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HOMILY 19
"And Cain said to his brother Abel, 'Come now, let us go out into the open country.' "!
] NCURABLE [158] WOUNDS RESPOND neither to the / harshest of remedies nor to those with benign properties." Just so with the soul: once it falls into bondage and surrenders itself to any sin whatever, it has no interest in recognizing what is for its own good. Even if someone makes a fuss about it over and over again, it is all to no avail; instead, as though with deaf ears it gains no benefit from correction— not because it lacks the ability but because it lacks the will.
Not that things are exactly the same in the case of the will as you can observe in the case of bodily wounds; with bodily ailments the natural condition is often stationary, whereas it is not like this at all with the will. Instead, in many cases a villain changes if he wants to and becomes good, and a good person who falls victim to indifference lapses into evil. So the God of all has endowed our nature with free will; he gives evidence of every effort on his part in fidelity to his own loving kindness, and in his knowledge of all the unspoken intentions in the [159] depth of our mind he exhorts and advises us and checks our evil plans ahead of time. To be sure, he does not impose necessity upon us, but in applying the appropriate remedies he allows everything to rest in the intention of the patient.
1. Gen 4.8.
2re aT oe direct opening for Chrysostom: in place of the usual exhortation involving a range of figures for Sacred Scripture and its benefits, there is immediate reference to the body of the previous homily (just as that homily closed with an unusual variation to the otherwise invariable trinitarian doxology). Some particular circumstance may underly the relationship of Homilies 18 and 19.
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(2) Accordingly, this is just what happened in the present instance with Cain: see what depths of folly he has fallen into despite such care. You see, he should now have been engrossed in the correction of his sin, once he became aware of it; like a man intoxicated, however, he adds a further wound to his previous suffering and injured condition and refuses the healing applied to him with such care. He hastens the process of bringing his own destruction into effect, beginning with cunning and trickery and by deceiving his brother with beguiling words. Such is the condition of a human being turned animal who goes downhill into wickedness; just as this rational creature enjoys a wonderful status, especially when it makes rapid progress in the practice of virtue, so when it goes downhill into wickedness, it takes on the character of wild beasts. In fact, when it takes on the ferocity of those creatures, this mild and rational creature outstrips their savagery by a large measure.
(3) So let us see here too what happens. "Cain said to his brother Abel, 'Come now, let us go out into the open country." The words are those of a brother, but the intention is that of a murderer. O Cain, what are you doing? Don't you know to whom you're talking? Don't you understand that this conversation is taking place with your brother? Don't you realize that he was born of the same mother as you? Have you no notion of the foulness of your scheme? Have you no fear of the judge who is proof against deception? Don't you shudder at the realization of your temerity? Why is it, after all, that you are enticing your brother out into the open country and leading him out of his father's paternal arms? Why are you depriving him of his father's assistance? What is this fresh development, that now you are enticing your brother into the open country and scheming to do something you have not done previously, and on the pretext of friendship feigning brotherly concern, while intending to unleash a warlike assault upon him? What is this madness? What is this fury? Even supposing that you are deranged in mind and make no account of brotherly regard nor recognize the demands of nature itself, still why make an attack in this way
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on the person who has done you no wrong? What grudge do you bear your parents as well that you should want to inflict such grief on them by becoming protagonist in this dreadful tragedy and confront them with this violent death? Is this the gratitude you show them for your upbringing? What wiles of the devil have drawn you into this deed? Surely, after all, you can't claim that the favor of the common Lord of all shown towards Abel caused him to look down on you? Did the Lord not anticipate your murderous intent and place him under your authority in subjection to you in those words, "—'His movement is towards you, and you will be superior to him''"'?®
(4) This sentence, you see, should be taken to refer to the brother's subjection. Some people, of course, say that God addressed such words to Cain in regard to the offering presented by him: "'Its movement'"—that is, the offering's—"
'is towards you, and you will control it'"—that is, you will enjoy 66 Ge it. So for this reason I have quoted both senses, leaving it to your judgment to choose for yourselves which seems worth following.t To my mind, anyhow, it seems to refer to the brother.
