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Cain as the Scion of Satan: The Evolution of a Gnostic Myth in the Zohar

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 January 2016

Oded Yisraeli
Oded Yisraeli*
Affiliation:
Ben-Gurion University of the Negev
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Extract

The relationship between kabbalistic thought and ancient gnostic ideas has been debated by numerous scholars. Early on, Gershom Scholem argued that the rise of kabbalah represents the “reappearance, in the heart of Judaism, of the gnostic tradition.” In his wake, Isaiah Tishby has posited that the concept of the sĕfirot “emerge[d] and develop[ed] from a historico-literary contact with the remnants of Gnosticism, which were preserved over a period of many generations in certain Jewish circles, until they found their way to the early Kabbalists.” Joseph Dan, on the other hand, maintains that “historical connections” must not be confused with “phenomenological similarities.” There is no evidence for the existence of the former, in his opinion; all that may be claimed is a typological correspondence between gnostic ideas and medieval Jewish kabbalistic mysticism. Moshe Idel likewise claims that some early Jewish motifs penetrated gnostic texts at the same time they continued to flourish within Jewish circles until they finally found form in medieval kabbalah. Yehuda Liebes has adopted a corresponding view, although he makes fruitful exegetical use of the relationship and parallels between various gnostic and Jewish sources. The issue thus remains firmly on the academic agenda.

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Harvard Theological Review , Volume 109 , Issue 1 , January 2016 , pp. 56 - 74
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Copyright © President and Fellows of Harvard College 2016 

The relationship between kabbalistic thought and ancient gnostic ideas has been debated by numerous scholars. Early on, Gershom Scholem argued that the rise of kabbalah represents the “reappearance, in the heart of Judaism, of the gnostic tradition.”Footnote 1 In his wake, Isaiah Tishby has posited that the concept of the sĕfirot “emerge[d] and develop[ed] from a historico-literary contact with the remnants of Gnosticism, which were preserved over a period of many generations in certain Jewish circles, until they found their way to the early Kabbalists.”Footnote 2 Joseph Dan, on the other hand, maintains that “historical connections” must not be confused with “phenomenological similarities.” There is no evidence for the existence of the former, in his opinion; all that may be claimed is a typological correspondence between gnostic ideas and medieval Jewish kabbalistic mysticism.Footnote 3 Moshe Idel likewise claims that some early Jewish motifs penetrated gnostic texts at the same time they continued to flourish within Jewish circles until they finally found form in medieval kabbalah.Footnote 4 Yehuda Liebes has adopted a corresponding view, although he makes fruitful exegetical use of the relationship and parallels between various gnostic and Jewish sources.Footnote 5 The issue thus remains firmly on the academic agenda.Footnote 6

Much of this scholarship has been devoted to an examination of theological ideas, such as the relationship between kabbalistic siṭrā’ ’aḥrā’ and the gnostic demiurge and the dualistic perspective that informs this idea, or the doctrine of the sĕfirot (the mālē’ in Sēfer Habbāhir) vis-à-vis the gnostic pleroma. The study of the link between certain midrashic traditions in early kabbalistic thought in general—and in the Zohar in particular—and early gnostic concepts has been relatively neglected, however. In this article, I shall focus on one such legend—namely, the idea of Cain as Satan's offspring.Footnote 7 Hoping thereby to contribute to the broad picture of the history of this tradition within the Jewish/gnostic/Christian expanse, I shall analyze how it found its way into the zoharic literature, discuss its various and diverse interpretations therein, and suggest some of the significant new trends that its zoharic evolution appears to have nurtured. I shall also endeavor to illustrate the nature of the Zohar's relationship to these gnostic threads, together with the Zohar's role in preserving such traditions, the way in which it reworks them, and its contribution to their subsequent incorporation into the traditional religious Jewish space.

Cain as the Offspring of Satan: Early Sources of the Myth

The tradition that holds that Cain—Adam's firstborn son according to the biblical account—was in fact the scion of the serpent-Satan who tempted Eve appears in the Zohar and later kabbalistic texts virtually ex nihilo:

Rabbi El'azar said, “When the serpent injected that slime into Eve, she absorbed it, so when she copulated with Adam she bore two sons: one from that impure side and one from the side of Adam. Cain was certainly son of the impure spirit, and deriving from the side of the Angel of Death, he killed his brother. Being from his side, from him emerged all evil haunts, goblins, and demons.”Footnote 8

The “slime” of the “impure spirit” evidently represents Satan himself here. How did this bold legend find its way into the Zohar? Although, as on other occasions, these traditions are not the fruit of the Zohar's own authors, here the attempt to trace the provenance of this legend takes us a particularly long way back into history, its explicit footprints first emerging beyond the borders of the canonical Jewish creative space. As Louis Ginzberg, Gedaliah Stroumsa, and others have noted, this myth is prevalent in various writings generally associated with gnostic sects.Footnote 9 Thus, for example, we read in the Gospel of Philip, dated to around the second half of the third century CE:

[He who] has been created is [beautiful, but] you (sg.) would <not> find his sons noble creations. If he were not created but begotten, you (sg.) would find that his seed was noble. But now he was created (and) he begot. What nobility is this? First adultery came into being, afterward murder. And he was begotten in adultery, for he was the child of the serpent. So he became a murderer, just like his father, and he killed his brother. (Gos. Phil. 60–61)Footnote 10

Various polemical sources indicate that the belief in Cain's satanic provenance formed one of the prominent tenets of such circles. Epiphanius of Salamis—one of the great fourth-century CE refuters of Gnosticism, who devoted his Panarion to describing the views held by such “heretical sects”—thus reports that the Cainites believed that Cain was the offspring of the abhorred and hated God of the Jews and had inherited his baleful and nefarious attributes from this demiurge (Pan. 38). The Archontics likewise believed, he asserts, in “another myth, that the devil came to Eve, lay with her as a man with a woman, and sired Cain and Abel by her. That was why the one attacked the other.”Footnote 11

According to Epiphanius, this view derives from a misinterpretation of 1 John 3:12: “not as Cain who was of the wicked one and murdered his brother.”Footnote 12 Rather than understanding the text to be characterizing Cain's behavior as wicked, these gnostic groups distorted it to signify that his very lineage was “satanic” (Pan. 40).Footnote 13 Irrespective of whether Epiphanius's critique is justified, other New Testament texts hint at a similar view—Jesus, for example, is said to have told the Pharisees: “You are of your father the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it” (John 8:44).Footnote 14

The roots of this conception clearly lie in Eve's description of the manner in which Cain was born: “Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, and said, ‘I have acquired a man from the Lord’ ” (Gen 4:1). This depiction suggests that, despite being the offspring of Adam and Eve, Cain derived from the divine seed. The fact that he was not “human” in the same sense as his parents or brothers is evident from a comparison of his birth story with the portrayal of the birth of his younger sibling Seth: “And Adam lived one hundred and thirty years, and begot a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth” (Gen 5:3). Since Seth was the first son born “in the likeness” of Adam and “after his image,” we are led to assume that Cain's provenance was other—i.e., supernatural in some form. While the biblical account makes no reference—overt or covert—to Satan in connection with Cain, the fact that, out of all the celestial angels, the author of the midrashic tradition attributes the lineage of the first murderer precisely to Satan is hardly surprising.Footnote 15

