After his disobedience, after their loss of the garden, then it was that the practice of intercourse had its beginning. You see, before their disobedience they followed a life like that of angels, and there was not mention of intercourse.

Note that the name Cain means ownership, which explains what was said at the time of his birth by his father or mother: I have come into possession of a man through God.

Cain was followed by Abel, who was killed by his brother and served as the first prophetic symbol of the City of God. He was like an alien on earth, destined to suffer cruel persecutions at the hands of the wicked men who can properly be called natives of earth because they love this world as their home and find their happiness in the worldly felicity of the earthly city.

[The pagans say, The Christians] censure the ceremonies of sacrifice, the victims, incense and the rest, which are used in temple worship. Yet the same ceremonies of sacrifice were originated by themselves or by the god they worship, in primitive times, when a god was assumed to need their offerings of first fruits. This question is evidently derived from that passage in our Scriptures that tells of Cain making an offering to God of the fruits of the earth and Abel of the firstlings of his flocks. We answer that the conclusion to be drawn from it is that sacrifice is a very ancient custom, because our true and sacred Books warn us that it is not to be offered except to the one true God. But God does not need sacrifices, as is most clearly expressed in the same sacred Books: I said to the Lord, thou art my God, for thou hast no need of my goods,^[1] because in accepting or refusing or receiving them he is looking only to man’s good. God does not derive any benefit from our worship, but we do.

Abel was very discerning in his choice of offerings, whereas Cain showed no such discernment. Abel selected and offered the choicest of his firstborn and of his fat ones, while Cain either offered young grains or certain fruits that are found at the same time as the young grains. Even if his offering had been smaller than that of his brother, it would have been as acceptable as the offering of his brother, had he not brought it with such carelessness. They made their offerings alternately; one offered a lamb of his flock, the other the fruits of the earth. But because Cain had taken such little regard for the first offering that he offered, God refused to accept it in order to teach Cain how he was to make an offering.

In the case of Cain his wickedness did not begin when he killed his brother. For even before that God, who knows the heart, had no regard for Cain and his sacrifice. But his baseness was made evident when he killed Abel.

There were two reasons for his annoyance: not just that he alone had been rejected but also that his brother’s gift had been accepted.

Cain was angry because the offering of his brother had been accepted. Cain became angry on account of the fire that had come down and distinguished between the offerings. His face became gloomy because there was laughter in the eyes of his parents and his sisters when his offering was rejected. They had seen that Cain’s offering had been placed in the midst of the fire and yet the fire did not touch it.

God wishes to defuse the wild frenzy and remove the anger by means of his words. You see, he observed the stages of Cain’s thinking and realized the savagery of his deadly intention; so he intends at this early stage to sedate his thinking and bring repose to his mind by placing his brother subject to him and not undermining his authority. But even despite such great concern and such potent remedies, Cain gained nothing from the experience. Such was the degree of difference in their attitudes and the excess of evil intent.

God said to Cain, Why are you angry, and why is your face gloomy? Instead of being filled with anger, you ought to be filled with distress. Instead of your face being gloomy, tears ought to be flowing from your eyes. If you do well, I will accept it. Notice then that it was not because of the small size of Cain’s offering that it was rejected. It was not accepted because of his spitefulness and his lack of good will. If you do well, I will accept it, even though I did not accept it before, and it will be accepted along with the chosen offering of your brother even though it was not accepted before. But if you do not do well, sin is couching at the first door. Abel will listen to you through his obedience, for he will go with you to the plain.^[1] There you will be ruled over by sin, that is, you shall be completely filled with it. But instead of doing well so that the offering that had been rejected might be credited to Cain as acceptable, he then made an offering of murder to that One to whom he had already made an offering of negligence.

Why did Cain become a fratricide? Was it not by his evil will? He preferred himself to his Creator and followed after evil thoughts and so became abandoned to envy and committed murder.

