CHAPTER 4
Fathers, Christ's death was the momentous act which reversed Adam's transgression, reopened the gates of paradise, and allowed the baptized once more to enter its courts: see also Origen, Sel. in Gen. 2: 16-17, Cyril of Jerusalem, Procatechesis 15, and Catena fragment in Petit, La Chaine, 180. The pious Fathers of the Jews are also restored to paradise by Christ's blood: see especially Jerome,
Ep. 70. 3. For entry into the Church as a re-entering of paradise, see especially Cyprian, Eps. 73. 10, 75. 15, and Cyril of Jerusalem,
Procatechesis 33, Mystagogic Catecheses 1. 1.
CHAPTER 4 verse 1 Jerome is concerned only with the derivation and meaning of the name Cain, and is content to follow LXX's understanding, refining it somewhat to incorporate two senses of the verb qnbh, which he also recorded in Lib. Heb. Nom. (p. 63). In Vg, he translates as 'I have possessed'. He is silent about the exegetical problems which Jewish commentators found in this verse.! verses 4~5 The question was how Cain and Abel could have recognized God's response to their offerings. Theodotion and Jerome testify that the tradition of fire from heaven was known in antiquity, as does John Chrysostom. Hom. in Ep. Heb. 23 (on 11:
4); but extant Jewish writings which refer to it date mostly from the Middle Ages. Rashi (1040-1105) states without reserve that fire devoured Abel's sacrifice, indicating that God had accepted it, but gives no source for his exegesis.
R. David Qimhi, Midrash Aggadah, Sefer Ha-Yashar, Yalqut Shimoni 524, and MHG likewise record it. Rahmer, however, may be mistaken in assuming that Rashi found the tradition in an ancient collection of Midrashim which is now lost, if Ginzberg was correct in stating that the Haggadah is found in the Sifra Shemini and Lev. Rab. 7: 3.2
1 See Salvesen, Symmachus, 19 for a summary of the problems, and Kamesar, Jerome, 106, for his use of Lib. Heb. Nom. and the explanation of Cain's name among other Fathers.
2 See Rahmer, Die hebraischen Traditionen, 18, and Ginzberg, 'Die Haggada'
(MGW] ns 7), 228; but I cannot trace Ginzberg's references in modern editions of Sifra and Lev.
Rab, For Rashi's comment, see M. Rosenbaum and A. M.
Silbermann, Pentateuch with Targum Onkelos, Haphtaroth and Rashi's Commentary, i (New York, n.d.), 17. The other sources are quoted in Hebrew by M. Kasher,
Torah Shelemah, Genesis vol. (Jerusalem, 1934), 311-12.
Commentary Fire from heaven consumed Solomon's and Elijah's sacrifices (2 Chron. 7: 1; 1 Kgs. 18: 38). Jerome specifies that Elijah built an altar. Solomon's offering took place, of course, on the great altar in the Temple (2 Chron. 4: 1). Jerome may, therefore, imply that Cain and Abel had access to an altar, and such a tradition is attested in PJ of Gen. 8: 2 when it tells of Noah's rebuilding the altar which Adam had constructed on his departure from Eden. On that same altar, Cain and Abel offered sacrifice. Other sources, too, tell of Adam's altar (e.g. b. AZ 8a; Gen. Rab. 34: 9; Num. Rab. 20: 18;
PRE 23: 53 31: 33 35: 3): its existence is at least implied by Jub. 3:
27, which says that Adam offered up incense on the day he left paradise. verses 6-7 LXX read: 'And the Lord God said to Cain, Why are you sorrowful, and why has your countenance fallen ...?"? The difference between LXX of these verses and the original Hebrew is striking, and Jerome does his best to explain how it came about. He states that LXX have made a mistake (see also 5: 4; 17: 15), and concentrates on his own translation and exposition of the Hebrew.*
On many occasions in QHG his criticism of LXX is trenchant, and it is worth listing some of his more negative comments, such as 13:
1, where he flatly contradicts their reasoning; 13: 3; 14: 33 17: 165
21: 153 25: 85 26: 325 27: 40; 28: 19; 30: 32, 413 31: 73 32: 105 35:
8, 16; 48: 2; and 49: 5~6, 22. Some of these passages use language critical of LXX which Jerome was to employ some twenty years later in his commentary on Isaiah, produced between 408 and 410.