In light of the above remarks, our first task is to determine whether this gnostic tradition can be traced to Jewish aggadic material. The early roots of the attribution of Cain's origin to Eve's coupling with Satan in the ancient Jewish literature are quite easily identifiable. The aggadic literature contains several references to a tradition that holds that the serpent who tempted Eve also bedded her. Thus, for example, a talmudic parallel states: “For when the serpent came upon Eve he injected a lust into her” (b. Šabb. 145b–146a).Footnote 16 While the majority of the statements is made by R. Johanan, a third-century Palestinian Amora and perhaps a contemporary of the author of the Gospel of Philip, the fact that he relates this coupling as self-evident (“when the serpent came”) suggests that it derives from an earlier period.Footnote 17

These Jewish sources may be citing a primitive version of the tradition, one that subsequently formed the basis for the development of the later gnostic idea about Cain as the offspring of this intercourse. But the disparity between the two versions may perhaps reflect rather the opposite course of evolution—rabbinic-talmudic censorship of the full version of Cain as Satan's offspring during the first centuries CE; in other words, the final form of the talmudic version may be the result of adopting the basic tradition according to which the serpent copulated with Eve, while rejecting the view that Cain was Satan's scion.Footnote 18 It is thus possible that this tradition of satanic Cain has Jewish roots. The first clear and unambiguous appearance of this idea, however, occurs in the gnostic literature. This fact, together with its mere intimation in early Christian writings and possible rejection within talmudic literature, suggests that it should be considered gnostic doctrine.

A full and explicit version of the myth only appears in Jewish compositions a few centuries later—in Pirqē Rabbi Eliezer and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan.Footnote 19 While both these texts appear to date to circa the eighth century CE, they frequently preserve ancient traditions about which we have no knowledge from any other sources.Footnote 20 The earliest and most original version of Cain's satanic lineage appears to be that of Pirqē R. El. 21, which describes his birth thus:

“Which is in the midst of the garden” (Gen. iii. 3)—for “garden” means here merely woman, who is compared to a garden, as it is said, “A garden shut up is my sister, a bride” (Cant. iv. 12). Just as with this garden whatever is sown therein, it produces and brings forth, so (with) this woman, what seed she receives, she conceives and bears through sexual intercourse. (Sammael) riding on the serpent came to her, and she conceived; afterwards Adam came to her, and she conceived Abel, as it 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 being, and she prophesied and said: “I have gotten a man with the Lord” (ibid.).Footnote 21

As might be expected, the following chapter (22)—which relates the birth of Seth—also adduces this theme; here it is given particular emphasis:

“And Adam lived an hundred and thirty years, and he begat in his own likeness after his image” (Gen. v. 3). Hence thou mayest learn that Cain was not of Adam's seed, nor after his likeness, nor after his image. (Adam did not beget in his own image) until Seth was born, who was after his father Adam's likeness and image, as it is said, “And he begat in his own likeness, after his image” (ibid.). Rabbi Simeon said: From Seth arose and were descended all the generations of the righteous. From Cain arose and were descended all the generations of the wicked, who rebel and sin, who rebelled against their Rock, and they said: We do not need the drops of Thy rain, neither to walk in Thy ways, as it is said, “Yet they said unto God, depart from us” (Job xxi.14).Footnote 22

Targum Pseudo-Jonathan contains closely corresponding exegetical expositions of both episodes—the births of Cain and Seth. Thus, for example, it renders Gen 4:1—“Now the man knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore Cain”—as: “And the man knew his wife Eve who had conceived by Samael the Angel of the Lord.”Footnote 23 Henceforth, we find this idea, in various versions, in a number of medieval collections and anthologies.Footnote 24 These appear to constitute the route whereby it found its way into the zoharic passage cited above, as well as into other similar expositions.Footnote 25

Since the construction of the image of Cain as Satan's offspring in later midrashic literature is clearly rooted in the biblical text, its theological intent is evidently linked to an attempt to explain the wickedness attributed to this primordial figure. The zoharic exposition states this idea explicitly: “Cain was certainly son of the impure spirit, and deriving from the side of the Angel of Death, he killed his brother”—i.e., his murderous act is grounded in the “fact” of his lineage. In this respect, the tradition seeks to answer, in mythical rather than philosophical terms, the eternal question of the source of the manifestation of human evil in the world. The view that regards Cain as a demon—as Satan's offspring—rather than as a human being thereby transfers the story from its human-psychological context to the mythic plane: it propounds that he killed his brother because he was a murderer from his mother's womb. According to this understanding, Cain's existence in the historical past merely represents the imprint of the devil's foot on human society.

The Figure of Cain: From Early to Later Midrash

In light of the above, it should not be surprising to discover that the rabbinic texts from the first centuries CE that contain no reference to Cain as the son of Satan—and may even reject the gnostic idea—provide a very different set of answers to the question of the origin of human hatred, murder, and war. Thus, for example, Genesis Rabbah, dated to around the fifth or sixth century CE, appears to preserve the ancient rabbinic reservations regarding the gnostic tradition. It presents various alternate views, all of which are far removed from, and to a certain extent even opposed to, the passage in the Zohar under discussion here. An exposition of Gen 4:8 states:

“And Cain spoke unto Abel his brother, etc.” (IV, 8). About what did they quarrel? “Come,” said they, “let us divide the world.” One took the land and the other the movables. The former said, “The land you are standing on is mine,” while the latter retorted, “What you are wearing is mine.” One said: “Strip”; the other retorted: “Fly [off the ground]!” . . . R. Joshua of Siknin said in R. Levi's name: Both took land and both took movables, but about what did they quarrel? One said, “The Temple must be built in my area,” while the other claimed, “It must be built in mine.” . . . Judah b. Rabbi said: Their first quarrel was about the first Eve. (Gen. Rab. 22:7)Footnote 26

In seeking to identify the origin of evil in the world, the author of this midrash locates it in the human soul and the drive to control the resources of human society—money, sex, and religion constituting the elements that have fanned the flames of hatred, anger, and conflict since the creation of the world. In contrast, the later midrash (Pirqē R. El.), whose traces we identified in earlier texts and whose views come to mature expression in the Zohar, attributes the source of evil to forces outside human nature, in the demonic world. Moreover, in adding the statements “From Seth arose and were descended all the generations of the righteous. From Cain arose and were descended all the generations of the wicked,” the author of Pirqē Rabbi Eliezer takes this theological stance to its logical extreme, attributing not only Cain's character to his satanic lineage but also that of all the wicked to come. Just as he is the scion of Satan, so they, too, are his offspring. This view receives literary expression in both the Zohar and in later kabbalistic literature, with various biblical or historical figures being said to be “from the side of Cain []” or “descended from the root of Cain's soul.”Footnote 27 The kabbalistic worldview this reveals to us is thus a demonic, deterministic, dualistic framework that divides humanity into the righteous and the wicked, the offspring of Adam and the offspring of Satan, the “sons of light” and the “sons of darkness.”Footnote 28

