Genesis — Chapter 4

AND ADAM KNEW HIS WIFE EVE. — Scripture uses \"knew\" as an honorable term for marital union; for in Hebrew \"to know\" a woman means \"to reveal\" to her husband, since a virgin is called \"hidden from man\" (alma). Rabbis and heretics claim Adam knew Eve in Paradise, but the Fathers universally teach otherwise: this is the first mention of their union, after the expulsion. Jerome: \"Marriage fills the earth, virginity Paradise.\" Eve says \"Possedi hominem per Deum\" = \"I have gotten a man through God\" — the child is both hers as a possession and God's heritage given to her. Chrysostom: \"Not nature gave me the boy, but divine grace.\" Parents should learn from this: children are gifts of God.

AND SHE AGAIN BROUGHT FORTH HIS BROTHER ABEL. — \"Abel\" properly means \"vanity\" (Hebrew: hebel), as Ecclesiastes: \"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.\" Eve seems to have named him with a premonition of his early death, or mindful of the sentence of mortality. Abel died a virgin (Fathers universally: Jerome, Basil, Ambrose). Allegorically: Abel is a type of Christ slain by His own people (Rupert, after Irenaeus and Augustine).

AFTER MANY DAYS, CAIN OFFERED OF THE FRUITS OF THE EARTH. — Ambrose (De Cain I, 7) notes two faults: offering late, and not offering first-fruits. Cain offered the secondary, less noble fruits, reserving the best for himself. Lapide: this illustrates those who give God the inferior part of their time, talents, and wealth — keeping the first for themselves.

AND THE LORD HAD RESPECT TO ABEL AND TO HIS OFFERINGS. — God's acceptance of Abel's sacrifice was signified by fire sent from heaven consuming it, while Cain's was left untouched — attested by Chrysostom, Theodoret, Cyril, Procopius, Cyprian, and the tradition of the Fathers. The deeper reason: Abel pleased God because he first offered his heart, then his sacrifice; Cain offered without true devotion. Rupert: \"Abel by faith offered a more excellent sacrifice than Cain — through it he obtained testimony that he was just.\" Abel's triple justice (pseudo-Augustine): virginity, priesthood, and martyrdom — he is the first figure of the Saviour.

AND TO CAIN AND HIS OFFERINGS HE HAD NO RESPECT: AND CAIN WAS EXCEEDINGLY ANGRY. — God did not accept Cain's sacrifice because Cain had not given his heart. Nazianzenus illustrates with the story of Gallus and Julian: the pious Gallus's work prospered; the apostate Julian's would not coalesce, for the martyr would not be honored by one who contemned his colleagues. Cyprian: \"Cain's and Abel's gifts were not viewed by God, but their hearts.\"

WHY ART THOU ANGRY? AND WHY IS THY COUNTENANCE FALLEN? — God's merciful rebuke: why do you waste away with envy toward your brother, and by that envy show your very guilt in your downcast face? Rupert: Cain's countenance fell because he looked on the earth — the mark of earthly, carnal men, who cannot lift their eyes to God.

IF THOU DO WELL, SHALT THOU NOT RECEIVE? — God promises Cain: if you act rightly, you shall receive approval from me and the same sign of acceptance that was shown to Abel. Against Calvin: this passage clearly affirms free will and the power to resist concupiscence. \"Thou shalt dominate it\" — thou canst and must dominate sin and its appetite. Targum of Jerusalem: \"Into your hand I have given power over your concupiscence, and you shall dominate it, whether for good or for evil.\" The passage is expounded by Ambrose, Augustine, Jerome, Bede, Alcuin, Eucherius, Rupert, and Chrysostom in favor of free will.

CAIN SAID TO ABEL HIS BROTHER: LET US GO FORTH ABROAD. — These words were missing from the Hebrew text (and were not rendered by Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion), but were present in LXX, Targum Jerusalem, and the Samaritan Pentateuch. Jerome found them there. Without them the passage is incomplete, for it leaves Cain's words unreported. Cain, according to Targum Jerusalem, debated against divine providence and judgment, while Abel defended God. It was this defense of God that cost Abel his life — making his death a martyrdom. Cyprian: \"Let us imitate Abel the just, who initiated martyrdom.\"

AND HE SAID: I KNOW NOT: AM I MY BROTHER'S KEEPER? — Ambrose (De Cain II, 9) notes Cain's three crimes: he denies before one who does not know; he refuses the duty of fraternal custody as though exempt from nature; and he evades the judge as though free from all obligation. \"What wonder if he did not acknowledge the Author, who did not acknowledge the brotherhood?\"

THE VOICE OF THY BROTHER'S BLOOD CRIETH TO ME FROM THE EARTH. — Hebrew: \"voice of bloods\" — the plural at once emphasizes the enormity of the crime and suggests the blood of all the descendants Abel might have had (Chaldaean interpretation). Ambrose: \"Not the voice of his soul but the voice of his blood accuses you — your crime, not your brother, accuses you. The earth too is a witness, which received his blood; if the brother spares, the earth does not spare.\" Four sins that cry to heaven: (1) murder (Cain's crime); (2) the sin of Sodom (Gen. 19:13); (3) defrauding workers of their wages (James 5:4); (4) oppression of widows, orphans, and the poor (Exod. 2:23).

NOW THEREFORE CURSED SHALT THOU BE UPON THE EARTH. — Cursed both in that the earth itself will be maledicta for him and give him poor fruits, and in that he will be infamous, unlucky, wretched, and a fugitive upon the earth. Lapide refutes the Caianite heretics who worshipped Cain as \"from a stronger virtue\" — they were the forerunners of every subversive heresy.

