Human Nature In Its Second Estate

The Cainite

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Doctrinal Studies

Lesson: 5-11

Genre: Speech

Track: 14

Dictation Name: RR131G14

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s - 1970’s

[Dr. Rushdoony] Genesis 4:16-17. The Cainite. Genesis 4:16-17, the Cainite.

And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden. And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.

Cain is usually spoken of as the builder of the first city. This city was named after his son Enoch, which means, initiation, dedication, that is, a new beginning. The Hebrew word that is here used for city is a very strange and unusual word. As a French Scholar, Jacque A’Lule{?} has pointed out, the word means several things. It can mean what we mean by a city historically, that is, a wall and closed area of habitation. It can also mean the watching angel in a demonic sense, and the vengeance and the terror. This is an unusual word. We do have words in English that have more than one meaning, the word well, for example, obviously has more than one meaning. But here we have such an unusual combination of meanings, all concentrated on one thing. That which is called the city. A walled enclosure, a demonic watching guardian angel, vengeance and terror.

This was the meaning of the city. Now the comparison here to Eden is very obvious. As we analyze the significance of what Cain did, certain things very definitely must be noted, because we cannot understand the meaning of Cain and of his psychology or the meaning of his building of this first city, unless we recognize these things. First of all, Cain’s city was not the first city. The Garden of Eden was the first. True, in the Garden of Eden there was no one but Adam and Eve. Very definitely, the city was limited therefore to two people. But Cain, when he built his city, had no one in it save himself, his wife, and then his first son, Enoch. Very definitely too, God intended the Garden of Eden to be both a garden and a city. In Revelation chapters 21 and 22, we see very clearly that God declares that the New Jerusalem is the old Eden fulfilled. So that Eden was created to be the city of God, the New Jerusalem, the kingdom of God. Now when Enoch built the city, his goal was an imitation of God’s goal, community. But not on God’s terms but on Satan’s terms. Ye shall be as gods, knowing, every man determining for himself, good and evil. Let us look again, secondly, at the word city. Vengeance and terror. A hovering, guarding, demonic angel. This very, very definitely has reference to Genesis 3:24. Where we are that God drove out the man and He placed at the east of the Garden of Eden cherubim’s and a flaming sword which turned every which way to keep the way of the Tree of Life.

The expression, a flaming sword, can also be translated, a turning sword like flame or lightning. Continually revolving around the Garden of Eden, as long as it existed until the time of the Flood. Forever barring man from re-entering. The Cherubim’s kept man from re-entering Eden. Cain, with his walls around his city, and with the title of the city or the name of the city being what it is in Hebrew, was in a sense, invoking demonic angels to guard his city. Even as God used Cherubim’s to guard his. And his demonic angels to be a terror and a vengeance to all who transgressed.

But third, we need to ask the question, whom did Cain try to keep out? Very definitely in Genesis 3:24, the purpose of the Cherubim’s and the lightning around the Garden of Eden was to prevent mankind from returning to the Garden in it’s state of sin. But what Cain’s purpose and who was to be kept out? Some have said it was his godly relatives. He was afraid that Adam, his father and his other brothers, Seth and the others that were born subsequently, would try to kill him. Some have even said he was afraid of his own sons and grandsons. This does not make sense. In Genesis 4:15 we read very clearly, and the Lord said unto him, to Cain, therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a mark upon Cain lest any finding him should kill him. Some have tried to read this as a physical mark. There’s no ground for this in the text. Mark now a-days has come to mean a physical sign. It did not so mean at that time. Our word has become restricted in recent years. For example, in the older usage, mark my words. Mark does not mean there a physical sign. The word marked here, therefore, means a guarantee. A token or a pledge that this would not happen. So that we can translate this as, God gave Cain a sign or a guarantee that whoever found him would not murder him.

