Serpent seed

Sepent seed is a belief some Christians have about the Fall of Man. It says that in the Garden of Eden, the Serpent also mated with Eve. Cain was the child of Eve and the serpent. With this event, two races of people were created: the wicked descendants of the Serpent who were destined for damnation, and the righteous descendants of Adam who were destined to have eternal life. The doctrine frames human history as a conflict between these two races in which the descendants of Adam will eventually triumph over the descendants of the Serpent.

Irenaeus (c. 180), an Early Church Father, condemned the notion of original sin as adultery between Eve and the serpent in his book Against Heresies as a 'Gnostic' heresy.

Valentinus (100–160) and the Gospel of Philip (c. 350) may also have held this belief. It also appeared in medieval Jewish literature, including the Targum Pseudo-Jonathan.

During the 19th century, the serpent seed doctrine was revived by American religious leaders who wanted to promote white supremacy. The modern versions of the serpent seed doctrine were developed within the teachings of British Israelism by C. A. L. Totten (1851–1908) and Russel Kelso Carter (1849–1928). Daniel Parker (1781–1844) was also responsible for reviving and promoting the doctrine among Primitive Baptists. Teachers of Christian Identity Theology, which branched off from British Israelism, preached the doctrine during the early twentieth century and promoted it within the Ku Klux Klan, Aryan Nations, the American Nazi Party and other white supremacist organizations. The belief's adherents commonly use it to justify antisemitism and racism by claiming that Jews or members of non-white races are the descendants of Cain and the Serpent, who they variably interpret to be Satan or an intelligent non-human creature which lived before Adam and Eve.

The serpent seed teaching comes in several different forms. William M. Branham (1909–1965), Arnold Murray (1929–2014), Wesley A. Swift (1913–1970), and Sun Myung Moon (1920–2012) played important roles in spreading different versions of the doctrine among members of their respective groups throughout the 20th century. Around the world, there are millions of adherents of the serpent seed doctrine within Branhamism and the Unification Church. In 2000, there were an estimated 50,000 adherents of it within Christian Identity. The Anti-Defamation League and various Christian apologetics organizations have denounced racist versions of the serpent seed teaching by claiming that they are incompatible with the teachings of traditional Christianity, and they have accused their promoters of exacerbating racial divisions by spreading hate.