The Second Conference
of Abbot Serenus 21, written about A.D. 426 by the Christian scholar John Cassian,
sheds light on statements made in the Book of Mormon and the Book of Moses about
Cain, who slew his brother Abel.
An Old World contemporary of Mormon
and Moroni, Cassian wrote that “the sons of Seth who were the sons of God
saw the daughters of those who were born of the line of Cain, and inflamed with
the desire for their beauty
took to themselves from them wives who taught their husbands the wickedness
of their fathers, and at once led them astray from their innate holiness and
the single-mindedness of their fore-fathers.”
In the Book of Mormon, Cain and his descendants are said to have covenanted
with Satan to or-ganize the first of the secret com-binations that later flourished
among the Jaredites and the Ne-phites (see Helaman 6:27; Ether
8:15). The most well known of those groups was called “Gadian-ton’s
robbers and murderers” (Helaman 6:18). The devil was considered to be the
founder of such “secret combinations of murder” (see 2 Nephi 9:9;
26:22).
According to Helaman 8:28, the “secret band” among the Nephites was
authored by “Gadianton and the evil one who seeketh to destroy the souls
of men.” The Book of Moses confirms the devil’s role and provides
more details about the oaths and secrecy associated with Cain’s family
(see Moses 5:29–31, 49–52).
Cassian continues his account by providing additional material not found in the Bible but con-firmed in the Book of Mormon:
And so, as ancient traditions tell us, Ham the son of Noah, who had been taught these superstitions and wicked and profane arts, as he knew that he could not possibly bring any handbook on these subjects into the ark, into which he was to enter with his good father and holy broth-ers, inscribed these nefarious arts and profane devices on plates of various metals which could not be destroyed by the flood of waters, and on hard rocks, and when the flood was over he hunted for them with the same inquisitiveness with which he had concealed them, and so transmitted to his descendants a seedbed of profanity and perpetual sin. In this way then that common notion, according to which men believe that angels delivered to men enchantments and diverse arts, is in truth fulfilled. From these sons of Seth then and daughters of Cain, as we have said, there were born still worse children who became mighty, hunters, violent and most fierce men who were termed giants by reason of the size of their bodies and their cruelty and wickedness.
The keeping of records on metal plates is a major theme in the Book of Mormon,
but equally significant is Cassian’s assertion that Ham had learned the
“wicked and profane arts” of Cain and had inscribed them on metallic
plates that he hid before the flood and later retrieved. The story is paralleled
by the account of the Gadianton robbers, who “concealed their secret plans
in the earth” and later retrieved them (see Helaman 11:10, 26).
A medieval Jewish text that comments on the building of the Tower of Babel (see
Genesis 11:2) indicates that the people of that time “found remnants of
the secret wisdom that had been left there by the generation of the Flood, and
with that they made their attempt to provoke the Holy One, blessed be He”
(Zohar Genesis 76a).
Although we cannot ascertain what were the “ancient traditions” and
“secret wisdom” to which Cassian and the Zohar referred, it is interesting
that the account parallels those found in two books of scripture that came to
us through a modern prophet, Joseph Smith. !
Notes
1. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, eds., Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second
Series (1894; reprint, Peabody,
Mass.: Hendrickson, 1995), 11:383.
2. Ibid., 11:384.
3. Harry Sperling and Maurice Simon, trans., The Zohar New York: Rebecca Bennet Publications, 1958), 1:259.
By John A.Tvedtnes
Hiding the Secret Plans