On Cain and Abel 1.21–1.45

For what shall I say of avarice, an insatiable desire for money and a kind of lust for bronze, which the more it has taken, the poorer it believes itself? Envious of all, worthless to itself, poor in feeling amid the greatest riches, it diminishes what it has in abundance by its wealth. There is no limit to seizing where there is no measure to desiring. It so inflames the mind, so feeds the mind with its own fire, that it differs only in this: that lust is the adulteress of beautiful forms, avarice of lands. It shakes the elements; it ploughs the sea, digs up the earth, wearies heaven with prayers; it is pleased neither with fair weather nor with cloud; it condemns the yearly harvests and blames the produce of the lands. But this is a sickness of the soul, not health. Indeed Ecclesiastes says: "There is an evil sickness which I have seen under the sun: riches kept to the harm of their owner"; and above: "He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver." Nor is there an end to their acquiring. If you seek treasures, take invisible and hidden ones, which you should seek in the heights of heaven, not in the veins of the earth. Be poor in spirit, and you will be rich whatever your wealth, because a man's life is not in the abundance of riches but in virtue and faith. These riches will make you truly rich, if you are rich toward God.

You have heard the mysteries of pleasure; you have heard also the gifts of our riches, which I thought should be shown not covered with furnishings but by the bare words of Scripture, so that they might shine by their own light and speak for one another of themselves. For the sun and moon need no interpreter; they have as interpreter the brightness of their light, with which the whole world is filled. Their enlightening is a faith that needs no informer, a witness, so to speak, that needs no document, which needs no other's testimony and suddenly pours itself on the eyes of all. So our works are not announced, but cry out and announce themselves. Indeed, so that I may not pass over this too, which is thought laborious in our way: faith is required, zeal is desired, deeds are sought. For by these three the Lord Jesus defined the duties of human devotion, saying: "Ask, and it will be given you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you"; and further on: "Everyone, then, who hears these words of mine and does them is like a wise man."

He who has zealously pursued these things will receive the rights of the firstborn's blessing, like the patriarch Jacob, who by continence and faith overthrew the footsteps of human passions. He says: "God has had mercy on me, and I have all things." So let us earn this mercy by faith, zeal and works, by which disciplines Israel found the grace of God and through it all things; for he rejoiced not that the riches of this world were at his disposal, but the disciplines of the virtues. Let us appoint these as our heirs, whom holy Abraham appointed as his own in his son Isaac, assigning the whole inheritance of his works to the wise and just man, and leaving no hereditary right to the slave women or the sons of the slave women, but only gifts. For perfect virtues receive the whole patrimony of glory, while something cheap is sprinkled on the ordinary and middling ones. And so Hagar, whose name in Latin means stranger and sojourner, and Keturah, which means fragrant, are not heirs. For one who uses the intermediate disciplines is a sojourner, not an inhabitant, of wisdom. Sprinkled with fragrance, he is not filled with fruit. But food, not fragrance, brings health, since fragrance is only a herald of fruits. So we recognize that, for those who follow, the principal disciplines are to be preferred, and natives to sojourners. This is according to the moral sense.

But according to the mystery, Abraham, father of the nations, gave the whole inheritance of his faith to his lawful seed, which is Christ, he who was like a stranger in this land, so as to bring back the fragrance rather than the fruit of this life. When the mind hears these things, it turns away from pleasure and joins itself to virtue, admiring the grace of true beauty: a pure disposition, a simple judgment, a modest garment, that is, "not in the persuasiveness of speech but in the demonstration of the Spirit", as is the form of the apostolic judgment; shining with the cloak of wisdom and piety, more precious than all gold; then receiving the chorus of prudence, temperance, fortitude and justice, which breathe the fragrance of the disciplines, striking reverence and pouring in grace. So, moved by such things, it chooses the pursuits of virtue, on which Jacob, a man full of exercise, set his mind. And so he is presented as a shepherd of sheep, because to command the body and its senses and pleasures, and to keep the measure of one's voice, lest it wander uncertain like a sheep, is thought more excellent than to rule peoples and govern cities; for it is harder to rule oneself than another. To conquer the mind, check anger, and bring the warring laws of flesh and mind into one belongs to an immortal man, whom the gate of hell will not have seized. Indeed the lawgiver himself claimed this task, to pasture the sheep of Jethro, who is called "superfluous", and to drive them into the desert, because he forced the irrational loquacity of superfluous and common speech into certain secret mysteries of sober teaching. And so shepherds of sheep were an abomination to the Egyptians; for all who are given to the passions of the body and indulge their pleasures turn away with a kind of execration from the examiner of the word and the teacher of virtue. And so by these riddles Moses taught that the sacrifices fit for God, which every foolish man shuns, are the works and precepts of virtue. And so Abel is read to be a shepherd, but Cain a tiller of the ground, who, being a foolish man, could not bear the form and likeness of virtue expressed in his brother.

