Adam gave the maiden to Abel, and Cain was sore vexed.
One day, Abel was asleep on a mountain. Cain took a stone and crushed his head. Then he threw the corpse on his back, and carried it about, not knowing what to do with it; but he saw two crows fighting, and one killed the other; then the crow that survived dug a hole in the earth with his beak, and buried the dead bird. Cain said, “I have not the sense of this bird. I too will lay my brother in the ground.” And he did so.
When Adam learned the death of his son, he set out in search of Cain, but could not find him; then he recited the following lines:—
“Every city is alike, each mortal man is vile,
The face of earth has desert grown, the sky has ceased to smile,
Every flower has lost its hue, and every gem is dim.
Alas! my son, my son is dead; the brown earth swallows him!
We one have had in midst of us whom death has not yet found,
No peace for him, no rest for him, treading the blood-drenched ground.”106
This is how the story is told in the Midrash:107 Cain and Abel could not agree, for, what one had, the other wanted; then Abel devised a scheme that they should make a division of property, and thus remove the possibility of contention. The proposition pleased Cain. So Cain took the earth, and all that is stationary, and Abel took all that is movable.
But the envy which lay in the heart of Cain gave him no rest. One day he said to his brother, “Remove thy foot, thou standest on my property: the plain is mine.”
Then Abel ran upon the hills, but Cain cried, “Away, the hills are mine!” Then he climbed the mountains, but still Cain followed him, calling, “Away, the stony mountains are mine!”
In the Book of Jasher the cause of quarrel is differently stated. One day the flock of Abel ran over the ground Cain had been ploughing; Cain rushed furiously upon him and bade him leave the spot. “Not,” said Abel, “till you have paid me for the skins of my sheep and wool of their fleeces used for your clothing.” Then Cain took the coulter from his plough, and with it slew his brother.108
The Targum of Jerusalem says, the subject of contention was that Cain denied a Judgment to come and Eternal Life; and Abel argued for both.109 The Rabbi Menachem, however, asserts that the point on which they strove was whether a word was written zizit or zizis in the Parascha.110
“And when they were in the field together, the brothers quarrelled, saying. ‘Let us divide the world.’ One said, ‘The earth you stand on is my soil.’ The other said, ‘You are standing on my earth.’ One said, ‘The Holy Temple shall stand on my lot;’ the other said, ‘It shall stand on my lot.’ So they quarrelled. Now there were born with Abel two daughters, his sisters. Then said Cain, ‘I will take the one I choose, I am the eldest;’ Abel said, ‘They were born with me, and I will have them both to wife.’ And when they fought, Abel flung Cain down and was above him; and he lay on Cain. Then Cain said to Abel, ‘Are we not both sons of one father; why wilt thou kill me?’ And Abel had compassion, and let Cain get up. And so Cain fell on him and killed him. From this we learn not to render good to the evil, for, because Abel showed mercy to Cain, Cain took advantage of it to slay Abel.”111
S. Methodius the Younger refers to this tradition. He says: “Be it known that Adam and Eve when they left Paradise were virgins. But the third year after the expulsion from Eden, they had Cain, their first-born, and his sister Calmana; and after this, next year, they had Abel and his sister Deborah. But in the three hundredth year of Adam’s life, Cain slew his brother, and Adam and Eve wailed over him a hundred years.”112
Eutychius, Patriarch of Alexandria, says, “When Adam and Eve rebelled against God, He expelled them from Paradise at the ninth hour on Friday to a certain mountain in India, and He bade them produce children to increase and multiply upon the earth. Adam and Eve therefore became parents, first of a boy named Cain, and of a girl named Azrun, who were twins; then of another boy named Abel, and of a twin sister named Owain, or in Greek Laphura.
“Now, when the children were grown up, Adam said to Eve, ‘Let Cain marry Owain, who was born with Abel, and let Abel have Azrun, who was born with Cain.’ But Cain said to his mother, ‘I will marry my own twin sister, and Abel shall marry his.’ For Azrun was prettier than Owain. But when Adam heard this, he said, ‘It is contrary to the precept that thou shouldst marry thy twin sister.’
“Now Cain was a tiller of the ground, but Abel was a pastor of sheep. Adam said to them, ‘Take of the fruits of the earth, and of the young of the sheep, and ascend the top of this holy mountain, and offer there the best and choicest to God.’ Abel offered of the best and fattest of the first-born of the flock. Now as they were ascending the summit of the mountain, Satan put it into the head of Cain to kill his brother, so as to get Azrun. For that reason his oblation was not accepted by God. Therefore he was the more inflamed with rage against Abel, and as they were going down the mount, he rushed upon him and beat him about the head with a stone and killed him. Adam and Eve bewailed Abel a hundred years with the greatest grief. … And God cast out Cain whilst he was still unmarried into the land of Nod. But Cain carried off with him his sister Azrun.”113
The Rabbi Zadok said, “This was the reason why Cain slew Abel. His twin sister and wife was not at all good-looking. Then he said, ‘I will kill my brother Abel, and carry off his wife.’ ”114
Gregory Abulfaraj gives this account of the strife: “According to the opinion of Mar Theodosius, thirty years after he was expelled from Paradise, Adam knew his wife Eve, and she bore twins, Cain and his sister Climia; and after thirty more years she bore Abel and his twin sister Lebuda. Then, seventy years after when Adam wanted to marry one of the brothers with the twin sister of the other, Cain refused, asking to have his own twin sister.”115
The Pseudo-Athanasius says, “Up to this time no man had died so that Cain should know how to kill. The devil instructed him in this in a dream.”116
Leonhard Marius on Genesis iv. says, “As to what instrument Cain used, Scripture is silent. Chrysostom calls it a sword; Prudentius, a spade; Irenæus, an axe; Isidore says simply, steel; but artists generally paint a club, and Abulensis thinks he was killed with stones.” Reuchlin thinks, as iron was not discovered till the times of Tubal-cain, the weapon must have been made of wood, and he points out how much more this completes the type of Christ.117
Cain and Abel had been born and had lived with Adam in the land of Adamah; but after Cain slew his brother, he was cast out into the land Erez, and wherever he went, swords sounded and flashed as though thirsting to smite him. And he fled that land and came to Acra, where he had children, and his descendants who live there to this day have two heads.118
Before Cain slew his brother, says the Targum of Jerusalem, the earth brought forth fruits as the fruits of Eden; but from the day that blood was spilt upon it, thistles and thorns sprang up; for the face of earth grew sad, its joy was gone, the stain was on its brow.
Abel’s offering had been of the fattest of his sheep, the Targum adds, but Cain offered flax.119
Abel’s offering, say certain Rabbis, was not perfect; for he offered the chief part to God, but the remainder he dedicated to the Devil; and Cain offered the chief part to Satan, and only the remainder to God.120
The Rabbi Johanan said, Cain exclaimed when accused by God of the murder, “My iniquity is greater than I can bear,” and this is supposed to mean, “My iniquity is too great to be atoned for, except by my brother rising from the earth and slaying me.” What did the Holy One then? He took one letter of the twenty-two which are in the Law, and He wrote it on the arm of Cain, as it is written, “He put a mark upon him.”121
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