(5) "While they were [160] in the open country, Cain set upon his brother Abel and killed him." A terrible deed, a dangerous precedent, a loathsome exploit, an unforgivable sin, a bestial intention of mind. "He set upon his brother
Abel," the text says, "and killed him." O bloody hand! O piteous gesture! Rather, however, it is not the hand that should be called piteous and bloody but the intention which the limb responded to. So let us express it this way: O headstrong, bloody, piteous intention—whatever you call it, you cannot
3. That difficult verse 4.7, as remarked on in Homily 18, n. 16. Notice also Chrysostom's gift for dramatizing a situation on occasion, using rhetorical devices to explore the emotive and moral possibilities. One has also to admit that dogmatic significance of events is not always highlighted by Chrysostom to the satisfaction of modern commentators. See Introduction (17)
(FOTC 74).
4. As occasionally elsewhere, Chrysostom can flatter his congregation with the option for an interpretation of a difficult passage. The "simple faithful" of the Antioch of that time were hardly unlettered, to judge from the intensely scriptural life he presumes them to enjoy. See Introduction (11)
(FOTC 74).
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describe it adequately. How was it that his hand was not paralyzed? how could it manage to grasp the sword and deal the blow? how is it that his soul did not fly from his body? how did it have the strength to put into effect such an unholy outrage? how is it that he did not have second thoughts and reverse his intention? how is it that he did not take stock of his nature? how is it that before beginning the exploit he did not think ahead to its result? how could he bear to see his brother's body gasping on the ground after the attack? how could he bring himself to gaze on the corpse flung to the ground without being immediately devastated by the sight?
After all, despite the passing of the years and daily experience of people dying, and though these people suffer in their case the normal end of their life and are on no side related to us, we nevertheless break down; if the person is an enemy, we put an end to our enmity. So much the more, surely, would we be likely to be distraught and lose control on the spot to see a brother, whom we had been conversing with just before, child like us of the same mother and same father, born of the same family, who had attracted the favor of God, lying gasping on the ground, all at once lifeless and inert.
(6) Let us, however, look again, after this unholy deed and this arrogance beyond all excuse, at the great degree of considerateness and love employed by the God of all things. "God said to Cain."> How much goodness is this itself a mark of, that the person who had performed deeds like that should be deemed worthy of being addressed! I mean, it frequently occurs that we feel loathing for our relatives when we see them guilty of some such outrage; much more should we marvel at the good God's demonstration of such longsuffering. And rightly so: he is, after all, a physician and a loving father; and like a physician he does everything and employs every skill so as to bring to good health people who have fallen victim to troublesome ailments, and like a loving father he wants in his fatherly benevolence to lead people who have forfeited their natural nobility through indifference back to their former
5. Gen 4.9.
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ao prosperity. So since the extent of his goodness is immense, he wants to demonstrate his great love even to one whose rashness has taken him to such extremes. That is, he says to him,
""Where is your brother Abel?'" Beyond all limit is God's longsuffering: he asks the question, not because he was ignorant, but because he had done the same in his father's case; after all, there was nothing to prevent him saying the same thing again. You see, just as he saw Adam hiding through a sense of shame for his nakedness and asked, "'Where are you?'" not out of ignorance but to give him grounds for confidence so as to wipe away his sin by confession of his fall (this being his way, after all, to require of us confession of our sins at once from the outset and offer us pardon), so now too he asks Cain in these words, "'Where is your brother Abel?'"
The loving Lord pretends ignorance so that by means of the question he may cause the man guilty of these sins to be brought [161] to confession of his guilt and be in a position to win pardon, perhaps, and love. "'Where is your brother
Abel?"