"And after some days Cain offered a gift to the Lord from the fruits of the earth." A twofold fault: one, that he offered after some days; the other, that he offered from the fruits, not from the first fruits. A sacrifice is commended both by speed and by grace. Hence it is commanded: "If you vow a vow, do not delay to pay it; for it is better not to vow than to vow and not pay." For when you delay, you do not pay. A vow is a request for good things from God, with a promise to pay a gift. And so, when you have obtained what you asked, it is the mark of an ungrateful man to delay what was promised. But sometimes either forgetfulness of what they obtained creeps up on the negligent, or the swollen and proud like to claim the outcome for themselves and to attribute it to their own virtues, not assigning it to the grace of the giver, but considering themselves the authors of their own good things. There is a third kind of sin, lesser indeed but of nearly equal arrogance: that of those who do not deny that God is the giver of good things, but think that what has befallen them was rightly brought to them because of their prudence and the merits of their other virtues, and that they were therefore held worthy of divine grace, since they seemed in no way unworthy that such things should come to them by divine benefits.

So that nothing of this kind may happen, by which your vow might become sin for you, the law has formed and instructed you, the Lord who gave the law saying: "Take heed to yourself, lest you forget the benefits of the Lord your God and do not keep his commandments and judgments and righteous decrees which I command you today; lest, when you have eaten and been filled, and have built good houses and begun to live in them, and when your sheep and your oxen have multiplied, and you have been filled with bronze, silver and gold, and begun to possess all things, and your barns are full, you lift up your heart and forget the Lord your God." You will forget the Lord, then, when you have forgotten yourself. But if you know that you are weak, you will know that God is above all, and you cannot be forgetful so as not to pay him the reverence you owe.

Learn now how each one is warned not to think himself the author of his own good things. "Do not say," it says, "in your heart: My strength and my power have done this great virtue for me; but you shall keep in mind the Lord your God, because he himself gives strength so that you may do virtue." Hence the Apostle, as an interpreter of the law, rightly did not boast of his own virtue, but said that he was the least of the apostles, and that whatever he was belonged to divine grace and not to his own merit, and that we have nothing that we have not received. "For what do you have," he says, "that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?" You have learned, then, to follow humility rather than arrogance, to aim at diligence rather than power. You have received saving precepts; do not neglect the useful instruments of medicine by which every fibre of a deadly wound is cut away.

He too who justifies himself should not be puffed up by the swelling of his heart; he too has received a wholesome command, as the oracle sounds forth to this effect: "Do not say in your heart, when the Lord your God begins to destroy those nations before you: Because of my righteousness the Lord has brought me in to possess this land; but because of the iniquities of these nations the Lord will root them out before you. Not because of your righteousness nor because of the uprightness of your heart have you entered to possess this land, but because of the iniquity of the nations the Lord will destroy them before you, and he will establish his covenant which he swore to your fathers." The covenant is the perfect grace of God; for God gives nothing imperfect, and virtue and the works of virtue are perfect. A testament is said to be that by which an inheritance of goods is handed on. Rightly it is called both a testament and divine, since what is truly good is conferred by the attestation of heavenly commands. And it is called a testament because it was dedicated with blood, the old in type, the new in truth. By this testament we hold the pledge of divine grace, because God so loved this world that he gave his only Son for us all. Hence the Apostle, proclaiming the perfection of grace, says: "How will he not also with him give us all things?"

