Hebrew Myths (15 page)

7
. An early midrash describes Cain’s mark as a letter tattooed on his arm; its identification in mediaeval texts with the Hebrew
teth
is prompted, perhaps, by
Ezekiel
IX. 4–6, where God sets a mark (
tav
) on the brows of the righteous few at Jerusalem who are to be saved. Cain was not judged worthy of this emblem. But the character for
tav
, the last letter of the Hebrew and Phoenician alphabets, was a cross; and from it derived the Greek
character
tau
which, according to Lucian’s
Court of Vowels
, inspired the idea of crucifixion. Since
tav
was thus reserved for an identification of the righteous, the midrash has substituted as Cain’s brand the letter closest to
tav
both in sound and written character; namely
teth
, whose ancient Hebrew and Phoenician form was a cross within a circle.

(
a
) Adam, fearing that another son born to Eve and himself might share Abel’s fate, abstained from intercourse with her for no less than one hundred and thirty years. During this time succubi often bore demons to Adam as he slept, by causing him dreams of sin and involuntary emissions of seed. Moreover, incubi debauched the sleeping Eve, fathering demons on her.
¹⁷⁶

(
b
) Like the succubi, these incubi, or Meri’im, were the shadowy spirits created by God on the Sixth Day towards dusk. Before He could complete their bodies the Sun set, the First Sabbath began and obliged Him to desist.
¹⁷⁷

(
c
) Since God chose to people Earth with men, not demons, He implanted in Adam’s heart a burning desire for Eve. Hitherto, Adam could refrain merely by absence; now, even at a great distance from Eve, desire rose in him so strongly that, remembering God’s command ‘Be fruitful and multiply!’, he sought her out again, they lay together, and she bore him Seth.
¹⁷⁸

(
d
) Some say that God’s angel commanded Adam to lie with Eve, but that he held back until promised a son named Seth—meaning ‘consolation’—who would relieve his grief for Abel. Others, that Eve said: ‘God has appointed (
shath
) me another son in Abel’s stead.’
¹⁷⁹

(
e
) When, after Seth’s birth, Adam returned to abstinence, Samael, again disguised as a beautiful woman, came pretending that he was Eve’s sister, and demanded marriage from him. Adam prayed for guidance, and God immediately revealed Samael’s evil shape. Seven years later, God once more told Adam to lie with Eve, undertaking that he would remove their temptation to wild and indecent lust. This promise He kept.
¹⁸⁰

(
f
) Before Eve died, she had borne Adam thirty pairs of twins, a son and a daughter each time, as the result of marital rites conducted in the utmost holiness and decorum.
¹⁸¹
Adam lived eight hundred years after Seth’s birth.
¹⁸²

***

1
. This myth, like that of Samael’s initiation of Adam into lust (see 15.
a
), reflects the Free Essenes’ view that to abstain from all sexual activity might have dangerous consequences. Josephus records their abstention from intercourse in the early stages of a woman’s pregnancy, and their three-year trial marriages to ensure fertility.

2
. ‘Seth’ appears in
Numbers
XXIV. 17 as a people living next to Moab, probably the nomadic ‘Sutu’ of Assyrian and Babylonian inscriptions.

3.
Josephus describes Seth as a virtuous man whose descendants lived in harmonious peace and who perfected astronomy, recording their discoveries on two pillars, one of which survived to his day. The first-century
A.D.
Ascension of Isaiah
places Seth in Heaven; and a late Jewish tradition makes him the Messiah. Seth became a hero of the Gnostic ‘Sethians’; also of the third-century
A.D.
Manichees, whose myths were partly Persian, partly Gnostic Jewish. Mani, the founder of Manicheeism, regarded both Cain and Abel as Satan’s sons by Eve; but Seth as their true offspring, full of light. In
Genesis
, however, no particular virtue is ascribed to him.

(
a
) By the tenth generation, Adam’s race had hugely increased. Lacking female company, the angels known as ‘Sons of God’ found wives among the lovely Daughters of Men. The children of these unions would have inherited eternal life from their fathers, but that God had decreed: ‘Let not My spirit abide in flesh for ever! Henceforth the years of man are limited to one hundred and twenty.’

