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From: Genesis 4:1-15, 25

The First Children of Adam and Eve

[1] Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I
have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.” [2] And again, she bore his brother
Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a tiller of the ground.

Cain and Abel

In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground,
[4] and Abel brought of the firstlings of his flock and of their fat portions. And the
Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, [5] but for Cain and his offering he had
no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his countenance fell. [6] The Lord said
to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your countenance fallen? [7] If you
do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is couching at
the door; its desire is for you, but you must master it.”

[8] Cain said to Abel his brother, “Let us go out to the field.” And when they
were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and killed him. [9] Then
the Lord said to Cain, “Where is Abel your brother?” He said, “I do not know; am
I my brother’s keeper?” [10] And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice
of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. [11] And now you are cur-
sed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood
from your hand. [12] When you till the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its
strength; you shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.” [13] Cain said to
the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear. [14] Behold, thou hast dri-
ven me this day away from the ground; and from thy face I shall be hidden; and
I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will slay
me.” [15] Then the Lord said to him, “Not so! If any one slays Cain, vengeance
shall be taken on him sevenfold.” And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who
came upon him should kill him.

The birth of Seth

[25] And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name
Seth, for she said, “God has appointed for me another child instead of Abel, for
Cain slew him.”

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Commentary:

4:1. To refer to sexual intercourse between man and woman, the Bible uses the
term “to know”, thereby signalling the human depth of that relationship: although
it takes place via the body, it does so in a context of mind and will.

The name of Cain has an explanation in the biblical text: it echoes Eve’s excla-
mation, “I have gotten (in Hebrew, “qaniti”). This shows God’s part in the genera-
tion of her child. The Bible will keep on teaching that children are a gift from God,
and that it is God who gives or withholds fertility. Consequently the Church reminds
married couples of their duty “to transmit human life and to educate their children;
they should realize that they are thereby cooperating with the love of God the Cre-
ator and are, in a certain sense, its interpreters’” (Vatican II, “Gaudium et spes”,
50).

4:3-8. We can see here how from the start God picks out particular people (with-
out any merit on their part), sometimes giving preference to the youngest or the
weakest: Isaac is preferred to Esau, for example; David to his brothers. The ori-
gin of Cain’s sin lies in the fact that he does not accept God’s preference for his
younger brother, and he gives way to anger, envy (cf. Wis 10:3) and gloominess.
Despite that, God loves Cain too and he invites him to master temptation (v. 7)
by acting rightly; but Cain killed his brother Abel.

Cain is the prototype of the perverse and murderous man; Abel, of the just man
who blamelessly suffers violent death. For this reason Abel is seen as a figure
of Jesus Christ, whose blood spilt on the cross speaks even more eloquently
than the blood of Abel: “But you have come [. . .] to Jesus, the mediator of a
new covenant, and to the spiritual blood that speaks more graciously than the
blood of Abel” (Heb 12:24). Cain, on the other hand, symbolizes every man who
hates his neighbour, for hatred implies desiring that the other person should not
exist. St John interprets the story of Cain in this sense when he writes: “This is
the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one
another, and not be like Cain who was of the evil one and murdered his brother.
And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s
righteous. [. . .] Any one who hates his brother is a murderer, and we know that
no murderer has eternal life abiding in him’’ (Jn 3:11-12, 15).

Assuming that Cain was ill-intentioned in his offerings, St Bede the Venerable
comments that “men often are placated by gifts from those who have offended
them; but God, who ‘discerns the thoughts and intentions of the heart’ (Heb 4:
12), lets himself be placated by no gift as much as by the pious devotion of the
offerer. Once he has seen the purity of our heart, he will then also accept our
prayers and our works” (”Hexaemeron 2: in Gen, 4:4-5).

4:9-16. The question God puts to Cain is one that is constantly being asked of
all human beings as regards their fellows. And the death by violence of any inno-
cent person cries for justice, a cry to which God is never indifferent. He burdens
Cain’s conscience with the weight of his crime, even though he protects his life
by putting a mark on him to prevent anyone taking revenge. In the context of this
account, the mark is meant as a protection, not a sign of infamy. The fact that
Cain, on account of what he has done, is sent out of God’s presence and has
to wander on the earth symbolizes the break with God that sin causes.

