On Cain and Abel 1.1–1.20

[Book One.] In the preceding work, on paradise, we set out, according to our capacity and as well as we could, the meanings that the Lord poured into us and our understanding found, in which the fall of Adam and Eve was treated. Now, since that guilt did not stop with its authors, but, what is worse, found a worse heir, let us take up the next part of the history and pursue in our work what is joined to it according to the divine Scriptures.

"And Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain and said: I have acquired a man through God." In things we acquire, it is usual to consider from what, by whom, and through what we acquire them: from what, as from material; by whom, as author; through what, as through some instrument. Does she say here, "I have acquired a man through God", so that you are to understand God as an instrument? Certainly not, but so that you may understand God as author and maker. So she gave more to God in saying, "I have acquired a man through God", so that we too, when we acquire anything, or in all favourable outcomes, should give credit to God rather than claim it for ourselves. And she went on to bear Abel.

When something is added, what was there before is taken away. This is gathered from the parts of arithmetic or from the thoughts of the soul; for when a number is added, another number results and the former is done away with, and a new thought coming in shuts out the former. So when Abel is added, Cain is taken away. This is grasped more fully from the interpretation of the names. For Cain was called "acquisition", because he acquired everything for himself; Abel, one who referred everything to God, devoted with the pious attention of his mind, claiming nothing for himself as his elder brother did, but attributing to the Creator all that he had received from him.

So there are two schools of thought, under the names of the two brothers, fighting each other and opposed to each other: one that ascribes everything to its own mind, as to the governing power and, so to speak, the author of all thought, sense and motion, that is, which ascribes all discoveries to human ingenuity; the other, which gives credit to God as maker and creator of all, and subjects all things to his government as parent and ruler. The first is signified by Cain, the second is called Abel. One soul gives birth to these two schools, and so they are held to be brothers, because they are founded in one womb; but they are opposed, because once they have been brought forth by a kind of birth of the soul, they must be divided and separated; for those who fight each other cannot share one lodging for ever. Indeed Rebecca, when she was in labour with two natures of human character, one evil and one good, and felt them leaping within her womb (for Esau was a type of wickedness, and Jacob bore the figure of goodness), wondering what it was that she perceived a kind of discord in the children conceived, consulted God, that he might reveal the condition and give a remedy. And to her prayer the answer was given: "Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples will come out of your belly." If you refer this to the soul, you will understand it as the same parent of good and evil, since both flow from a single spring of the soul; but it is usually the mark of a sober judgment to reject the evil and, as it were, nourish and strengthen what is good. Before, then, it brings forth the good, that is, the reverence owed to God, so as to give everything to him, it prefers its own things; but when it has given birth to the confession that is given to God, it lays aside the swelling of its heart. So God, adding to the soul the good teaching, Abel, took away the wicked teaching, Cain.

I, however, in this place, according to Scripture, understand rather the mystery of two peoples: that God, by adding to his church the faith of a devout people, took away the faithlessness of the transgressing people, since the very words seem to signify this, God saying: "Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples will come out of your belly." This figure of the synagogue and the church went before in these two brothers, Cain and Abel. By Cain is understood the murderous people of the Jews, who pursued the blood of their Lord and maker and, according to his birth from the Virgin Mary, of their brother, so to speak; by Abel is understood the Christian who clings to God, as David too says, "But for me it is good to cling to God", so as to join himself to heavenly things and separate himself from earthly ones. And elsewhere he says, "My soul has fainted for your word", because he had placed the order and practice of living not in earthly pleasures but in the knowledge of the word. From this it is known that what we read in the books of Kingdoms was not written idly, but with weighing and examination: "And he was gathered to his fathers." For it is given to understand that he was like his fathers in faith. Hence it is clear that he was brought not to the burial of the body but to fellowship of life.

