saturn was the first king, when the woman Deborah judged the Hebrews; but it was the Spirit of God who used her as His agent, for she was also a prophetess, although her prophecy is so obscure that we could not demonstrate, without a long discussion, that it was uttered concerning Christ.

Chapter 18 Perhaps our readers expect us to say something about this so great delusion wrought by the demons; and what shall we say but that men must fly out of the midst of Babylon?…the greater we see the power of the demons to be in these depths, so much the more tenaciously must we cleave to the Mediator through whom we ascend from these lowest to the highest places…it is to be most firmly believed that Almighty God can do whatever He pleases, whether in punishing or favoring, and that the demons can accomplish nothing by their natural power (for their created being is itself Angelic, although made malign by their own fault), except what He may permit, whose judgments are often hidden, but never unrighteous. And indeed the demons, if they really do such things as these… I cannot therefore believe that even the body, much less the mind, can really be changed into bestial forms and lineaments by any reason, art, or power of the demons; but the phantasm of a man which even in thought or dreams goes through innumerable changes may, when the man’s senses are laid asleep or overpowered, be presented to the senses of others in a corporeal form, in some indescribable way unknown to me, so that men’s bodies themselves may lie somewhere, alive, indeed, yet with their senses locked up much more heavily and firmly than by sleep, while that phantasm, as it were embodied in the shape of some animal, may appear to the senses of others, and may even seem to the man himself to be changed, just as he may seem to himself in sleep to be so changed, and to bear burdens; and these burdens, if they are real substances, are borne by the demons, that men may be deceived by beholding at the same time the real substance of the burdens and the simulated bodies of the beasts of burden…

Therefore what men say and have committed to writing about the Arcadians being often changed into wolves by the Arcadian gods, or demons rather, and what is told in song about Circe transforming the companions of Ulysses, if they were really done, may, in my opinion, have been done in the way I have said…For juggleries of this kind could not be difficult for the demons if permitted by the judgment of God; and since that virgin was afterwards, found alive it is easy to see that a hind had been slyly substituted for her…But that they bring water in their beaks and sprinkle it on the temple of Diomede, and that they fawn on men of Greek race and persecute aliens, is no wonderful thing to be done by the inward influence of the demons, whose interest it is to persuade men that Diomede was made a god, and thus to beguile them into worshipping many false gods, to the great dishonor of the true God; and to serve dead men, who even in their lifetime did not truly live, with temples, altars, sacrifices, and priests, all which, when of the right kind, are due only to the one living and true God.

Chapter 24 But although the later times did not deify dead men, still they did not cease to hold and worship as gods those deified of old; nay, by images, which the ancients never had, they even increased the allurements of vain and impious superstition, the unclean demons effecting this in their heart, and also deceiving them by lying oracles, so that even the fabulous crimes of the gods, which were not once imagined by a more polite age, were yet basely acted in the plays in honor of these same false deities.

Chapter 41 But what author of any sect is so approved in this demon-worshipping city, that the rest who have differed from or opposed him in opinion have been disapproved?

Chapter 51 But the devil, seeing the temples of the demons deserted, and the human race running to the name of the liberating Mediator, has moved the heretics under the Christian name to resist the Christian doctrine, as if they could be kept in the city of God indifferently without any correction, just as the city of confusion indifferently held the philosophers who were of diverse and adverse opinions.

Chapter 53 But because this sentence is in the Gospel, it is no wonder that the worshippers of the many and false gods have been none the less restrained from feigning that by the responses of the demons, whom they worship as gods, it has been fixed how long the Christian religion is to last…For those verses say that Peter bound, not any demon, but a god to do these things. Such a god have they who have not Christ.

Chapter 54 Now, in the following year, in the consulate of Mallius Theodorus, when, according to that oracle of the demons or figment of men, there ought already to have been no Christian religion, it was not necessary to inquire, what perchance was done in other parts of the Earth.

In the next segment, we will consider more on Demons in Augustine of Hippo.

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