“Do not be like Cain, who was from the evil one and murdered his brother.
“It is not rightly divided when we do not rightly select the places or times of sacrifice, or the thing offered in sacrifice, or the one who makes the offering or the one to whom it is made, or those to whom the sacrificed victim is distributed to eat” ( The City of God, XV.7).Ĭain’s sacrifice was rightly offered, Augustine reasons, since it was offered to the true God however, it was not rightly divided in that Cain’s deeds were evil. From the Septuagint we discover that there is something extremely important in the way a person “rightly divides” his offering, a point completely missing in other versions.Īugustine takes this to task laying out some of the different ways a person can make this division: The difference between these two versions is interesting. For example, the same verses in the NIV read: “Then the LORD said to Cain, ‘Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted?” This version is different from most of our English translations. Using the Septuagint, Augustine presents the key passage from Genesis 4.6-7 in these words: “And the Lord God said to Cain, Why are you sulking, and why has your countenance fallen? If your sacrifice is rightly offered but is not rightly divided, have you not sinned?… (LXX) Not bad, but now, on this side of the Orthodox Christian faith, I am much more inclined to reach for the Church Fathers to handle these hermeneutical challenges rather than lean on my own understanding.Ĭase in point, on this story Augustine offers some incredible insights. Hence, the story was a lesson on right worship-Christ is our perfect offering and no other offering will do. Clearly, we reasoned, God accepted the meat offering for the symbolism of it: the “firstborn” of Abel’s flock symbolized Christ, and the grain of Cain’s field something inferior. We attempted to make sense of God’s acceptance and rejection based on the two types of offerings-meat vs.
I remember this being a much-disputed topic when I was an Evangelical Christian. The most recent of which came yesterday while reading through book XV where Augustine discusses why God accepted Abel’s offering and rejected Cain’s. Slowly making my way through Augustine’s “City of God” for the first time (to my great shame) has been a treasure trove of theological Aha! moments.
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