(
b
) These new creatures were giants, known as ‘the Fallen Ones’, whose evil ways decided God to wipe from the face of the earth all men and women, with their gigantic corrupters.
¹⁸³

(
c
) The Sons of God were sent down to teach mankind truth and justice; and for three hundred years did indeed teach Cain’s son Enoch all the secrets of Heaven and Earth. Later, however, they lusted after mortal women and defiled themselves by sexual intercourse. Enoch has recorded not only their divine instructions, but also their subsequent fall from grace; before the end they were indiscriminately enjoying virgins, matrons, men and beasts.
¹⁸⁴

(
d
) Some say that Shemhazai and Azael, two angels in God’s confidence, asked: ‘Lord of the Universe, did we not warn You on the Day of Creation that man would prove unworthy of Your world?’ God replied: ‘But if I destroy man, what will become of My world?’ They answered: ‘We shall inhabit it.’ God asked: ‘Yet upon descending to earth, will you not sin even worse than man?’ They pleaded: ‘Let us dwell there awhile, and we will sanctify Your name!’

God allowed them to descend, but they were at once overcome by lust for Eve’s daughters, Shemhazai begetting on them two monstrous sons named Hiwa and Hiya, each of whom daily ate a thousand camels, a thousand horses and a thousand oxen. Azael also invented the ornaments and cosmetics employed by women to lead men astray. God therefore warned them that He would set loose the Upper Waters, and thus destroy all men and beasts. Shemhazai wept bitterly, fearing for his sons who, though tall enough to escape drowning, would starve to death.
¹⁸⁵

(
e
) That night, Hiwa dreamed of a huge rock above the earth,
like a table-top, and having a legend inscribed on it which an angel scraped off with a knife, leaving only four letters. Hiya also dreamed: of a fruitful orchard, and of other angels felling it until only a single three-branched tree remained. They told their dreams to Shemhazai, who replied: ‘Your dream, Hiya, signifies that God’s Deluge will destroy all mankind, except Noah and his three sons. Nevertheless, be comforted, for Hiwa’s dream signifies that your fame, at least, can never die: whenever Noah’s descendants hew stones, quarry rocks or haul boats, they will shout “Hiwa, Hiya!” in your honour.’
¹⁸⁶

(
f
) Afterwards Shemhazai repented, and set himself in the southern sky, between Heaven and Earth—head down, feet up, and hangs there to this day: the constellation named Orion by the Greeks.

(
g
) Azael, however, far from repenting, still offers women ornaments and many-coloured robes with which to lead men astray. For this reason, on the Day of Atonement, Israel’s sins are heaped on the annual scapegoat; it is then thrown over a cliff to Azazel—as some call Azael.
¹⁸⁷

(
h
) Others say that certain angels asked God’s permission to collect sure proof of man’s iniquity, and thus assure his punishment. When God agreed, they turned themselves into precious stones, pearls, purple dye, gold and other treasures, which were at once stolen by covetous men. They then took human shape, hoping to teach mankind righteousness. But this assumption of flesh made them subject to human lusts: being seduced by the Daughters of Men, they found themselves chained to Earth, unable to resume their spiritual shapes.
¹⁸⁸

(
i
) The Fallen Ones had such huge appetites that God rained manna upon them, of many different flavours, lest they might be tempted to eat flesh, a forbidden diet, and excuse the fault by pleading scarcity of corn and pot herbs. Nevertheless, the Fallen Ones rejected God’s manna, slaughtered animals for food, and even dined on human flesh, thus fouling the air with sickly vapours. It was then that God decided to cleanse Earth.
¹⁸⁹

(
j
) Others say that Shemhazai and Azael were seduced by the demonesses Naamah, Agrat daughter of Mahlat, and Lilith who had once been Adam’s spouse.
¹⁹⁰

(
k
) In those days only one virgin, Istahar by name, remained chaste. When the Sons of God made lecherous demands upon her, she cried: ‘First lend me your wings!’ They assented and she, flying up to Heaven, took sanctuary at the Throne of God, who transformed her into the constellation Virgo—or, some say, the Pleiades. The
fallen angels having lost their wings, were stranded on earth until, many generations later, they mounted Jacob’s ladder and thus went home again.
¹⁹¹

(
l
) The wise and virtuous Enoch also ascended to Heaven, where he became God’s chief counsellor, henceforth known as ‘Metatron’. God set His own crown upon Enoch’s head, and gave him seventy-two wings as well as multitudinous eyes. His flesh was transformed into flame, his sinews into fire, his bones into embers, his eyes into torches, his hair into rays of light, and he was surrounded by storm, whirlwind, thunder and lightning.
¹⁹²

(
m
) Some say that the Sons of God won that name because the divine light out of which God had created their ancestor Samael, Cain’s father, shone from their faces. The Daughters of Men, they say, were children of Seth, whose father was Adam, not an angel; and their faces therefore resembled our own.
¹⁹³