Indeed it is thought not to have been written perfunctorily of Isaac that, leaving the appearance of this body which was joined to his soul, he was gathered to his kind, because he clung to the ways of his father. And beautifully it says "to his kind", not "to his people" as elsewhere. For we read in other places that some were gathered to their people, but these were not so excellent; he is more excellent who is like the few, not the many (there are more in one's people than in one's kind), and it is reckoned more excellent to be like the few than the many. He, then, who was born by the promise of God, who was chosen for the sacrifice to prove piety, who was content with one wife, that is, with the company of wisdom alone, of that heavenly kind which is one and always consistent with itself, was not to be presented by the testimony of the divine Scripture as an imitator of common baseness. For where there is labour, teaching and study, there is a fellowship shared with many and a kind of popular partnership; for most people advance by hearing, and these he named the people. But where discipline is grasped not by human tradition but by a gifted gathering without the use of labour, there is the uncorrupted sincerity of a lofty kind. And so Isaac, as a gift of God, is read to have been gathered to his kind rather than to his people, so that you may recognize that he was a diligent imitator of divine rather than human things.

Blessed too is that mind which, rising above species and kind itself, deserves to hear what was said to Moses when he was separated from the people: "But you, stand with me." For as in Isaac the type of the Lord's incarnation, going beyond the custom of human generation, surpassed those before him, so that in him not an ordinary and common grace but a special prerogative excelled, as the reading teaches ("For the promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed. He does not say, and to seeds, as of many, but as to one, that is, to your seed, which is Christ"), so too in Moses the figure of the teacher to come, who would teach the law, preach the gospel, fulfil the old covenant, found the new, and give heavenly food to the peoples, went beyond the dignity of the human condition so far as to be given the name of God, as we have it written, the Lord saying: "I have made you a god to Pharaoh." For, victor over all passions and captured by no allurements of the world, he had covered all this dwelling according to the body with the purity of heavenly conduct, ruling the mind, subjecting the flesh and chastising it with a kind of royal authority; and he was called by the name of God, to whose likeness he had formed himself by the abundance of perfect virtue.

And so we do not read of him, as of others, that he failed and died, but that he died through the word of God; for God suffers neither failing nor diminution, nor does he admit addition. Hence Scripture added too that "no one knows his burial place to this day", so that you may understand his translation rather than his destruction; for death is a kind of separation of soul and body. He died, then, through the word of God, as Scripture says, not according to the word, so that you may notice that what is expressed is not a notice of death but a gift of grace: he was translated rather than abandoned, and no one has known his burial place. For who on earth could find the remains of one whom the Son of God showed in the Gospel to be with him? Indeed Elijah too was seen with him, who was taken up in a chariot and is not read to have been buried or to have died; for he lives who is with the Son of God. Moses is indeed read to have died, but to have died through the word of God, through which all things were made. "By the word of God the heavens were established"; so through the word of God there is no collapse of the work, but its establishment. So he is not found as one who fell back into the earth by the dissolution of the body, but as one endowed with the working and gift of the heavenly Word, so that his flesh received rest rather than a tomb.

Well is the distance kept between the Lord and the servant, so that you may understand the prerogative of the Lord and the grace of the servant. Of Moses it is read that no one knows his burial place; of Christ, that his burial place was taken away from the earth, because the one, according to the mystery of the law, awaited redemption so that he might rise, while the other, according to the gift of the gospel, did not await redemption but gave it. And so his burial place was not unknown, but lifted up; creation could not hold it any longer, because through him all creation hastened to be raised from the slavery of corruption. No one, then, knows the burial place of Moses, because all know his life; but we saw Christ's burial place, and now we know it no longer, because we have recognized his resurrection. For his tomb had to be known so that his resurrection might be made manifest. And so in the Gospel the tomb is described with the fullest expression, but in the law it is not sought, because, although the law announced his resurrection, yet the course of the Gospel has proved it to us most fully.