It can also be translated, the latter portion, no one finding him should slay him. He therefore, he had no man to fear. God very definitely made it clear to Cain and made it clear to every other person alive, all the rest of the family of Adam and Eve, that Cain was not to be slain. When we studied biblical law, we saw the meaning for this. The family is not given the right to take life. Tremendous powers are given to the family, but from the beginning it was not permitted to take life. And to maintain the integrity of the family and to limit it to it’s proper sphere, it was more important that Cain be not executed then for the family to assume powers that did not belong to it. The power of the sword, the power to kill, belong to the state. And mankind was at that time still a family. But then we read immediately after this fact, that God had given Cain a guarantee that no one would kill him, that Cain went out from the presence of the Lord. And dwelt in the land of Nod. Or, more literally, in the land of wandering, on the east of Eden. Immediately after this assurance was given to Cain, Cain abandoned God. Totally. Wanted nothing to do with Him. His hostility had been against God from the beginning, and he had murdered his brother Able because Able was godly, because Able represented God and His Word. His fear was of God. The city was built in imitation of God’s city, and in defiance of God and in fear of God. Cain’s city was man’s work as against God’s work, man’s laws against God’s law. And man’s planning and control against God’s predestination.

The Cainite dream therefore is an ancient one in all society, Enoch, Babel, Babylon the Great, one worldism, the state as man’s salvation, this is man’s dream. It has culminated in the last two centuries with open and avowed humanism. The great father of modern humanism was the father also of sociology, Auguste Comte. And Comte formulated the religion of humanity. The purpose of which was to worship man. And all modern humanism is colored by Comte’s thinking. It is significant that Comte read the whole of the world and of life in terms of Satan’s temptation. Ye shall be as gods, knowing, determining, what is good and evil. And in his sociology, Comte said that since man was his own god, it was man’s duty to go through the entire world and eliminate, destroy, wipe out, every animal and plant that he didn’t find useful. This is why we have had the kind of thing that the ecology people are objecting to. For about a century and a half in terms of Comte’s thinking, the attitude on the part of humanists and scientists has been that anything that man doesn’t see any use for should be eliminated. And now that they’re finding out that this policy is wrong, on whom do they blame this kind of killing? Why on Christianity of course. They are sons of Cain, a liar and a murderer. And sons of Satan and the truth is not in them. But this whole policy of killing comes straight out of Auguste Comte.

This was the dream therefore in Cain’s city. A city in which man would be his own god and he would keep God out. Bar God’s law from the city. Make his own law. Determine for himself what is good and evil. Thus very clearly Cain was setting himself up as a new creator. And hence the name of the city, as well as of his son. A new beginning, a dedication to this faith that the Tempter had given to mankind.

Eden represented one beginning, but here was a new beginning without God and against God, which barred God from the city. And this of course is the essence of everything we see in our day. The attack of youth today on the establishment is precisely they accuse the establishment of having elements of law and order, of having a hangover from Christianity, of believing in certain things that they should not believe in. As a result, they want a total overthrow of everything, and a truly political order, and by political they mean without God. Totally separated from God. It is very interesting that in the July 1971 issue of ‘Ramparts’{?}, John Lennon, the leader of the Beatle group, has declared that when he said, a few years ago, that the Beatles are bigger than Jesus, it was a political act on his part. What did he mean by that, a political act? Why yes, he meant by that that man could be free from God and create a political order to replace God’s order. And a group of young men like himself and his associates could have more impact on the world and more determination on it than God or Christ. And if they could do it, why couldn’t mankind as a whole rid itself of God, rid itself of Jesus and create its new world. His wife, Yoko Lennon, has in this same article said, and I quote, “I want to incite people to loosen their oppression by giving them something to work with, to build on. They shouldn’t be affrighted of creating themselves. That’s why I make things very open, with things for people to do, like in my book. Because basically there are two types of people in the world. People who are confident, because they know they have the ability to create, (that is as new gods) and then people who have been demoralized, who have no confidence in themselves, because they have been told they have no creative ability but must just take orders. The establishment likes people who take no responsibility and cannot respect themselves.” Unquote. Responsibility in Yoko Lennon’s vocabulary means a rejection of biblical responsibility and an assumption of a godlike freedom. And both John and Yoko Lennon see the family as a part of the god trick. Or father figure trick, to use their language. Which must be dissolved. And this points to anther aspect of the Cainitic mentality.

The masochistic urge to be cast out and somehow deprived or oppressed. Cain said, my burden, my punishment, is greater than I can bear. He had killed his brother Able, he had no pity on him. God had made it clear to him that his life was going to be spared. But, my punishment is greater than I can bear. Filled with self-pity. Although no punishment was imposed upon him physically. He was filled with self-pity and felt he was being unduly mistreated. In all the sons of Cain there is this masochistic urge to be cast out and somehow deprived or oppressed. And both Yoko and John Lennon very clearly reveal this.