“Human life is sacred,” the Church teaches, “because from its beginning it in-
volves the creative action of God and it remains for ever in a special relationship
with the Creator, who is its sole end. God alone is the Lord of life from its begin-
ning until its end: no one can under any circumstance claim for himself the
right directly to destroy an innocent human being’’ (Catechism of the Catholic
Church, 2258).

4:25-26. This is the part of mankind which retained its knowledge of the true
God, who in due course will reveal himself to Abraham (cf. chap. 12) and Moses
(cf. Ex 3:14). Seth’s name is given an etymological explanation, but now one con-
nected not with cities and skills (cf. the note on 4:17-24) but with God: Seth gets
his name because God gave him to Eve to take the place of Abel. This will be the
line of descendants of Adam and Eve from which will come the chosen people,
through the calling of Abraham. The fact that there is no mention of Seth’s des-
cendants devoting themselves to trades may he designed to show that their spe-
cific contribution to mankind was their keeping the knowledge of the true God —
a greater contribution than that made by others.

“In a figurative manner,” St Bede explains, “Enoch, the son of Seth, stands for
the Christian people who, through faith and the sacrament of the passion and
resurrection of the Lord, is born every day, the world over, of water and the Holy
Spirit. This people [. . .] in all that it does is always invoking the name of the
Lord, saying, Our Father, who are in heaven, hallowed by thy name” (”Hexaeme-
ron 2: in Gen”, 4:25-26).

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Source: “The Navarre Bible: Text and Commentaries”. Biblical text from the
Revised Standard Version and New Vulgate. Commentaries by members of
the Faculty of Theology, University of Navarre, Spain.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.

From: Mark 8:11-13

The Leaven of the Pharisees

[11] The Pharisees came and began to argue with Him (Jesus), seeking from Him
a sign from Heaven, to test Him. [12] And He sighed deeply in His spirit, and said,
“Why does this generation seek a sign? Truly, I say to you, no sign shall be given
to this generation.” [13] And He left them, and getting into the boat again He depa-
rted to the other side.

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Commentary:

11-12. Jesus expresses the deep sadness He feels at the hardheartedness of
the Pharisees: they remain blind and unbelieving despite the light shining around
them and the wonderful things Christ is doing. If someone rejects the miracles
God has offered him, it is useless for him to demand new signs, because he asks
for them not because he is sincerely seeking the truth but out of ill will: he is try-
ing to tempt God (cf. Luke 16:27-31). Requiring new miracles before one will be-
lieve, not accepting those already performed in the history of salvation, amounts
to asking God to account for Himself before a human tribunal (cf. Romans 2:1-11).
Unfortunately, many people do act like this. But God can only be found if we have
an open and humble attitude to Him. “I have no need of miracles: there are more
than enough for me in the Gospel. But I do need to see you fulfilling your duty
and responding to grace” (St J. Escriva, “The Way”, 362).

12. The generation to which Jesus refers does not include all the people of His
time, but only the Pharisees and their followers (cf. Mark 8:38; 9:19; Matthew
11:16), who do not want to see in Jesus’ miracles the sign and guarantee of His
messianic mission and dignity: they even attribute His miracles to Satan (Mat-
thew 12:28).

If they do not accept the signs offered to them, they will be given no other sign
of the spectacular kind they seek, for the Kingdom of God does not come noisily
(Luke 17:20-21) and even if it did they in their twisted way would manage to mis-
interpret the event (Luke 16:31). According to Matthew 12:38-42 and Luke 11:29-
32, they are offered yet another sign—the miracle of Jonah, the sign of the death
and resurrection of Christ; but not even this remarkable proof will lead the Phari-
sees to shed their pride.

Published by Four Courts Press, Kill Lane, Blackrock, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and
by Scepter Publishers in the United States.