MY INIQUITY IS GREATER THAN THAT I MAY DESERVE PARDON. — The common Fathers (LXX, Chaldaean, Vulgate) take this as a cry of despair: \"My iniquity is greater than that I may deserve forgiveness.\" This is the sin of Cain against all hope — the sin of despair, worse than the murder. Ambrose: \"None are graver punishments than an evil conscience, in which, when God is not held, consolation is not found.\" Lapide refutes the Novatians who held some sins to be beyond forgiveness: however great the sin, God's clemency and Christ's merit are infinitely greater.

BEHOLD THOU DOST CAST ME OUT THIS DAY FROM THE FACE OF THE EARTH, AND I SHALL BE HIDDEN FROM THY FACE. — \"I shall be hidden from Thy face\" = I shall be deprived of Thy favor, care, and protection, wandering without Thy guidance. Ambrose: Cain fears bodily death, not death of the soul — so it is for all sinners who cling to the body. His very fear of being killed by others is itself a punishment — for at this time there was no other person on earth who could kill him except his parents, yet his guilty conscience magnified his terror.

WHOSOEVER SHALL KILL CAIN, SHALL BE PUNISHED SEVENFOLD. — God did not grant Cain death as a mercy, but appointed him to live as an example and a warning. \"To him to live long is only to suffer long.\" The sign God placed on Cain was (common opinion) a bodily tremor — the shaking of body and face that betrayed his crime. Six effects of sin visible in Cain: (1) bodily trembling; (2) exile and flight; (3) fear and consternation of mind; (4) pursuit by the voice of Abel's blood from the earth; (5) pursuit by heavenly and infernal terrors; (6) fugitive death — killed in the end by Lamech.

AND CAIN WENT OUT FROM THE FACE OF THE LORD, AND DWELT AS A FUGITIVE ON THE EARTH, AT THE EAST SIDE OF EDEN. — \"Land of Nod\" (Hebrew) = land of the fugitive or wanderer. The city Cain later built was named Henoch (Enoch) after his son.

AND CAIN KNEW HIS WIFE. — His wife was his own sister, a daughter of Adam — for at the beginning of the world it was necessary for brothers and sisters to marry one another (Chrysostom, Theodoret, Procopius), which is otherwise forbidden by natural law. Josephus says Cain built the city of Henoch many years later, when he had many sons and daughters, and they were numerous enough to populate it.

AND LAMECH TOOK TWO WIVES. — Lamech was the first polygamist, violating the law of monogamy established in Gen. 2:24. Pope Nicholas I calls him an adulterer. After the Flood, when life was shorter and the population had been reduced to Noah alone, God permitted polygamy to speed repopulation (Abraham, Jacob); but with the propagation of the race sufficiently accomplished, Christ definitively abolished it (Matt. 19:4).

AND HIS BROTHER'S NAME WAS JUBAL: HE WAS THE FATHER OF THEM THAT PLAY UPON THE HARP AND THE ORGANS. — Jubal = inventor of music (harp and organ/pipe). Some derive \"jubilare\" (to rejoice, shout for joy) from Jubal.

WHO WAS A HAMMERER AND ARTIFICER IN EVERY WORK OF BRASS AND IRON. — Tubalcain was the inventor of smithcraft. Note: Lapide observes that the first polygamist Lamech was also the second murderer — from lust flows easily into strife and bloodshed.

I HAVE SLAIN A MAN TO THE WOUNDING OF MYSELF, AND A STRIPLING TO MY OWN BRUISING. — Hebrew tradition (Jerome, Rabanus, Lyranus, Tostat, Cajetan, Pererius): Lamech accidentally killed Cain while hunting, thinking him a beast lurking in the wood (Cain having hidden in the forest). His attendant (the \"stripling\") having misdirected his arrow, Lamech in anger struck the boy, who died. Some (Theodoret, Burgensis, Catharinus) doubt this tradition. In any case Lamech confesses a double homicide. Morally: homicide leaves a stain that pursues the killer all his days; murderers are haunted by the shades of their victims (illustrated with examples from Nero, Alexander).

SEVENFOLD VENGEANCE SHALL BE TAKEN FOR CAIN, BUT FOR LAMECH SEVENTY TIMES SEVENFOLD. — Lapide: Lamech speaks from grief and repentance over the double involuntary homicide, saying: If Cain (a voluntary murderer) was punished sevenfold, then I (an involuntary one, now penitent) shall be punished seventy-seven times — i.e., far more gravely — should anyone kill me. This sense is given by Chrysostom and Theodoret. \"Seventy times seven\" signifies an immense and indefinite multiplication of punishment, as in Matt. 18:22.

AND ADAM KNEW HIS WIFE AGAIN: AND SHE BORE A SON, AND CALLED HIS NAME SETH. — \"Seth\" = foundation, placement (from Hebrew \"suth\" = to place). Eve placed Seth as the foundation of her posterity and of the City of God in place of Abel — as Cain was the head of the city of the devil (Augustine, De Civ. Dei). Sudas adds that Seth was distinguished for piety, wisdom, and astronomy, and is credited with inventing letters.

AND TO SETH ALSO WAS BORN A SON, WHOM HE CALLED ENOS: THIS MAN BEGAN TO CALL UPON THE NAME OF THE LORD. — \"Enos\" = infirm, afflicted, doomed to death (from Hebrew, signifying mortal misery). Seth named his son thus to remind all of their condition. \"He began to call upon the name of the Lord\": Enos was the first to institute public assemblies for the worship of God — public prayer, preaching, sacrifice, and ceremonies (Thomas Waldensis, Bellarmine: Enos instituted a kind of prelude to monastic and religious life). Against the Rabbis who interpret this as the beginning of idolatry: the Hebrew \"uchal\" = began, not \"profaned.\" The tetragrammaton name here used by Moses was not revealed until Exod. 6:3 — Moses writes retrospectively using this name throughout Genesis.