The Mysteries of Seth
The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea,
even the wicked for the day of evil. Proverbs 16:4
Almost anyone today could declare that Adam and Eve had two sons, Cain and Abel. The third son is more difficult to name; he is Seth. The third son was provided by God as a replacement for the slain Abel, according to Genesis. He was sired rather late in life by Adam, for Adam is said to have been 130 years old at the time. The historian Josephus wrote that Seth was a very great man and that his descendants were the discoverers of many mysterious arts, including astrology. The descendants of Seth then inscribed the records of their occult discoveries, according to Josephus, on two pillars, one brick, the other stone, so that they might be preserved in times of future disasters.
In the treatise: The Apocalypse of Adam, the Gnostics presented us with a scripture that tells not only of Seth (and his father) but of the future of the esoteric tradition of gnosis in ages to come. It begins: The disclosure given by Adam to his son Seth in his seven hundredth year. And he said: "Listen to my words, my son Seth. When God created me out of the earth, along with Eve your mother, I went along with her in a glory which she had seen in the aeon from which she came forth. She taught me the word of Gnosis of the eternal God. And we resembled the great eternal angels, for we were higher than the God who created us."
After thus informing us once again of the spiritually superior status of Eve, the scripture goes on to recount how the creator turned against Adam and Eve, robbing them of their glory and their knowledge. Humans now served the creator "in fear and in slavery," so Adam stated. While previously immortal, Adam now knew that his days were numbered. Therefore, he said he now wanted to pass on what he knew to Seth and his descendants.
In the prediction it becomes apparent that "Seth and his seed" would continue to experience gnosis, but that they would be subject to many grave tribulations. The first of these would be the flood, during which angels would rescue the Gnostic race of Seth and hide them in a secret place. Noah, on the other hand, would advise his sons to serve the creator God "in fear and slavery all the days of your life." After the return of the illumined people of Seth's kind, the creator would once again wrathfully turn against them and try to destroy them by raining fire, sulfur, and asphalt down on them-an allusion, perhaps, to the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Once again many of the Gnostics would be saved by being taken by great angels to a place above the domain of the evil powers.
Much later there would be a new era with the coming of the man of light ("Phoster"), who would teach gnosis to all. The Apocalypse of Adam concludes with this passage:
This is the hidden knowledge of Adam which he gave to Seth, which is the holy baptism of those who know the imperishable Gnosis through those who are born of the Logos, through the imperishable Illuminator, who himself came from the holy seed (of Seth) Jesseus, Mazareus, Jessedekeus.
These names, which are obviously versions of the name of Jesus (they are found in other scriptures also), identify the culmination of the Gnostic tradition in the figure of Jesus. The "Race of Seth" is thus a biblical metaphor for those following this tradition. In the Gnostic book Pistis Sophia, Jesus identifies himself as coming from the "Great Race of Seth".
Old Answers to New Controversies
The current interest in Genesis raises many serious questions. Not a few of these have been illuminated by the neglected light shed by the scriptures quoted earlier. Not unlike the old Gnostics, today's questioning scholars and laypersons are provoked by Genesis to critiques and even to inventions of new variations on the ancient theme. Consider how deeply the social conditions of many countries have been influenced by the picture the orthodox version of Genesis presents concerning Eve and, by implication, women in general. Any of the several scriptures of the Nag Hammadi collection would shed an entirely different and more benign light on these issues.
Secondly, consider the political implications of the story of Genesis. Elaine Pagels, in her fascinating book Adam, Eve, and the Serpent (1988), pointed out that the long-held attitude of the Christian church of submitting to greatly flawed systems of secular government was usually justified by the "fallen condition" of humanity as first described in Genesis. Following largely the interpretations of Saint Augustine, most Christians felt that even bad governments were to be preferred to liberty because humans are so corrupted by Adam and Eve's original sin that they are in capable of governing themselves. The libertarian fervor of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that gave rise to the American and French revolutions was clearly not motivated by the spirit of Genesis. The statement that "all men are created equal" does not occur in that scripture, but sprang from the inspiration of the American revolutionaries, who drew from Hermetic, Gnostic, and similar non-mainstream sources.
Thirdly, there remains the terrifying problem of the character of the God of Genesis. Agreeing with Karen Armstrong, we find Jack Miles, in his provocative book God: A Biography writing: "Much that the Bible says about him is rarely preached from the pulpit because, examined too closely, it becomes a scandal." Perhaps we may need to take a second look at the Gnostic proposition that the creator mentioned in Genesis is not the true and ultimate God. The unfavorable potential present in the Book of Genesis did not go unnoticed throughout history. Rabbi Johanan ben Zakkai, a religious teacher prominent in the years after A.D. 70, warned that the Genesis story of creation should not be taught before even as many as two people. Saint Jerome, who translated the Bible into Latin, wrote that many of the narratives in the Old Testament were "rude and repellent." He certainly included those in Genesis.
The Dinka tribesmen of the Sudan have a point. The creation myth of any culture has a profound effect on the attitudes, social mores, and political systems that prevail. So long as the Book of Genesis remains a basic text for Jews, Christians, and Muslims we can expect the societies within which these religions flourish to be influenced by this book. Still, there is some hope on the horizon. Although the Gnostic alternatives to the content of Genesis are still usually neglected, as indeed they were on television and in the press last year, some prominent figures of our culture are beginning to take notice. To mention but one such figure, Harold Bloom has become one of the most prominent voices calling attention to the creative character of the Gnostic alternative to mainstream religion. His books American Religion (1992) and Omens of Millennium (1996) have made a powerful case for the timeliness and perennial value of the positions taken by Christian Gnostics, Jewish Kabbalists, and Sufi mystics, all of whom are inspired by a common gnosis. It may be useful to conclude with an incisive and in our view definitive statement from the pen of this scholar:
If you can accept a God who coexists with death camps, schizophrenia, and AIDS, yet remains all-powerful and somehow benign, then you have faith, and you have accepted the covenant with Yahweh.... If you know yourself as having an affinity with the alien or stranger God, cut off from this world, then you are a Gnostic, and perhaps the best and strongest moments still come to what is best and oldest in you, to a breath or spark that long precedes this Creation.