So, to complete what we set out to say: "She went on," it says, "to bear Abel", that is, Eve, who had sinned gravely before, brought forth from herself a better judgment, so as to abolish the error of the former judgment. I lie if this is not proved in all men. For we are so born that first the weak sense of infancy is in us, then that of childhood, knowing only the care of the body, having no worship and no observance of divine things. That is why the prophet, to prove that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin by a manifest novelty of nature, says: "Behold, a virgin will conceive in the womb and bear a son, and they will call his name Emmanuel. He will eat butter and honey before he knows evil or good; for before he knows good or evil he does not trust in wickedness, so as to choose what is good"; and further on: "Before the boy knows how to call father or mother, he will receive the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria against the king of the Assyrians." For he alone was not captured by the vanity of this world and the swelling of the flesh, since he "humbled himself, becoming obedient unto death": far unlike each of us, who exalt ourselves in vain, puffed up with the mind of the flesh. Hence no one is without sin, not even an infant of one day; but he did no sin. And so in us Cain is born first, preferring himself; afterwards Abel is begotten, in whom there is reverence for the divinity. First, then, what is evil creeps in; afterwards what is good is recognized. And where there is good, there is the just; where there is justice, there is holiness, that is, Abel, who clings to God.

"And Abel became a shepherd of sheep, but Cain tilled the ground." It is not idle that, though Cain was born first, as the reading teaches, Abel is put first here, and the order of the names is not the same as the order of nature. What does this change of order mean, that it mentions the younger first where the state of life and the practice of work is described? Let us examine the difference of their occupations, so as to gather the cause of the preference. Tilling the ground is earlier in practice, but lower in grace, than pasturing sheep. For the latter is like the role of a teacher and leader; and rightly the elder began from the more ancient things, while the younger put first the more recent ones, which would sprout no thorns, no thistles, and would be liable to no sentence. Indeed Adam, guilty of sin, was sent out of the paradise of delight to till the ground. Rightly, then, where these brothers are born, the order of nature is kept in naming them; but where the discipline of living is described, the younger is put before the elder, because, though younger in time, he is more excellent in virtue. For innocence is later in time than wickedness and of nearly equal age, but more ancient in nobility of merits; for old age is venerable, not white with years but with character. "And a spotless life," it says, "is the age of old age." So where birth is described, let Cain come first; where disciplines are proclaimed, let Abel run ahead. Who would deny that adolescence, and youth itself at its beginning, seethes with the allurements of various passions, but that when a riper age has come, the storm of budding wantonness, as it were, is dispersed, tranquillity is restored, and the weary ship of the soul is drawn up into quiet harbours? So the heavy motions of our adolescence are calmed in the safe anchorage of old age.

So, taught by such examples from nature, do not doubt that wickedness comes first in time but grows young again in weakness. It has the pay of age, but virtue has the prerogative of glory, which the wicked man often yields to the just man, even with himself as judge. The divine Scripture is a faithful witness of this, which teaches that Esau, a man whose surname was folly, patiently yielded his rights as firstborn to his brother Jacob, so as to say: "What use to me are the rights of the firstborn?" But what he cared little for, the man endowed with the surname of exercise sought to deserve. Does not Esau seem to you, as if beaten in a contest and thinking himself unequal through the weakness of his own mind, to have yielded the crown to the victor, whom he saw bent by no allurements of the passions, whose dust he himself could not endure? "What use to me," he says, "are the rights of the firstborn?" For among the slothful there are no insignia of virtue, while among the wise they are held first; for the pursuits of virtue are a kind of instruments. So, as a warrior cannot be without arms, neither can virtue be without exercise. Hence the Lord too says in the Gospel: "From the days of John the Baptist the kingdom of heaven suffers force, and the forceful seize it"; and elsewhere: "Seek the kingdom of God, and behold, all things are ready for you." Rewards are promised not to the sleeping or idle but to the watchful and labouring ... but the wage is prepared for labour, which, though not pleasant for enjoyment, is fruitful for reward. The word of the law teaches this, as we find written:

"If a man," it says, "has two wives, one of them loved and the other hated, and both bear him sons, the loved and the hated, and the firstborn son is of the hated wife, on the day he leaves his sons as heirs of his property he may not give the rights of the firstborn to the son of the loved wife, passing over the son of the hated; but he shall acknowledge the firstborn son of the woman, giving him a portion of all that is found to be his, because he is the beginning of his sons and to him the rights of the firstborn are due." What deep secrets of mysteries lie hidden in the letters! Recognize, soul, your offspring, and seek the mystery of this hated woman. You will find it within you, if you look. Go back over your thoughts, reread your senses, and you will recognize to whom the rights of the firstborn are due. For two women live with each one of us, at odds in enmity and discord, filling the house of our soul, as it were, with quarrels of jealousy. One of them is our sweetness and love, a coaxing counsellor of pleasure, who is called Pleasure. We think her our companion and of our household; the other we believe harsh, rough and savage, and her name is Virtue.