Thus he records LXX's errors at In Esa. 9. 28: 9-13, and admits that he is at a loss to know why LXX have translated in a certain way (In Esa. 1. 1: 24 and 2: 15 2. §: 175 4. 9: 14-215 §. 21: 6-10), sentiments expressed also in OHG 26: 32; 35: 8, 16; and 48: 2. The last of these references encapsulates his amazement, when he frankly admits: 'I do not know the reason why LXX have produced the word now in one way, now in another'.4
He first elucidates his translation 'will it not be forgiven you?', which represents the original Hebrew hl'. . . Se'ét. The last of this pair of words derives from the root é', 'to lift up, bear, accept': hence Theodotion's rendering. Jerome understands it first as par3 The factors which led to LXX's strange rendering are discussed by Harl, Bible d'Alexandrie, i.
* For Jerome's attitude to LXX at the time when he composed In Esaiam, see Jay, L'Exégése de saint Jéréme, 119~22.
Commentary I21 don or forgiveness. He probably has in mind the common scriptural expression nasa" awé6n, 'to forgive iniquity'. This would then imply, second, the subsequent acceptance of Cain's sacrifice. Jerome might well recall here another scriptural expression nasa' pdanim, 'to lift up (someone's) face', that is, 'to accept, receive', and thus approve of that person. Jewish exegetes did indeed take §"ét here to mean
'pardon', as can be seen from Gen. Rab. 22: 6; Midrash Aggadah; the version of Symmachus; and PJ of this verse, 'is it not the case that, if you perform your deeds well, your sin will be forgiven you?'
It would seem that Jerome tried not only to set out the original Hebrew clearly, but also to convey a sense which had wide currency among Jews.
But Jews recognized that §ét in this verse might also have the sense of 'accept' or 'receive', as the translations of Aquila (arsin,
'lifting up') and Theodotion show in their separate ways. In Vg, Jerome followed the latter and translated with recipies. He is silent, however, about the reappearance of the word rSuqah, which had featured in 3: 16 and which is discussed there. He translates it here as societas, 'companionship', which is Aquila's rendering of it in 3:
16; in Vg, however, he follows Symmachus, who here and at 3: 16 put appetitus, 'desire'.S He turns his attention instead to a problem in the Hebrew, which he solves by stating clearly that Cain, since he has free will, is to have dominion over sin. The Hebrew had God tell Cain that he shall have the dominion bé, either 'over it', that is, sin; or 'over him', that is, over Abel his brother. In Hebrew, 'sin' (hatta't) is normally a feminine noun. In this verse, however, its use is peculiar, since, as Jerome notes, it appears to be construed as a masculine form, in that the participle which immediately follows it, and which it appears to govern, is the masculine singular rébéz, 'crouching'.
The preposition b, 'over', is given a masculine suffix to produce bé, 'over him'; and it is this which led LXX and Theodotion to refer the preposition not to 'sin', which is a feminine noun in Greek, but to the masculine Abel. Jerome's understanding, that Cain is to have dominion over sin, is also the clearly expressed view of the Targums
PJ, TN, FTP, FTV, GM, the version of Symmachus, b. Sanh. 91b, ARN 16, and Gen. Rab. 22: 6 (R. Haninah). All these Jewish sources are also clear that Cain is to have dominion of his evil
' See above, notes on 3: 16, and Salvesen, Symmachus, 20-2.
Commentary inclination (Hebrew: yeger), which seems to be reflected in what Jerome has written. Indeed, the whole of his comment on this verse appears to be indebted to contemporary Jewish understanding of its grammar, syntax, and exegesis. verse 8 Jerome here, and on other occasions, criticizes the 'superfluity' of LXX. But he himself adds the words 'let us go forth outside' in Vg and Ep. 36. 6, and thus follows the general sense not only of LXX, but also of PJ, TN, Ngl, FTP, FTV, and Pesh. Origen,
Sel. in Gen. 4: 8, notes what Cain said, and that the Hebrews regarded it as based on apocryphal material: Jerome may be arguing here that the latter affords no proof of authenticity.® verse 15 The last two Hebrew words of this verse, 3ibatayim yuqqam, are particularly problematic: LXX have translated as 'he shall pay seven penalties', which is followed by VL; see also Test.
Ben. 7: 3-4. As he remarks, Jerome had written a letter to Pope Damasus (Ep. 36. 2-9) about this verse, in which almost each word is patient of several different interpretations.' Here, however,
Jerome concentrates solely on the meaning of Sbtym. He may imply that his readers should consult his letter to Damasus; indeed, without fuller information about the verse, his comments lack a general setting and can only be related to the LXX. In Vg, Jerome translated with the words 'septuplum punietur', 'he (or: it) shall be punished sevenfold': this approximates to Pesh and to Aquila's rendering recorded here and more fully in Ep. as 'septempliciter ulciscetur'. The latter puts into Latin an original Greek (Wevers, p. 99) heptaplasiés ekdikéthésetai, 'he (or: it) shall be punished (or: avenged) sevenfold'. The general sense of LXX is not too far removed from this understanding.
