Divine Providence and the Guilt of Cain

It signifies this. For the divine providence, existing as a unifying force, does this through all things. Even while the fraternal disposition and the extreme proximity for union are sufficient in the law, it does not permit these to be joined by marriage, but allows others with sisters and near relatives, so that through them they may be gathered together and from others text gapped and a disposition, which Cain suffered. For one must see even his hypocrisy in saying with thoughtlessness: 'I do not know; am I a guardian of my brother?' (Gen 4:9). For through the 'I do not know' the audacity is shown, because he thought he could hide from God; and through the 'Am I a guardian?' the unprincipled, irrational, and therefore senseless thing is revealed; for he ought to have been a guardian of his brother. And God said: 'What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries to me from the earth' (Gen 4:10). And now you are cursed from the earth, which had the stomach of its earth to receive the blood of your brother from your hand, because you work the earth and it will not add its strength to give to you; you shall groan and tremble upon the earth (Gen 4:11-12).

And the Philanthropist teaches while he is shameless, and thinking he can hide from God, he instructs him as this is impossible: 'The voice' he says, 'of your brother's blood cries to me from the earth' (Gen 4:10), do not suppose that the sleepless eye of Providence has escaped the stain. But he reveals it as a voice of blood, just as also elsewhere: 'Behold, the wages of the laborers who laid hold on your fields, who deprived you, cry out' (Jas 5:4). And so it is to be struck, and it is also possible that the blood is said to be there instead of the soul. And if anyone says that he was reminded because of this blood, that the body hid it; he also remembers the pouring out and how the earth had the stomach of its earth to receive the blood of a brother continuously, so that, growing large, the thing done might cause the hot-tempered one to be struck with remorse. And he brings upon him also curses, fittingly for one who worked so much, I say: 'And now you are cursed from the earth, because you work the earth and it will not add its strength to give to you' (Gen 4:12). For often, because of the sin of men, the poverty of the earth happens, not yielding its fruits according to what was said: 'The earth shall mourn because of those who dwell...'

In it. For it has been given to her to bear fruits to those who maintain a right calculation, and to those falling, providing the necessary things through the philanthropy of God; and again, by His command, those fruits which are lacking from her are restored, so that a return may occur. It is for a leading back; if we follow the first principles, God blames the hypocrite because he perverts the life-giving power of the soul, making it like the man outside, as it has been said. Therefore, he will be accursed, no longer providing fruits, but wasting his opportunity on something useless, so that from this he may be cast down into the beginning of virtue. For it is useful even to be perverted by evil, when the results from it are not attained, so that having undergone toil, he may be imbued with the love of virtue according to what was said: 'Egypt has toiled, and the commerce of the Ethiopians and the Sabaeans, tall men, shall pass over you' (Ezekiel 30:16). And 'groaning' and 'trembling upon the earth' (Psalm 55:6) shall be, thus being judged, always being reproved by the conscience.

And Cain said to the Lord God: 'My guilt is too great to be forgiven; if you cast me out today from the face of the earth and from your face I will be hidden, I will be a wanderer and a trembler upon the earth, and it shall be that everyone who finds me will kill me' (Genesis 4:9, 12, 14). The word of God remains even for those who are strangers to themselves, through which they take Him to be a philanthropist and good regarding His own; and it is not possible to cut away this good concept, even if they are often dissatisfied through the depth of wickedness. Immediately, therefore, those who are altogether forgetful of God, being surrounded by necessity, flee to supplications and entreaties, as is seen also regarding Cain. For as God was moved to pity regarding the murder of the brother and, after acting with boldness, hypocritically asking him, 'Where is Abel your brother?' (Genesis 4:9), yet, lest more perversion exist in man, having known from the words of God—through which he learned from the reproof of what had happened in his conscience—that the eye of God is unavoidable, he must not turn this eye toward all foreign things, from which it will happen to groan and tremble and to expect refutation from everyone who finds him.