On Cain and Abel 1.46–2.19

Let us cleanse our inner parts, then, so that the offering may not displease. There let us seek every male that opens the womb, that is, what is just and principal, which we ought to sanctify to the Lord. For it is not these bodily unions and conceptions and births that sanctify us, by which a woman's womb is opened when the modesty of virginity is deflowered. For although the wife sanctifies the husband and the husband the wife, yet it often happens that a virgin's womb is opened even without the sanctity of marriage. Nor again is grace for men alone while the woman is a stranger to sanctification, or is the nature of both sexes confused, so that both pour themselves into bodily births. Men have their own functions; women have the distinct duties of their sex. This generation for human succession befits the woman; it is impossible for the man.

So if this sense does not fit the use of the flesh, let us examine the functions of the soul. I find the soul to be distinguished by no sex. And though it has no sex, it represents the functions of both sexes: it marries, conceives, gives birth. And as nature gave women a womb, in which the offspring of each living creature is formed over the months, so there is a power of the soul which, as in the secret of a generative womb, usually receives the seeds of our thoughts, cherishes what is conceived, and brings forth births. For Isaiah would not otherwise say, "We have conceived in the womb and brought forth the spirit of salvation", unless he had known the womb of the soul. Of these births, some are female: malice, wantonness, luxury, intemperance, unchastity and other vices of this kind, by which a certain manliness of our soul is unnerved. Male are chastity, patience, prudence, temperance, fortitude, justice, by which our mind and the flesh itself are strengthened and roused to perform the duties of virtue with vigour. These births that prophetic womb brought forth. And so he says: "We have conceived in the womb and brought forth the spirit of salvation." So he who poured out the spirit of salvation both laboured and brought forth a male.

[Book Two.] Let our soul be in labour with these births, and not only be in labour but also give birth, and give birth when the days are fulfilled, so that the day of judgment may not find the births premature. For of these births the Lord Jesus said: "Woe to those who are pregnant and nursing in those days." So let this birth be completed early, and let our thoughts be unfolded in the progress of good works, so that our end may find nothing imperfect, the close of our life meet nothing undeveloped, the course of our work leave nothing, as it were, on the anvil. Hasten, then, soul, to form your offspring, to complete them more speedily, to nourish more quickly those you have begotten.

What the form of so great a birth is the Apostle shows, saying: "My little children, with whom I am again in labour until Christ is formed in you." Into this form let the whole inner being of our mind grow together, and in that generative womb of our soul let Christ shine out. Let our offspring be faith, our nourishment the precepts of doctrine. With these let the infancy of our heart be imbued, its boyhood instructed; let its adolescence grow young and its old age grow white; for "a spotless life is the age of old age". So that old age of the soul is good which no defilements of faithlessness have stained. And so Paul defends his offspring from this stain ("I begot you," he says, "through the gospel"), lest someone's savage whispering tempt the infancy of a raw faith. He was begetting males, then, who longed for the peoples he taught to come together into the perfect man in the unity of the faith and, in the knowledge of the Son of God, to hold the perfect measure of the fullness of Christ. For he knew that this sacrifice was acceptable to God, of which it is written: "Every male that opens the womb is the Lord's." And since it added, "Every male that opens the womb from the herds and from the flocks that are yours is the Lord's", let us consider it, so that it may have no obscurity.

He had spoken of the principal offspring, that is, those full and capable of reason; he added also those of the herds, that is, the remaining, as it were common, senses, which are compared to irrational beasts of burden. Yet when these are governed by some ruler, they are easily tamed, and are accustomed to carry out commands, to go under the yoke, and at the voice of the master to quicken their pace or stop or turn aside, or to perform with a kind of human service any duties of their work that are ordered. So strong is training that it overcomes nature. So those creatures that do not share our substance nevertheless recognize the command of our voice, and though they have no reason of their own nature, they take on the reason of our nature and acquire it as if poured into them. We see horses roused by the enthusiasm of the people, rejoicing in applause, delighted by the coaxing of their master. We see fierce lions change their natural savagery to the gentleness they are commanded, lay aside their rage and take on our ways; and though they are terrible themselves, they learn to fear. A dog is beaten so that the lion may be afraid; and he who is roused to rage by an injury to himself is restrained by another's and broken by another's example. How often, with prey ready and food at hand, do they prefer to endure hunger while they fear offending their master; how often, driven by sudden impulse, do they release on command jaws opened to bite! So while they obey our will they forget their own. Not so those wild beasts, or those herds of horses, or every kind of cattle that roam without any ruler and, left without the guidance of any tamer, grow savage. And so herdsmen, shepherds and other keepers are appointed as masters of the flocks, each shaping his duties according to the condition of the animals entrusted to him.