Some understand the murderer Cain as the Jews’ lack of faith, the killing of Abel as the passion of the Lord and Savior, and the earth that opened its mouth and received Abel’s blood from Cain’s hand as the church (which received, in the mystery of its renewal, the blood of Christ poured out by the Jews). Undoubtedly those who have this understanding find water turned into wine, for they have a more sacred understanding of the saying of the sacred law.

God appeared to Cain with kindness, so that if he repented, the sin of murder that his fingers had committed might be effaced by the compunction on his lips. If he did not repent, however, there would be decreed on him a bitter punishment in proportion to his evil folly.

But Cain was filled with wrath instead of compunction. To him who knows all, who asked him about his brother in order to win him back, Cain retorted angrily and said, I do not know, am I my brother’s keeper? . . . What then would you say, Cain? Should Justice take vengeance for the blood that cried out to it? Or not? Did it not delay so that you might repent? Did Justice not distance itself from its own knowledge and ask you as if it did not know, so that you might confess? What it said to you did not please you, so you came to that sin to which it had warned you beforehand not to come.

Cain was at once the most wicked and foolish of men in believing that for committing the greatest of crimes it would be sufficient if he avoided other human witnesses. In fact God was the primary witness to his fratricide. Because of this, I think he then shared the opinion held by many today: that God pays no attention to earthly affairs; neither does he see those done by wicked men. There is no doubt that Cain, when summoned by the word of God after his misdeed, answered that he knew nothing of his brother’s murder. He believed God was so ignorant of what had been done that he thought this most deadly crime could be covered by a lie. But it turned out otherwise than he thought. When God condemned him, he realized that God, whom he thought had not seen his crime of murder, had seen him.

The divine Scripture always cries out and speaks; hence God also says to Cain, The voice of your brother’s blood cries out to me. Blood, to be sure, has no voice, but innocent blood that has been spilled is said to cry out not by words but by its very existence. [It makes] demands of the Lord not with eloquent discourse but with anger over the crime committed. It does not accuse the wrongdoer with words so much as bind him by the accusation of his own conscience. The evil deed may seem to be excused when it is explained away with words. But it cannot be excused if it is made present to the conscience. For in silence and without contradiction the wrongdoer’s conscience always convicts and judges him.

We also know that what was said of Abel, when he was slain by the wicked murderer Cain, is suitable for all whose blood has been shed wickedly. Let us suppose that the verse The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground is said as well for each of the martyrs, the voice of whose blood cries to God from the ground.

The punishment of which God spoke seems to be excessively harsh, but rightly understood it gives us a glimpse of his great solicitude. God wanted men of later times to exercise self-control. Therefore, he designed the kind of punishment that was capable of setting Cain free from his sin. If God had immediately destroyed him, Cain would have disappeared, his sin would have stayed concealed, and he would have remained unknown to men of later times. But as it is, God let him live a long time with that bodily tremor of his. The sight of Cain’s palsied limbs was a lesson for all he met. It served to teach all men and exhort them never to dare do what he had done, so that they might not suffer the same punishment. And Cain himself became a better man again. His trembling, his fear, the mental torment that never left him, his physical paralysis kept him, as it were, shackled. They kept him from leaping again to any other like deed of bold folly. They constantly reminded him of his former crime. Through them he achieved greater self-control in his soul.

Do you, who have but lately come to the catechesis, wish to see the loving kindness of God? Would you want to behold the loving kindness of God and the extent of his forbearance? Listen to the story of [Cain]. . . . Cain, the firstborn man, became a fratricide, from whose wicked designings first stemmed murder and envy. Yet consider his sentence for slaying his brother. Groaning and trembling shall you be upon the earth.^[1] Though the sin was great, the sentence was light.

Indeed, it was not without reason that the mark was set upon Cain, that no one might kill him. Thus it was indicated that evil is not destroyed or removed from the earth. Cain was afraid that he might be killed, because he did not know how to flee. For evil is augmented and amassed by the practice of evil, and it exists without moderation or limit, fights through guile and deceit and is revealed by its deeds and by the blood of the slain, even as Cain also was revealed.