(7) So what reply is made by this ungrateful and insensitive man, headstrong and shameless as he was? He should have realized that God did not ask the question out of ignorance, but rather to require of him a confession and to teach us never to condemn our brethren before proof and to take into account the Lord's advice; rejecting this attack and knowing before its irruption the movement of his thinking, he plied him with precautionary remedies. All this should have brought him to his senses and to a cessation of his folly, admitting what had happened, showing his ulcer to the physician and accepting the remedies he had to give. But for his part he aggravates the wound and renders the spread of the ulcer more serious. "He said, 'I don't know,'" the text goes on. See the effrontery of the reply! Surely you're not addressing a human being, to feel free to converse with him as an equal?
Don't you know, you poor wretch, who it is you're talking to?
Don't you realize that it is out of his extreme goodness he is addressing you in his desire to find some excuse for showing you his characteristic love and with a view to your having no
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grounds in future for rendering yourself liable to punishment once he has done all in his power?
(8) "He said," the text tells us, "'I don't know. Surely I'm not my brother's keeper?'" Recognize here, I ask you, the accusation of conscience, and how he was repulsed, as it were, by conscience and did not stop at the words, "'I don't know,'" but added, "'Surely I'm not my brother's keeper?" as if trying to convince himself. In fact, to judge from the way everything worked out for you as the sequel shows and with regard for the law of nature, you ought in fact be guardian of your brother's welfare. This, after all, is what nature determined and what is required of people in the same family, to be guardian of one another. Even if this was not your intention and you had no wish to be your brother's keeper, why did you turn his assassin and kill the man who had done you no wrong without thinking you had an account to render?
Wait a while, however, and you will see him whom you've killed and who lies dead while you are alive and active becoming your accuser and levelling charges at you in a loud voice.
(9) "God said, 'Why have you done this?'"® It is a deep meaning that emerges from this question: why have you perpetrated this (the text says)? Why have you committed this unholy deed, this loathsome act, this unpardonable offence, this intolerable folly, this strange and shocking murder, this first assault on the life of a human being at your hands? Why have you committed this awful and terrible crime, which has no sin to match it?
(10) ""The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the earth.'" Surely I am not a human being, he is saying, that I hear only that voice that is expressed by mouth? I am God and can respond to someone crying out through his blood, lying on the ground somewhere. Notice how far the voice of this man's blood flies up, reaching from earth to heaven and spanning the expanse of heaven and the heavenly powers, and taking its place at the royal throne itself, lament6. Gen 4.10, in a LXX variant that asks for the reason rather than the fact.
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ing the murder and condemning the unholy crime. "'The voice of your brother's blood cries out to me from the earth.'"
Surely, he is saying, you haven't committed this outrage against a stranger or foreigner?
It is against your own brother, who did you no wrong. But perhaps my favor gave rise to this murder in you, and since you could not fight me, you spent your unbridled fury on him. For this reason, assuredly, I will impose such a punishment on you that the outrage will never be lost in oblivion, and the penalty inflicted on you will have as its purpose, that what happened to you will be a lesson for everyone coming later.
(11) [162] "'And now,'" since you have done this, have put into effect what you knew to be wrong and have rushed headlong into murder under the impulse of terrible envy, "'you shall be cursed from the earth.'"" Do you see the difference in this curse, dearly beloved? Don't pass it by heedlessly; instead, from the magnitude of the curse come to realize the excess of the outrage. From the difference in the curse you can, if you are of a mind, understand how much greater this sin was than the transgression of the first formed human being. In that case, remember, he said, ""Cursed shall be the soil as you till it,'"® and it was on the earth he poured out the curse, to show his care for the human being, whereas in this case, where the crime was deadly, the outrage lawless and the deed unpardonable, he receives the curse in person: "'You shall be cursed from the earth," the text says, remember.