The renderings of the Hebrew noted so far are fairly easy to determine; but quite how Symmachus translated sbtym is by no means clear. Jerome here reports him as having put 'seventh';
Procopius records in his name the translation hebdomés ekdikésin dései, 'he shall give satisfaction seven times'; while Jerome in Ep.
2 has 'ebdomatos sive septimus vindicabitur'. The word ebdomatos presents a textual difficulty which Salvesen has dis- § Origen may also refer to circles associated with Aquila as knowing this addition: see de Lange, Origen and the Jews, 51-2. But this is not certain: see Kamesar,
Jerome, 100-1, and the note in the second apparatus of Wevers, p. 97.
7 For discussion of the whole verse and the Epistle 36 to Damasus, see Rahmer, Die hebraischen Traditionen, 18-20; Ginzberg (MGW Ns 7), 293-8; Harl, Bible d'Alexandrie, i. 116~18; and Salvesen, Symmachus, 24-6. cussed in detail.® She concludes that Symmachus may originally have translated Sbttym into Greek as hebdomaios, Latin septimus,
'seventh', making the Hebrew mean 'Cain will be punished the seventh': he would then be close to Theodotion, as Jerome reports him here, who has 'per hebdomaden' ('through, until seven'). This translation most likely refers to a well-known Jewish Haggadah, according to which Cain's punishment was either extended through seven generations because he had not repented (so TO of this verse;
Test. Ben. 7: 3-4; Gen. Rab. 22: 12; 32: 5), or was to be suspended up to the seventh generation after him because he had done penance
(so TN and GM of this verse, and PJ of Gen. 4: 24).
Jerome's Ep. 36 shows how the ambiguity of the Hebrew could lead to widely differing interpretations. The exegesis selected here is directly related to his cryptic note in OHG. Jerome took LXX (and presumably Theodotion) to mean that God told Cain that he would not die, but live to the seventh generation suffering tortures of conscience; and that whoever killed Cain, either in the seventh generation or as the seventh, would thereby free Cain from the torture. So it was not Cain's killer who would receive seven penalties; rather, the killer would release Cain from the seven punishments he was to endure (Ep. 36. 2). He next took Aquila and Symmachus to mean that Cain would be killed by Lamech, reckoned as living in the seventh generation from Adam: Gen. 4: 23-4 is taken to signify he had been destined to kill Cain in the seventh generation (Ep. 36. 4). Some people, he says, explain the words with reference to seven particular sins of Cain, which he lists in order (Ep. 36. 6): it is interesting to comparea list of seven sins attributed to Diodore in the Catena (Petit, ii. 132), along with seven corresponding punishments Cain endured. Jerome adds that Cain was thus entrusted to God's mercy through seven generations in the hope that, driven by the evils that befell him and the duration of his misery, he might repent and deserve absolution. verse 16 Jerome's comment, reflected in Vg translation of Hebrew
Nod as 'fugitive', is found often among Jewish exegetes. Thus saleuomenos is Theodotion's translation here; in LAB 2: 1, Cain dwells in the land 'quaking'; according to TN, he dwelt as 'an exile
8 The matter is thoroughly discussed by Salvesen, Symmachus, 25-6, esp. notes 95, 99; and by G. Vermes, 'The Targumic Versions of Genesis 4: 3-16', Annual of the Leeds University Oriental Society, 3 (1961-2) (Leiden, 1963), 81-114, repr. in Post-Biblical Jewish Studies (Leiden, 1975), 92-126, esp. 118-19.
Commentary and wanderer'; as also in later sources cited by Kasher.' But LXX's notion that Nod is a place was shared also by Josephus, Ant. 1. 60,
Lib. Loc. 959, and FTP, which gives a second translation of the word in the same way as TN, 'an exile and a wanderer'; TO, PJ, and FTV speak of 'a land of exile and wandering'.!° Jerome's initial understanding of Nod as 'unsteady' is shared by Rashi (ad loc.), who applies the description to the land rather than to Cain. He does, however, retain the notion of Nod as a place in Eps. 21. 8,
147. 9, and Comm. in Hab. 2; and in Lib. Heb. Nom. (p. 69) he lists it as a proper noun meaning 'motion or moving like the waves'. verse 25 Jerome's comment, as Kamesar has noted," is directed against the seemingly fanciful explanations of Philo, at OG 1. 78 and De Post. 10, 124, 170, and of Didymus the Blind, at Comm. in Gen. 144. 9. The former in OG derives the name from Hebrew root
5th, 'to drink', and regards Seth as one who drinks water, like plants, and who symbolizes thereby the growth of spiritual fruit within the soul. In De Post. he explains the name as 'watering', and is followed by Didymus. Jerome is very down-to-earth, invoking
Aquila's support in his derivation of the name from root Syt, 'to put, place'. He thus translates the verb here and in Vg as posuit,
'placed': VL had suscitavit, 'raised up', which could lend support to the idea that the murdered Abel had been resurrected in the person of Seth, a notion attacked by Origen, Comm. in Joh. 6. 70. But Lib.
