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| To Optimus the bishop.
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Letter
CCLX.3143
To Optimus the bishop.3144
1. Under any
circumstances I should have gladly seen the good lads, on account of
both a steadiness of character beyond their years, and their near
relationship to your excellency, which might have led me to expect
something remarkable in them. And, when I saw them approaching me
with your letter, my affection towards them was doubled. But now
that I have read the letter, now that I have seen all the anxious care
for the Church that there is in it, and the evidence it affords of your
zeal in reading the divine Scriptures, I thank the Lord. And I
invoke blessings on those who brought me such a letter, and, even
before them, on the writer himself.
2. You have asked for a solution of that
famous passage which is everywhere interpreted in different senses,
“Whosoever slayeth Cain will exact vengeance for seven
sins.”3145
Your question
shews that you have yourself carefully observed the charge of Paul to
Timothy,3146
for you are
obviously attentive to your reading. You have moreover roused me,
old man that I am, dull alike from age and bodily infirmity, and from
the many afflictions which have been stirred up round about me and have
weighed down my life. Fervent in spirit as you are yourself, you
are rousing me, now benumbed like a beast in his den, to some little
wakefulness and vital energy. The passage in question may be
interpreted simply and may also receive an elaborate explanation.
The simpler, and one that may occur to any one off hand, is this:
that Cain ought to suffer sevenfold punishment for his sins.
For it is not the part of a righteous judge to define
requital on the principle of like for like, but the originator of evil
must pay his debt with addition, if he is to be made better by
punishment and render other men wiser by his example. Therefore,
since it is ordained that Cain pay the penalty of his sin sevenfold, he
who kills him, it is said, will discharge the sentence pronounced
against him by the divine judgment. This is the sense that
suggests itself to us on our first reading the passage.
3. But readers, gifted with greater curiosity, are
naturally inclined to probe into the question further. How, they
ask, can justice be satisfied seven times? And what are the
vengeances? Are they for seven sins committed? Or is the
sin committed once and are there seven punishments for the one
sin? Scripture continually assigns seven as the number of the
remission of sins. “How often,” it is asked,
“shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him?”
(It is Peter who is speaking to the Lord.) “Till
seven times?”
Then comes the Lord’s answer, “I say not unto thee,
until seven times, but, until seventy times seven.”3147
Our Lord did not vary the number, but
multiplied the seven, and so fixed the limit of the forgiveness.
After seven years the Hebrew used to be freed from slavery.3148
Seven weeks of years used in old times
to make the famous jubilee,3149
in which the land
rested, debts were remitted, slaves were set free, and, as it were, a
new life began over again, the old life from age to age being in a
sense completed at the number seven. These things are types of
this present life, which revolves in seven days and passes by, wherein
punishments of slighter sins are inflicted, according to the loving
care of our good Lord, to save us from being delivered to punishment in
the age that has no end. The expression seven times is
therefore introduced because of its connexion with this present world
for men who love this world ought specially to be punished in the
things for the sake of which they have chosen to live wicked
lives. If you understand the vengeances to be for the sins
committed by Cain, you will find those sins to be seven. Or if
you understand them to mean the sentence passed on him by the Judge,
you will not go far wrong. To take the crimes of Cain: the
first sin is envy at the preference of Abel; the second is
guile, whereby he said to his brother, “Let us go into the
field:”3150
the third is
murder, a further wickedness: the fourth,
fratricide, a still greater iniquity: the fifth that he
committed the first murder, and set a bad example to
mankind: the sixth wrong in that he grieved his
parents: the seventh, his lie to God; for when he was
asked, “Where is Abel thy brother?” he replied, “I
know not.”3151
Seven sins
were therefore avenged in the destruction of Cain. For when the
Lord said, “Cursed is the earth which has opened to receive the
blood of thy brother,” and “groaning and trembling shall
there be on the earth,” Cain said, “If thou castest me out
to-day from the earth, then from thy face shall I be hid, and groaning
and trembling shall I lie upon the earth, and every one that findeth me
shall slay me.” It is in answer to this that the Lord says,
“Whosoever slayeth Cain will discharge seven
vengeances.”3152
| 3152
Gen. iv. 11, 12, 14,
15, LXX. | Cain supposed
that he would be an easy prey to every one, because of there being no
safety for him in the earth (for the earth was cursed for his sake),
and of his being deprived of the succour of God, Who was angry with him
for the murder, and so of there being no help for him either from earth
or from heaven. Therefore he said, “It shall come to pass
that every one that findeth me shall slay me.” Scripture
proves his error in the words, “Not so;” i.e. thou
shalt not be slain. For to men suffering punishment, death is a
gain, because it brings relief from their pain. But thy life
shall be prolonged, that thy punishment may be made commensurate with
thy sins. Since then the word ἐκδικούμενον
may be understood in two senses; both the sin for which vengeance was
taken, and the manner of the punishment, let us now examine whether the
criminal suffered a sevenfold torment.
