Cainan

Cainan is an Old Testament patriarch, son of Arphaxad and father of Sala, inscribed in the Septuagint and in the genealogy of the Saviour in the Gospel of Luke (3:36). He lived in the time between Noah and Abraham. The Orthodox Church honours him among the ancestors of Christ, on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers, before the Nativity.

What the sources say

The Cainan after the Flood does not appear in the Masoretic text of Genesis, where Arphaxad is the father of Sala, and he is not found in the Samaritan Pentateuch or in the Jewish historian Josephus. He is, however, in the Septuagint translation, where he lived four hundred sixty years, in the Book of Jubilees and in the genealogy of the Lord in the Gospel of Luke. Early Christian writers, such as Irenaeus and Eusebius of Caesarea, considered his presence an error, mainly because of the lack in the Masoretic text, and many later scholars followed this view. Helen Jacobus, however, considers the omission from the Hebrew text deliberate. Another Cainan, son of Enos, had lived before the Flood, and the Septuagint mentions one also as a son of Shem.

According to the Book of Jubilees, Cainan is the son of Arphaxad and of Rasuya, daughter of Susan, daughter of Elam. His father taught him to read, and he found carved on the rocks by earlier generations an inscription with the knowledge of the Watchers, the angels who rebelled before the Flood. He copied it, but kept silent, fearing to tell Noah. He married Melka, daughter of Madai or, according to Jubilees, of Abadai, son of Japheth, and their son was Sala. The Armenian historian Mkhitar Ayrivanetsi gives the wife's name as Seka. The Alexandrian Chronicle says that the Samaritans descend from Cainan. Sefer ha-⁠Yashar gives him as a son of Seth, that is, the one before the Flood. Late traditions attribute to him the founding of the city of Haran.