So there seems to be one kind of our senses that is tamed and gentle, another untamed, which, when the herdsman, the motion of the mind, is idle and slack, rushes off to the irrational pleasures of the body; and the gentle kind, which submits and subjects itself, as to a leader, to the moderation of the mind. Whatever of this nature is governed is male and perfect; but whatever rules without any leader by a kind of popular presumption, like a city deprived of the counsel of its king and its nobles, makes effeminate the whole state of its body and its manly vigour with a kind of womanish slackness. Of these is that law of the flesh which, fighting against the law of the apostle's mind, dragged him captive by a certain law of sin. And so, to be freed from that body of death, Paul placed all his hope not in his own virtue but in the grace of Christ. Hence it is clear that the motions which are according to the law of the mind proceed from divine favour, while the other senses proceed from the will of the body.

Those that are holy, then, are the firstlings of our senses; these others are, as it were, of the herd and of common baseness, which Moses seems to have signified to the Jews by various names. For that mystical threshing floor of the law also shows this, of which he says: "The first of your threshing floor and of your winepress you shall not make the last; you shall give me the firstborn of your sons." The holy motions of our senses, which are according to virtue, are themselves the first fruits of the spiritual threshing floor; that is why they are compared to a rural threshing floor, on which grain is winnowed. For as on this rural threshing floor wheat and barley are threshed and, by frequent winnowing, separated from the chaff, because the chaff and other refuse of the harvest are scattered elsewhere by the breath of a light breeze, while what is more solid falls back in the same place with the dust shaken off, so the solid and best of our thoughts provide pure and sincere nourishment of virtue, as it is written, "Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word of God"; but the useless and empty ones are scattered like smoke and mist, because "as smoke to the eyes, so is iniquity to those who use it". And rightly is iniquity compared to smoke, which covers the sight of the mind with a kind of worldly fog.

And so the Lord says: "When you have entered the land into which I am bringing you, and begin to eat of the bread of that land, you shall offer a separate offering to the Lord, the first fruits of your dough, a loaf; as an offering from the threshing floor, so you shall take away the first fruits of your mixtures and give them to the Lord." We are a mixture, composed of a certain blending of different elements, since cold is mixed with hot in us and moist with dry. This dough has many enticements of the flesh, very many pleasures; but these are not the firstling senses of this body. And since we consist of soul and body and spirit, the principal dough is that in which the Apostle wishes us to be sanctified, as he says: "May the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body be kept whole and blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ." The first fruits of this dough are spiritual, that is, the discoveries and offspring of the senses that proceed from the vigour of the soul. But not all senses are firstlings, only those free from malice and wickedness and all error. There are also necessary pleasures of the body, such as sleeping, eating, drinking, walking, and other senses of this kind, but the first fruits are not in these. And so the Lord's sacrament is not in these, but in those where there is chastity, piety, faith and devotion. A clear and evident example of this is the offering of the patriarch Isaac, whom his father offered as a sacrifice, bent by no motion of human passion, offering God a pure victim, empty of fear and free of bodily desire, while the very love of the father gave way to the devotion of the one sacrificing.