4. The seven sins of Cain have been enumerated in
what has been already said. Now I ask if the punishments
inflicted on him were seven, and I state as follows. The Lord
enquired ‘Where is Abel thy brother?’ not because he wished
for information, but in order to give Cain an opportunity for
repentance, as is proved by the words themselves, for on his denial the
Lord immediately convicts him saying, “The voice of thy
brother’s blood crieth unto me.” So the enquiry,
“Where is Abel thy brother?” was not made with a view to
God’s information, but to give Cain an opportunity of perceiving
his sin. But for God’s having visited him he might have
pleaded that he was left alone and had no opportunity given him for
repentance. Now the physician appeared that the patient might
flee to him for help. Cain, however, not only fails to hide his
sore, but makes another one in adding the lie to the murder.
“I know not. Am I my brother’s keeper?”
Now from this point begin to reckon the punishments.
“Cursed is the ground for thy sake,” one punishment.
“Thou shalt till the ground.” This is the second
punishment. Some secret necessity was imposed upon him forcing
him to the tillage of the earth, so that it should never be permitted
him to take rest when he might wish, but ever to suffer pain with the
earth, his enemy, which, by polluting it with his brother’s
blood, he had made accursed. “Thou shalt till the
ground.” Terrible punishment, to live with those that hate
one, to have for a companion an enemy, an implacable foe.
“Thou shalt till the earth,” that is, Thou shalt toil at
the labours of the field, never resting, never released from thy work,
day or night, bound down by secret necessity which is harder than any
savage master, and continually urged on to labour. “And it
shall not yield unto thee her strength.” Although the
ceaseless toil had some fruit, the labour itself were no little torture
to one forced never to relax it. But the toil is ceaseless, and
the labours at the earth are fruitless (for “she did not yield
her strength”) and this fruitlessness of labour is the third
punishment. “Groaning and trembling shalt thou be on the
earth.” Here two more are added to the three; continual
groaning, and tremblings of the body, the limbs being deprived of the
steadiness that comes of strength. Cain had made a bad use of the
strength of his body, and so its vigour was destroyed, and it tottered
and shook, and it was hard for him to lift meat and drink to his mouth,
for after his impious conduct, his wicked hand was no longer allowed to
minister to his body’s needs. Another punishment is that
which Cain disclosed when he said, “Thou hast driven me out from
the face of the earth, and from thy face shall I be hid.”
What is the meaning of this driving out from the face of the
earth? It means deprivation of the benefits which are derived
from the earth. He was not transferred to another place, but he
was made a stranger to all the good things of earth. “And
from thy face shall I be hid.” The heaviest punishment for
men of good heart is alienation from God. “And it shall
come to pass that every one that findeth me shall slay me.”
He infers this from what has gone before. If I am cast out of the
earth, and hidden from thy face, it remains for me to be slain of every
one. What says the Lord? Not so. But he put a mark
upon him. This is the seventh punishment, that the punishment
should not be hid, but that by a plain sign proclamation should be made
to all, that this is the first doer of unholy deeds. To all who
reason rightly the heaviest of punishments is shame. We have
learned this also in the case of the judgments, when “some”
shall rise “to everlasting life, and some to shame and
everlasting contempt.”3153
5. Your next question is of a kindred
character, concerning the words of Lamech to his wives; “I have
slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt: if Cain
shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and
sevenfold.”3154
Some suppose
that Cain was slain by Lamech, and that he survived to this generation
that he might suffer a longer punishment. But this is not the
case. Lamech evidently committed two murders, from what he says
himself, “I have slain a man and a young man,” the man to
his wounding, and the young man to his hurt. There is a
difference between wounding and hurt.3155
| 3155 LXX.
μώλωψ, i.e.
weal. | And there is a difference between a
man and a young man. “If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold,
truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.” It is right that I
should undergo four hundred and ninety punishments, if God’s
judgment on Cain was just, that his punishments should be seven.
