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.