Caput XXIX
Cain and Adam: The Refusal to Repent
Drawing on Cain's defiant response to God and Adam's blame-shifting, the text exposes the hereditary pattern of self-justification in the human race and exhorts the reader to rise through repentance rather than multiply guilt by defending sin.
The perversity of the wicked demands that such great things be said against their contempt — taking, namely, the occasion from Cain, whose followers are those who despised God's own warning, and who refused even to confess his guilt, but answered timidly, saying, "Am I my brother's keeper?"✦ (Gen. IV, 9.) In this act he imitated his father Adam, who, when called to repentance, at once added the prop of an excuse, saying, "The woman whom you gave me, she gave to me, and I ate" (Gen.✦ III, 12). Secretly twisting his transgression back upon its author, as if the One who had given the woman had provided the occasion of sin. Hence it is that from that root a branch of this error is drawn out even now in the human race, so that whatever anyone does wrong, he tries either to smooth over by excusing or to defend by arguing. And certainly we ought not to sin — but would that after our fall we might strive to rise again, and not multiply our guilt by defending it.
Wanderers in Emptiness: The Futility of Worldly Pursuit
The spirit hardened by sin grows ever more stubborn; those who imitate Cain walk as fugitives and wanderers, carrying nothing of lasting worth from their labor and losing the life to come by clinging to the present.
Yet in this wretched way, the farther the spirit is separated from truth by sinning, the more stubbornly it is hardened. And the guilt that should have terrified the mind only puffs it up all the more. Furthermore, let us say something more about Cain, against those who imitate him. He lived as a wanderer and an exile, and of such people it is said: 'They will walk in emptiness and perish.' They walk in emptiness who carry nothing with them after death from the fruit of their own labor. They are also fugitives, because in pursuing the present life they flee from the life to come — finding this one, they lose that one. One person strives for honors to be gained, another for resources to be multiplied, another for praises to be earned — but each of them loses all these things either before death, or abandons them in dying. In vain, then, does a person labor, passing through his life as a wanderer, if he carries with him before the Judge nothing toward earning the salvation of his soul.
Dedication to the Present: Building Cain's City
Those subdued by sin either never begin to reform or quickly relapse; like Cain who named his city Enoch — 'dedication' — the wicked plant their hearts in the present life, seeking first place here and withering from the eternal homeland ahead.
For however sin arises, those who have been subdued by it always end up in the same state: either they never get off on the right foot, or if they have made a start, they break down in the very attempt and slide back into their usual depravity. He called his firstborn son Enoch, and after his name he named the city he had founded.✦ Enoch means 'dedication.' And all the wicked, the farther they are cut off from their heavenly inheritance, the more deeply they plant the root of their heart in this life, which comes first. And since it is written: 'Do not sit in the first place' (Luke✦ they dedicate themselves to their beginnings so that they may flourish here for a moment, and wither utterly from the fatherland that lies ahead.
Read the original Latin
Pravorum perversitas exigit, ut contra contemptum eorum tanta dicantur, accepta videlicet occasione de Cain, cujus isti sequaces sunt qui Dei ipsius admonitionem contempsit: qui et culpam confiteri noluit, sed et timide respondit dicens: Nunquid custos fratris mei sum? (Gen. IV, 9.) In quo facto genitorem suum Adam imitatus est, qui ad poenitentiam requisitus mox adminiculum excusationis adjunxit, dicens: Mulier quam dedisti mihi, dedit mihi, et comedi (Gen. III, 12). Excessum suum latenter intorquens in auctorem, quasi ipse qui mulierem dederat, occasionem delinquendi praebuisset. Hinc est quod ex illa radice ramus hujus erroris usque nunc in humano genere protrahitur, ut quod quisque male agit, aut excusando levigare, aut argumentando defendere conetur. Et certe peccare non debuimus, sed utinam post ruinam resurgere conaremur, et culpam defendendo non multiplicaremus.
At miserabili modo quo spiritus peccando longius a veritate disjungitur, eo nequius obduratur. Et culpa quae terrere mentem debuit, magis hanc extollit. Porro autem de Cain adhuc aliquid contra ejus imitatores dicamus. Ille vagus et profugus deguit, et de istis dicitur: Ambulabunt in vacuum et peribunt. In vacuum ambulant qui nihil secum de fructu sui laboris post mortem portant. Qui et profugi sunt, quia vitam praesentem sequentes fugiunt alternam, istam invenientes, illam perdunt. Alius namque adipiscendis honoribus, alius multiplicandis facultatibus, alius promerendis laudibus anhelat; sed cuncta haec quisque aut ante mortem perdit, aut moriens deserit. In vacuum ergo laborat, et vagus vitam suam percurrit, qui secum ante judicem nihil ad promerendam animae salutem portat.
Quoquo enim modo culpa prodeat, ita semper eidem subacti sunt, ut vel recte non incipiant, vel si inceperint fracti in ipso conatu ad consuetam pravitatem redeant. Ille primogenitum suum Enoch vocavit, atque ex nomine ejus civitatem quam condidit appellavit. Enoch dedicatio dicitur. Et omnes iniqui quanto longius a coelesti haereditate divisi sunt, tanto profundius in hac vita quae prima est cordis radicem figunt. Et cum scriptum sit: Ne discumbas in primo loco (Luc. XIV, 8), se in primordiis dedicant, ut hic ad punctum floreant, et a sequenti patria funditus arescant.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Gen.4.9 — Then the LORD said to Cain, "Where is Abel your brother?" And he said, "I do not know. Am I my brother's keeper?"
- ↩Gen.3.12 — The man said, "The woman whom you gave to be with me — she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate."
- ↩Gen.4.17 — Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. He was building a city, and he called the name of the city after the name of his son Enoch.
- ↩Luke.14.8 — When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not recline at the table in the place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you has been invited by him;
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