Early teachings The idea that Eve mated with the serpent, or
Satan, and produced Cain, finds its earliest expression in the teachings of
Valentinus (100–160), who promoted a doctrine which is similar to the serpent seed doctrine because it states that Eve mated with the serpent and produced Cain. In his teaching, the serpent was the manifestation of an
aeon named Sophia who seduced Eve. The teachings of Valentinus were compiled in the Gnostic
Gospel of Philip (). A similar account is recorded in the Gnostic
Apocryphon of John which was authored by the
Sethians ().
Irenaeus recorded a portion of the teaching and denounced it as heresy in his book
Against Heresies. Explaining and commenting on the teachings of Valentinus, Irenaeus states:
Medieval Judaism The teaching also appeared in
medieval Judaica. In his 1957 book
Cain: Son of the Serpent,
David Max Eichhorn traces the belief that Cain was the son of the union between the serpent and Eve back to early Jewish
Midrashic texts which were composed between 800 CE and 1200 CE. Eichhorn identified rabbis who wrote about the topic, In their version of the serpent seed doctrine, Adam's first wife was
Lilith and his second wife was Eve. Lilith became possessed by the spirit of God's wife and rebelled against Adam and became the mother of all demons. Eve was subsequently seduced by the serpent and became the mother of a race of evil men. The
Aramaic text
Targum Pseudo-Jonathan contains passages which refer to the serpent seed concept. The targum was referenced by Rabbi
Menahem Recanati (1250–1310) in his Perush 'Al ha-Torah. The age of the writing is disputed. A 2006 analysis by
Beverly Mortensen dates the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan to the 4th century and she regards it as a manual for
kohanim. Gavin McDowell's analyses suggested that the document was created in the early 1200s because it includes excerpts from writings which date back to the 1100s. In the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan, the serpent is an angelic being who is named
Samael. And again, in the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan.. So Adam knew his wife Eve/Hava, who desired the Angel (
Samael), aka "The Serpent, Satan & The Destroyer" in Judaism & Talmudic Lore. And then she bore Kain. In one account
Samael is also believed to be the father of
Cain, as well as the partner of
Lilith. The relationship between Samael and Lilith is depicted in the
Sigil of Baphomet, the official insignia of the
Church of Satan.
Modern origins in British Israelism of
Israel found their way to
Western Europe and
Britain, where they became the ancestors of the
British and
related peoples. British Israelism reintroduced a version of serpent seed beginning in the mid-1800s. A small circle of ministers in the United Kingdom first began to develop what they called "seedline" doctrine in the 1790s. The seedline teaching stated that two races of people lived upon the earth: a righteous pure seedline of people and an unrighteous impure seedline of people. The early teachings of the seedline doctrine did not offer an origin story for the two groups. The original form of British Israelism taught the belief that the Anglo-Saxons were descended from the lost tribes of Israel and were therefore part of the pure seedline. British Israelism traces its roots to
Richard Brothers (1759–1824) who was one of the earliest promoters of the theology and published a tract on the topic in 1794.
