ON THE POSTERITY OF CAIN, WHO IS A SOPHIST,

AND HOW HE BECOMES A FUGITIVE.

ARGUMENT OF THE BOOK

ON THE

POSTERITY OF CAIN

WHO THINKS HIMSELF WISE, AND HOW HE CHANGES HIS ABODE.

Cain, departing from the face of God, is a symbol of a man who acts out of wicked counsel. Such a man will suffer heavier punishments than one who transgresses divine commands involuntarily (1–3). For he who loves God—which is the highest commandment—strives in every way to know the divine being, or to become worthy of beholding Him, as did Moses and Abraham (4–6). He who does not do this will be tossed to and fro like a ship on the sea, nor will he find rest like Cain; but the pious man who loves God becomes a participant in Him, and that in the sweetest way, which is seen in the constant contemplation of divine things (7–10). The wicked man of this kind thinks, furthermore, that the mind is the measure of all things, and that nothing refers back to God, just as Cain, with his wife—that is, a depraved way of thinking—begets Enoch—that is, one who loves himself (11 and 12). Such a person will be met by death and a wretched way of life, just as Enoch was met by Methuselah and Lamech, who represent the emission of death and humiliation (13). For such a person devises false opinions and a sophistic art by which he easily entices other impious men to follow him—this is what is signified by Cain building a city—while he forces good men, i.e., the Israelites, to serve him (14–18). For this reason, Enoch's son is called Gaidad, i.e., "a flock"; for he who does not acknowledge God as the ruler of all things feeds within himself a flock of irrational passions (19); and Gaidad's son is Meel, i.e., "from the life of God"; for he who cherishes irrational things within himself lives a life separated from God (20). Since this man is subject to death, Meel's sons are rightly called Methuselah, which is the "emission of death" (21), and Lamech, which is "humiliation." For one who is separated from God, i.e., the wicked man, clings to the lowliest things, as Lamech did with his two wives (22 and 23). Hence, from Ada is born to him Jobel, i.e., "one who changes"; for he who has given himself over to sordid and lowly cares, being a wanderer and dissolute, attempts to pervert divine reasons and commandments (24–29); for this reason Jobel had a brother, Jobal, who is "the one who inclines"; for the wanderer, having abandoned the middle path—which alone is the best—is prone to committing any evil whatsoever (30–32). But the wicked man also pursues a shadow, i.e., those vain things which lovers of the world deem beautiful; just as Lamech, from Sella, his other wife, begat Thobel, i.e., "abundance" (33); if Moses calls him a worker in bronze, he wishes to indicate that the soul of a man who is given to pleasures is, like bronze on an anvil, stretched and pulled into various extensions (34). Rightly, then, his sister is also called Noëman, i.e., "fatness"; for those who care too much for the body are wont to become shamefully fat and bloated (35).—Seth, whom Eve bore after Abel was killed, is a type of the reason by which human souls are irrigated by divine wisdom (36), which is also signified by Hagar and Rebecca, of whom the former represents intermediate discipline, and the latter, incorruptible virtue (37–48). Seth, however, differs from Abel in that the latter, leaving behind the mortal, migrates to a better nature, while the former does not desert the human race, but propagates it (49 and 50), and is the author of human knowledge that increases up to the time of Moses (51–54).