The Tradition of Cain as the Scion of Satan in Early Kabbalistic Literature and the Zohar: Continuity and Evolution

The writings of the medieval kabbalists in Provence and Spain contain clearly identifiable traces of the myth of Cain as Satan's offspring. The earliest extant text of this nature we have in our hands, Sēfer Habbāhir, makes no allusion to it, despite the great interest this source displays in the first human sin and the clear influence of Pirqē Rabbi Eliezer on this manifestly midrashic context. But this legend becomes very evident in the thirteenth-century Castilian kabbalah prior to the appearance of the zoharic literature, as the Castilian pre-zoharic kabbalah incorporates some of the central elements of the kabbalistic doctrine of the origin of evil.Footnote 29 Thus, for example, R. Moses of Burgos states: “After the rider of the serpent went in to Eve and she conceived Cain from him, who was the root of all wormwood and bitterness, from whom descended all the wicked generations because he was the product of the evil inclination . . .” (The Left Pillar, Ninth Sĕfirāh).Footnote 30 Even if these kabbalists on occasion renounce this exegesis of the story of Cain and Abel based on the midrashic tradition in Pirqē Rabbi Eliezer in favor of other traditions they regard as being more prominently kabbalistic, thereby interpreting the account of the births of Cain, Abel, and Seth in connection with the esoteric doctrines of incest and reincarnation, this tradition clearly underlies the development of the legend concerning Cain's birth that appears in the Zohar.Footnote 31

The understanding we have gained to this point appears to corroborate Scholem's claim that the medieval kabbalistic mythic creation constitutes a renaissance of ancient tradition suppressed and repressed over the course of generations by authoritative rabbinic literature. In fact, however, this is only one side of the coin. A close and in-depth examination of the appearance in the Zohar of the idea that Cain is the scion of Satan reveals that, in addition to its incorporation and preservation, it also undergoes alterations that substantially transform its nature and subsequent development. In addition to retaining the spirit—and at times even the language—of the gnostic myth as it appears in Pirqē Rabbi Eliezer, the Zohar's version of the tradition presents numerous characteristics and nuances that reflect its own distinctive tendencies.

When one examines the text within its broad context, it becomes clear that its editing reflects an open and pluralistic approach to the subject at hand. Alongside the tradition of Cain's satanic lineage “imported” from the late midrash another tradition whose nature is fundamentally different is adduced:

Rabbi Abba opened: Who knows if the spirit of the sons of men ascends on high and the spirit of the Beast descends into earth? [Qoh 3:21]. This verse bears numerous nuances. . . . Come and see: When one follows the path of truth, he tends toward the right, drawing upon himself a supernal holy spirit from above. . . . But when one follows the path of evil and strays, he draws upon himself an impure spirit of the left side, defiling him, so he becomes defiled, as is said: Do not defile yourselves with them, and thus become defiled [Lev 18:24]. If one turns toward defiling himself, he is defiled. Come and see: When one follows the part of truth, drawing upon himself a supernal, holy spirit, cleaving to it, he draws supernal holiness upon the son he engenders, who issues from him into the world, who is thereby endowed with the holiness of his lord, as is written: Hallow yourselves and you will be holy [Lev 20:7]. . . . But when he follows the left side, drawing upon himself an impure spirit, cleaving to it, he draws an impure spirit upon the son who issues from him into the world, who is thereby defiled by the impurity of that side. So it written: Who knows if the spirit of the sons of men ascends on high? When he cleaves to the right she [that spirit] ascends, but when he cleaves to the left, that side of the left, the spirit of impurity descends and possesses him unyieldingly so whatever son he engenders derives from that impure spirit. Adam cleaved to that impure spirit, while his wife cleaved to it first, receiving, absorbing its slime, from which a son was engendered—son of impure spirit. So there were two sons: one from that impure spirit and one when Adam returned to God: this from the impure side, this from the pure.Footnote 32

R. Abba, the author of the first view propounded here, gives a very different explanation of the emergence of evil in the human soul to that delivered in the name of R. Eliezer cited above, which attributes the origin of evil to Cain's satanic lineage. While both sages adopt a similar style and perceive the origin of evil to lie in what they call the “impure spirit,” they greatly diverge in their understanding of the nature and essence of this spirit. According to R. Abba, Cain was the son not of Satan but of the first human being: evil thus originated not in the demonic source of the seed from which he was conceived but from the impure nature of his father, Adam, who contaminated his son's spirit through his original sin—i.e., by eating from the tree of knowledge. Abel, being born after his father had repented, was spared the stain of this transgression. Adam, the first man, was therefore the person responsible for bringing evil into the world and bequeathing its perpetration to his descendants. While this view does not place the responsibility for sin on the shoulders of the first offender himself—in contradistinction to the stance exemplified by R. Eliezer—it nonetheless ascribes the origin of evil to the human realm. Via a quasi-evolutionary process, the sin of the father develops in the son until it grows to the proportions of evil.

While R. Eliezer regards the spirit of impurity that possesses Cain as the satanic essence imprinted in his blood as part of his genetic makeup, R. Abba understands it as the fruit of his father's deeds in choosing to cleave to the siṭrā’ ’aḥrā’. Although juxtaposed, these two views represent clearly disparate conceptions of the origin of evil in the world, the one ascribing it to a demonic source, the other to a more human one, as it were. If the former idea is responsible in the Zohar for the common notion (judging by the prevalence of this idea therein) that Cain is the scion of Satan, the very fact that room is made for an alternative idea suggests that the editing undergone by the text undercuts the authority of the demonic tradition.

The endeavor to present a more moderate view of this myth is exemplified in another passage in the Zohar. Among the texts that address Cain's lineage are two expositions whose close correspondence suggests that they constitute variant formulations of the same legend, one being incorporated into Zohar Hādā Šir Hašširim, the other into Midrā Rut. A close comparison of the two passages reveals that they significantly diverge from one another. Both rest on the assumption that the serpent contaminated the human race via Cain and then proceed to describe the process whereby the world was purified, up to Solomon's reign. Our interest here naturally lies in the opening chapters of each of these midrashic enterprises. The following table sets out the contents of the two expositions in order to highlight their affinities and disparities:

The unique preface to this exposition “uttered by Elijah” in Zohar Hādā Šir Hašširim is characteristic of this composition, which attributes its homilies to a revelation by Elijah.Footnote 35 The “twin” homily in Midrā Rut is also said to have been delivered by Elijah and passed on by one of the original audience members to one of the “group”—who attests: “So have we heard from our masters, and they heard it extending back to the mouth of Elijah” (83b). This appears to have been the version known to the kabbalists in the generations after the appearance of the Zohar—R. Menahem Recanati and R. Meir ibn Gabbai—who cite this homily.Footnote 36

The parallelism between the two sources is striking and indicates virtually beyond doubt that they represent two versions of the same exposition. Both accounts wonder, in precisely the same language, how the tradition relating to Cain's impure conception via the serpent can be reconciled with the explicit reference to Cain's birth from Adam's seed in the biblical text. Each similarly resolves the problem by asserting that Adam's seed was contaminated by the serpent's slime and adducing the statement “I have created a man with YHVH.”

The author of Midrā Hanne‘elām Rut, however, adds a further explanation regarding the origin of Adam's seed: “Moreover, the seed which Adam injected to form a body was itself from the side of evil! The evil spirit was strengthened, materializing in the world.” This comment is very significant. The need to stress that Adam's own seed comes from the “side of evil” exemplifies the approach attributed to R. Abba in the zoharic homily quoted above: R. Abba refuses to ascribe the origin of evil to a nonhuman realm, seeking rather to accentuate human responsibility for our own evil nature. Had human seed not been drawn from the “side of evil,” the homilist argues, the serpent's slime would have had no place to “nest” (see below). It is thus reasonable to assume that R. Abba interpolates this tradition in order to mitigate the demonic and deterministic tone of the original tradition in Zohar Hādā Šir Hašširim that relates Cain's creation from the serpent's slime.Footnote 37 As in the exposition discussed above, here too we find the bold ancient myth harnessed to new tendencies that seek to restrain it, thereby facilitating its acceptance within the traditional midrashic framework.

When we examine the full and explicit formulation of the idea that Cain was Satan's scion in the Zohar (Genesis) in the light of the earlier midrashic traditions, it becomes clear that this formulation not only presents a moderate midrashic alternative to this notion but also transforms the demonic myth itself. While the passage in Pirqē Rabbi Eliezer appears to be the closest source to the zoharic version, the Zohar departs in one significant respect from this text, apparently deliberately. Both versions conclude their presentation of Cain as Satan's scion by highlighting his historical dimension, as well as by determining that he was not only the son of incarnated evil but also the source of evil on earth. As noted above, Pirqē Rabbi Eliezer states: “From Cain arose and were descended all the generations of the wicked, who rebel and sin.” It thereby attributes all the wicked who will yet be born to Cain's lineage. The zoharic parallel presents us with an intriguing development, however. While the Zohar also ends with the statement that Cain is the father of all the evil in the world, it perceives “evil” in very different terms: “Being from his side, from him emerged all evil haunts, goblins, and demons.” Rather than ascribing responsibility for historical human evil to Cain, the Zohar regards him as the source of all supernatural evil—the progenitor of all the “haunts, goblins, and demons.” Here, the Zohar effectively transfers the catastrophic ramifications of Cain's conception from the human genealogical realm to the demonic world, thereby stripping it of any ethical implications.

The tradition of Cain as an arch-demon and the father of all the evil spirits recurs on numerous occasions in the Zohar in various contexts.Footnote 38 In several places, his name is even understood as deriving from the noun qēn (), meaning “nest,” and it is suggested that he forms the “nest” for all the demons and evil spirits in the world.Footnote 39 Strikingly, no other traces of this idea appear in Jewish circles prior to or close to the composition of the Zohar. The full-blown version it contains thus appears to constitute the first version of the legend in Jewish exegetical circles.Footnote 40

In light of its comparison with Pirqē Rabbi Eliezer, the passage we are considering in the Zohar can thus teach us something about the milieu in which it arose. It may be conjectured that the myth of Cain as the progenitor of the demons and spirits emerged in the Zohar—or was incorporated from non-Jewish sources—as a substitute for the radical gnostic doctrine that Cain as satanic creature is the forefather of all the wicked creatures in the world. This myth is modified here, being replaced, in an almost subversive fashion, by a version that, while similar in form, is very different in tone and substance with respect to its ethical ramifications.Footnote 41 The Zohar appears to hold serious reservations about the extreme deterministic character of the gnostic myth, which, in regarding humankind as the demons’ plaything, thereby exempts human beings from responsibility for human evil. While the original legend of Cain as the scion of Satan, as cited in Pirqē Rabbi Eliezer and a number of places in the Zohar, gives Satan a foothold in human history, the Zohar simultaneously makes efforts to exclude Cain from the human realm and transfer him to the demonic world, his natural place as the offspring of Satan and the progenitor of all the demons and spirits.Footnote 42

Cain, the Serpent's Slime, and the ’Idrot in the Zohar

A unique expression of the tendency towards softening the early demonic myth that I seek to identify here occurs in the ’Idrā’ section of the Zohar. This material—regarded as one of the Zohar's earliest strata—differs substantially from the rest of the book, primarily in the anthropomorphic tension that underlies its homilies and the description of the divine attributes, represented via a system of interlinked heavenly countenances.Footnote 43 It contains the ’Idrā’ Rabbāh, the ’Idrā’ Zuṭā’, and a relatively short composition known as the Sifrā’ Diṣĕni‘utā’.Footnote 44 This last composition appears to have served as the inspiration for the ’Idrot, which portray themselves as interpretations of the Sifrā’ Diṣĕni‘utā’.Footnote 45 The legend of Cain as the offspring of Satan occurs in this section of the Zohar on several occasions, its reworking resembling none of the other references in the Zohar. Here, it forms part of a mythic-exegetical description that views Adam and Eve's copulation as reflecting the divine intercourse between the masculine sĕfirāh of mercy and the feminine sĕfirāh of justice (the in the esoteric language employed here) in the upper world. In this context, the mythic-exegetical canvas is “stretched” to include the legend of Cain's birth.

The passage appears in the third chapter of the Sifrā’ Diṣĕni‘utā’:

Whether judgments had been sweetened, the Ancient One inquired. The serpent copulated with the female, and a nest of filth was woven within her, forming an evil abode, as it is written: She conceived and bore Cain [Qayin]—qinnā’ [in Hebrew], nest, of habitation of evil spirits, gales, and whirlwinds.Footnote 46

The familiar idea of Cain as the product of the “serpent's slime” and the progenitor of the demons is linked here to the myth of the “sweetening” of the feminine aspect of the Godhead. While the abstruse style makes any identification of our subject virtually impossible in this context, the broader expression of the idea in the ’Idrā’ Rabbāh—which in effect constitutes an interpretation of the passage in the Sifrā’ Diṣĕni‘utā’—gives us a much clearer picture:

We have learned this in the hidden book [ṣĕni‘utā’ dĕsifrā’]. The holy Atic inquired whether the judgments had been sweetened and they both were joined to each other, and harsh judgment emerged from the female side, which the world could not tolerate, as it is written: “And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, ‘I have created a man along with YHWH.’ ” And the world could not [tolerate it] since she was not yet appeased and the harsh snake instilled the impurity of harsh judgment in her, so that it could not be mollified. Therefore, when Cain emerged from the side of the female he exited rough and hard, harsh in judgment and heavy in judgment. As soon as he emerged [from her] she was weakened and was appeased. Following that she gave birth to another soul that was more sweetened.Footnote 47

As in the version examined above, the ’Idrā’ Rabbāh preserves residues of the ancient myth of Cain as Satan's offspring with which we are familiar. Here, however, the original sense it carried and the way in which it was revised are quite evident. The identification between the Cain/Abel and the evil/good polarity has been replaced by a “softer” antithesis between two forms of judgment, which is interwoven into the fabric of the “sweetening of the feminine aspect.” More significantly, Cain's demonic birth is represented here as a necessary stage in the purification of the “feminine”—and thus of the upper world as a whole—from the demonic element embedded within it. In a conscious, cathartic act, the demonic fibers are ejaculated from the holy space in which the divine coupling took place and drained into the “nest” outside it. Rather than stamping its presence on human nature, Cain's birth is thus intended to purify and cleanse the heavenly world of the demonic element with which it has been contaminated.Footnote 48 Naturally, in this new mythic-theosophical context the ethical and anthropological ramifications of the idea of the satanic man are stripped of their significance.