Cain had not learned to murder from another, and had never seen a
murderer undergoing punishment. But I, who had before my eyes
Cain groaning and trembling, and the mightiness of the wrath of God,
was not made wiser by the example before me. Wherefore I deserve
to suffer four hundred and ninety punishments. There are,
however, some who have gone so far as the following explanation, which
does not jar with the doctrine of the Church; from Cain to the flood,
they say, seven generations passed by, and the punishment was brought
on the whole earth, because sin was everywhere spread abroad. But
the sin of Lamech requires for its cure not a Flood, but Him Who
Himself takes away the sin of the world.3156
Count the generations from Adam to the
coming of Christ, and you will find, according to the genealogy of
Luke, that the Lord was born in the seventy-seventh.
Thus I have investigated this point to the best of
my ability, though I have passed by matters therein that might be
investigated, for fear of prolonging my observations beyond the limits
of my letter. But for your intelligence little seeds are
enough. “Give instruction,” it is said, “to a
wise man, and he will be yet wiser.”3157
“If a skilful man hear a wise word he will
commend it, and add unto it.”3158
6. About the words of Simeon to Mary, there
is no obscurity or variety of interpretation. “And Simeon
blessed them, and said unto Mary His mother, Behold, this Child is set
for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which
shall be spoken against; (yea, a sword shall pierce through thine own
soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be
revealed.”3159
Here I am
astonished that, after passing by the previous words as requiring no
explanation, you should enquire about the expression, “Yea, a
sword shall pierce through thy own soul also.” To me the
question, how the same child can be for the fall and rising again, and
what is the sign that shall be spoken against, does not seem less
perplexing than the question how a sword shall pierce through
Mary’s heart.
7. My
view is, that the Lord is for falling and rising again, not because
some fall and others rise again, but because in us the worst falls and
the better is set up. The advent3160
of
the Lord is destructive of our bodily affections and it rouses the
proper qualities of the soul. As when Paul says, “When I am
weak, then I am strong,”3161
the same
man is weak and is strong, but he is weak in the flesh and strong in
the spirit. Thus the Lord does not give to some occasions of
falling and to others occasions of rising. Those who fall,
fall from the station in which they once were, but it is plain that
the faithless man never stands, but is always dragged along the
ground with the serpent whom he follows. He has then nowhere
to fall from, because he has already been cast down by his
unbelief. Wherefore the first boon is, that he who stands in
his sin should fall and die, and then should live in righteousness
and rise, both of which graces our faith in Christ confers on
us. Let the worse fall that the better may have opportunity to
rise. If fornication fall not, chastity does not rise.
Unless our unreason be crushed our reason will not come to
perfection. In this sense he is for the fall and rising again
of many.
8. For a sign that shall be spoken
against. By a sign, we properly understand in Scripture a
cross. Moses, it is said, set the serpent “upon a
pole.”3162
That is upon
a cross. Or else a sign3163
is
indicative of something strange and obscure seen by the simple but
understood by the intelligent. There is no cessation of
controversy about the Incarnation of the Lord; some asserting that
he assumed a body, and others that his sojourn was bodiless; some
that he had a passible body, and others that he fulfilled the bodily
œconomy by a kind of appearance. Some say that his body
was earthly, some that it was heavenly; some that He pre-existed
before the ages; some that He took His beginning from Mary. It
is on this account that He is a sign that shall be spoken
against.
9. By a sword is meant the word which tries
and judges our thoughts, which pierces even to the dividing asunder of
soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of our
thoughts.3164
Now every
soul in the hour of the Passion was subjected, as it were, to a kind of
searching. According to the word of the Lord it is said,
“All ye shall be offended because of me.”3165
Simeon therefore prophesies about Mary
herself, that when standing by the cross, and beholding what is being
done, and hearing the voices, after the witness of Gabriel, after her
secret knowledge of the divine conception, after the great exhibition
of miracles, she shall feel about her soul a mighty
tempest.3166
| 3166 The Ben. note
strongly objects to this slur upon the constancy of the faith of the
Blessed Virgin, and is sure that St. Basil’s error will not be
thus corrected without his own concurrence. It supposes this
interpretation of the passage in question to be derived from Origen,
Hom. xxvii. In Lucam, and refers to a list of
commentators who have followed him in Petavius, De Incar.
xiv. 1. | The Lord
was bound to taste of death for every man—to become a
propitiation for the world and to justify all men by His own
blood. Even thou thyself, who hast been taught from on high
the things concerning the Lord, shalt be reached by some
doubt. This is the sword. “That the thoughts of
many hearts may be revealed.” He indicates that after
the offence at the Cross of Christ a certain swift healing shall
come from the Lord to the disciples and to Mary herself, confirming
their heart in faith in Him. In the same way we saw Peter,
after he had been offended, holding more firmly to his faith in
Christ. What was human in him was proved unsound, that the
power of the Lord might be shewn.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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