On Cain and Abel

Contents

Reading pages: 1.1–1.20 · 1.21–1.45 · 1.46–2.19 · 2.20–2.38

1. 1.1Having treated paradise and the fall of Adam and Eve, Ambrose turns to the history of their heir, Cain.
2. 1.2Eve's words "I have acquired a man through God" name God as the author of her son, teaching us to credit God, not ourselves, with what we gain.
3. 1.3As an added number replaces the former, Abel's birth displaces Cain; their names mean self-acquisition and referring all to God.
4. 1.4Cain and Abel stand for two opposed outlooks born in one soul, self-reliance and reliance on God, like Esau and Jacob struggling in Rebecca's womb.
5. 1.5Ambrose reads Cain and Abel as a figure of the synagogue and the church; being "gathered to one's fathers" means sharing their faith and life, not merely burial.
6. 1.6Isaac was gathered "to his kind", not "to his people", because, a child of promise taught by God rather than by men, he was like the few who share heavenly wisdom.
7. 1.7Moses, called to stand with God, surpassed the human condition as a figure of Christ the teacher and was called a god to Pharaoh because he had mastered his passions.
8. 1.8Moses died "through the word of God" and his grave is unknown, signifying translation rather than destruction; he appeared with Christ at the transfiguration.
9. 1.9Moses' grave is unknown, but Christ's tomb was known so that his resurrection might be made plain; the one awaited redemption, the other gave it.
10. 1.10As Abel followed Cain, so in every person the self-seeking comes first and reverence for God later; only Christ, born of a virgin, was free from this from the start.
11. 1.11Abel is named first in describing their occupations because shepherding, like teaching and leading, is nobler than tilling the cursed ground; virtue, though later in time, is elder in merit.
12. 1.12Wickedness comes first in time, but virtue has the precedence of glory, as Esau, "folly", yielded his birthright to Jacob, "exercise"; the kingdom is won by effort.
13. 1.13The law of the loved and the hated wife figures two women living in every soul: attractive Pleasure and seemingly harsh Virtue, whose son has the birthright.
14. 1.14Pleasure is portrayed as the harlot of Proverbs and the hostess of a debauched feast, inviting all to eat, drink and enjoy life because tomorrow they die.
15. 1.15Virtue meets the young man and, in the words of Proverbs, warns him against the harlot Pleasure, whose honeyed lips lead to death and whose offers, like the devil's to Christ, are passing.
16. 1.16Christ taught us to resist the snares of gluttony, boasting and ambition by his answers to the devil's three temptations.
17. 1.17Even worldly goods belong to God, who lent them to the devil for a time to test us, since there is no crown without a contest.
18. 1.18Worldly goods punish those who cannot use them; gluttony and drunkenness ruin many, and Christ shuts out those who only ate and drank in his presence, but blesses the hungry.
19. 1.19Instead of pleasure's feast, come to the banquet of wisdom and of the church, where Christ serves the food of his word and sacraments in a house vast and well founded.
20. 1.20Unlike the sober drunkenness of grace, drunkenness with wine kindles lust, an insatiable passion from which the Apostle tells us to flee.
21. 1.21Avarice is an insatiable sickness of the soul; true riches are the hidden treasures of heaven, poverty of spirit, virtue and faith.
22. 1.22The gifts of virtue need no ornament but shine by their own light; Christ requires faith, zeal and deeds: asking, seeking and knocking.
23. 1.23Like Jacob and Isaac, those who pursue virtue inherit; Hagar and Keturah, figures of the intermediate disciplines, receive only gifts, not the inheritance.
24. 1.24In the mystical sense Abraham's heir is Christ; the soul turning to virtue chooses Jacob's way, and shepherding, like Abel's, means ruling one's own senses and passions.
25. 1.25Cain's offering was faulty because it was late and not of the first fruits; vows should be paid promptly, and ingratitude takes the forms of forgetfulness, self-glory and self-righteousness.
26. 1.26The law warns against forgetting God in prosperity; one who knows his own weakness will remember God.
27. 1.27No one should credit himself with his good; Paul called himself least of the apostles and taught that we have nothing we did not receive.
28. 1.28The self-righteous are warned that Israel received the land not for its righteousness but by God's covenant; the covenant is God's perfect grace, sealed in blood and fulfilled in the gift of his Son.
29. 1.29A vow is best paid quickly, as Abraham rose early to offer Isaac, doing everything himself in faith.