And John Lennon always makes a big point about the fact that he came from a broken home. This is, so to speak, his merit badge. He brings it up in all interviews. It’s a sign somehow that he is an abused person. Their comments in this interview are very interesting. John Lennon said, and I quote, “Mine is an extreme pace, you know. My father and mother split and I never saw my father until I was twenty, nor did I see much more of my mother. But Yoko had her parents there and it was the same. And Yoko says, perhaps one feels more pain when parents are there. I often wish my mother had died so that at least I could get some people’s sympathy. But there she was, a perfectly beautiful mother.” Unquote.

There you have it very clearly. What a horrible fate she had, a perfectly beautiful mother. Could anyone be more mistreated by life. Things had been so good for her in her home, if only she had suffered like John had. Had been in a broken home. And this is why all the sons of Cain who have the psychology of fallen man, are ridden by guilt and feel the need to feel hurt and oppressed and cast out. And they agitate and they demonstrate and they aggravate, until some kind of action is taken, so that they can feel oppressed and persecuted.

This is what they’re asking for. The Scripture tells us that God in cursing Cain said that a fugitive and a vagabond thou shalt be and the earth, when thou tillest the ground it shall not hence forth yield unto thee her strength. Moreover, He said, now art thou curst from the ground which have opened her mouth to receive thy brothers blood from thy hand. Dr. Loophold{?}, a Lutheran scholar, has translated this, and now cursed shalt thou be, driven away from the ground which has opened its mouth to receive thy brothers blood from thy hand. And this brings out the force of the text more clearly. Driven away from the ground. And away from the ground means so there is no ground for you. This means that the earth promised to the blessed meek is denied to the Cainites. Even when they possess it they are aliens to it. They are fugitives and vagabonds, they are homeless wanderers even when they possess a place, for the earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof. Significantly, the term alienation is a humanistic term invented by the humanists. They feel alienated from the world. Alienated from the earth, alienated from men. The Cainite is forever a homeless wanderer in his soul.

There’s a very interesting fact, St. Paul uses a similar but not identical image, for the believer. In Hebrews 11:13-17, he says that the believers are strangers and pilgrims, homeward bound to the New Jerusalem. And in Hebrews 13:14 he says, for here we have no continuing city, but we seek one to come. But there is a difference. Very definitely a major difference. Cain and all his progeny, in every generation, are homeless wanderers. The believer never is homeless.

He is a citizen of no mean city, a citizen of the New Jerusalem. And although he has no continuing, no permanent city here, he can build and establish and only that which he builds and establishes, is blessed by God. The Cainites are homeless when they build and possess a city, the people of God who are pilgrims are citizens, both of this world and of the world to come. Destined to possess the earth as the blessed meek of God, and to reign in eternity as heirs of all things. Thus because this is a sin ridden world, we have no continuing city. But unlike the people of Cain we are not homeless wanderers, but we are pilgrims, always with a destination.

Let us pray. Almighty God our Heavenly Father, who hast called us to be pilgrims of Jesus Christ, citizens of the new creation, the blessed meek who shall possess the earth and delight themselves in the abundance of peace, we give thanks unto Thee that even in the midst of Babel and Babylon, we are not homeless. We are not forsaken, we are not vagabonds, but have ever a destination. We thank Thee our Father that Thou art the pillar and the fire before and behind us. Our ever present help in time of need. And so with joyful hearts we praise Thee for Thy grace and Thy mercy, for Thy salvation through Jesus Christ our Lord, and for the promises set before us, in Thy Word. In Jesus name, Amen.

Are there any questions now, first of all with respect to our lesson.

Yes.

[Audience] …{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Self-defense is a possible cause, but this is not execution, you see, in the strict sense of the world. And even there it is best to do anything short of execution, or killing. It is the restraint on the family. The family is the area of life, it is the bringer of life into the world and the nourisher of life. And therefore death is not to be a part of the function of the family, but of the state. And therefore even in a case of defense, it should be, as far as possible, avoided.

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] No. In the case of the incorrigible son, the parents had to be the complaining witnesses among others. Otherwise they were guilty with their son, if they were not ready to be complaining witnesses. On the other hand, it was the one case where the witness did not participate in the execution. Because they were parents at this point, even though they were complaining witnesses, they could not participate in the execution.