The first grace of a vow, then, is speed in paying it. Indeed Abraham, commanded to offer his son as a burnt offering, did not offer after some days, as Cain did, but "rising early he saddled his ass and took with him two servants and Isaac his son, and having cut the wood for the burnt offering, he rose and went and came to the place which God had told him, on the third day". First notice the ready and hasty zeal of the one about to sacrifice, so that there was no delay of waiting except until the oracle was heard; then that he saddled his own ass, took on himself every service and prepared what was necessary for the sacrifice, and led his victim with two virtues of faith accompanying him, certain of God's power and secure in his goodness.

And when it says "on the third day", it is either because devotion should be continual and perpetual (for time is threefold, past, present and future, and we are reminded that no forgetfulness should creep in of God's past, present or future benefits, but that a tenacious memory of grace should persevere and obedience not fail), or because one who sacrifices ought to believe in one splendour, one light of the Trinity; for to him who sacrifices faithfully it is day, there is no night. So too in Exodus Moses says: "We will go a three days' journey and sacrifice to the Lord our God." But also elsewhere, when God appeared to Abraham at the oak of Mamre, "looking up," it says, "Abraham saw with his eyes, and behold, three men stood over him. And seeing them he ran to meet them at the door of his tent and bowed down on the ground and said: Lord, if I have found favour before you." He sees three, he worships one; he offers three measures of fine flour. For although God is immeasurable, yet he holds the measure of all things, as it is written: "Who has measured the water in his hand and heaven with his span and the whole earth in his closed hand?" So the holy patriarch offered a sacrifice to the Trinity, perfect in each person, in the inner secret of the mind, that is, of spiritual fine flour. This is the fine flour which that woman grinds in the Gospel who will be taken; for "one will be taken," it says, "the other left". The church will be taken, the synagogue left; or the good mind will be taken, the wicked left. And so that you may know that Abraham too believed in Christ: "Abraham," he says, "saw my day and was glad." And he who believes in Christ believes also in the Father, and he who believes perfectly in the Father believes in the Son and the Holy Spirit. Three measures, then, one fine flour, that is, there was one sacrifice, which was offered to the venerable Trinity with an equal measure, as it were, of devotion and a fitting fullness of piety.

Learn further the zeal of swift devotion. "He ran," it says, "and took a calf, tender and good, and gave it to his servant, and hastened to prepare it." Everywhere tireless devotion, and so his gift was acceptable to God. You have elsewhere too that you should anticipate the sunrise with prayer: "Hasten," it says, "to meet the sunrise." You have in the Gospel the Lord Jesus saying: "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down." And he, who had obtained what he wished, to see Christ, and had obtained more, to be seen and called by Christ, came down in haste and received him rejoicing. And so the Lord approved his feeling and gave him a swift reward, saying that "today salvation has come to this house". For the Lord too hastened to the benefit, and so he did not wait to promise and fulfil later, but did it first and declared it afterwards. For he said: "Salvation has come", which was certainly the word of one who anticipates, not of one who promises. The righteous man, then, commends his vow by speed. And so our fathers ate the Passover in haste, with loins girded, not taking their feet out of the bonds of their sandals, and as it were laying aside the burden of the body, so as to be ready for the passing over; for the Lord's Passover is the passing from the passions to the exercise of virtue. And so it is called the Lord's Passover, because both then, in that type of the lamb, the truth of the Lord's passion was announced, and now its grace is celebrated.