30. 1.30The "third day" signifies continual devotion or faith in the Trinity, which Abraham worshipped in the three visitors, offering three measures of fine flour as one sacrifice.
31. 1.31Devotion should be swift, like Abraham preparing the calf, Zacchaeus coming down, and Israel eating the Passover in haste, which signifies passing from the passions to virtue.
32. 1.32God gives swiftly through his Word, who is not a work but the worker, present everywhere and anticipating all, so one who knows this asks quickly and receives quickly.
33. 1.33Pharaoh, asked when Moses should pray against the frogs, said "tomorrow", and his delay and ingratitude brought Egypt to ruin.
34. 1.34Humility commends prayer: the tax collector, not the boastful Pharisee, was justified; the proud like Pharaoh and the Assyrian were cast down, while the grateful, like Jacob and the Samaritan leper, give God the credit.
35. 1.35Prayer and the mysteries should be kept hidden, like Abraham's and Israel's cakes baked under the ashes and the hidden leaven; Christ taught us to pray in the inner room of the heart.
36. 1.36The door to be shut in prayer is the mouth: Paul rightly asked for a door of the word to be opened to preach, but we should guard our lips, since much speaking brings sin.
37. 1.37Prayer should be humble and discreet, guarding the mysteries of the Creed and the Lord's Prayer; God hears thoughts, not shouts, and the mysteries should be shared only when mature.
38. 1.38Christ teaches us to pray often but not wearisomely, to forgive as we ask forgiveness, and to pray everywhere in the inner room of the heart.
39. 1.39We should pray for the whole people, the body of the church, so that as each prays for all, all pray for each.
40. 1.40Cain's delay shows pride; we should go first to God for healing, not turn to him only when human remedies fail.
41. 1.41Cain did not offer the first fruits; we owe God the first fruits of the soul, whose first is thanksgiving offered with a pure heart.
42. 1.42Abel offered living firstlings and fat, the best, as the law later required of firstborn males on entering Canaan; the Canaanites stand for restless and fickle thoughts to be driven out by constancy.
43. 1.43God's oath is a concession to human weakness, since his word is itself faithful; he kept his oath by giving us an eternal high priest, and we must keep ours.
44. 1.44When restless thoughts are driven out, God gives the heart as a possession to be tilled in peace, cleared of vices like the Canaanite groves.
45. 1.45God, who gives all, asks not for the ordinary uses of nature but for holy thoughts, which are themselves his gift; it is what comes out of the heart that defiles.
46. 1.46The "male that opens the womb" is not bodily birth, which does not itself sanctify, but something inward and principal to be offered to God.
47. 1.47The soul, which has no sex, conceives and gives birth to thoughts; its "male" offspring are the virtues, its "female" the vices, and the male offspring is what is offered to God.
48. 2.1The soul must not only conceive but bring forth and nourish its good thoughts in good works before the day of judgment.
49. 2.2The soul's offspring should be Christ formed within, faith nourished by teaching, as Paul laboured for his spiritual children until they reached the full measure of Christ.
50. 2.3The firstlings of the herds stand for the lower senses, which, like animals, can be tamed when governed by reason, as trained horses and lions show.
51. 2.4Senses governed by the mind are "male" and perfect; ungoverned senses enfeeble the soul, as Paul found the law of the flesh warring against his mind and hoped only in Christ's grace.
52. 2.5Holy thoughts are the first fruits of the spiritual threshing floor, the solid grain that nourishes virtue, while empty thoughts blow away like chaff and smoke.
53. 2.6The first fruits of the dough that we are, compounded of body, soul and spirit, are the pure thoughts of the soul, not bodily pleasures; Abraham's offering of Isaac was such a pure offering.
54. 2.7First fruits are holy by devotion, not by time; so Israel and the Levites, though not firstborn by birth, are called firstborn because they are holy and devoted to God.
55. 2.8Faith first, then perfect works, are the whole offering God asks; exchanging the ass's firstborn for a sheep means turning labour into fruit.
56. 2.9Redeeming the ass's firstborn means freeing the soul from fruitless worldly labours, whose victories and glories never truly end; true freedom is in God.
57. 2.10Israel freed from brick-making in Egypt exchanged labour for fruit, as Christ calls the labouring Gentiles to his rest; we are both cleansed by baptism and redeem our sins by good works, faith and mercy.