Pleasure, then, bold with a harlot's movements, her gait weakened by luxury, with roving eyes and playful eyelids casting nets with which she catches the precious souls of young men (for the eye of a harlot is the snare of the sinner), attacks with charming words whomever she sees passing with wavering mind at the corner of the way to her house, making the hearts of young men fly; restless at home, wandering in the streets, lavish with kisses, cheap in shame, rich in dress, with painted cheeks. For since she cannot have the true beauty of nature, she pimps with the counterfeit paints of a feigned beauty, an appearance, not the truth. Girded with a retinue of vices and surrounded by a kind of chorus of wickedness, the leader of crimes attacks the wall of the human mind with such engines of words as these: "I have a peace offering; today I pay my vows. For this reason I came out to meet you, longing for your face; I have found you. I have woven my bed with cords and spread it with tapestries from Egypt. I have sprinkled my bed with saffron and my house with cinnamon. Come, let us enjoy friendship until dawn; come, let us wrestle in desire." For in this we see the figure of a harlot portrayed by the mouth of Solomon. For what is so harlot-like as worldly pleasure, which enters from the window of her house, playing out her first temptations through the eyes, and quickly penetrates, if you look out on the street, that is, on the public ways of passers-by, rather than fixing the gaze of your mind on the inner mysteries of the law? She it is who has woven, as it were, a couch of common fellowship with us with stronger chains, so that whoever reclines on it is bound; and she covers the couch of her body with the veil of shameful fraud to entice the minds of young men, covering over the absence of the husband, that is, neglect of the law. For the law is absent for those who sin; if it were present, no wrong would be done. And so she says: "For my husband is not at home; he has gone on a very long journey, taking a bag of money in his hand." What should I say this is, except perhaps that the rich think there is nothing that does not give way to their money, and want the law to be for sale in their favour? Pleasure scatters her perfumes because she does not have the fragrance of Christ; she shows treasures, promises kingdoms, pledges endless loves, promises unexamined unions, learning without a tutor, talk without an admonisher, life without care, soft sleep, insatiable desire. "Leading him astray," it says, "with much flattery of words, and binding him with the snares of her lips, she drew him all the way to her house. And he followed her, ensnared." The hall shone, splendid with royal luxury and carved walls, and the floors swam with wine on the wet ground. The earth smelled of ointment, covered with fish bones and slippery with flowers already wilting. There the uproar of revellers, the shouting of rivals, the blows of quarrellers, the harmony of singers, the din of dancers, the guffaws of laughers, the applause of the wanton; everything confused, nothing in the order of nature. Shaven dancing girls and boys with curled hair; the indigestion of feasters, the belching of eaters, the thirst of drunkards; yesterday's hangover, today's drunkenness; drinkers' cups filled with vomit, with a stronger smell of drunkenness than if they smelled only of fresh wine. She herself, standing in the middle, says: "Drink and be drunk, so that each may fall and not rise again. First with me is he who is most abandoned of all; he is mine who is not his own; he is more welcome to me who is worse to himself. The golden cup of Babylon is in my hand, making all the earth drunk; all nations have drunk of my wine. So whoever is most foolish, let him turn aside to me; and to those who lack wisdom I give instruction, saying: Enjoy hidden bread sweetly, and drink water that is sweeter when stolen. Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we shall die. Our life will pass like the traces of a cloud and be scattered like a mist. Come, then, let us enjoy the good things that exist, and use creation eagerly as in youth. Let us fill ourselves with costly wine and ointments, and let not the flower of the season pass us by. Let us crown ourselves with roses before they wither. Let there be no meadow that our luxury does not pass through; everywhere let us leave signs of our gladness. Here everything is left behind; no one will take anything with him except what he has enjoyed by the pleasure of the body. In short, I founded philosophy itself; and there is none truer than that which asserts the good to be what is sweet and pleasant. So believe either philosophy or the wisdom of Solomon."