Seek this quickly, then, soul, so that you may also quickly hear, as Jacob heard: "What is this, that you have found it so quickly, my son?" And he answered according to the doctrine: "Because the Lord your God delivered it into my hands." God gives quickly, because "he spoke and they were made, he commanded and they were created". For the Word of God is not, as someone says, a work, but a worker, as you have it written: "My Father is working until now, and I am working." He anticipates all things; for he is before all things, as the Father is, and in all things, as the same Father is, penetrating all things. For he is "strong and sharp, sharper than any sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow", anticipating the thoughts of all. Of him God the Father says: "Now you will see whether my word overtakes you or not." For where God is, there is the Word too, as he said: "We will come and make our dwelling with him." And as you have read elsewhere of God, "I stood here before you", so the Word too says: "Before you stood under the fig tree, I saw you." And of the Word himself, that is, the Son of God, it is said: "Among you stands one whom you do not know." For wherever the saints are, there in the midst is the Word of God in the heart of each, filling seas and lands. And when he is here, he is elsewhere too, not by changing place but by filling everywhere with his presence; for he is everywhere who is through all things and in all things, leaving no place empty of himself; and where he is present, he was; and where he was, he is present. And so one who knows that the Word of God is swift asks quickly and obtains quickly.

But Pharaoh, who spent his zeal on vain and empty opinions (Egypt being filled with frogs that gave back an empty sound of things and a vain noise), when Moses said, "Appoint for me when I shall pray for you and your servants and your people, that the Lord may destroy the frogs", though placed in such great need he ought to have asked that Moses pray at once and not delay, answered: "Tomorrow", idle and negligent, about to pay the penalty of delay by the destruction of Egypt. So whenever he obtained something, he became forgetful of the grace, and, lifted up in the mind of his flesh, he forgot God.

But humility commended prayer, since that Pharisee too was rebuked who listed his fasts as if they were favours, and as it were threw them in God's face, and recounted that he was free of crimes; but the tax collector was praised, who, standing far off, would not raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying: "Lord God, be merciful to me a sinner." And so the divine sentence preferred him, saying that "this tax collector went down justified rather than that Pharisee". For he is justified who confesses his own sin, as the Lord himself has spoken: "Tell your iniquities, that you may be justified." And David says: "A sacrifice to God is a troubled spirit"; and again: "A contrite and humbled heart God does not despise." Jeremiah too says: "A soul in distress and an anxious spirit cries to you." So both Pharaoh and the Assyrian, who said, "Which of the gods of these nations has delivered his land out of my hand, that your God should deliver Jerusalem out of my hand?", were cast down by their exaltation; but the righteous man, like Jacob, refers to God as author whatever good things he has obtained, saying of all that he knows has prospered for him: "Because the Lord your God delivered them into my hands." This, then, is the better payment of vows, as David too says: "Offer to God a sacrifice of praise and pay your vows to the Most High." To praise God is to commend and to pay a vow. Hence also that Samaritan is preferred to the others, who, cleansed of leprosy with the nine other lepers according to the Lord's command, alone returned to Christ, glorified God and gave thanks. Of him Jesus said: "Was there no one found among them to return and give thanks to God except this foreigner?" And he said to him: "Rise and go, for your faith has saved you."

There is also this discipline for commending prayer and a vow: that we do not publish our prayer abroad, but keep the mysteries hidden, as Abraham kept them, who made cakes baked under the ashes. The fathers kept them too, who baked the dough they had brought out of Egypt, making unleavened cakes under the ashes, which in Greek are called ἐγκρυφίαι because they are hidden in the ashes, signifying, like that leaven which the woman in the Gospel hid in three measures until the whole was leavened, that the teaching of the mysteries too must be kept close. The Lord taught this more plainly in his Gospel, saying: "But you, when you pray, go into your room and, having shut the door, pray to your Father in secret, and your Father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not speak much"; and further on: "For your Father knows what you need before you ask him." Your room is the secret of your mind and the hidden place of your soul. Go into this room of yours, that is, go into the depths of your heart; enter wholly from the outer porch of your body, and shut your door.

Learn what your door is: "Set a guard, Lord, over my mouth, and a door around my lips." And Paul asks to be prayed for, "that a door of the word may be opened to me," he says, "to speak the mystery of Christ". But he, as one chosen to preach the Gospel, rightly wished a door of the word to be opened for himself, because from his mouth went out the salvation of the Gentiles, from his mouth came forth the life of the peoples; but let us shut the door, so that guilt may not enter, so that no slip of speech may go out. Guilt enters if a slip goes out. Hear how guilt enters: "In much speaking," it says, "you will not escape sin." Much speaking went out, sin came in, because in much speaking the word that goes out is never weighed. It slips imprudently, though to speak anything beyond measure is itself a great sin.