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 he 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. In other words, just as the devil was moved by hatred
7. Gen 4.11.
8. Gen 3.17. g. Gen 3.14.
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and envy, being unable to bear the ineffable kindnesses done the human being right from the outset, and under the impulse of hatred rushed headlong into the deception that introduced death, so too Cain saw the Lord kindly disposed to his brother, and under the impulse of hatred rushed headlong into murder. Hence the Lord says to him, ""You shall be cursed from the earth.'" You shall be cursed, he says, even on that very earth "'which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand.'" You shall be cursed on the earth, he is saying, which has been forced to receive a shower of this blood so defiled and shed by such an impious hand.
(12) Sacred Scripture then interprets the curse more clearly in the words, "'When you till the soil, it will not proceed to yield its strength to you.'"!? A remarkable kind of punishment, and a heavy weight of indignation: You will endure the labor, he is saying, you will make every effort on your part and till the soil stained with such blood, but far from experiencing any reward of your many labors you will find all the exertion you expend will be to no avail. Nor will the effects of punishment stop there; instead, "'You will live in lament and trepidation on the earth.'"'!! Once again this is a severe form of punishment, constant lament and trepidation. In other words, because you improperly applied the strength of your body, he is saying, and the vigor of your limbs, for this reason I sentence you to endless shuddering and trembling so that you may have in person not only a constant awareness and reminder of this unholy deed, but also that everyone may see you and learn from this sight, as though by some voice shouting aloud, not to risk similar outrage lest they suffer the same retribution; so the punishment inflicted on you may prove a lesson to everyone never again to defile the earth with such blood. Precisely for this reason I will not impose an abrupt end to your days, lest the event be lost in oblivion; instead, I will cause you to endure a life more distressing than
10. Gen 4.12.
11. Gen 4.12b, where the LXX translates the Hebrew rather differently from our modern versions, relying perhaps more on logic than linguistics.
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death so that you may learn from your very labors what it is you have perpetrated.
(13) "Cain said to the Lord: 'My guilt is too great for me to be forgiven.'"'? There is an important lesson to be learnt here, if we are ready to pay attention, and one very useful for our salvation. "Cain said: 'My guilt is too great for me to be forgiven." Behold the complete confession. [163] In other words, such is the sin committed by me, he is saying, that I cannot be pardoned. 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. Remember now, I ask you, what I was saying a short time ago, that on that dread day and before that impartial tribunal each of us will repent of our sins, seeing before our eyes those fearful punishments and the ineluctable chastisements—but all to no purpose, as we have run out of time. In other words, it is before punishment is imposed that penance is appropriate and is so marvellously efficacious. Hence I beseech you, when this remarkable remedy is able to take effect, let us then take advantage of it, and while we are still in this life let us apply the healing power coming from repentance; and let us learn for sure that it will be of no avail to us to repent after the show is over and the time for the contest has passed.
(14) Let us, however, return to our theme. You see, when Cain was asked by the Lord, "'Where is your brother Abel?'" that was the time for him to confess his fault, fall on his knees, pray and ask pardon. At that point, however, he rejected the healing, whereas now, after the sentence, after all was over, after the accusation was levelled at him in a loud voice by the blood that had been shed, he made his confession only to gain nothing from it. That is why the inspired author also said, "He who accuses himself at the beginning of the speech is in the right."'' Accordingly, had Cain anticipated the Lord's accusation, perhaps he would have been granted
12. Gen 4.13.
13. Prov 18.17.
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some mercy on account of the Lord's unlimited goodness. I mean, there is no sin, no matter how grave, that can exceed his mercy provided we demonstrate our repentance at the proper time and beg pardon. "Cain said, "My guilt is too great for me to be forgiven'"—an adequate confession, but too late.