Now let us consider what the force of first fruits is, and whether first fruits are reckoned by time or by holiness, that is, whether all firstborn have the sanctification of first fruits. For the first fruits of crops are holy according to the law, because in them is the best sacrifice of a prompt faith; but they become holy by devotion, not by time. It is not the yield that sanctifies but devotion. Indeed, where the yield is quick, if devotion delays, offence is incurred. So not all firstborn are holy, but all that are holy are also firstborn. Indeed Cain was firstborn but not holy. Israel too, God's people, is holy but not first in age; and yet it is called firstborn, as it is written in the prophets: "Israel is my firstborn." And Levi was holy but not firstborn, for he is read to be the third son of Leah; and yet the Levites, whose name is derived from him, were called firstborn. For it is written in Numbers: "Behold, I have taken the Levites from among the sons of Israel in place of every firstborn that opens the womb among the sons of Israel, and the Levites shall be mine; for every firstborn is mine. On the day I struck every firstborn of Egypt, I sanctified every firstborn of Israel." So the Levites were called firstborn, who certainly were set above the other sons of Israel by sanctification. In what sense they are firstborn, hear the Apostle saying: "But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, Jerusalem, which is in heaven, and to ten thousands of rejoicing angels, and to the churches of the firstborn, which are enrolled in heaven." He made four ranks: of Mount Zion, of the city Jerusalem, of the assembly of angels, of the churches of the firstborn. So the Lord God took the Levites from among the people of Israel, because he wanted them to share not in human cares but to be ministers of divine religion; and he made firstborn for himself those who open the spiritual womb. And so they were not from the womb of nature, like sinners of various crimes, but were chosen when worldly things had been stripped away. Hence they have no share in the possession of the people, nor are they counted in the midst of the people, because they possess the Word of God in their midst, as it is written in the Gospel: "Where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I in the midst of them"; and elsewhere: "Among you stands one whom you do not know."

From this, then, we learn that above all faith should commend us to God. When we have faith, let us labour that our works may be perfect, since this is the full and perfect sacrifice, as the Lord himself teaches, saying of his gifts and offerings: "You shall take care to offer to me on my feast days, taking nothing away and not dividing, but offering what is full and whole and perfect." The Lord's feast day is where there is the grace of perfect virtues. These are perfect if the mind, victor over worldly cares and bodily enticement, shuts out the charms of pleasure, free from the world, given to God, diminishing nothing from the path of its straight intention, and not dividing the times of its affection now to luxury, now to labour. Only the wise man, then, celebrates this solemn feast, no one else; for it is hard to find a soul free from passions of this kind. Divide, then, according to reason, the governing and the obedient parts of the soul, and then you will find what is male and what female; for there is no virtue without labour, since labour is the progress of virtue. The very words of the law signify this too, which says: "Every one that opens the womb of an ass you shall exchange for a sheep"; for the law separated unclean animals from sacrifice and commanded clean ones to be offered in their place. So it commands the offspring of an ass, that is, an unclean one, to be exchanged for a sheep, which is clean and fit for sacrifice. This is according to the letter. But if anyone pursues the sense of the spiritual law more deeply, he will consider that the ass is a labouring animal, the sheep a fruitful one. So he says that labour must be exchanged for fruit, so that the end of one's work may be fruit; or certainly in this way: you shall commend all your labour, all your industry, with a pure and simple disposition.

"But if you do not exchange it," it says, "you shall redeem it." According to the letter, it is commanded that another animal be offered for the unclean one, or a price, so that nothing less or unclean may seem to be offered among the tithes of the crops. But the deeper understanding teaches that your soul must be freed, so as to cease from things that have no fruit; for one who redeems himself frees himself and is released from a kind of debt. Works must be left behind which cannot have true fruit and good progress, such as these worldly things, whose use cannot last long. In them a man is made naked and empty of the true, and, though it was sought with the greatest labour, it helps the soul not at all. For all things that bring slavery to the soul are useless, even if the result is not lacking. The victory of those who fight seems great, the glory of those who triumph; but we often see those who have won fall again under the uncertainties of wars and be handed over to the enemy by the outcome of a battle, and become more wretched by the very fact that they were victors before. You need, then, to direct your works to God and have his favour breathe upon you. The athlete himself, who contends by his own strength and not another's, believes that he undergoes doubtful chances each time he engages, and when he has reached the crown he understands that this glory of the world withers quicker than the leaves of the crown itself. The helmsman, when he has brought his ship into port, scarcely thinks an end has been put to his labour, and at once seeks the beginning of a new labour. The soul is released from the body, and after the end of this life it still hangs in the uncertainty of the judgment to come. So there is no end where an end is thought to be. Hence let us cling to our God with vows and a pure conscience and the spirit of charity, and win the divine favour for ourselves, praying that we may be released and stripped of worldly cares as from harsh and boorish masters and go out from worldly slavery, called into the freedom of heavenly knowledge, which is the true and only freedom.