Hearing these things, he sticks fast, wounded, like a stag shot in the liver. Virtue, pitying him and seeing him about to fall quickly, meets him unexpectedly, fearing that during delay the human mind may be captured by soothing allurements. "I have appeared openly to you," she says, "though you did not seek me, so that the unbridled and luxurious woman who knows no shame may not deceive you unawares and ensnare you. She sits at the doors of her house on a seat, openly in the streets, calling to the passers-by. Now therefore, son, hear me and attend to the words of my mouth. Let not your heart turn aside into her ways; for she has cast down many by wounding, and countless are those she has slain. Her house is the way to hell, leading down to the chambers of death. So put away from you a perverse mouth, and drive unjust lips far from you. Let your eyes look straight; do not attend to a deceitful woman. For honey drips from the lips of a harlot, which for a time fattens your throat, but afterwards you will find it more bitter than gall." The day would fail me sooner than I could set out her vices, which however are described and portrayed in Proverbs by the mouth of wisdom. "Let not desire for beauty overcome you." It is counterfeit, smeared with paint, in no way shining with true and sincere beauty. "And do not be caught by her eyes"; for nets are spread around. Be rather like him and follow him who "leaps upon the mountains and bounds over the hills, looking through the windows", rising above the nets. Evil are the chains of pleasure. It delights the eyes, soothes the ears, but defiles the mind. It tells many lies, adds falsehoods, removes truths; it promises money, offers gold, but takes away discipline. "But you, take discipline rather than money, and knowledge above tested gold; for it is better than precious stones." I will not hide from you what are said to be her greatest offers, lest I seem to uncover what displeases in pleasure and to throw a shadow over what pleases. For she lifts up and exalts the mind with persuasive words; she shows all the kingdoms of the earth, saying: "All these I will give you, if you fall down and worship me." There, beware lest you be caught by things that slip by and do not last, in which there is great temptation.

The Lord Jesus certainly taught you how to resist temptations of this kind. The devil had first stretched out the snare of gluttony, saying: "If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread." The Lord answered: "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word of God." With this saying he loosed the snare. The devil then set the second snare, of boasting, which usually strangles even a good mind running on prosperous paths. "And he led him," it says, "to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple and said to him: If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here; for it is written that he has commanded his angels concerning you to keep you, because they will lift you up in their hands, lest you strike your foot against a stone." So, although the Lord Jesus could have thrown himself down without any danger, since spiritual flights were available to him, yet, lest it be a kind of boasting, he answered the devil: "You shall not tempt the Lord your God." At the same time he taught us to beware of doing the devil's will. If, then, boasting about what is true is to be avoided, how much more should no one boast of what is false as if it were true! The third snare remains, of avarice and ambition. He showed him, placed on a mountain, all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. Well "in a moment", because they cannot last. Wait a little, and they quickly pass. So those who follow them seem to themselves to be on a mountain, but they are not lasting, as you have written: "I saw the wicked man highly exalted and lifted up above the cedars of Lebanon; and I passed by, and behold, he was not." But one who makes much of them seems to worship the devil, "whose god is the belly and whose glory is in shame". But you, seek glory in God, who says to you: "You shall worship the Lord your God and serve him alone", from whom you may receive eternal, not temporal, things.

Yet if these things too delight anyone, let them be asked for more moderately from him who is the true source of all. For even the possessions which the devil seems to have as his own belong to another, as he himself said: "To you I will give all this power and their glory, because they have been handed over to me." Hope, then, from him (although for a short life a long provision should not be sought), yet hope from him who made all creation, who handed these things over to the devil for a time, not to possess but to tempt; for there could be no crown without a contest. The doubtful had to be tested, so that the righteous might be crowned.

