MrMacSon wrote: ↑Fri Apr 29, 2022 7:12 pm
The Sethian School of Gnostic Thought< . . . snip . . >
".. many of these treatises refer to a special segment of humanity called “the great generation,” “strangers,” “another kind,” “the immovable, incorruptible race,” “the seed of Seth,” “the living and immoveable race,” “the children of Seth,” “the holy seed of Seth,” and “those who are worthy.” The terms “generation,” “race,” “seed,” and “strangers” are all plays on the tradition of Seth’s birth as “another seed” (sperma heteron) in Genesis 4:25 (J source) and as bearer of the same image and likeness to God as was his father Adam in Genesis 5:3 (P source):
- Genesis 4:25, RSV
And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said, “God has appointed for me another seed (Hebrew kyīšā tli elohīm zera’ ’ahēr; Greek exanestēsen gar moi ho theos sperma heteron) instead of Abel, for Cain slew him.”Sethian Gnostic thought had its roots in a form of Jewish speculation on the figure and function of Sophia, divine Wisdom, whom the Jewish scriptures sometimes personified as the instrument through whom God creates, nourishes, and enlightens the world (Proverbs 1–8; Sirach 24; Wisdom of Solomon 7)*
- Genesis 5:3, RSV
When Adam had lived a hundred and thirty years, he became the father of a son in his own likeness, after his image (Hebrew wayyōled bidm–utō ketsalmō; Greek egennēsen kata t–en idean autou kai kata tēn eikona autou), and named him Seth.
Seth’s status as bearer and transmitter (unlike Cain and Abel) and ultimately restorer of the authentic image of Adam, the original bearer of the divine image, was of great significance to the original composers and users of this literature, whether or not they called themselves Sethians or “the seed of Seth.” < . . . snip . . >
'The Sethian School of Thought', in 'Epilogue: Schools of Thought in the Nag Hammadi Scriptures', in turn, in Marvin W Meyer, The Nag Hammadi Scriptures: The Revised and Updated Translation of Sacred Gnostic Texts, Harper Collins, 2010
Seth and Genesis 4:25 gets a mention in Philo's On the Posterity of Cain and His Exile
I. [1] “And Cain went out from the face of God, and dwelt in the land of Naid, over against Eden” [Gen. 4:16]. Let us here raise the question whether in the books in which Moses acts as God’s interpreter we ought to take his statements figuratively, since the impression made by the words in their literal sense is greatly at variance with truth. [2] For if the Existent Being has a face, and he that wishes to quit its sight can with perfect ease remove elsewhere, what ground have we for rejecting the impious doctrines of Epicurus [ie. that God has a human form], or the atheism of the Egyptians [ie. their worship of animals], or the mythical plots of play and poem of which the world is full? ...
II. [5] And whence does Cain “go out”? From the palace of the Lord of all? ...
[6] Again he that goes out from someone is in a different place from him whom he leaves behind. (If, then, Cain goes out from God), it follows that some portions of the universe are bereft of God. Yet God has left nothing empty or destitute of Himself, but has completely filled all things.
...< . . . snip . . >
III. [10] Adam, then, is driven out by God; Cain goes out voluntarily. Moses is showing us each form of moral failure, one of free choice, the other not so. The involuntary act, not owing its existence to our deliberate judgement, is to obtain later on such healing as the case admits of, “for God shall raise up another seed in place of Abel whom Cain slew” [Gen. 4:25]. This seed is a male offspring, Seth or 'Watering', raised up to the soul whose fall did not originate in itself. [11] The voluntary act, inasmuch as it was committed with forethought and of set purpose, must incur woes for ever beyond healing. For even as right actions that spring from previous intention are of greater worth than those that are involuntary, so, too, among sins those which are involuntary are less weighty than those which are voluntary.
IV. [12] Cain, then, has left the face of God to fall into the hands of Justice who takes vengeance on the impious. But Moses will lay down for his pupils a charge most noble “to love God and hearken to and cleave to Him” [Deut. 30:20]; assuring them that this is the life that brings true prosperity and length of days. And his way of inviting them to honour Him Who is the worthy object of strong yearning and devoted love is vivid and expressive. He bids them “cleave to Him,” bringing out by the use of this word how constant and continuous and unbroken is the concord and union that comes through making God our own ...
Seth : "raised up to the soul : whose fall did not originate in itself"
From the 'Analytic Introduction' of 'Philo,' Vol. II, by F.H. Colson and the Rev. G.H. Whitaker, 1929
At (§ 60) Philo illustrate[s], from the instance of Hebron, how names, like ‘Enoch,’ ‘Methuselah,’ ‘Lamech,’ can have two discrepant shades of meaning, as they have when borne by descendants of Cain and when borne by descendants of Seth. He is also led to give examples of that which is later in time being given precedence over what is earlier, as Hebron was placed above Zoan (60–65).