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. A good question. What relationship is there between civilization and the city? In fact, the word civilization comes from the Latin word for city. Civil{?}. That which is connected with the city. The world politics comes from polis, the Greek word for city. Civilization very early was connected with the city, because the city was the center where trade and commerce, where protection, where safety was possible, because the world was a sinful world.

On the other hand, the city has had a dual impulse throughout civilization. It has most of the time had a anti-God function. Under Christian hands, it has had a godly function. So that city has both been Babylon and Babel, and it also has been Jerusalem. So, the city has tried on the one hand, to build up an anti-God civilization, and on the other hand, a godly civilization.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] No, the primitive peoples are referred to as cultures, rather than civilization. Because while they live in community, in villages or as nomads in a group going from place to place, they have not built up yet a formal urban culture. The idea that primitive people live alone is all together wrong. Mankind has always lived together in groups. Always. It is only as you get a Christian culture that man can begin to live, by and large, in any kind of peace and safety, say on a farm or outside the city walls. Because otherwise he is totally a victim, and in other cultures only the lowest of the low were left out of the city. In China it was the coolie class, the peasants of the lowest sort, who were not part of the city and its protection.

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes, but you see, none of these things have any significance because the geographical descriptions that are given before the Flood, no longer exist. In other words, there were such radical geographical changes with the Flood, that the place names remain, in that after the Flood they used the names of the old places for new. Just as the English coming here used the old names, like Portland and Boston and Salem, and so on. But they had no relationship to the locations in Europe. Or in England. So, they took the old names from the world before the Flood, but it was totally changed. so we have no way of locating any of these locations.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] No. We have no way of knowing. We do know that you find civilization as far back as you go.

[Audience] {?}

[Dr. Rushdoony] What?

[Audience]..{?}..

[Dr. Rushdoony] It has been a source of major surprise to scholars in the last few years, how advanced men were 4000 years ago, and how much has been forgotten. You recall I showed pictures sometime ago of the palace at Crete, which goes back 24 or more centuries B.C, three story palace, magnificent, hot and cold running water, flush toilets, everything. All that subsequently disappeared.

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] The Canaanites, who were there in the land, were grandsons of Noah, the Bible tells us, descendants of Ham, by his son Canaan. The question, whom did Cain marry. The marriages in the early part of mankind, the only law that we find in the law that was not observed prior to Moses, was the law with respect to incest. They married sisters or cousins and so on. Now, this was genetically possible. Because, since all the genetic potentialities of all of mankind, of all the races were there in Adam and Eve, of black, red, yellow, white, and all the diversities of these, the children of Adam and Eve were less related to each other than two Englishmen or two Germans are related to each other.

As a result, there was no genetic damage. Now, a few scholars, notably Dr. Arthur Cudston{?}, of Canada, a scientist, have done some studies in this. For some time after Moses, incest continued among certain peoples. The reason being, for marriages, say, with half-sisters usually, and Cleopatra was a product of such a marriage. And it continued for a long time in the royal line of Egypt as well as elsewhere. The purpose was to consolidate power and property. Because if you married outside the family you would divide the power and the property. Now, it is very clear at what point, roughly, such marriages began to be genetically dangerous. A few years ago, within the past twenty years or so, a study was made of babies born of incest in England. The study was a shocking thing, because everyone of the children had very serious problems. Physical problems, as many of them did not survive more than a few years. The mental problems were extreme. I.Q.’s were the fifties and sixties. So that the inbreeding very clearly and very definitely, brought out very, very extensive damage.

Now, the point that Dr. Cudston{?} made was this. The genetic inheritance was so diverse as the beginning, that no damage was possible. Only as the various races began to separate and develop, and then, a long time after that, in the Christian era, and quite late in the Christian era, did it become genetically damaging. As a result, he says, it is impossible, under any circumstances, to posit a long history for mankind. Mankind has to have a very young history, going back just about six to seven thousand years, at the most, as the Bible indicates.