The creative use the author of the ’Idrot makes of the early tradition exemplifies the literary qualities of these compositions, which skillfully integrate ancient and other varied strata of Jewish legends, together with ideas far removed from their perspective, into their new spiritual world. At the same time, this author also exhibits a tendency towards modulating and mitigating the ancient demonic-deterministic myth of Cain as Satan's offspring, seeking not so much to suppress it from Jewish religious consciousness as to reframe it within a new mythic context.

While the Zohar relates the ancient legend and raises it to the surface again, it does so very cautiously and carefully. Refraining from assimilating the bold notion of Cain's demonic origins (an idea that may have been suppressed in the early talmudic and midrashic literature and only begins to emerge freely in later midrashic texts) in its pristine form, it rather juxtaposes the gnostic doctrine alongside other, more “humanistic” expositions in order to explain the appearance of murderous iniquity. It likewise revises the content in various ways that soften, mitigate, and on occasion even remove the extreme religious and ethical aspects of the story, according to which evil is not humankind's handiwork but the consequence of Satan's footprint in human history.

Epilogue

In his article “The Tendencies towards Concretization and Abstraction in the Kabbalah,” Isaiah Tishby examines various, at times contradictory, tendencies within kabbalistic thought from its initial emergence in Provence and Spain onwards.Footnote 49 He opens by remarking that “the tangible depiction and the abstract idea—two forms of expression of the human spirit that are contrary to one another in their essence and manifestation—are embedded together in Spanish and Provençal kabbalah as two ways of articulating certain streams. Sometimes they even appear to be intertwined and merge on the horizon of one stream.” In this short paper, Tishby does not detail the specific ways in which this “fusion” of mythic concretization and philosophical abstraction is carried out generally but merely offers one illustration—from the sixteenth century, no less—which he contends reflects the oscillation between the two poles.

In this article, I have focused on the history of a concrete midrashic myth from early kabbalistic thought, its path into the zoharic literature, and its development therein. I have sought to paint a high-resolution picture of the way in which the Zohar assimilated into its world an early myth whose Jewish roots are open to doubt at the very least. This example—together with other similar instances—can contribute to a broader understanding of the Zohar's creative project and illuminate the book's mythic features and mystical idealistic tendencies.Footnote 50 As Yehuda Liebes has demonstrated, the roots of a zoharic myth frequently lie in classical talmudic and midrashic literature.Footnote 51

While the Zohar likewise undoubtedly played a central role in retrieving and resurrecting myths rejected by the sages responsible for the talmudic and midrashic literature, it does not always represent the mythic peak of the midrashic tradition as it made its way into the Jewish consensus, the boldest version of the myth not infrequently—as in the case presently under discussion—occurring in the earlier stratum (here, Pirqē R. El.) and being absorbed into the zoharic world in a very restrained and reserved form. By reworking the ancient tradition and incorporating it via the skillful use of contemporary tools, the zoharic author succeeded not only in bridging the religious and cultural gaps of time and space but also—and more significantly—in reconciling the ancient material with the traditional rabbinic ethos. In this way, this author enabled its assimilation and development within the medieval Jewish religious space as an idea that would enrich Jewish thought, creativity, and exegesis for generations to come.

The picture drawn for us thus illustrates, on the one hand, the power of the mythic tradition, which, even after centuries of somnolence, can spring to life in the heart of cultural and religious consciousness. And, on the other hand, it also illustrates the fact that a revitalized religious culture is marked more by the dexterity with which it incorporates ancient traditions—and, in revising them, bestows upon them an accepted place within a vibrant and effervescent religious world—than by its rejection, exclusion, or suppression of older material.

References

1 Scholem, Gershom, Origins of the Kabbalah (ed. Werblowsky, R. J. Z.; trans. Allan Arkush; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1987)Google Scholar [italics in original]; see also ibid., 68–97; idem, Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism (New York: Schocken, 1954) 35. Moshe Idel alleges that the gnostic context is absent from Scholem's early research into Sēfer Habbāhir (i.e., his doctoral dissertation of 1923) but only appears for the first time in his slightly later works (see “Liv‘āyat Ḥēqer Mĕqorotāw šel Sēfer Habbāhir” [The problem of tracing the sources of Sēfer Habbāhir], in Second International Conference on the History of Jewish Mysticism [ed. Joseph Dan; Jerusalem: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 1987] 55–72, at 56). See also Pearson, Birger, Gnosticism, Judaism, and Egyptian Christianity (Minneapolis: Fortress, 1990) 39–51Google Scholar; Gruenwald, Itamar, “Jewish Sources for the Gnostic Texts from Nag Hammadi,” in Proceedings of the Sixth World Congress of Jewish Studies (Jerusalem: World Union of Jewish Studies, 1977) 45–56Google Scholar, at 56. For the converse view—i.e., of gnostic influence upon rabbinic literature—see Altmann, Alexander, Faces of Judaism: Selected Essays (Tel Aviv: Am Oved, 1983) 31–43Google Scholar [Hebrew]. For a broad survey of this subject, see Dan, Joseph, Ancient Times (vol. 1 of History of Jewish Mysticism and Esotericism; Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 2009) 342–47Google Scholar [Hebrew].

2 Tishby, Isaiah, The Wisdom of the Zohar (trans. David Goldstein; New York: Littman Library, 1989) 236Google Scholar.

3 See Dan, Joseph, Kabbalistic and Gnostic Dualism (New York: Praeger, 1994)Google Scholar; idem, “Samael and the Problem of Jewish Gnosticism,” in Perspectives on Jewish Thought and Mysticism Dedicated to A. Altmann (ed. Alan Arkush et al.; Amsterdam: Harwood, 1998) 257–76. It should be noted that in his latest book, summarizing the beginnings of kabbalah—one of the volumes in his series History of Jewish Mysticism and Esotericism—Dan appears to abjure the idea of phenomenological affinity itself; instead, he asserts that it is very difficult to “point to any significant parallels between the ‘gnostic’ sources and Sefer Habahir” (The Middle Ages [vol. 7 of History of Jewish Mysticism and Esotericism; Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 2012] 109 n. 66 [Hebrew]).

4 Idel, “Liv‘āyat,” esp. 72; idem, Kabbalah: New Perspectives (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990) 17–34.

