Symeon the Metaphrast, Chronicle

does he call the gifts of the fruits of Cain a sacrifice? It is possible to speak again to the question, using right reasoning. Abel's sacrifice was called a gift, because imitating those who give gifts, he brings the offering to God; for in the same way that those who give gifts, for the pleasure of those receiving them, select also what is most beautiful, and bring the gift to their friends whole and cutting absolutely nothing from it, so also Abel sacrifices the firstborn of the animals and offers the fattest of the meats. For the one sacrificing seems to divide it, pouring the blood on the altar, but taking the meats home, while the one giving a gift yields the entire gift to the one receiving. Thus I think Abel, by consecrating the firstborn, establishes his own choice as loving God rather than loving self; but Cain, by allotting the produce to himself and impiously deeming God worthy of the seconds, and by offering it after some days but not immediately, is convicted as loving self rather than loving God, and so he rightly gives offense, and the gift is cast back at him as unacceptable. Cain was the first to invent the plough and greed, but Abel 7 cared for righteousness. After killing Abel, Cain hid the corpse, thinking to escape notice by this; but when the blood cried out to God, God heard; for he hears the righteous, even if they have died, but he turns away from the very prayers of the unrighteous. For he considers those who have died to be alive, but he has judged those who are living to have died the true life. He punishes Cain not by destroying him at once, but by cursing him to trembling and groaning for all his life; wherefore, when Cain suspected he would be put to death as a murderer, God says, "Not so, but whoever kills Cain will undo sevenfold vengeance," as one might say, "Do not suppose that the penalty against you is small or fleeting, nor expect by the brevity of death to escape the great evils of life, but you must undergo the punishment commensurate with your sin. Therefore you, the originator of the greatest of crimes for others, will be punished sevenfold. For this reason, then, you will not be killed, because anyone who now dares to murder you, by releasing you from the evils of life, will undo the sevenfold punishment against you." Another way. Not so, but whoever kills Cain. that is, each person who kills will die for his own sin; but whoever kills you, who initiated murder and became the originator of the sin for others, will undo sevenfold vengeance, that is, you must be punished sevenfold. For to die brings a cessation from the evils in life 8, but to live in fear and grief brings countless deaths with sensation. Therefore trembling and groaning, Cain, as if possessed by a demon, spent all his life from then on in a seizure, having received this sign from God that he should not be killed; at any rate after his condemnation he lived more wickedly, becoming a robber and greedy, and he was the first to invent measures and weights and boundaries of land, and after founding a city he forced his relatives to come together into one place and to be occupied with wars. And Cain, taking his sister Sâva as his wife, begot a son, Enoch. From him was born Irad, from whom Mehujael, from whom Methushael. And Methushael begot Lamech. This man, marrying two women, Adah and Zillah, begot sons from Adah: Jubal, a lyre-player, and Jabal, a keeper of livestock; and from Zillah: Tubal, a forger of bronze and iron, and a daughter, Naamah. And indeed, the line of Cain is deemed worthy of mention in the books up to this point, but it has been excluded from the number of the first ones, so that he might neither be counted among the first nor lead those who follow; and because of the wildness of his choice he has been exiled, as it were, from the rational nature to the irrational. Cain, as Moses says, died when his house fell on him. But Adam 9, when he was 230 years old, begot Seth; and having lived seven hundred years after these things, he dies on the very day of the transgression; for since the day of God has a span of a thousand years, he dies having lived only nine hundred years.