Like a slave, Cain received a mark and he could not escape death. Thus is the sinner a slave to fear, a slave to desire, a slave to greed, a slave to lust, a slave to sin, a slave to anger. Though such a man appears to himself free, he is more a slave than if he were under tyrants.

You see, since Cain perpetrated practically the same evil as the serpent, which like an instrument served the devil’s purposes, and as the serpent introduced mortality by means of deceit, in like manner Cain deceived his brother, led him out into open country, raised his hand in armed assault against him and committed murder. Hence, as God said to the serpent, Cursed are you beyond all the wild animals of the earth, so to Cain too when he committed the same evil as the serpent.

Someone may say, Behold he has confessed, and confessed with great precision—but all to no avail, dearly beloved: the confession comes too late. You see, he should have done this at the right time when he was in a position to find mercy from the judge.

By means of righteousness we come into God’s presence, as Moses did when he entered the thick cloud where God was.^[1] On the other hand, by the practice of evil a person leaves the presence of the Lord. For example, Cain, when he killed his brother, left the Lord’s presence as far as his will was concerned.

After Cain received the punishment and the sign had been added to it . . . Moses said that Cain went away from the presence of the Lord and dwelt in the land of Nod, east of Eden. Cain, therefore, separated himself from his parents and his kin because he saw that they would not intermarry with him.

The land of Nod is so called because it was the land in which Cain wandered about in fear and trembling. But the land also received a second curse when God said, When you till the earth it shall no longer yield to you its strength.

The Scripture makes good sense: Cain left God’s presence and went to live in the land of Nod, opposite Eden. Nod means disturbance, Eden, the good life. The good life from which the transgressor was expelled consisted in faith, knowledge, peace. Those wise in their own eyes . . . are happy to transfer to the disturbance of a tossing sea. They drop from the knowledge of the One who knows no birth to the realm of birth and death. Their opinions are constantly changing.

There the families

of the two brothers had separated:

Cain went off by himself

and lived in the land of Nod,

a place lower still

than that of Seth and Enosh;

but those who lived on higher ground,

who were called

the children of God,

left their own region and came down

to take wives

from the daughters of Cain down below.

Consider now the text: And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived, and brought forth Enoch; and he built a city and called the name thereof by the name of his son Enoch. It does not at all follow from these words that we must believe Cain’s first son was Enoch, as though Cain knew his wife must refer to their first intercourse. You have the same expression used of the first father, Adam, but not only in reference to the conception of Cain, who seems to have been his firstborn, since a little later Scripture records, Adam knew his wife, and she conceived and brought forth a son and called his name Seth.^[1]

Now, it is recorded of Cain that he built a city, while Abel, as though he were merely a pilgrim on earth, built none. For the true city of the saints is in heaven, though here on earth it produces citizens in whom it wanders as on a pilgrimage through time looking for the kingdom of eternity. When that day comes, it will gather together all those who, rising in their bodies, shall have that kingdom given to them in which, along with their Prince, the King of Eternity, they shall reign forever and ever.

That Cain remained alive until the seventh generation is clear. First, . . . it had been so decreed concerning him. Second, the length of the lives of those first generations also testifies to it. For if his father Adam remained alive until the ninth generation, that of Lamech, and was gathered from the world in the fifty-sixth year of Lamech, it is no great thing that Cain should remain until the seventh generation.

The text runs: Methushael begot Lamech, who took two wives: the name of the one was Ada, and the name of the other Sella. And Ada brought forth Jobel; who was the father of such as dwell in tents, and of herdsmen. His brother’s name was Jubal. He was the father of all those who play the psaltery and cittara. Sella bore Tobel; he was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron. The sister of Tobel was Noema. This is as far as the line of descent from Cain is carried. There are eight generations in all, including Adam. The seventh is that of Lamech, who was the husband of two wives; the eighth is that of his children, among whom is the woman who is mentioned by name. What is here delicately intimated is that to the very end of its existence the earthly city will be propagated by physical births proceeding from the union of the sexes. This is why we are given the proper names of the wives of the last man mentioned as begetting children—a practice unheard of before the flood, except in the case of Eve.