5 Yehuda Liebes, “Bĕrēkhāh ’Umālē’ Bĕsēfer Habbāhir: ‘Iyyun Mĕḥuddā” (The pool and the mālē’ in Sēfer Habbāhir reconsidered), accessed March 3, 2013, http://pluto.huji.ac.il/~liebes/zohar/research.html.

6 It is also associated with the possible Cathar influence on Provençal kabbalah, and in particular on Sēfer Habbāhir. Although Scholem expresses some reservation about accepting links between these geographically and historically proximate communities, other scholars have posited clear lines of contact between them: see, for example, O. H. Lehmann, “The Theology of the Mystical Book Bahir and Its Sources,” in Studia Patristica (ed. Kurt Aland and Frank Cross; StPatr 1; Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1957) 477–83; Shahar, Shlomith, “Catharism and the Beginnings of the Kabbalah at Languedoc: Elements Common to the Catharic Scriptures and the Book Bahir,” Tarbiṣ 40 (1971) 483–507Google Scholar [Hebrew]. For possible Cathar influence on other Jewish circles, see Talmage, Frank, “An Hebrew Polemical Treatise: Anti-Cathar and Anti-Orthodox,” HTR 60 (1967) 323–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Berger, David, “Christian Heresy and Jewish Polemic in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries,” HTR 68 (1975) 287–303CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Shatzmiller, Joseph, “The Albigensian Heresy as Reflected in the Eyes of Contemporary Jewry,” in Culture and Society in Medieval Jewry: Studies Dedicated to the Memory of Haim Hillel Ben-Sasson (ed. Menachem, Ben-Sasson and Roberto, Bonfil; Jerusalem: Zalman Shazar Center, 1989) 333–52Google Scholar [Hebrew].

7 For other gnostic ideas linked to the story of Cain and Abel and their interpretation, see Oppenheimer, Benjamin, “Cain and Abel: The Gnostic Background,” in In Memory of Gedaliah Alon: Essays in Jewish History and Philology (ed. Menahem, Dorman, Shmuel, Safrai, and Menahem, Stern; Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 1970) 45–58Google Scholar [Hebrew].

8 Zohar 1.54a, in The Zohar: Pritzker Edition (trans. Daniel C. Matt; 9 vols. to date; Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2003–2016) 1:303.

9 Ginzberg, Louis, The Legends of the Jews (5 vols.; Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1940–1942)Google Scholar 1:105–6; Stroumsa, Gedaliah, Another Seed: Studies in Gnostic Mythology (Leiden: Brill, 1984) 45–53Google Scholar; Forsyth, Neil, The Old Enemy: Satan and the Combat Myth (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987) 312–14Google Scholar; Pearson, Gnosticism, Judaism, and Egyptian Christianity, 99–103; and Adelman, Rachel, The Return of the Repressed: Pirqe de-Rabbi Eliezer and the Pseudepigrapha (Leiden: Brill, 2009) 103–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 The Nag Hammadi Library in English (ed. James Robinson; Leiden: Brill, 1988) 146. For the dating of this composition see ibid., 131.

11 Pan. 40, 5.3, as translated in The “Panarion” of Epiphanius of Salamis (trans. Frank Williams; Leiden: Brill, 1987) 265–66.

12 Biblical quotations follow the NKJV.

13 “Panarion” of Epiphanius (trans. Williams), 265–66.

14 Tertullian makes this argument explicitly in adducing anger as the source of impatience: “For, immediately, that impatience which was conceived by the seed of the Devil with the fecundity of evil gave birth to a child of wrath and instructed its offspring in its own arts . . . it taught their son, also, to commit the first murder . . . Cain, the first homicide and the first fratricide” (Pat. 5.15–16, in The Fathers of the Church: Tertullian; Disciplinary, Moral and Ascetical Works [trans. Arbesmann, Rudolph, Emily Daly, and Edwin Quain; Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press / Consortium, 1959] 201)Google Scholar.

15 Although b. ‘Ēruv. 18b contains an exposition of this type, it does not link it with the story of Cain's birth. For Cain as son of God / son of Satan and the biblical expressions of this idea, see Knohl, Israel, “Cain: Son of God or Son of Satan?,” in Jewish Biblical Interpretation and Cultural Exchange: Comparative Exegesis in Context (ed. Natalie, Dohrmann and David, Stern; Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008) 37–50Google Scholar.

16 See also b. Yĕvām. 103b and b. ‘Avod. Zār. 22b. An early expression of this tradition is evident in 4 Maccabees: “I was a pure virgin and did not step outside my father's house, but I kept watch over the built rib. No seducer or corrupter on a desert plain corrupted me, nor did the seducer, the snake of deceit, defile the purity of my virginity” (4 Macc 18:7–8 [NETS, Westerholm]).

17 R. Johanan's innovation lies in his introduction of the element of impurity. Some of the early talmudic sources—including the earliest—contain a primitive version of this tradition, according to which the serpent's cunning derives from his desire to “kill Adam and marry Eve”: see t. Soṭāh 4:17–18; b. Soṭāh 9b; Gen. Rab. 18:6; and ’Āvot R. Nat. A 1.

18 For the view that this doctrine reflects a Jewish tradition, see Pearson, Gnosticism, Judaism, and Egyptian Christianity, 100; Stroumsa, Another Seed, 46–47, 168–169. According to the latter “the evidence suggests that this theme originated in Judaism. Actually, the theological questions raised both by the serpent's seduction of Eve and by the birth of the murderer Cain are far from confined to Gnosticism. Even before the Gnostics, Jews could have combined these two questions into one by arguing that the serpent (or Satan) was directly responsible for Cain's birth” (46). The fact that the motif of Eve's mating with the serpent was not as widespread within Christian texts as in talmudic and midrashic sources rather suggests that the gnostic myth in fact derived from Jewish circles. This argument ignores the fact that early aggadic material claims Cain's father is the serpent rather than Satan or Samael; however, the fusion between these two figures is also said to be the fruit of later midrashic thought: see Goldberg, Arnold, “Kain: Sohn des Menschen oder Sohn der Schlange?,” Judaica 25 (1969) 203–21Google Scholar and below. For the possibility that the idea is rooted already in the editing layer of the biblical text itself, see Knohl, “Cain,” 41 n. 15. Knohl's proposal for the editing process, interesting as it is, should be considered a speculative assumption, as it is far from evident.

19 The issue of the gnostic traditions embedded in the material common to both these texts has yet to be examined in depth: see Pearson, Gnosticism, Judaism, and Egyptian Christianity; Stroumsa, Another Seed; and Adelman, The Return of the Repressed, 71–108. For conjectures regarding the incorporation of rejected ancient tradition within Pirqē R. El., see Knohl, “Cain,” 48–50.