John Wilson (1788–1870), and
Edward Hine (1825–1891) followed Brothers in promoting the doctrine in the mid-1800s and each of them also published books on the topic and acquired a large following within various Christian denominations. Elements of their teachings gradually became popular among members of the
Church of England. Each of them published books on the topic and they also acquired a growing number of followers within various Christian denominations. Parker integrated the serpent seed doctrine into
Calvinist Predestination. He connected the elect with the pure seedline, and he connected the non-elect with the serpent seedline. Parker published his beliefs in a tract which he entitled
Views on the Two Seeds while he was living in
Vincennes, Indiana in 1826. Parker's seedline doctrine identified the serpent as the father of Cain and the originator of the wicked impure seedline. Parker initially developed and promoted the serpent seedline doctrine as a key argument in his opposition to foreign
Christian missionaries. Parker believed that the non-white races who were the targets of foreign missions were people who were descended from the wicked seed of the serpent. He stated that since "God would save His own children, and since the children of Satan were predestined to eternal punishment, any kind of mission plan would seem ridiculous." Parker was labeled a heretic for teaching the doctrine by mainstream Baptists. The influences on Parker's beliefs are unknown, so he may have arrived at his version of the serpent seedline doctrine independently, or he may have been influenced by early British Israel teachings. Parker's teachings coincided with the promotion of the earliest form of
Polygenism in the United States by the Kentuckian
Charles Caldwell, who believed non-white races could not have descended from Adam. Although it was not widely accepted, Parker's teaching became well known among Calvinistic Baptists in Kentucky. "Two-Seed Predestinarian Baptists always remained a small group. The U.S. religious census of 1906 recorded 781 members. In 1938 there were 98 members." In the 1890s,
C. A. L. Totten (1851–1908), a former professor of
military science at
Yale University, began to promote British Israelism. Totten began to promote the belief that Anglo-Saxons were destined by God to rule the world. Also during the 1890s, British Israelism began to develop into a formal organization which took on racial overtones. In 1886, the growing group formed the
Anglo-Israel Association and in 1919, this group renamed itself the
British-Israel-World Federation. The primary aim of this group was the promotion of archeological expeditions which it wished to undertake in order to discover pieces of evidence which would validate its beliefs. The group remained small, but it gained a broader base of international appeal when it began to accept all
people of Germanic descent as part of the righteous seed-line of the lost tribes of Israel. By the 1930s, the movement had grown to include over 50 branches in the United States which were all under the leadership of
William J. Cameron, but the British Israel movement largely faded from view both during and after
World War II. Hoyle also suggested that Cain was the "mongrel offspring" of Eve's seduction by "an enticing
Mongolian" with whom she had repeated trysts, thus laying the foundation for the white supremacist bio-theology which states that
miscegenation is "an abomination". Blending contemporary
evolutionary thinking with pre-Adamism, the
Vanderbilt University theistic evolutionist and
geologist Alexander Winchell argued in his 1878 tract,
Adamites and Preadamites, for the pre-Adamic origins of the human race, that
Negroes were too racially inferior to be the descendants of the Biblical Adam. According to Professor Jon Schamber, Rev.
Philip E. J. Monson began to deviate his beliefs from the teachings of traditional British Israelism by developing Christian Identity theology. During the 1920s, Monson published ''Satan's Seat: The Enemy of Our Race'' in which he adopted Carter's theory on the origin of the impure seedline and combined it with
anti-Catholicism. Monson connected the work of the impure seedline to the activities of the
Catholic Church and the
Pope. Monson's ideas were popular among white supremacist organizations in the United States. Rev.
Wesley A. Swift (1913–1970), a minister and a former recruiter for the Ku Klux Klan, and a follower of Monson, accepted the serpent seed doctrine and Christian Identity Theology and was instrumental in promoting the teachings among white supremacists in the United States. Swift was a minister at the
Angelus Temple, a church frequently visited by
William Branham. Swift later separated and started a new church,
Church of Jesus Christ–Christian, which was later renamed
Aryan Nations by Swift's successor,
Richard Girnt Butler. Swift ordained several ministers who helped him to spread the theology. His lieutenants who helped him to spread the serpent seed teaching included two
Nazis, Oren Potito and Neuman Britton, and the prominent KKK leader
Connie Lynch. Swift and his fellow white supremacists began to promote the doctrine even more fervently during the
desegregation period of the 1950s and 1960s. According to Swift, the descendants of the serpent were "in violation of Divine law when they started to mutate species and mix races." The serpent seed teaching was used to justify
racial segregation and the prohibition of
interracial marriage. It was also during the desegregation period when William Branham (1909–1965) and Arnold Murray (1929–2014) first began to promote their versions of the serpent seed doctrine. Branham was the most successful promoter of the serpent seed doctrine, and his version of it was subsequently accepted by millions of his followers. During the desegregation era, a militant form of the doctrine was espoused, especially by Christian Identity groups, because its millennial teachings state that the pure race will wage a final battle against the evil descendants of the serpent in order to destroy them. Butler continued to promote the serpent seed doctrine throughout his life, and it continued to be prominently featured at annual Aryan Nations World Congress meetings into the 1980s and 1990s. Butler's teachings on the subject influenced the
Christian Defense League, the
American Nazi Party, the
Christian Vanguard,
David Duke and modern KKK organizations. ==Modern adherents==