And so beware of speaking imprudently; for "the lips of the imprudent lead him into evils". Beware of exalting yourself in prayer; for "the prayer of one who humbles himself has pierced the clouds". Beware of carelessly publishing the mysteries of the Creed or of the Lord's Prayer. Do you not know how grave it is to incur sin in prayer, where you hope for a remedy? Certainly the Lord taught through the prophet that this is a grave curse, saying: "And let his prayer become sin", unless perhaps you think this a small thing. For it is to distrust the power of God to think that you are not heard unless you shout. Let your works cry out, let your faith cry out, let your feeling cry out, let your sufferings cry out, let your blood cry out, like that of holy Abel, of whom God said to Cain: "The voice of your brother's blood cries to me." He who cleanses in secret hears you in secret. We cannot hear anyone unless he speaks; with God it is not words but thoughts that speak. And so that you may know this is true, the Lord Jesus said to the Jews: "Why do you think evil in your hearts?" This is not the voice of one who asks, but of one who knows; which the evangelist makes plain to you, saying: "But Jesus knew their thoughts." As, then, the Son knows, so the Father knows. You have learned that the Son knows; hear that the Father knows, from the counsellor and witness of the Father, saying: "For your Father knows what you need before you ask him." So bake your ash-cake with the warmth of the Holy Spirit; bake also the passions of your soul with the heat of the Word. Even if your passions are rather raw, perhaps having lately come out of Egypt, cover them and bake them thoroughly with a slow heat, lest they cannot bear a stronger fire and are half-burned rather than baked; for there are very many things that displease when raw and delight when cooked. Cherish the deep mysteries in your breast, so that you do not entrust them, as if uncooked, by premature speech to unfaithful or weak ears, and the hearer turn away and loathe them with horror.

But if he tasted them better cooked, he would perceive the sweetness of spiritual food. Divinely too the Lord Jesus taught you the goodness of the Father, who knows how to give good things, so that you may ask good things of the good one; and he urged earnestly and often that we should pray, not so that prayer should be continued to the point of weariness, but frequently and assiduously. For empty things are often poured into a long prayer, while carelessness creeps altogether into one that is broken off. Then he warns that when you ask pardon for yourself, you should know that then above all you must grant it to others, so that you may commend your prayer by the voice of your deeds. The Apostle too teaches that we should pray without anger and dispute, so that your prayer may not be disturbed or interrupted. He teaches also that we should pray in every place, although the Saviour says: "Go into your room." But understand not a room closed by walls, in which your limbs are shut in, but the room that is in you, in which your thoughts are enclosed, in which your senses move. This room of your prayer is with you everywhere and is secret everywhere, and it has no witness but God alone.

You are taught to pray especially also for the people, that is, for the whole body, for all the members of your mother, in which is the mark of mutual charity. For if you ask for yourself, you will ask for yourself alone; and if each prays only for himself, the grace of the one praying is less than that of the one interceding. But as it is, because each prays for all, all also pray for each. So, to conclude: if you ask only for yourself, you alone, as we said, will ask for yourself; but if you ask for all, all will ask for you, since you too are among all. So great is the reward that by the prayers of each the support of the whole people is gained for each. In this there is no arrogance, but greater humility and richer fruit.

But it is now time to pass to another point, since we have said fully, regarding Cain's offering after some days, that it is a sign of supine pride, since the very request of a vow should be prompt, lest we seem to have hoped for a remedy from human arts, that is, from skill in healing and the juices of herbs, rather than to have asked help from God. For we must first take refuge with him who can cure the passions of our soul. But men, in reversed order, first call for help from men, and when human aid has failed, then they think the grace of divine favour must be asked.