And to support the precept of the law by an example: when the Egyptians oppressed the people of the Jews with various works, with mud and stone, the sons of Israel groaned and called down the Lord's mercy on themselves. And he said to Moses: "I have heard the groaning of the sons of Israel, how the Egyptians press them into slavery, and I have remembered my covenant. Go and say to the sons of Israel: I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from the power of the Egyptians and rescue you from their slavery, and I will free you with an uplifted arm and great judgment, and I will take you to myself as a people, and I will be your God; and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who will bring you out from the power of the Egyptians and bring you into the land over which I stretched out my hand." See how the people of the Hebrews exchanged labour for fruit, so that those who worked in mud now worked for the hope of an eternal kingdom. So too the Lord in the Gospel, pitying the empty labour of the Gentile peoples, who made bricks for a muddy superstition and, given to bodily pleasure, could not build a solid wall of faith, said, as if to the offspring of an ass: "Come to me, all you who labour, and I will refresh you. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, and you will find rest for your souls." By this calling I seem to recognize more fully the words and mysteries of the law, since it taught that the ass should either be exchanged for a sheep or redeemed with money, so that we may not only exchange the ass's offspring for a sheep, that is, unclean things for clean, but also redeem it. This seems to be expressed thus: if first we wash away the defilements of our offences by the sacrifice of purification and the mystery of baptism, let us also redeem our crimes by good works and the price of faith and by mercy.

Our price is the blood of Christ. Hence the apostle Peter too says: "You were redeemed not with gold or silver, but with precious blood." And Paul says: "You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men." Hence it is not idly marvelled at in the Gospel that the Lord Jesus sat on the colt of an ass, because the Gentile people, which according to the law was held unclean, began to be Christ's offering. Hence it is also written of the Levites that they are the redemptions of the people, because by the holiness of their life and by prayer they lightened the sins of the people. In them the figure of the Lamb went before in mysteries, the true Levite who was to come, who by the passion of his own body would take away the sin of the world. "Levite" signifies "taken up for me", or "he himself light for me". He has the sign of perfect virtue, of health to be imparted to the people. He, then, who came, awaited for the salvation of all, was born for me from the virginal womb, was offered for me, tasted death for me, rose for me. In him the redemption of all men was taken up, the resurrection assumed. He is the true Levite, so that he might make us Levites to cling to God, to pour out continual prayers to him, to hope for salvation from him, to flee earthly business, to be counted in God's possession, as it is written: "Lord, possess us." For that alone is a possession which, liable to no storms, bears the fruits of perpetual grace. The Levite is the redeemer, because the wise man is the redemption of the foolish, who like a physician tends the sick mind of the foolish and sprinkles certain medicines of prudence on a more solid mind, imitating that physician who came from heaven to show men the ways of prudence and to reveal the paths of wisdom to little ones. For he saw that those who were labouring could not be saved without a remedy, and so he gave medicine to the sick; and so he brought the help of healing to all, so that whoever perishes may ascribe the causes of his death to himself, since he would not be cured when he had a remedy by which he could escape; and the mercy of Christ toward all may be proclaimed as manifest, because those who perish perish by their own negligence, while those who are saved are freed according to the judgment of Christ, who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. Indeed Sodom too, if it had had fifty righteous men, would not have been overthrown, and if it had had ten, it would have been redeemed; because the word of the forgiveness of sins strips the soul of slavery, and the fullness of perfect discipline does not allow the mind to be consumed by the devouring heat of lusts.