καρπῶν τοῦ Κάϊν δῶρα θυσίαν ὀνομάζει; ἔστι πάλιν εἰς τὸ ζητούμενον εἰπεῖν, ὀρθῷ χρησάμενοι στοχασμῷ. δῶρον ἡ τοῦ Ἄβελ ὠνομάσθη θυσία, ἐπειδὴ τοὺς δωρουμένους μιμησάμενος θεῷ προσκομίζει τὸ θῦμα· ὃν γὰρ τρόπον οἱ δωρούμενοι πρὸς ἀρέσκειαν τῶν κομιζομένων καὶ τὸ μάλιστα κάλλιστον ἐπιλέγονται, καὶ πᾶν ὁλόκληρον καὶ μηδὲν ἐξ αὐτοῦ τὸ σύνολον ἀποτεμόμενοι προσκομίζουσι τοῖς φίλοις τὸ δῶρον, οὕτως καὶ ὁ Ἄβελ τῶν ζώων θύει τὰ πρωτότοκα καὶ τῶν κρεῶν προσφέρει τὰ πιότατα. ἔοικε γὰρ ἐπιδιαιρεῖν ὁ θύων, καὶ τὸ μὲν αἷμα τῷ θυσιαστηρίῳ προσχέειν, τὰ δὲ κρέα οἴκαδε ἀποκομίζειν, ὁ δὲ δωρούμενος πᾶν τῷ λαμβάνοντι παραχωρεῖ τὸ δῶρον. οὕτως οἶμαι τὰ πρωτότοκα καθιεροῦντα τὸν Ἄβελ φιλόθεον μᾶλλον ἢ φίλαυτον τὴν ἑαυτοῦ συνίστησι προαίρεσιν· ἑαυτῷ δὲ ὁ Κάϊν ἀπονέμων τὰ γενήματα, καὶ τῶν δευτεριῶν ἀσεβῶς τὸν θεὸν ἀξιῶν, τῷ καὶ μεθ' ἡμέρας ἀλλὰ μὴ εὐθέως προσενεγκεῖν φίλαυτος μᾶλλον ἢ φιλόθεος ἐξελέγχεται, καὶ αὐτὸς μὲν εἰκότως προσκρούει, τὸ δὲ δῶρον ὡς ἀδόκιμον αὐτῷ προσρίπτεται. Ὁ Κάϊν πρῶτος ἄροτρον ἐπενόησε καὶ πλεονεξίαν, Ἄβελ 7 δὲ δικαιοσύνης ἐπεμελεῖτο. κτείνας δὲ τὸν Ἄβελ ὁ Κάϊν ἔκρυψε τὸν νεκρόν, λαθεῖν ἐντεῦθεν οἰόμενος· βοῶντος δὲ πρὸς τὸν θεὸν τοῦ αἵματος ἐπακούει ὁ θεός· δικαίων γὰρ ἐπακούει, κἂν τελευτήσαντες ὦσιν, ἀδίκων δὲ καὶ αὐτὰς ἀποστρέφεται τὰς εὐχάς. τοὺς μὲν γὰρ καὶ τεθνεῶτας νενόμικε ζῆν, τοὺς δὲ καὶ ζῶντας τὴν ἀληθῆ κέκρικε τεθνηκέναι ζωήν. τιμωρεῖ τὸν Κάϊν οὐκ ἀνελὼν αὐτίκα, ἀλλὰ τρόμον αὐτῷ καὶ στεναγμὸν ἐπὶ πάντα τὸν βίον ἐπαρασάμενος· διόπερ ἐκείνου θάνατον ὡς φονέως ὑφορωμένου φησὶν ὁ θεὸς "οὐχ οὕτως, ἀλλὰ πᾶς ὁ ἀποκτείνας Κάϊν ἑπτὰ ἐκδικούμενα παραλύσει," ὡς ἄν τις εἴπει "μηδὲ μικρὰν μηδὲ παρατρέχουσαν εἶναι τὴν κατὰ σαυτοῦ δίκην ὑπολάβῃς, μηδὲ μεγάλα προσδοκήσῃς τῇ κατὰ τὸν θάνατον συντομίᾳ τὰ ἐπὶ τοῦ ζῆν διαδιδράσκειν κακά, ἀλλὰ χρή σε τοῦ ἁμαρτήματος ἰσόρροπον ὑφίστασθαι τὴν ἐπιτιμίαν. τοιγαροῦν ὁ τοῦ μεγίστου τῶν ἀδικημάτων τοῖς ἄλλοις ὑφηγητὴς ἑπταπλασίως τιμωρηθήσῃ. διὰ τοῦτο τοίνυν οὐ φονευθήσῃ, ὅτι πᾶς ὁ νῦν τὸν κατὰ σοῦ φόνον ἀποτολμήσας, κακῶν σε τῶν κατὰ τὸν βίον ἀπαλλάξας, ἑπταπλῆν τὴν κατὰ σοῦ παραλύσει τιμωρίαν." ἄλλως. οὐχ οὕτως, ἀλλὰ πᾶς ὁ ἀποκτείνας Κάϊν. τουτέστιν ἀποκτείνας μὲν ἕκαστος τῷ ἑαυτοῦ ἁμαρτήματι ἀποθανεῖται· σὲ δὲ φόνου κατάρξαντα καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις ὑφηγητὴν τοῦ ἁμαρτήματος γενόμενον ὁ ἀποκτείνας ἑπτὰ ἐκδικούμενα παραλύσει, τουτέστιν ἑπταπλασίως τιμωρηθῆναί σε δεῖ. τὸ μὲν γὰρ τελευτῆσαι τῶν ἐν τῷ 8 βίῳ πονηρῶν ἐπάγει τὴν κατάπαυσιν, τὸ δὲ ζῆν ἐν φόβῳ καὶ λύπῃ μυρίους ἐπάγει τοὺς σὺν αἰσθήσει θανάτους. τρέμων οὖν καὶ στένων ὁ Κάϊν, καθάπερ δαίμονι κάτοχος, ἐν ἐπιληψίᾳ πάντα τὸν ἐξ αὐτοῦ διῆγε βίον, τοῦτο τοῦ μὴ ἀναιρεθῆναι παρὰ θεοῦ λαβὼν τὸ σημεῖον· μετὰ γοῦν τὴν καταδίκην χειρόνως ἐβίω, ἅρπαξ καὶ πλεονέκτης γενόμενος, καὶ πρῶτος μέτρα καὶ σταθμὰ καὶ γῆς ὅρους ἐπενόησε, καὶ πόλιν κτίσας εἰς ἓν συνελθεῖν οἰκείους ἠνάγκασε καὶ εἰς πολέμους ἀπασχολεῖσθαι. Σάβαν δὲ τὴν ἀδελφὴν αὐτοῦ λαβὼν ὁ Κάϊν εἰς γυναῖκα ἐκτήσατο υἱὸν τὸν Ἐνώς. ἐκ τούτου γίνεται Γαιδάδ, ἐξ οὗ Μαουήλ, ἐξ οὗ Μαθουσάλα. ὁ δὲ Μαθουσάλας γεννᾷ τὸν Λάμεχ. οὗτος δύο γυναῖκας ἀγόμενος, Ἀδδὰν καὶ Σελλάν, Ἰουβὰλ μὲν κιθαρῳδὸν Ἰωβὴλ δὲ κτηνοτρόφον ἐκ τῆς Ἀδδᾶς παῖδας ἐκτήσατο, Θοβὲλ δὲ σφυροκόπον χαλκοῦ καὶ σιδήρου καὶ Νοεμᾶν θυγατέρα ἐκ τῆς Σελλᾶς. καὶ τὸ μὲν ἐκ Κάϊν γένος μέχρι τούτου μνήμης ἠξίωται ἐν τοῖς βιβλίοις, τοῦ δὲ ἀριθμοῦ τῶν πρώτων ἀποκεκήρυκται, ἵνα μηδὲ τοῖς πρώτοις ᾖ συνταττόμενος μηδὲ τῶν ἐφεξῆς ἀφηγούμενος· διὰ δὲ τὸ τῆς προαιρέσεως ἄγριον ὥσπερ ἐπὶ τὴν ἄλογον ἐκ τῆς λογικῆς φύσεως ἐξώρισται. Κάϊν, ὡς λέγει Μωϋσῆς, τῆς οἰκίας πεσούσης ἐπ' αὐτὸν ἐτελεύτησεν. ὁ δὲ Ἀδὰμ 9 γενόμενος ἐτῶν σλʹ ἐγέννησε τὸν Σήθ· καὶ τούτοις ἑπτακόσια ἐπιζήσας ἔτη θνήσκει κατ' αὐτὴν τῆς παραβάσεως ἡμέραν· χιλιονταετίας γὰρ τῆς τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμέρας ἐχούσης τὸ διάστημα, ἐννακόσια μόνον ἔτη ζήσας τελευτᾷ.