Encyclopædia Britannica, First Edition/Cainians

CAINIANS, or Cainites, in church history, Christian heretics, that sprung up about the year 130, and took their name from Cain, whom they looked upon as their head and father: They said that he was formed by a celestial and almighty power, and that Abel was made but by a weak one.

This sect adopted all that was impure in the heresy of the gnostics, and other heretics of those times: They acknowledged a power superior to that of the Creator; the former they called Wisdom, the latter, Inferior Virtue: They had a particular veneration for Korah, Abiram, Esau, Lot, the Sodomites, and especially Judas, because his treachery occasioned the death of Jesus Christ: They even made use of a gospel, which bore that false apostle's name.