ame of the sons of God." Gen.
vi., 2.(85) It is stated in Julius Africanus that all the righteous men
and patriarchs down to the Saviour himself have sprung from Seth and
have been denominated as the sons of God in contradistinction to the
sons of man.

85) Forlong, Rivers of Life, vol. i., p. 527.

Doubtless at the time indicated by the transference of the creative
agency from Aleim to Adam, the worship of an abstract principle, or of
a Trinity composed of the powers of Nature, was losing its hold on the
minds of the people, and the creative power, or the reproductive energy
in human beings, was rapidly taking the place of the older Deity. These
higher principles forgotten, Adam, or man, had become the Creator.

It is not improbable that the terms Adam, Cain, Abel, and Seth have
an esoteric meaning which for ages was known only to the priests. From
various facts which in later times are being brought forward regarding
the ancient myths of Genesis, it is believed that these names originally
stood for races of men, and that subsequently certain religious
doctrines came to be attached to them. The offering of fruit by Cain,
the elder brother, who was a tiller of the ground, and that of flesh by
Abel, who was a keeper of sheep, indicates a quarrel which ended in
the death of the latter. After the death of Abel, or after one of these
principles or sects was subdued, the older religion was revived,
and Seth, as the Aleim, or as the creative power within the sun, was
"appointed" or again worshipped.

It would seem that Seth was appointed to represent the third person in
the ancient Trinity--the Destroyer or Regenerator which had previously
come to embody all the powers of the Creator and Preserver. The fact has
been observed that the very ancient philosophers believed matter to be
eternal, hence, seeming death, or destruction, was necessary to renewed
life or regeneration. In other words, creation was but continuous change
in the form of matter.

Of the doctrines of the Sethians extant at the beginning of
Christianity, Hippolytus says that their system "is made up of tenets
from natural philosophers. These tenets embrace a belief in the Eternal
Logos--Darkness, Mist, and Tempest." These elements subsequently became
identified with the Evil Principle, or the Devil. The cold of winter,
the darkness of night, and water, were finally set forth as the Trinity.
Regarding cold, darkness, and water, or darkness, mist, a