Heb. Nom. (p. 71) had given 'resurrection' as a meaning of Seth, along with 'grass', 'seed', and 'cup': these Jerome here dismisses. verse 26 Jerome opens with the observation that Enosh, like
Adam, may mean both human individual or mankind as a whole.
Most Christian exegetes took this verse positively to mean that in the days of Enosh people began to invoke the true God: see, for example, Augustine, De Civ. Dei 15. 18. Jerome apparently suggests that the Hebrew of this verse, @z hithal ligrd b¢Sém YHWH, of which he offers a translation, supports such an understanding. He says nothing of LXX's divergence from the Hebrew." Rather, he
9 See Kasher, Torah Shelemah, 326, 332. The same understanding is attributed to Symmachus by some witnesses: see Wevers, p. 99.
© On TO's translation, see J. Bowker, 'Haggadah in the Targum Ongelos', JSS 12 (1967), 54-6.
11 See Kamesar, Jerome, 107-8.
2 For the origins and meaning of the LXX translation, see $. D. Fraade, Enosh and his Generation: Pre-Israelite Hero and History in Postbiblical Interpretation (Chico, Calif., 1984), 5-11; Harl, Bible d'Alexandrie, i. 119; Kamesar, Jerome, records instead a Jewish tradition that idolatry began at this time: it is well known, being found, for example, in Gen. Rab. 23: 7, where occurrences of the word 'begin' in other parts of Scripture are related to acts of rebellion against God. The generation of Enosh was full of idolaters, according to b. Shabb. 118b, a point taken up by the Targums. This tradition may be reflected in the interpretation of the name Enosh as 'man or desperate or impetuous' in Lib. Heb. Nom. (p. 65). Like Jerome, the Targums specify that idols were dubbed with the Lord's name: so PJ, TN, and FTP, and similarly Mekh. de R. Ishmael Bahodesh 6: 30-4. They have interpreted the verb hubal by deriving it from one or other of two roots Mil, the first meaning 'to begin', the second 'to profane', i.e. to profane the Name of God by applying it to idols. All these interpretations of the verse remove an apparent contradiction in Scripture, since Exod. 6: 3 states that it was only in the days of Moses that the name YHWH was revealed.'* That the manufacture of idols began in primeval times is an ancient idea, attested by LAB 2: 9; but the latter places their origin in the days of Thubal rather than those of Enosh.
LXX, Theodotion, 'the Hebrew', and Jub. 4: 12 have rendered the Hebrew 'az, 'then', as if it were zeh, 'this man'; and in Vg Jerome follows suit with 'this man began to call on the Name of the Lord', doubtless because it suited the Christian understanding of the verse.
He does not join LXX in translating buhkal as 'hoped', but uses 'began'. LXX probably derived the word from root yhl, 'to hope'; but the understanding of it as 'began' is very strongly attested.
Jerome's translation here, 'then there was a beginning of calling', closely resembles that of Symmachus, 'then there was a beginning ...'; while his Vg rendering, 'this man began...
.,' is identical with the first of Aquila's translations recorded by Wevers.'5
Despite Jerome's silence about the matter, a complex problem arising out of patristic use of LXX and Aquila may be concealed in his comment on this verse.'© The LXX note that Enosh hoped
13 See Rahmer, Die hebraischen Traditionen, 20.
4 On the meaning of the name Enosh, see also Fraade, Enosh, 58. For the revelation of the Divine Name, cf. le Déaut, Targum du Pentateuque, 5 vols. (Paris,
1978-81), i. 108; and J. Bowker, The Targums and Rabbinic Literature (Cambridge, 15 See the second apparatus of Wevers, p. 101; and Kamesar, Jerome, 145, 149.
The second reading given in Aquila's name, 'then it was begun to call on the Name...', may be compared with that of Symmachus.
16 For what follows, see further Fraade, Exosh, 63-90, and Kamesar, Jerome, 146~50.