Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets. Baring-Gould Sabine
the earth rejected it.
When God appeared before him, Cain trembled in all his limbs, and God said to him, “Thou tremblest and art in fear; this shall be thy sign.” And from that moment he quaked with a perpetual ague.
The Rabbis give another mark as having been placed on Cain. They say that a horn grew out of the midst of his forehead. He was killed by a son of Lamech, who, being shortsighted, mistook him for a wild beast; but in the Little Genesis it is said that he was killed by the fall of his house, in the year 930, the same day that Adam died. According to the same authority, Adam and Eve bewailed Abel twenty-eight years.
The Talmud relates the following beautiful incident.
God had cursed Cain, and he was doomed to a bitter punishment; but moved, at last, by Cain’s contrition, he placed on his brow the symbol of pardon.
Adam met Cain, and looked with wonder on the seal or token, and asked, —
“How hast thou turned away the wrath of the Almighty?”
“By confession of sin and repentance,” answered the fratricide.
“Woe is me!” cried Adam, smiting his brow; “is the virtue of repentance so great, and I knew it not! And by repentance I might have altered my lot!”127
Tabari says that Cain was the first worshipper of fire. Eblis (Satan) appeared to him and told him that the reason of the acceptance of Abel’s sacrifice was, that he had invoked the fire that fell on it and consumed it; Cain had not done this, and therefore fire had not come down on his oblation. Cain believed this, and adored fire, and taught his children to do the same.128
Cain, says Josephus, having wandered over the earth with his wife, settled in the land of Nod. But his punishment, so far from proving of advantage to him, proved only a stimulus to his violence and passion; and he increased his wealth by rapine, and he encouraged his children and friends to live by robbery and in luxury. He also corrupted the primitive simplicity in which men lived, by the introduction amongst them of weights and measures, by placing boundaries, and walling cities.129
John Malala says the same: “Cain was a tiller of the ground till he committed the crime of slaying his brother; after that, he lived by violence, his hand being against every man, and he invented and taught men the use of weights, measures, and boundaries.”130
The passage in Genesis “Whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold,”131 has been variously interpreted. Cosmas Indopleustes renders it thus, “Whosoever slayeth Cain will discharge seven vengeances;” that is, he will deliver him from those calamities to which he is subject when living.132
But Malala renders it otherwise; he says it is to be thus understood: “Every murderer shall die for his sin, but thou who didst commit the first homicide, and art therefore the originator of this crime, shalt be punished sevenfold; that is, thou shalt undergo seven punishments.” For Cain had committed seven crimes. First, he was guilty of envy; then, of treachery; thirdly, of murder; fourthly, of killing his brother; fifthly, this was the first murder ever committed; sixthly, he grieved his parents; and seventhly, Cain lied to God. Thus the sin of Cain was sevenfold; therefore sevenfold was his punishment. First, the earth was accursed on his account; secondly, he was sentenced to labor; thirdly, the earth was forbidden from yielding to him her strength; fourthly, he was to become timid and conscience-stricken; fifthly, he was to be a vagabond on the earth; sixthly, he was to be cast out from God’s presence; seventhly, a mark was to be placed upon him.
The Mussulmans say that the penitence of Cain, whom they call Kabil, was not sincere. He was filled with remorse, but it was mingled with envy and hatred, because he was regarded with disfavor by the rest of the sons of Adam.
Near Damascus is shown a place at the foot of a mountain where Cain slew Abel.133
The legends of the death of Cain will be found under the title of Lamech.
“Half a mile from the gates of Hebron,” says the Capuchin Friar, Ignatius von Rheinfelden, in his Pilgrimage to Jerusalem, “begins the valley of Mamre, in which Abraham saw the three angels; the Campus Damascenus lies toward the west; there, Adam was created; and the spot is pointed out where Cain killed his brother Abel. The earth there is red, and may be moulded like wax.”134 Salmeron says the same, “Adam was made of the earth or dust of the Campus Damascenus.” And St. Jerome on Ezekiel, chap. xvii., says: “Damascus is the place where Abel was slain by his brother Cain; for which cause the spot is called Damascus, that is, Blood-drinking.” This Damascus near Hebron is not to be confused with the city Damascus.
VII
THE DEATH OF ADAM
According to a Mussulman tradition, Adam was consoled for the loss of Abel by the discovery of how to make wheat-bread. The story is as follows: —
The angel Gabriel was sent out of Paradise to give him the rest of the wheat-grains Eve had plucked from the forbidden tree, together with two oxen, and various instruments of husbandry. Hitherto he had fed on roots and berries, and had known nothing of sowing grain; acting under Gabriel’s directions, he ploughed the land, but the plough stuck, and Adam impatiently smote one of the oxen, and it spoke to him and said, “Wherefore hast thou smitten me?”
Adam replied, “Because thou dost not draw the plough.”
“Adam!” said the ox, “when thou wast rebellious, did God smite thee thus?”
“O God!” cried Adam to the Almighty, “is every beast to reproach me, and recall to me my sin?”
Then God heard his cry, and withdrew from beasts the power of speech, lest they should cast their sin in the teeth of men.
But as the blow was still arrested, Adam dug into the soil, and found that the iron had been caught by the body of his son Abel.
When the wheat was sprung up, Gabriel gave Adam fire from hell, which however he had previously washed seventy times in the sea, or it would have consumed the earth and all things thereon. In the beginning, wheat-grains were the size of ostrich eggs, but under Edris (Enoch) they were no bigger than goose eggs; under Elias they were the size of hen’s eggs; under Christ, when the Jews sought to slay him, they were no larger than grapes; it was in the time of Uzeir (Esdras) that they diminished to their present proportions.
After Adam and Eve had been instructed in all that appertained to agriculture, Gabriel brought them a lamb and showed Adam how to slay it in the name of God, how to shear off the wool, and skin the sheep. Eve was instructed in the art of spinning and weaving by the angel, and she made of the wool, first a veil for herself, and then a shirt for her husband.
The first pair brought up their grandsons and great grandsons, to the number of 40,000 according to some, and 70,000 according to others, and taught them all that they had learned of the angel.
After the death of Abel, and after Cain had been slain by the avenging angel, Eve bore a third son, named Seth, who became the father of the race of the prophets.
Finally, when Adam had reached his nine hundred and thirtieth year, the Angel of Death appeared under the form of a goat, and ran between his legs.
Adam recoiled with horror, and exclaimed, “God has given me one thousand years; wherefore comest thou now?”
“What!” exclaimed the Angel of Death, “hast thou not given seventy years of thy life to the prophet David?”
Adam stoutly denied that he had done so. Then the Angel of Death drew the document of transfer from out of his beard, and presented it to Adam, who could no longer refuse to go.
His son Seth washed and buried him, after that the angel Gabriel, or, according to some accounts, Allah himself, had blessed him: Eve died a year later.
Learned
Tract. Avoda Sara.
Tabari, i. c. xix.
Antiq. Judæ., lib. i. c. 2.
Excerpta Chronologica, p. 2.
Gen. iv. 15.
Cosmas Indopleustes, Cosmographia, lib. v.
D’Herbelot, Bibliothèque Orientale,
Neue Ierosolymitanische Pilgerfahrt. Von P. F. Ignat. von Rheinfelden. Würtzburg, 1667. P. ii. p. 8.