So he gave these things to the devil, because the punishment of the one who receives them lies in them, if he does not know how to use them. For what is a treasure to a profligate but the means of profligacy? But it is not the profligate but the frugal man who is approved. And so use as a frugal man what is set before you, so that when you eat much you may not become hateful; for sleeplessness and torments belong to the greedy man; and further on: "If you have been forced to eat, rise and vomit, and it will refresh you, and you will not bring sickness on your body." Gluttony has killed very many, frugality none; wine has harmed countless people, thrift none. Many have poured out their life at banquets and filled the tables with their own blood. In others, indigestion has taken away both voice and sense; and if indigestion did not harm some, drunkenness brought them ruin. Drunkenness drove some into crime, though it is itself a crime; others it reduced to poverty. Finally, hear whom Christ shuts out: "When the master of the house has come in and shut the door, you will begin to stand outside and knock at the door, saying, Open to us. And he will answer and say: I do not know where you are from; depart from me, all you workers of iniquity. Then you will begin to say: We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets. And he will say to you: I do not know where you are from." You have heard what he said about those who eat; now hear what he says about those who fast: "Blessed are those who now hunger and thirst, for they will be satisfied"; and further on: "Woe to you

who are full, for you will hunger." But do you want to eat, do you want to drink? Come to the banquet of wisdom, who invites all with great proclamation, saying: "Come and eat my bread and drink the wine I have mixed for you." Do songs delight you, to soothe you as you feast? Hear the church exhorting, hear her singing, not only in canticles but also in the Song of Songs: "Eat, my friends, and drink, and be drunk, my brothers." But this drunkenness makes men sober; this is the drunkenness of grace, not of intoxication; it produces gladness, not staggering. Nor need you fear that at the banquet of the church you will lack pleasant fragrances or sweet foods or various drinks or noble guests or seemly servants. What is nobler than Christ, who at the banquet of the church both serves and is served? Attach yourself to the side of this reclining guest and join yourself to God. Do not disdain the table which Christ chose, saying: "I have come into my garden, my sister, my bride; I have gathered my myrrh with my spices; I have eaten my bread with my honey, and drunk my wine with my milk." In the garden, that is, in paradise, is the banquet of the church, where Adam was before he committed sin. There Eve reclined before she created and gave birth to guilt. There you will gather myrrh, that is, the burial of Christ, so that, buried with him through baptism into death, as he rose from the dead, you too may rise. There you will eat the bread that strengthens the heart of man; you will taste honey, by which the passages of your throat may grow sweet. You will drink wine with milk, that is, with splendour and sincerity: whether because it is pure simplicity, or because it is spotless grace which is taken for the forgiveness of sins, or because it nourishes the little ones at the breasts of its consolation, so that, weaned in delights, they may grow up to the fullness of a perfect age. Come, then, to this banquet. Or do you fear that a narrow house and a small dining place will crowd you? "O Israel, how great is the house of God and how vast the place of his possession! Great and without end, high and immeasurable. There were the giants, famous from the beginning, of great stature, skilled in war. God did not choose these." And rightly he did not choose them, because they knew war, not peace; and so you, learn peace, so that you may be chosen by God. But lest you think the greatness of the house is unadorned, and colonnaded lodgings delight you: "Wisdom has built herself a house and set up seven pillars." The Lord Jesus himself too recalls that there are many dwellings with his Father. In this house, then, you will feast on food for the soul and drink for the mind, so that afterwards you may never hunger or thirst; for he who eats eats to the full, and he who drinks drinks to drunkenness.

But this drunkenness is the guardian of chastity; that drunkenness of wine is the tinder of lust, by which the inner organs are heated through the flesh, the mind takes fire, the soul is burned up. Lust is a savage goad to crimes, which never allows the feelings to rest quietly. It burns by night, pants by day, rouses from sleep, draws away from business, calls back from reason, takes away counsel, disturbs lovers, bends down the fallen, lies in wait for the chaste, inflames by gaining and is kindled by use. There is no limit to sinning, and the insatiable thirst for crimes cannot be quenched except by the death of the lover. And so the Apostle says: "Flee sexual immorality", so that by swift flight we may escape the savagery of a raging mistress, as it were, and come out of a foul slavery.