(
n
) Others, however, make the Sons of God pious descendants of Seth, and the Daughters of Men sinful descendants of Cain—explaining that when Abel died childless, mankind soon divided into two tribes: namely the Cainites who, apart from Enoch, were wholly evil, and the Sethites who were wholly righteous. These Sethites inhabited a sacred mountain in the far north, near the Cave of Treasure—some take it for Mount Hermon. The Cainites lived apart in a valley to the westward. Adam, on his deathbed, ordered Seth to separate his tribe from the Cainites; and each Sethite patriarch publicly repeated this order, generation after generation. The Sethites were extraordinarily tall, like their ancestor; and, by living so close to the Gate of Paradise, won the name ‘Children of God’.
¹⁹⁴

(
o
) Many Sethites took celibate vows, following Enoch’s example, and led the lives of anchorites. By way of contrast, the Cainites practised unbridled debauchery, each keeping at least two wives: the first to bear children, the second to gratify his lust. The child-bearer lived in poverty and neglect, as though a widow; the other was forced to drink a potion that made her barren—after which, decked out like a harlot, she entertained her husband luxuriously.
¹⁹⁵

(
p
) It was the Cainites’ punishment to have a hundred daughters borne them for each son; and this led to such husband-hunger that their women began to raid houses and carry off men. One day it pleased them to seduce the Sethites, after daubing their faces with rouge and powder, their eyes with antimony, and the soles of their feet with scarlet, dyeing their hair, putting on golden ear-rings, golden anklets, jewelled necklaces, bracelets and many-coloured garments.
In their ascent of the holy mountain, they twanged harps, blew trumpets, beat drums, sang, danced, clapped hands; then, having addressed the five hundred and twenty anchorites in cheerful voices, each caught hold of her victim and seduced him. These Sethites, after once succumbing to the Cainite women’s blandishments, became more unclean than dogs, and utterly forgot God’s laws.
¹⁹⁶

(
q
) Even the ‘Sons of Judges’ now corrupted the daughters of the poor. Whenever a bride was beautified for the bridegroom, one such would enter the nuptial chamber and enjoy her first.
¹⁹⁷

(
r
) Genun the Canaanite, son of Lamech the Blind, living in the Land of the Slime Pits, was ruled by Azael from his earliest youth, and invented all sorts of musical instruments. When he played these, Azael entered into them too, so that they gave forth seductive tunes entrancing the hearts of all listeners. Genun would assemble companies of musicians, who inflamed one another with music until their lust burned bright like fire, and they lay together promiscuously. He also brewed beer, gathered great crowds in taverns, gave them to drink, and taught them how to forge iron swords and spear-points, with which to do murder at random when they were drunk.
¹⁹⁸

(
s
) Michael, Gabriel, Raphael and Uriel told God that such wickedness had never before flourished on earth. God then sent Raphael to bind Azael hand and foot, heaping jagged rocks over him in the dark Cave of Dudael, where he now abides until the Last Days. Gabriel destroyed the Fallen Ones by inciting them to civil war. Michael chained Shemhazai and his fellows in other dark caves for seventy generations. Uriel became the messenger of salvation who visited Noah.
¹⁹⁹

***

1
. The explanation of this myth, which has been a stumbling block to theologians, may be the arrival in Palestine of tall, barbarous Hebrew herdsmen early in the second millennium
B.C.
, and their exposure, by marriage, to Asianic civilization. ‘Sons of El’ in this sense would mean the ‘cattle-owning worshippers of the Semite Bull-god El’; ‘Daughters of Adam’ would mean ‘women of the soil’ (
adama
), namely the Goddess-worshipping Canaanite agriculturists, notorious for their orgies and premarital prostitution. If so, this historical event has been tangled with the Ugaritic myth of how El seduced two mortal women and fathered divine sons on them, namely
Shahar
(‘Dawn’) and
Shalem
(‘Perfect’). Shahar appears as a winged deity in
Psalm
CXXXIX. 9; and his son, according to
Isaiah
XIV. 12, was the fallen angel Helel. Unions between gods and mortals, that is to say between kings or queens and commoners, occur frequently in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern myth. Since later Judaism rejected all deities but its own transcendental God, and since He never married or consorted with any female whatsoever, Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai in
Genesis Rabba
felt obliged to curse all who read ‘Sons of God’ in the Ugaritic sense. Clearly, such an interpretation was still current in the second century
A.D.
, and lapsed only when the
Bene Elohim
were re-interpreted as ‘sons of judges’.
Elohim
meant both ‘God’ and ‘judge’, the theory being that when a duly appointed magistrate tried a case, the Spirit of El possessed him: ‘I have said, ye are gods.’ (
Psalm
LXXXII. 6).