Having closed that charge, then, and convicted Cain's crime, let us discuss another fault of his offering. He offered from the fruits of the earth, not first fruits from the first fruits to God: that is, to claim the first fruits for oneself first and to give the following ones to God. So since the soul, as mistress, must be preferred to the body as servant, we must certainly offer its first fruits, that is, those of the mind rather than of the body. The first fruits of the soul are the first motions of good disciplines. Although these are later in time than the first fruits of the body, which are food, growth, sight, hearing and touch, smell, voice (mind and sense being partly of the soul, partly of the body), yet they come first among the disciplines. The first of these is thanksgiving offered to God with a pure heart and simple speech.

These gifts Abel offered, and so God looked upon his gifts, because he offered from the firstlings. Add that he offered from the firstlings of the sheep and from their fat. Consider that he offered not from things without sense but from living creatures. For the animate is more than the earthly, since the animate is nearest to the spiritual. "For first is not the spiritual but the animate, then the spiritual." What is animate breathes and has a life-giving spirit, which is not so with what comes from the fruits of the earth. Then he offered not second things but first, not meagre but fat; such as the law approved and commanded to be offered, as it is written: "And it will be," it says, "when God brings you into the land of the Canaanites, as he swore to your fathers, and gives it to you, you shall set apart to the Lord every male that opens the womb. Every one that opens the womb of your herds and flocks, whatever males are born to you, sanctify to the Lord. Every one that opens the womb of an ass you shall exchange for a sheep; and if you do not exchange it, you shall redeem it." What has so deep a mystery, so lofty and secret a wisdom, as that in certain veins of simple words you may find and draw out the richness of spiritual grace? For the Canaanites are fickle and restless. So when you have entered their land, whom you see driven from possession because of their levity, restlessness and instability of character, hold fast to constancy. Let no cheap reasoning, no light speech disturb you; for this is the Canaanite: fickle speech, unstable feeling and restless contention; but keep calmly the tranquillity of the heart and the serenity of the mind, so that, as on the swell of the sea, you may offer ships a safe anchorage in a kind of harbour of your mind.

This possession the Lord promises you and pledges with a kind of bond of oath, so as to strengthen your constancy. For God does not swear because he needs the faith of the believer, or, lacking the support of witnesses, needs the help of an oath, as men do, who win credit for ourselves by an oath, and therefore swear so as to be believed to have spoken the truth. But God is faithful even when he speaks, and his word is an oath; for God is not faithful because of the oath, but the oath is faithful because of God. For what reason, then, does Moses present God as swearing? Because we are shut in by a certain custom of mortals and wrap ourselves in a shell of common opinion like hedgehogs, or like snails, which cannot breathe unless they are inside the covering of their shell, nor take in or bear the free air; so we move only within certain earthly hiding places of human custom. Hence, because we usually believe more firmly what is confirmed by an oath, so that our faith may not limp, God is written to swear, who himself does not swear but is the judge of those who swear and the avenger of perjurers. Indeed it is written: "The Lord has sworn and will not repent: You are a priest for ever." He kept what he swore; he gave us an eternal high priest, so that you too may know that what you swear must be kept, so that, since you swear by him who does not lie, you may know that he will be your avenger if you lie.

So when the restless and fickle thoughts have been driven out, God will give you the empty possession of heart and mind, so that you may till it with a kind of tranquillity and gather fruit from it, and not allow the Canaanites, that is, turbulent senses, to return to it; that you may root out every pagan enclosure of vices and destroy their groves, by which truth is overshadowed and a certain free view of heavenly knowledge is hidden by the horror of dark disputation.

But you cannot do this unless endowed with a divine gift. And so it says: "God will give you", that is, the best thoughts, calm counsels, tranquil discoveries. When he has given these, "you shall take every male that opens the womb and sanctify it to the Lord". God, who has given all, does not demand all from you. For he gives many things for the use of human life, and where there is the use of nature, that cannot be a divine sacrifice. To eat, drink, sleep and the other services of the body have been given to you as gifts, not returned by you to God as offerings. But whatever holy thing you think, this is God's gift, God's inspiration, God's grace; just as, on the contrary, the things that are in the use of human nature do not defile a man, but what comes out of the mouth, thefts, false testimonies, sacrileges: these are what defile a man.