This article is meant to shows what some texts that reference the birth of Cain, etc. have to say in relation to the serpent seed of Satan theory. This is important to consider because serpent seed of Satan theorists must appeal to apocrypha and other such non-, un- and anti-biblical texts since the Bible does not promulgate the theory.
The text titled Pirke De (chapters of) Rabbi Eliezer is generally ascribed to Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus shortly after 833 AD. The version translated and annotated by Gerald Friedlander (London; Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co. Ltd., New York: The Bloch Publishing Company, 1916 AD) contains many interesting notes. One reference is to the Book of Adam and Eve IXXIV:
[Eve]…brought forth her first-born son, and with him a daughter. Then Adam rejoiced at Eve’s deliverance, and also over the children she had borne him. And Adam ministered unto Eve in the cave, until the end of eight days; when they named the son Cain, and the daughter Luluwa.
Within our context, of the serpent seed of Satan theory, this text has Cain being Adam’s son.
LXXV notes,
When the days of nursing the children were ended, Eve again conceived, and when her days were accomplished she brought forth another son and daughter; and they named the son Abel, and the daughter Aklia.
LXXVI notes
…as to hard-hearted Cain, Satan came to him by night, showed himself and said unto him, ‘Since Adam and Eve love thy brother Abel much more than they love thee, and wish to join him in marriage to thy beautiful sister, because they love him; but wish to join thee in marriage to his ill-favoured sister, because they hate thee; Now, therefore, I counsel thee, when they do that, to kill thy brother; then thy sister will be left for thee; and his sister will be cast, away.
LXXVIII states that indeed, eventually, Adam said “We will join Abel’s sister in marriage to Cain, and Cain’s sister to Abel.”
In LXXVIII, Eve states, “I do not like Cain because he is hard-hearted” and that “Satan came to Cain in the figure of a man of the field, and said to him…they have agreed to marry Abel’s sister to thee, and thy sister to him. But if it was not that I love thee, I would not have told thee this thing.”
Cain “went to Eve, his mother, and beat her, and cursed her, and said to her, ‘Why are ye about taking my sister to wed her to my brother? Am I dead?’”
After God accepts Abel’s offering but not Cain’s, Cain “opened his mouth and blasphemed God.” Then when “Cain came down from the altar, his colour changed and of a woeful countenance.”
LXXIX notes:
Then Cain, the hard-hearted, and cruel murderer, took a large stone, and smote his brother with it upon the head, until his brains oozed out, and he weltered in his blood, before him.
Cain loved his own twin and thus, did not want Abel to marry her as he wanted her for himself.
Gerald Friedlander also provides a note titled, “Cain and Abel 151”:
…as it is said, “And Adam knew Eve his wife” (Gen. iv. 1). What is the meaning of “knew”? (He knew) that she had conceived. And she saw his likeness that it was not of the earthly beings, but of the heavenly beings, and she prophesied and said: “I have gotten a man with the Lord” (ibid.)…[the] serpent was made to crawl on its belly “for having increased the pangs of child-bearing, through the seduction of Eve”
Vita Adae Et Evae / The Books Of Adam And Eve (see Why is it not in the Bible? The Books, or Life, of Adam and Eve) XXI:1-3,
And behold, there came twelve angels and two ‘virtues’, standing on the right and on the left of Eve; and Michael was standing on the right; and he stroked her on the face as far as to the breast and said to Eve: ‘Blessed art thou, Eve, for Adam’s sake. Since his prayers and intercessions are great, I have been sent that thou mayst receive our help. Rise up now, and prepare thee to bear. And she bore a son and he was shining; and at once the babe rose up and ran and bore a blade of grass in his hands, and gave it to his mother, and his name was called Cain.
Reb Yakov Leib HaKohain, “Kabbalistic Genetics of the Holy Seed & Reclaiming the Lost Sheep of the House of Israel,” Donmeh-West (originally published as “The Lost Sheep of Israel Monographs in Psychology and Religion,” Number 11, Institute for Noahite Studies, 1986 AD) quotes the Kabbalistic mystical text The Zohar 1:128a-b:
Alas for the stupidity and blindness of men who do not perceive the mysteries of the Torah and do not know that by ‘the beasts of the field’ are designated the unlearned [first creation] . . . The ‘beasts of the field’ were like [soul-less] animals among men.
Such utterly unfounded rewritings of the text of the Bible lead to further unfounded rewritings such as:
…the first “man” created in Genesis 1:26 who was “fruitful and multiplied” with his female counterpart (“Lilith”), thus creating the “beasts of the field”, or the “unlearned” and “soulless” mankind referred to in the Zohar. Moreover, the Zohar states…this Nachash was “the ideal form of . . . the Satan” (Zohar 1:35b).
Thus, Nachash was to the “first” creation what Adam was to the “second”…the second Adam received a “living soul”, but Nachash (the first Adam) did not.