(15) Cain said, "'If today you drive me from the face of the earth and I must hide from your presence and live in lament and trepidation on the earth, it will happen that anyone finding me will kill me.'"!4 See how these pitiable words lack all conviction for the reason both of their lateness and of their missing the right moment. He said, "'If today you drive me from the face of the earth and I must hide from your presence and live in lament and trepidation on the earth, it will happen that anyone finding me will kill me.'" If you have rendered me accursed on the earth, he is saying, and have personally abandoned me and consigned me to such terrible punishment that I lament and tremble, nothing in future will prevent me being destroyed by anyone who chances upon me, placed as I am in this situation and stripped of your favor. I will be an easy prey, he says, for anyone wanting to do away with me: I am no match for anyone, moving about as I do with limbs uncoordinated and tottering in all directions, and the fact that everyone knows that I have been stripped of your favor will make it easy for anyone who is so disposed to hasten to my destruction.
(16) What, then, is the response of the good and loving Lord? "The Lord God said, 'Not so.'"!> Do not think, he is saying, things will turn out like this: no one has the right to destroy you if he wants; on the contrary, I will bring you even more intense grief in the course of your life and I will leave you as a lesson for succeeding generations so that the sight of you will prove a [164] warning to them and no one will follow your example. "The Lord God said, 'Not so: anyone who kills Cain will have vengeance exacted on him sevenfold.'" Perhaps I have spoken many words and been the 14. Gen 4.14.
15. Gen 4.15, the LXX misreading the Hebrew "therefore".
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oil cause of great bodily distress to you. But what am I to do?
You see, I detect your interest and the keen desire you show, and so I want to move on to what remains and interpret it as well as I can. What is the sense of "'he will have vengeance exacted on him sevenfold'"? Yet once more I am afraid of burying your memory of the text under the plethora of words and of being thought overpowering by you. Still, if you're not too tired, keep up the effort, and we will conclude our treatment of the foregoing text and thus bring our sermon to a close.
(17) "The Lord God said to him, 'Not so: anyone who kills Cain will have vengeance exacted on him sevenfold.' The Lord God put a mark on Cain lest anyone finding him do away with him." Are you afraid, he says, of being done away with? Don't worry, this won't happen: the person who did it would render himself liable to a sevenfold punishment. This, then, is the reason I'm putting a mark on you, lest anyone do away with you unawares and render himself liable to such terrible punishment. We must, however, teach you more clearly how the person doing away with Cain becomes liable to a sevenfold punishment. Give me your attention, I beg you: we have in previous days often addressed your good selves, since it is the time for fasting and we enjoy such serenity; so now too, with our minds free of all upsetting ideas, if we didn't take the opportunity to understand the contents of Sacred Scripture precisely, when would we have another opportunity to grasp them? Hence I beg, implore and beseech you, as though grasping your knees, let us attend with mind alerted to these words so as to gain something fine and elevated, and thus make our way home.
(18) What, then, is the meaning of this phrase, "he will have vengeance exacted on him sevenfold"? First, the number seven has the sense of a multitude in Sacred Scripture, and you would often find it expressed that way, as for example,
"The barren woman has borne seven children,"!® and other such passages. On the other hand, in this case there is refer16. 1 Sam 2.5.
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ence to the magnitude of the outrage and the fact that what was committed by him is not one sin but seven sins and that for each sin there is need to undergo severe punishment.
How then will we number them? By reasoning this way: first, the fact that he envied his brother for the favor he enjoyed from God—something that would have been sufficient, had it been the only factor involved, to have brought ruin upon him; second, that he envied his own brother; third, that he devised a plot against him; fourth, that he committed murder; fifth, that it was his brother he killed; sixth, that he was the first one to commit murder; seventh, that he lied to God.!"
(19) Did you follow what was said, or would you like us to list them again from the beginning so as to know how each single one of them would have been sufficient to bring on him the severest punishment? After all, who would deem worthy of pardon the man who envied someone who enjoyed favor from God? Behold one sin, the worst and most inexcusable.