20 For a survey of the various opinions regarding the date and provenance of Pirqē R. El., see Eliezer Treitl, “Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer: Text, Redaction and a Sample Synopsis” (PhD diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2012) 9–12 [Hebrew]. For Tg. Ps.-J., see Shinan, Avigdor, The Embroidered Targum: The Aggadah in Targum Pseudo-Jonathan of the Pentateuch (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1992) 193–98Google Scholar [Hebrew]; Kasher, Rimon, “Aramaic Bible Translations,” Pĕ‘āmim 83 (2000) 85–86Google Scholar and the bibliography cited in 86 n. 82 [Hebrew]. For the non-talmudic traditions in Pirqē R. El., see Menahem Kister, “Ancient Material in Pirqe De-Rabbi Eli'ezer: Basilides, Kumran, the Book of Jubilees,” in“Go Out and Study the Land”: Archaeological, Historical and Textual Studies in Honor of Hanan Eshel (ed. Aren M. Maeir, Jodi Magness, and Lawrence H. Schiffman; Leiden: Brill, 2012) 69–93. For the relationship between Tg. Ps.-J. and Pirqē R. El. in general, see Shinan, Embroidered Targum, 176–85 and the bibliography cited therein; Robert Hayward, “Pirqe de Rabbi Eliezer and Targum Pseudo-Jonathan,” JJS 42 (1991) 215–46. With respect to the myth under discussion here, the traditions preserved in Pirqē R. El. appear to be early, the serpent not yet having been fully identified with Satan as in the early midrashic aggadah. While the talmudic version states that it was the serpent who “went in” to Eve, this figure is identified in Pirqē R. El. as the “rider on the serpent.” Targum Pseudo-Jonathan omits all reference to the serpent, the demon being identified by name—Samael.

21 For the English translation, see Friedlander, Gerald, Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer (New York: Sepher-Hermon, 1981) 150–51Google Scholar. For the Hebrew text, see Treitl, “Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer,” 233.

22 For the English translation, see Friedlander, Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer, 158–59.

23 According to the manuscript : see Rieder, David, Pseudo-Jonathan Targum Jonathan ben Uziel on the Pentateuch (Jerusalem: Salomon's Press, 1974) 6Google Scholar; Clarke, Ernest G., Targum Pseudo-Jonathan of the Pentateuch: Text and Concordance (New York: Ktav, 1984) 5Google Scholar. R. Menahem Recanati in his commentary on the Torah quotes a longer version: “And the man knew his wife Eve, who conceived by the Angel Samael and . . . bore Cain. And he resembled the upper and not the lower realm. And she said: I have gained the Angel of the Lord” (Pēruš ‘al Hattorāh [Venice: Daniel Bomberg, 1523; repr., Jerusalem: Amnon Gross, 2003] ad loc.) [Hebrew]. This longer text also reflects the exegetical link with the biblical verse, understanding as “the Angel of the Lord” rather than God himself: see Rieder, Pseudo-Jonathan Targum, 6 n. 4. For the relationship between the manuscript version and Recanati's on the one hand and the printed versions on the other, see Treitl, “Pirke de-Rabbi Eliezer,” 233 n. 91.

24 See also Yalquṭ Šim‘oni §25; Midrā Haggādol, ad loc.

25 See also Zohar 1.55a, 2.167b, 3.76b; New Zohar Canticles; and Midrā Ne‘elām Rut (New Zohar). I shall discuss some of these parallels below.

26 Midrash Rabbah: Genesis (trans. Harry Freedman and Maurice Simon; London: Soncino, 1961) 187.

27 See also Tiqqunē Zohar 70 (ed. Reuven Margoliot; Tel Aviv: Mossad Harav Kook, 1948) 119b; R. Isaac Luria's Ša‘ar Hakkawwānot, Dĕrušē hallaylāh 4 (Jerusalem: unknown publisher, 1988) 252; and Vital, R. Chaim, The Book of Visions (ed. Faierstein, Morris M.; New York: Paulist Press, 1999) 196–97Google Scholar.

28 This dualism is exemplified par excellence in Recanati's commentary on this passage: “Those with spiritual eyes can discern that hereby masculine ideas are separated from feminine ideas, just as the souls of the wicked do not emanate from the place whence the souls of the righteous emanate” (Pēruš ‘al Hattorāh, ad loc. [Bĕrēšit]). In the continuation, Recanati deliberately moderates the strict determinism this view entails: “If you perhaps find it difficult . . . know that it is not that they do not have the possibility of choosing but that one man will have greater difficulty than another.”

29 See The Bahir 200 (ed. Aryeh Kaplan; New York: Samuel Weiser, 1979) 81–82. This passage repeats Pirqē R. El. 13 virtually verbatim, and the idea of Samael riding upon the serpent almost certainly derives from this text. As surprising as Sēfer Habbāhir’s omission of the tradition identifying Cain as Satan's scion may be, however, it remains irrelevant as long as we cannot properly ascertain the circumstances of its editing. It must also be noted that, during the period in which the body of the text was composed in Provence—according to the scholarly consensus—the Cathar literature also echoes the idea that human evil derives from “the sons of Satan and the sons of the serpent”: see Shahar, “Catharism and the Kabbalah,” 486–87; Shifra Asulin, “The Mystical Commentary of the Song of Songs in the Zohar and Its Background” (PhD diss., Hebrew University of Jerusalem, 2006) 252–55 [Hebrew].

30 See Scholem, Gershom, “An Inquiry into the Kabbalah of R. Isaac ben Jacob Hacohen,” Tarbiṣ 4 (1933) 54–77Google Scholar, at 68–70; 207–25, at 222 [Hebrew].

31 For such an exegesis, see R. Moses of Burgos, The Left Pillar, in Scholem, “Inquiry into the Kabbalah,” 223; Abulafia, R. Todros, Ša‘ar Hārāzim (ed. Michal, Kushnir-Oron; Jerusalem: Bialik Institute, 1989) 67–68Google Scholar and nn. 131–33; idem, ’Oṣār Hakkāvod (Satu Mare, Romania: Meir Leib Hirsch, 1926) Ḥagigāh 11, 36a–b. A similar spirit is evident in the Rome manuscript, Casantanese 180, 59b–60a (edited by Scholem, in “Inquiry into the Kabbalah,” 68–70): see Asulin, “Mystical Commentary,” 252–55.

32 Zohar 1.54a, as translated in Pritzker Edition (trans. Matt), 1:302–3.

33 For Midrā Rut Ne‘elām and its place in the zoharic literature, see Kara-Ivanov Kaniel, Ruth, “‘She Uncovered his Feet’ [watĕgal margĕlotāw]: Redemption Journey of the Shekhinah; Ruth the Moabite as a Messianic Mother in Zoharic Literature,” Dē‘ot 72 (2012) 99–141Google Scholar, at 104–5 n. 19 and the bibliography cited therein [Hebrew].

34 The text of both these passages follows the Pritzker edition edited by Daniel Matt and translated by Joel Hecker (forthcoming) [bold text added]. My thanks go out to these scholars for allowing me to use it here prior to publication. For Zohar Ḥādā Šir Hašširim and its place within the zoharic literature, see Asulin, “Mystical Commentary,” 327–37 and the bibliography cited therein. For a broader and more extensive comparison of the two expositions, see ibid., 248–62.