58. 2.11Our redemption price is Christ's blood; he is the true Levite who redeems all, offering healing so that those who perish do so by their own fault, while the righteous, like the ten for Sodom, save others.
59. 2.12The righteous benefit whole peoples; Ambrose rejoices in the long lives of wise elders, virgins and widows who are the church's senate, and grieves when they die, as a city weakens.
60. 2.13The Levites are called firstborn and redeemers; their cities of refuge figure the soul in which God's Word dwells, where the repentant find freedom from penalty.
61. 2.14The guilty and the Levites share the cities of refuge for opposite reasons; the Levite kills his own pleasures, as Moses first killed the "Egyptian" of vice in himself before killing the Egyptian.
62. 2.15God both forgives, through his Word and the priestly ministry, and punishes, through judges, nations, and even involuntary killers; when wickedness is destroyed, holiness enters.
63. 2.16When wickedness departs, virtue enters: Christ left Judas when Satan entered him, but Zacchaeus, renouncing avarice, received Christ and restored what he had taken.
64. 2.17The fat of Abel's offering signifies a rich sacrifice nourished by faith, devotion and the word of God.
65. 2.18God's word to Cain, "if you offer rightly but do not divide rightly", shows that God looks at the disposition of the offerer; Cain's sadness betrayed his conscience.
66. 2.19Of four qualities that commend a sacrifice, the first, "new of the new", signifies those renewed by baptism who offer themselves, nourished by both Testaments and by the truth of Christ's body.
67. 2.20The second quality, "roasted", signifies faith tested by fire and fervent with the Spirit, as in Jacob's cooked lentils, the roasted Passover lamb, and the roasted fish Christ ate.
68. 2.21The third quality, "divided", means that prayer and offering should be ordered by the four virtues: prudence, temperance (even between spouses), fortitude and justice; Cain's offering lacked this division.
69. 2.22The fourth quality, "continual", means constant prayer and meditation on Scripture, which, like exercise, strengthens the soul; such prayer is the "fat" offering.
70. 2.23As God created the world in distinct order, so our thanks must be rightly ordered; Cain offered but did not divide rightly, putting earthly things before God's first fruits.
71. 2.24"You have sinned; be still" teaches that, having sinned, we should confess in shame rather than defend ourselves, since the guilt is our own.
72. 2.25"You are its ruler" means Cain is the author of his sin; impiety toward God is the mother of all other offences, and Cain sinned by deliberate choice.
73. 2.26Cain chose a barren field for the murder, as if nature withheld fruit from a place of fratricide; murderers flee the witnesses of light and fruitfulness.
74. 2.27God asked Cain where his brother was to call him to confession, which lessens punishment; to blame God's decree for one's sin, as pagans do, is worse than the sin itself.
75. 2.28Cain's "Am I my brother's keeper?" shows that one who does not revere God will not honour kinship; faith in Christ is the foundation of all virtues.
76. 2.29The voice of Abel's blood convicts Cain: no one else could have killed him, and the blood accuses where his brother would not, so that Cain's own deed is his accuser.
77. 2.30The earth, which received Abel's blood, is witness and judge against Cain and will no longer yield him its strength, an innocent vengeance.
78. 2.31God hears the blood of the righteous, who live to him even in death, but turns from the ungodly, whose souls are buried in their flesh; cursed by the earth, Cain is condemned by heaven too.
79. 2.32Cain feared abandonment and hid himself; for the wicked, being left by God is worst of all, while the righteous offer themselves to him.
80. 2.33The righteous say "Here I am"; Cain, guilty, feared only bodily death, perhaps from beasts or even from his parents, having taught that killing kin was possible.
81. 2.34The sevenfold vengeance is explained by the seven irrational faculties ruled by reason, or better by seven as the number of remission: whoever refuses forgiveness loses his own hope of it.
82. 2.35The sign on Cain was a kindness inviting correction, yet also a punishment for asking only bodily life; death, which ends sin and suffering, is a remedy rather than a penalty.
83. 2.36For those with good hope, death is a departure: the soul is incorruptible and returns to its higher home; likewise the prophets shared Israel's captivity to keep the people faithful.
84. 2.37Abel's early death and Cain's long, prosperous life refute those who think this life is the only one; Cain's long life was itself a punishment, while the righteous live on.
85. 2.38God spared Cain to teach judges patience and moderation and to leave room for repentance, while exiling him; Lamech, who sinned after Cain's example, was punished more heavily.