In his book Against Heresies Book I, Chapter 30, Irenaeus (early 2nd century-c. 202 AD) refers to the doctrines of the Ophites and Sethians in regards to whom he notes (I.30.1):
Others, again, portentously declare that there exists, in the power of Bythus, a certain primary light, blessed, incorruptible, and infinite: this is the Father of all, and is styled the first man. They also maintain that his Ennœa, going forth from him, produced a son, and that this is the son of man— the second man. Below these, again, is the Holy Spirit, and under this superior spirit the elements were separated from each other, viz., water, darkness, the abyss, chaos, above which they declare the Spirit was borne, calling him the first woman.
He notes that they believe that “the power which proceeded from the woman by ebullition, being besprinkled with light, fell downward from the place occupied by its progenitors, yet possessing by its own will that besprinkling of light; and it they call Sinistra, Prunicus, and Sophia, as well as masculo-feminine” and also that Ialdabaoth was the first descendant of the mother. Of course there is much esotericism here but the point is that the names Prunicus and Ialdabaoth are referenced in the key text below.
Irenaeus notes (I.30.7):
But Ialdabaoth, feeling envious at this, was pleased to form the design of again emptying man by means of woman, and produced a woman from his own enthymesis, whom that Prunicus laying hold of, imperceptibly emptied her of power. But the others coming and admiring her beauty, named her Eve, and falling in love with her, begot sons by her, whom they also declare to be the angels. But their mother (Sophia) cunningly devised a scheme to seduce Eve and Adam, by means of the serpent, to transgress the command of Ialdabaoth. Eve listened to this as if it had proceeded from a son of God, and yielded an easy belief. She also persuaded Adam to eat of the tree regarding which God had said that they should not eat of it.
They then declare that, on their thus eating, they attained to the knowledge of that power which is above all, and departed from those who had created them. When Prunicus perceived that the powers were thus baffled by their own creature, she greatly rejoiced, and again cried out, that since the father was incorruptible, he (Ialdabaoth) who formerly called himself the father was a liar; and that, while Anthropos and the first woman (the Spirit) existed previously, this one (Eve) sinned by committing adultery.
Life of Adam and Eve aka The Apocalypse of Moses I:1-3 (Hebrew version dates from first century BC to first century AD, the Greek (Apocalypsis Mosis) and Latin (Vita Adae et Evae) between second and fourth centuries AD):
This is the story of Adam and Eve after they had gone out of Paradise. And Adam knew his wife Eve and went upwards to the sun-rising and abode there eighteen years and two months. And Eve conceived and bare two sons; Adiaphotos, who is called Cain and Amilabes who is called Abel (trans. R.H. Charles Oxford).
Thus, the text affirms that Adam is the father of Cain. For more info on this text, see: Why is it not in the Bible? The Books, or Life, of Adam and Eve
Flavius Josephus (37 AD-c. 100 AD) Antiquities of the Jews “Concerning the posterity of Adam, and the ten generations from him to the deluge”:
1. ADAM and Eve had two sons: the elder of them was named Cain; which name, when it is interpreted, signifies a possession: the younger was Abel, which signifies sorrow….Cain was not only very wicked in other respects, but was wholly intent upon getting; and he first contrived to plough the ground. He slew his brother on the occasion following: – They had resolved to sacrifice to God.
Thus, the text affirms that Adam is the father of Cain.
In The Cherubim, Philo of Alexandria aka Philo Judaeus (c. 25 BC-c. 50 AD) quotes Genesis 4:1 thusly in XII (40), “And Adam knew his wife, and she conceived and brought forth Cain; and she said I have gotten a man by means of the Lord; and he caused her also to bring forth Abel his Brother” (trans. Charles Duke Yonge).
Thus, the text quotes Genesis 4:1 unlike the serpent seed of Satan theorists’ favorite Targum, the The Targum of Palestine, Commonly Entitled the Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel, on the Book of Genesis aka Targum Pseudo-Jonathan (for why that is the case, see the article: Reply to Zen Garcia on the serpent seed of Satan theory) and just like any Bible.
Kerygmata Petrou (180-220 AD) known only from the Pseudo-Clementine literature (and distinguished from the Preaching of Peter quoted by Clement of Alexandria) has the following in Polemic Against Paul, H.II.16:
…from Adam, who was made after the image of God, there sprang first the unrighteous Cain, and then the righteous Abel.
Thus, the text affirms that Adam is the father of unrighteous Cain. This is important because serpent seed of Satan theorists claim that unrighteous Cain could not have been born to righteous Adam.
A text from Clement of Alexandria Stromata 3.13-14 refers to Julius Cassianus. This is the translation in J.E.L. Oulton’s Alexandrian Christianity as scanned by Jay Raskin. (160-180 AD)
Chap XIV:94:
He then does violence to Paul, making him hold that birth originated from deceit because he says: “I am afraid lest, as the serpent deceived Eve, your thoughts should be corrupted from the simplicity which is towards Christ.” But the Lord, as all agree, came to that which was astray, but it had not strayed from above into earthly birth…
Thus, the text affirms that birth, that of Cain, did not originate from deceit. Eve eating of the forbidden fruit did originate from deceit but not birth. This is important as because serpent seed of Satan theorists claim that the tree, the fruit and the eating are all symbolic of Eve having sex with Satan.