35 See Asulin, “Mystical Commentary,” 232–36.

36 Recanati, R. Menahem, Pēruš ‘al Hattorāh, 129–31; R. Meir ibn Gabbai, Sēfer ‘Avodat Haqqodeš, part 4.14 (Jerusalem: Yerid Hasefarim, 2004) 516–17Google Scholar.

37 For an in-depth analysis of the relationship between the two sources, see Asulin, “Mystical Commentary,” 258–62. While she is inclined to identify the homily in Midrā Rut as the original version, in my opinion Zohar Hādā Šir Hašširim constitutes the earliest stage of the transmission of this tradition. This is evident both from the way in which the statements are attributed to Elijah—in the latter the attribution is adduced directly (“Uttered by Elijah”) where in the former it is said to have been “handed down” (“So have we heard from our masters, and they heard it extending back to the mouth of Elijah”)—and from the content. (This is not the place to discuss this issue at length, however.) Scholem appears to have had this in mind in remarking that the version in Zohar Hādā Šir Hašširim “is the most precise exegesis of the homily” (handwritten note to his copy of the Zohar Hādā, in the Gershom Scholem Library).

38 See Zohar 1.9b, 36b, 178a–b; 3.76b, 122a.

39 See Zohar 1.54a; 2.178a (Sifrā’ Diṣĕni‘utā’).

40 As Daniel Matt remarks in his notes to his edition of the Zohar (Pritzker Edition, 1:303, #1470), R. Eleazar of Worms's Ḥokhmat Hannefeš—composed in Germany several decades prior to the Zohar—already contains this statement: “For the spirits of the wicked still harm people in their death, just like the descendants of Cain, whence derive all the demons who were given permission to harm those who profane the Sabbath” (Lemberg: Avraham Nissan Zees, 1876) 26c. As indicated by the context, this refers to the souls of human beings who, after their death, continue to harm people as they did during their lifetimes. This nonetheless does not approximate the zoharic claim that all of Cain's descendants have been demons and spirits. Likewise, R. Moses of Burgos's summary in The Left Pillar to the effect that from the “root of Cain's essence and all his deeds . . . emanate and come all the things that harm and destroy and corrupt” does not parallel this view: it signals the root of the evil whence Cain's soul derives, his soul being also the source of all the iniquity in the world, rather than identifying him as the progenitor of all the demons and evil spirits.

41 On occasion, the Zohar itself attests to attempts to “correct” its original tradition in line with the more well-known version drawn from Pirqē R. El.: see 1.36b, which juxtaposes the phrase “from the side of Cain all evil haunts, goblins, and demons” with the phrase “from the side of Cain all the insolent, wicked sinners of the world.” See also 3.76b.

42 See Zohar 1.9b, 36b. See also Wolfson, Elliot, The Book of the Pomegranate: Moses de Leon's “Sēfer Hārimon ” (Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 1988) 294Google Scholar [Hebrew]. To this tendency must also be ascribed the zoharic tradition that Cain is the father of the “sons of God”—who, despite their involvement in human existence, according to the biblical text, are nonetheless divine rather than human beings (see Zohar 1.37a)—as well as the tradition that Cain's descendants are the creatures who populate the netherworld ().

43 For a recent study of the ’Idrot, see Neta Sobol, “The ’Idrot Section in the Zohar” (PhD diss., Tel Aviv University, 2011) [Hebrew]. For a review of the literature on this subject, see ibid., 4–9.

44 For the relationship between the ’Idrā’ Rabbāh and ’Idrā’ Zuṭā’, see the various publications of Yehuda Liebes. For a concrete example, see Shifra Asulin, “The Stature of the Shekhina: The Place of the Feminine Divine Countenance [parzuf] in ’Idrā’ Rabbāh and ’Idrā’ Zuṭā’,” in Spiritual Authority: Struggles over Cultural Power in Jewish Thought (ed. Haim Kriesel, Boaz Huss, and Uri Ehrlich: Ben-Gurion University of the Negev Press, 2009) 103–83 [Hebrew]. For the Sifrā’ Diṣĕni‘utā’, see (among his other works) Liebes, Yehuda, Ars Poetica in “Sēfer Yĕṣirāh” (Tel Aviv: Schocken, 2000) 127–48Google Scholar [Hebrew]. For a review of the literature on this subject, see Sobol, “Stature of the Shekhina,” 116–20. According to Liebes, the ’Idrā’ tradition is to be identified with the works of other kabbalists of the period, such as R. Joseph of Hamadan's Sēfer Tāaq and the writings of R. David b. Judah Heḥāsid (Yehuda Liebes, Studies in the Zohar [trans. Arnold Schwartz, Stephanie Nakache, and Penina Peli; Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993] 85–138).

45 According to Scholem, the impression given by the ’Idrot that they constitute an interpretation of the Sifrā’ Diṣĕni‘utā’ as an earlier work is misleading, since Moses de Leon is in fact responsible for both sets of texts, as well as almost all the sections of the Zohar (Scholem, Major Trends, 153–201). Liebes disputes this view, regarding the Sifrā’ Diṣĕni‘utā’ as preceding the former and penned by two different hands (Studies in the Zohar, 95–98). For the problems attendant upon attributing the ’Idrot to Moses de Leon, see Wolfson, Book of the Pomegranate, 51–55; Sobol, “Stature of the Shekhina,” 120–25 and the bibliography cited therein.

46 Zohar 2.178a (Sifrā’ Diṣĕni‘utā’), as translated in Pritzker Edition (trans. Matt), 5:568.

47 Zohar, ’Idrā’ Rabbāh 3.143a (according to the Mantua edition, 1558). The translation is the author's.

48 For the cathartic force of evil's emergence in the idric myth, see Liebes, Studies in the Zohar, 135; Moshe Idel, “The Evil Thought of the Deity,” Tarbiṣ 49 (1980) 356–64 [Hebrew]. For the appearance of this idea in the Zohar in another mythic-midrashic context, see Yisraeli, Oded, “The Suppressed Cry of Esau: From Early Midrash to the Late Zoharic Literature,” in New Developments in Zohar Studies (ed. Ronit, Meroz; Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University Press, 2003) 165–98Google Scholar, at 182–85 [Hebrew].

49 Tishby, Isaiah, “Lĕvērur Nĕtivē Hahagšāmāh Wĕhahafšāṭāh Baqqabbālāh,” in Paths of Faith and Heresy: Essays in Kabbalah and Sabbateanism (Jerusalem: Magnes, 1982) 23–29Google Scholar.

50 For additional examples, see Yisraeli, Oded, “The Ascent of Hanoch and Elijah in the Kabbalah of the 13th Century,” Pĕ‘āmim 110 (2007) 31–54Google Scholar [Hebrew]; idem, “Wĕkhi yādāw šel Mošeh ‘ośot milḥāmāh? Milḥemet ‘Amālēq Bazohar—Miṣṣorekh ’ādām lĕṣorekh gāvoah” (Now did Moses's hands make war? The war with Amaleq in the Zohar—from human to divine need), Kabbalah 23 (2010) 161–80.

51 Liebes, Yehuda, Studies in Jewish Myth and Jewish Messianism (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993) 1–65Google Scholar.