Yet it matters a great deal, and builds up moral feeling, if we take the number of the righteous simply as benefiting the salvation of peoples. It checks and cuts back envy, confounds wickedness, stirs up virtue, increases grace. For no one should envy another a praise that benefits himself; and every wicked man, while he accepts his redeemer, often imitates him, certainly reveres him, and often even loves him. And the righteous man himself, if he knows that he will benefit others, grows in zeal, and by that grace he binds peoples together and heaps up the love of citizens and the glory of cities. How blessed is the city that has very many righteous men; how celebrated on the lips of all; how it is blessed from every side, and its condition thought blessed and lasting! How I rejoice when I see some gentle and wise men live long, when I see chaste virgins and grave widows of great age, like a white-haired senate of the church, which by its very face and appearance of gravity shows something to revere, to imitate, by which to be coloured with every grace of character! For I do not rejoice for them, since many wearinesses of this world come upon one who lives long, but because they benefit many. Likewise, when someone of this kind dies, though laid to rest after a long old age, I am grieved, because the flock of the young is deprived of the wall of the old. Indeed this is the first sign of a city about to perish, or of evils threatening or of a fall to come: if the men of better counsel or the graver women die; this is the first gate opened to the evils that rush in. As, then, a whole city is strengthened and increased by an assembly of wise men, or shaken by their death, so a grave and, as it were, elderly speech full of prudence usually steadies and strengthens the soul of each. And if there is added the practice of much reading, a kind of senate of many precepts and counsels, it makes lasting the state of that city which is in the heart of each.

So Moses called the Levites the firstborn and the redeemers of the rest, because men of more mature and useful judgment offer to one a kind of old age of soul, and to another they bring redemption. Hence Moses also signified that the cities of the Levites in the Old Testament were redeeming cities, because one who takes refuge in that soul in which the Word of God dwells, a soul fortified and walled like a city, gains perpetual freedom for himself. For as in the cities of the Levites there was remission of penalties, so that if someone who had committed an involuntary killing of a man fled to them, no one was allowed to kill him as long as he stayed within the cities of the Levites, so one who repents of his own sin, which he committed either imprudently or unwillingly, if he clings to residence among the Levites and does not think he should withdraw from those teachers who dispense God's commands, the law itself frees from every penalty and punishment of the outrage committed.

Nor should you think it absurd that criminals live with the pious and the stained with the consecrated; for those who have been polluted by some contagion of offences need to be purified. And in a way the case comes together from opposite kinds. For as the Levite, having renounced worldly pleasures, is an exile from guilt, so the man guilty of blood is a fugitive from his homeland. But there is this difference: the one abandons his own by necessity, through fear of the law, while the minister of God renounces fellowship with human passions and gives up a kind of kinship with fleshly enticement for the sake of the pursuit of virtue. This too is not far from the truth: that the Levite also lays hands, as it were, on himself, so as to kill the pleasures of his body and bring about a kind of death of his flesh. Moses, for instance, killed an Egyptian and became a fugitive from the land of Egypt, to avoid the tyrant of that land. But he would not have killed that Egyptian man unless he had first killed in himself the Egyptian of spiritual wickedness and renounced the luxury of royal honours, "considering the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt". To fools it seems a reproach, but to us that reproach of the Lord's cross is the power and wisdom of God.

Add to this that there are in God two principal kinds of power, one by which he forgives, the other by which he punishes. Sins are forgiven through the Word of God, of whom the Levite is the interpreter and a kind of executor; they are forgiven through the office of the priest and the sacred ministry. They are also punished through men, such as judges, who use power for a time, as the Apostle teaches, saying: "Do you wish not to fear the authority? Do good and you will have praise from it; for it is God's minister to you for good. But if you do evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword in vain; for it is God's minister, an avenger for wrath on him who has done evil." Sins are punished also through peoples, as we read, since the people of the Jews was often subdued by foreigners stirred up by God's command because of an offence against the divine majesty. Not even one who has unwillingly committed a homicide is outside this ministry, since the law says of him that "God delivered him into his hands". His hands, then, served divine vengeance as an instrument. So the Levite is the minister of forgiveness, while the slayer who killed, not by design but against his will, is the minister of divine vengeance. Notice this too: when the ungodly is killed, Christ is poured in, and where abomination is done away with, sanctification is gathered, because the Lord said:

"On the day on which I shall kill every firstborn of Egypt, I will sanctify for myself every firstborn of Israel." You will refer this not to one day of the affliction of Egypt but to all time. For when wickedness is renounced, virtue is at once taken on; for the departure of malice brings about the entrance of virtue, and by the same zeal by which crime is shut out, innocence is joined. You have this in the Gospel: when Satan thrust himself into the heart of Judas, Christ withdrew from him, and in the moment he received the one he lost the other. Indeed it is written thus: "And after the morsel Satan entered into him. So Jesus said to him: What you do, do quickly." What does this mean? That since Satan had entered into him, he himself should go away from Christ. So he is cast out and thrust away, because one who had begun to be with the devil could no longer be with the Lord Jesus; for there is no fellowship of Christ with Belial. Hence, expelled by command, he went away at once, as we read, the evangelist saying that "when he had received the morsel, he went out immediately; and it was night". Not only did he go out, but immediately, and by night. No wonder if he who was deserting Christ had the darkness of night. But as he, received by the devil, was shut out by Christ, so Zacchaeus, renouncing avarice, received Christ. And rightly, seeing his zeal, since he had climbed a tree to see Jesus passing by, the Lord says: "Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for today I must stay at your house." And he came down in haste and received him rejoicing. But in receiving Christ he shut out avarice, banished faithlessness, renounced frauds; for Christ does not enter except to shut out vices, since he does not live with errors. Indeed he cast the money-changers out of the temple because he himself wished to dwell there. Hence Zacchaeus, understanding that he could not receive Christ with his old disposition, ordered his former vices to leave his lodging so that Christ might enter. Rightly, then, when they grumbled that the Lord Jesus had turned aside to stay with a sinful man, he said to the Lord: "Behold, I give half of my goods to the poor, and if I have taken anything from anyone by fraud, I restore it fourfold." In this he answered those who said that a sinner ought not to have given Christ lodging, that is: I am no longer a tax collector, no longer that Zacchaeus, no longer a robber, no longer a cheat. I give back what I took; I give back, I who used to take away. Now I give to the poor whom I used to strip; now I bestow my own, I who used to seize what belonged to others. Crimes fled after Christ entered; all the blindness of fleshly passions was dispelled when the light of eternal life was poured in.

We have spoken of the firstborn; let us speak also of the fat, of which David teaches enough, saying: "Let my soul be filled as with fat and fatness." And above he says: "And let your burnt offering be fat", teaching that a sacrifice is acceptable which is fat, which is sleek and fattened with a certain fodder of faith and devotion and a richer nourishment of the heavenly word. We often call a work "fat" when we mean it to be understood as dense and laborious, and a victim is called rich which is not thin and meagre. Hence we also rightly call a sacrifice fat which we wish to declare rich. And this too is proof: that fat cows were compared by prophetic interpretation to fruitful years.

Now let us consider what the Lord means when he says: "If you offer rightly but do not divide rightly, you have sinned; be still." This is a sign that God is not appeased by the gifts offered, but by the disposition of the one offering. Indeed Cain, the offerer of a condemned gift, understood, through his conscience of an insincere offering, that his sacrifice was not approved by God, and he became sad. For when the mind is conscious of what is right, it rejoices, and the spirit is filled with joy as by a kind of spiritual infusion when someone's pursuits or works are not disapproved by God. Cain's sadness, then, is the testimony of his conscience, the sign of his rejection. And although he offered a gift, yet because he did not divide it rightly and duly, he fell into guilt.

For there are four kinds by which sacrifices were commended: if they were new of the new, or roasted, or divided, or continual. New of the new at the first season of the year, which were valued in the form of the firstborn fruits; but now it has been revealed that they signify those who are renewed through the sacraments of baptism. For this is truly the sacrifice of first fruits, when each offers himself as a victim and begins with himself, so that afterwards he may be able to offer his gift. So the new faith of the renewed, strong, coming to maturity, gaining an increase of virtue, not slack, not weary, not withered by a kind of old age and sluggish in vigour, is fit for sacrifice: let it sprout with a green shoot of wisdom and come to maturity with the youthful fervour of divine knowledge, yet let it have the sap of the old teaching; for the teaching of the Old Testament must run together with that of the New, since it is written: "Eat the old of the old, and take away the old from before the new." Let the knowledge of the patriarchs be our food; let the mind feast on the oracles in the books of the prophets. With such fattening let the inner mind be fed; but now let it be no longer the appearance of the lamb but the truth of the body of Christ. Let not the shadow of the law dazzle the eyes, but let the grace of the Lord's passion openly, the splendour of the resurrection, illumine the sight of the mind.