And it had to come from two person who had all the genetic potentialities in them. Because as he traces this out, as a geneticist, he says, only a certain span of time is possible before inbreeding would set in with dangerous consequences. So that mankind would not have been able to function as long as it did, if it did not have the short history, and just the two parents. So, from the stand point of genetics, he has demonstrated the reality of what the Bible teaches us here. It’s a very interesting thing, a little paperback that is obtainable from Canada, I think for about a dollar, a dollar and fifty, something like that.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] No, because if you have someone of lower genetic strains, diversification doesn’t do anything to perpetuate that. However, he does bring out evidence that in many part of the world where people have tended to stay put in a area, and there has been to much inbreeding, serious problems develop, as with the Pitcairn Islander, you see. And they haven’t been there to long. Not much more than a century or so. And you had a diversity to begin with, a group of Englishmen and native women. But in this amount of time, it has led to problems. On the other hand, you had a number of superior strains coming to this country and intermarrying. And the diversity has prevented some of the problems that have set in in local areas of Europe where people are inbreeding to much. Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] No. the concept of the unconscious is based on the concept that man is a product of a long evolutionary past and the animal past is still basic in him and controls him. And he is therefore to be accounted for in terms of animal drives and impulses which are imbedded in his unconscious. The premise is wrong and the conclusions from the premise are wrong.

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Well, the answer to that is, first of all, to deny it in principle, because it rests of a false premise. Therefore, then to go to, well, my little book on Freud and point out what is the unconscious according to Freud and to others. Basically, the unconscious is made of three urges which constitute the will to live. These urges are to commit incest, parricide, to murder the father, and cannibalism, to eat the father. Now, tell a person who defends the concept of the unconscious, do you believe that this is the essence of your being, which governs and motivates your life? Are these the three things that constitute your will to live? I think they’ll have some problems with that.

Yes.

[Audience] {?}

[Dr. Rushdoony] To leave the presence of the Lord meant that not only did he leave God’s presence, when God spoke to him, but also symbolically, he cut himself off totally and forever from any acknowledgment that God is God. From any recognition of God’s law. So that he said in effect to himself, for me there is no god. God is dead, and I am god and I will create a new city as soon as possible, which will be a new beginning for mankind, free from God.

[Audience] {?}

[Dr. Rushdoony] Of course. But he was in effect saying, I no longer acknowledge Him, I will not admit that He is. It’s tantamount to the same thing if I shut my eyes and say, you see, you don’t exist any longer.

That’s what Cain was doing.

Yes.

[Audience]…{?}…

[Dr. Rushdoony] Yes. The question is, have we made a transition from a Christian culture to a pagan humanistic culture. The answer is, we are definitely trying to do so. Our courts are definitely trying to rewrite all the law and the interpretation of the Constitution terms of humanism and paganism. On the other hand, they are finding that the elements of the Christian culture are still there and somewhat stronger than they realize. It isn’t going to disappear overnight. However, very definitely, among the younger generation, which are educated in the public schools, in overwhelming numbers, they are pagan. As against that, we are having a new generation which are Christian school products, which are definitely Christian. And so what you are in effect seeing now is a religious war. Which is coming to the fore increasingly, in that there’s a radical desire on the part of the pagan, humanistic people, to eliminate Christianity entirely. Not to acknowledge its existence. Now, I was interested, the student magazine, it’s the conservative student publication on university campuses, it’s put out at the University of Indiana. Alternative. It circulates about twenty five thousand copies per issue. In the last issue, they had an article about me and my books. And to make sure it was proper written they asked Gary North to write it. So one of the things that Gary called attention to was that there was a deliberate avoidance of any mention of me. In most periodicals, by most reviewers. A studied attempt to act as though I did not exist, and yet here, my works were well enough known so that I was one of the top two that this student magazine chose. Well this is symptomatic of the times. They are acting as though you and I and everyone who stands up for Christ, does not exist.

But not only do we exist but we are the only ones who are establishing anything today that can endure. And today you are seeing the last days of the public schools, its radical collapse. Do you know that ten, fifteen years ago, as early as the beginning of the sixties, people were developing a new community or a new subdivision always, if it were a big thing, say, like Westley{?}, the first thing they did is to set apart a large area of land for a college. And invite somebody to come in and start a college. That’s how the Lutheran College got started there. Every large development set aside land for a college. Well that’s the last thing they want to do today. These humanists have no greater horror than of a educational institution. Now high schools and junior colleges, public schools, being established near them.