Genesis 4:1

When, then, Adam knew Eve his wife, she conceived and bare a son, whose name was Cain; and she said, “I have gotten a man from God.” And yet again she bare a second son, whose name was Abel, “who began to be a keeper of sheep, but Cain tilled the ground.” Their history receives a very full narration, yea, even a detailed explanation: wherefore the book itself, which is entitled “The Genesis of the World,” can more accurately inform those who are anxious to learn their story. When, then, Satan saw Adam and his wife not only still living, but also begetting children, being carried away with spite because he had not succeeded in putting them to death, when he saw that Abel was well-pleasing to God, he wrought upon the heart of his brother called Cain, and caused him to kill his brother Abel. …

Sin autem malum est generatio, in malo blasphemi dicant fuisse Dominum qui fuit particeps generationis, in malo Virginera quæ genuit. Hei mihi! quot et quanta mala! Dei voluntatera maledictis incessunt, et mysterium creationis, dum invehuntur in generationera. Et hinc “Docesin” fingit Cassianus; hinc etiam Marcioni, et Valentino quoque est corpus animale; quoniam homo, inquiunt, operam dans veneri, “assimilatus est jumentis.” Atqui profecto, cum libidine vere insaniens, aliena inire voluerit, tunc revera, qui talis est, efferatur: “Equi in feminas furentes facti sunt, unusquisque hinniebat ad uxorem proximi sui.” Quod si dicat serpentera, a brutis animantibus accepta consilii sui ratione, Adamo persuasisse ut cum Eva coire consentiret, tanquam alioqui, ut quidam existimant, protoplasti hac natura usuri non fuissent: rursus vituperatur creatio, ut quæ rationis expertium animantium natura …

Some one, then, will say, Is it to be believed that a man who intended to beget children, and had no intention of continence, abstained from sexual intercourse a hundred years and more, or even, according to the Hebrew version, only a little less, say eighty, seventy, or sixty years; or, if he did not abstain, was unable to beget offspring? This question admits of two solutions. For either puberty was so much later as the whole life was longer, or, which seems to me more likely, it is not the first-born sons that are here mentioned, but those whose names were required to fill up the series until Noah was reached, from whom again we see that the succession is continued to Abraham, and after him down to that point of time until which it was needful to mark by pedigree the course of the most glorious city, which sojourns as a stranger in this world, and seeks the heavenly country. …

But among so many names of good things, such as bodies, sexes, unions, he never once mentions the lust or concupiscence of the flesh. He is silent, because he is ashamed; and yet with a strange shamelessness of shame (if the expression may be used), he is not ashamed to praise what he is ashamed to mention. Now just observe how he prefers to point to his object by circumlocution rather than by direct mention of it. “After that the man,” says he, “by natural appetite knew his wife.” See again, he refused to say, He knew his wife by carnal concupiscence; but he used the phrase, “by natural appetite,” by which it is open to us to understand that holy and honourable will which wills the procreation of children, and not that lust, of which even he is so much ashamed, forsooth, that he prefers to use ambiguous language to us, to expressing his mind in unmistakeable words. …

4. Give heed, brethren, give heed, I entreat you. For it delighteth me yet to speak a few words to you of this beloved City. For “most glorious things of Thee have been spoken, City of God.” And, “if I forget Thee, O Jerusalem, let mine own right hand forget me.” For dear is the one Country, and truly but one Country, the only Country: besides Her whatsoever we have, is a sojourning in a strange land. I will say therefore that which ye may acknowledge, that of which ye may approve: I will call to your minds that which ye know, I will not teach that which ye know not. “Not first,” saith the Apostle, “that which is spiritual, but that which is natural, afterwards that which is spiritual.” Therefore the former city is greater by age, because first was born Cain, and afterwards Abel: but in these the elder shall serve the younger. The former greater by age, the latter greater in dignity. …

Wouldest thou learn too from the mother of this man, what a good result the expulsion from the life of Paradise had, compare what Eve was before this, and what she became afterwards. Before this indeed, she considered that deceiving Devil, that wicked Demon to be more worth believing than the commandments of God, and at the mere sight of the tree, she trampled under foot the law which had been laid down by Him. But when the expulsion from Paradise came, consider how much better and wiser she grew. For when she bare a son, she says “I have gotten a man through the Lord.” She straightway flew to the master, who before this had despised the master, and she neither ascribes the matter to nature, nor puts the birth down to the laws of marriage, but she recognizes the Lord of Nature, and acknowledges thanks to Him for the birth of the little child. …

And if He saith “by whom,”marvel not. For not as though another were bringing in it by him, doth He say this, but viewing him as himself causing the whole. For the Scripture is wont to say, “by whom,” for “of whom;”as when it saith, “I have gotten a man by God,”putting not the second cause, but the first; and again, “Is not the interpretation of them by God,”and, “God is faithful, by whom ye are called unto the fellowship of His Son.”

This reasoning and intelligent creature, man, at once the work and the likeness of the Divine and Imperishable Mind (for so in the Creation it is written of him that “God made man in His image”), this creature, I say, did not in the course of his first production have united to the very essence of his nature the liability to passion and to death. Indeed, the truth about the image could never have been maintained if the beauty reflected in that image had been in the slightest degree opposed to the Archetypal Beauty. Passion was introduced afterwards, subsequent to man’s first organization; and it was in this way. Being the image and the likeness, as has been said, of the Power which rules all things, man kept also in the matter of a Free-Will this likeness to Him whose Will is over all. …

But when this the greatest of the works of creation was disporting himself in Paradise, the envy of the Devil cast him out. The enemy was rejoicing over the fall of him whom he had envied: wouldest thou have had the enemy continue to rejoice? Not daring to accost the man because of his strength, he accosted as being weaker the woman, still a virgin: for it was after the expulsion from Paradise that Adam knew his wife .

3. Let them tell me in what sense Paul says, “Now we know in part”; do we know His essence in part, as knowing parts of His essence? No. This is absurd; for God is without parts. But do we know the whole essence? How then “When that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.” Why are idolaters found fault with? Is it not because they knew God and did not honour Him as God? Why are the “foolish Galatians” reproached by Paul in the words, “After that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements?” How was God known in Jewry? Was it because in Jewry it was known what His essence is? “The ox,” it is said, “knoweth his owner.” According to your argument the ox knows his lord’s essence. …

Carnal men abuse virginity, and the pleasure-loving bring forward the following verse in proof, Cursed be every one that raiseth not up seed in Israel . But we, made confident by God the Word that was made flesh of the Virgin, answer that virginity was implanted in man’s nature from above and in the beginning. For man was formed of virgin soil. From Adam alone was Eve created. In Paradise virginity held sway. Indeed, Divine Scripture tells that both Adam and Eve were naked and were not ashamed . But after their transgression they knew that they were naked, and in their shame they sewed aprons for themselves. And when, after the transgression, Adam heard, dust thou art and unto dust shalt thou return , when death entered into the world by reason of the transgression, then Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bare seed . …