The Blood That Speaketh Better: Abel the First Martyr and the Blood of Christ
Old Testament: Genesis 4:8, 10
And Cain said to Abel his brother: Let us go forth abroad. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel, and slew him. ... And he said to him: What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth to me from the earth.
New Testament: Hebrews 12:24; Matthew 23:35; Apocalypse 11:7, 11
And to Jesus the mediator of the new testament, and to the sprinkling of blood which speaketh better than that of Abel. ... That upon you may come all the just blood that hath been shed upon the earth, from the blood of Abel the just, even unto the blood of Zacharias the son of Barachias, whom you killed between the temple and the altar. ... And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast, that ascendeth out of the abyss, shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. ... And after three days and a half, the spirit of life from God entered into them. And they stood upon their feet, and great fear fell upon them that saw them.
The connection
Abel, the shepherd who offered the firstlings of his flock, was the first man to die, and he died at his brother's hand, in the field (Genesis 4:8). Abel's blood did not stay silent: "the voice of thy brother's blood crieth to me from the earth" (4:10). Hebrews says it speaks still: "by it he being dead yet speaketh" (Hebrews 11:4). Hebrews then sets another blood beside it: "Jesus the mediator of the new testament, and ... the sprinkling of blood which speaketh better than that of Abel" (Hebrews 12:24). Both were innocent blood. Abel's cried from the ground against his brother; Christ's pleads for those who shed it: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34). Christ names Abel as the first of the whole line of the murdered just, "from the blood of Abel the just" (Matthew 23:35). St Cyprian calls Abel the one who "first set forth martyrdom, and initiated the Lord's passion by the glory of his blood." St Augustine reads his name, "grief", as a figure: in Abel and Seth "the death of Christ and His life from the dead are prefigured." The Catechism reads the murder of Abel as the first sign of the anger and envy that came into man with sin, and God's question to Cain as His judgement on the fratricide (CCC 2259).
Moral sense
"Where is thy brother Abel?" Cain answered, "I know not: am I my brother's keeper?" (Genesis 4:9). The whole of the Gospel answers yes, and more than keeper: "we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren" (1 John 3:16), because He first laid down His. Abel's blood asked for justice; the Blood we receive at the altar asks for mercy, and the one who drinks it cannot go on asking for vengeance on his brother.
Anagogical sense
Abel's line runs to the end of the world. The souls under the altar cry as his blood did, "How long, O Lord ... dost thou not judge and revenge our blood?" (Apocalypse 6:10), and the two witnesses are killed by the beast and left in the street of the city "where their Lord also was crucified" (11:8). But the story no longer ends in the field: "after three days and a half, the spirit of life from God entered into them. And they stood upon their feet" (11:11). Abel had no resurrection in Genesis; the martyrs have one, because the better Blood has spoken.
The Fathers
St Cyprian, On the Lord's Prayer 24: "With reason did he, who was such in respect of God's sacrifice, become subsequently himself a sacrifice to God; so that he who first set forth martyrdom, and initiated the Lord's passion by the glory of his blood, had both the Lord's righteousness and His peace." St Augustine, City of God XV: "For in these two men, Abel, signifying 'grief,' and his brother Seth, signifying 'resurrection,' the death of Christ and His life from the dead are prefigured."
Warrant
Scriptural because Hebrews 12:24 sets the blood of Christ beside the blood of Abel in so many words, and Christ Himself names Abel first among the murdered just (Matthew 23:35). St Cyprian (On the Lord's Prayer 24) and St Augustine (City of God XV) read Abel as a figure of the Lord's passion, and St John Chrysostom sets Genesis 4:10 beside Hebrews 12:24 (Homilies on Acts 54). Checked in the Greek: at Hebrews 11:4 Abel dead "yet speaketh", lalei, and at 12:24 Christ's Blood is lalounti, speaking, "better than that of Abel"; the Septuagint of Genesis 4:10 says the blood cries, boa, and haima, blood, is the word at Genesis 4:10 and Hebrews 12:24, as at Matthew 23:35. Placing the two witnesses of Apocalypse 11 in Abel's line is the entry's own reading, from Dunk. Cain's rejected gift belongs to the entry on first being reconciled to thy brother.
Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 2259.
The verses
Genesis 4:8 · Genesis 4:10 · Hebrews 12:24 · Matthew 23:35 · Apocalypse 11:7 · Apocalypse 11:11