Next, this one emerges as a worse sin, a brother being the object of envy without doing any wrong. Behold this one too in its turn is not just a casual sin. The third one likewise, his devising a plot to deceive his brother and entice him into the open country without respect for his own kind. The fourth sin is the murder itself that [165] he committed. Fifth, his killing his own brother, born of the same mother. Sixth, his being the first to introduce this kind of killing. Seventh, his presuming to lie to God in the question he asked him. Hence he says, "Anyone attempting to do away with you will render himself liable to a sevenfold punishment." So have no fear of that; see, I'm putting a mark on you lest anyone do away with you unawares. The remission of punishment for your whole life will be instructive for succeeding generations, and what you have committed alone, with no one else present, everyone will know about who sees your lament and trepidation as if you were shouting aloud by your bodily tremors and saying
17. Again Chrysostom the Antiochene is loath to let the literal—perhaps here even literalist—sense of Scripture be set aside in favor of a figurative sense, and hence this elaborate explanation.
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and communicating to everyone: Let no one else be rash enough to do the terrible things I have done lest they receive the same terrible punishment.
(20) When we hear this, dearly beloved, let us not pass the words by heedlessly, nor have in mind only the opportunity of assembling here each day and enjoying a spiritual banquet; after all, listening alone is of no advantage without response in terms of action. Instead, let us consider how it was that Cain came to commit himself to this inexcusable and shocking sin, and the fact that he had been rash enough through envy to commit such a crime against the man who had never tried to do him any wrong—or rather to commit murder against his own brother; and instead of simply avoiding evil conduct let us rather take care lest it be done to others. After all, that person is really in dire straits who is bent on bringing his neighbor down. For proof that this is true, notice in this case,
I ask you, who is in dire straits—the killer, or the killed?
Clearly the killer. Why? Because while the killed even up to the present time is on everyone's lips as a model, is praised and honored as the first witness to truth, as blessed Paul also says, "Though dead Abel still speaks,"!* the killer on the contrary passed a life more miserable than all other people in those days, and since then has become an object of reproach to everyone and is held out as an example of a man loathsome in God's sight and cursed by Sacred Scripture.
(21) This is true of their lot in this present life which they share together; but of the fate they must meet in the life to come and of the retribution they must receive each individually for his own deeds at the hands of the just Judge, what account could do justice to that, the good or the opposite? No words could describe it, the joyful or the melancholy. In Abel's case, after all, the kingdom of heaven, everlasting tabernacles, the choirs of patriarchs, prophets and apostles and the throng of all the saints will welcome him as one destined to reign for unending ages with Jesus Christ the King, God
18. Heb 11.4—though that epistle gives Abel pride of place for witness to faith rather than truth, and it is through his faith that Abel still speaks.
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and the only-begotten Son of God; whereas in Cain's case, the hell of fire and all the other undying torments will receive him as a victim for endless ages along with those who have committed similar crimes to his, and in fact to the degree that greater punishment is decreed by the common Lord of all against those who later were ensnared in these shameful passions. Listen, after all, to Paul's words: "As many as sinned without the Law will also perish without the Law"!'—that is, they will receive a less severe [166] punishment on account of not having the Law as warning and correction. "As many as sinned under the Law will be judged by the Law": these on the contrary, he is saying, who despite the assistance of the Law committed the same crimes as the others, will fear punishments that are severer and less tolerable. And rightly so, because neither the Law nor the sight of others subjected to such evils brought them to their senses or to a sounder frame of mind.
(22) Hence I beseech you that at least from this present time onwards we learn the lesson for ourselves from the example of others and correct our lives in response to the Lord's instruction and in compliance with his laws; and that the thoughts of our mind not be dominated by hatred, envy, bodily satisfaction, this life's glory and power, pleasures of the palate, or any other unsuitable desire. Instead, let us purge ourselves of every uncleanness or disorder of this life, bid farewell to the most shameful and unseemly passions, and hasten towards that blessed life and those ineffable goods prepared by God for those who love him. May it be our good fortune to be deemed worthy of this, thanks to the grace and love of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom with the Father and the Holy Spirit be glory, power and honor, now and forever, for all ages of ages. Amen.
19. Rom 2.12—though Paul is not really supporting the distinction Chrysostom is making.