And Adam knew his wife, and she conceived and bare Cain, and said: “I have gotten a man from God.” And she again bare his brother Abel, and Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground. And in process of time it came to pass that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering to the Lord. And Abel, he also brought of the first of his flock, and of the fat of it. And the Lord had respect to Abel and to his offering. But to Cain and to his offering He had not respect. And Cain was very wroth and his countenance fell. And the Lord said to him: “Why are you wroth? And why is your countenance fallen? If you do well will you not be accepted? And if you do not well, does not sin lie at the door? But the desire thereof is under you and you have control over it.” And Cain said to Abel his brother: “Let us go forth abroad.” And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against Abel his brother and slew him. And the Lord said to Cain: “Where is Abel your brother?” And he said: “I know not. Am I my brother’s keeper?” And He said to him: “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood cries to Me from the ground. Now, therefore, cursed will you be upon the earth which has opened her mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you till the ground it will not henceforth yield to you her fruits: a fugitive and a vagabond will you be on the earth.” And Cain said to the Lord: “My sin is too great for me to gain pardon thereof. Behold, you have driven me out this day from the face of the earth, and from your face will I be hid, and I will be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth. Everyone therefore that finds me will slay me.” And the Lord said to him: “It will not be so, but whoever slays Cain, vengeance will be taken on him sevenfold.” And the Lord set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him. And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord and dwelt a vagabond in the land on the East of Eden.”Thanks be to God.
Dom Prosper Guéranger:
Forgiveness is promised but atonement must be made. Divine Justice must be satisfied, and future generations be taught that sin can never pass unpunished. Eve is the guiltier of the two, and her sentence follows that of the serpent. Destined by God to aid man in peopling the Earth with happy and faithful children — formed by this God out of man—his own substance, flesh of his flesh, and bone of his bones — woman was to be on an equality with man, but sin has subverted this order and God’s sentence is this: conjugal union, notwithstanding the humiliation of concupiscence now brought upon it, is to be, as before, holy and sacred. But it is to be inferior in dignity, both before God and man, to the state of virginity which disdains the ambitions of flesh.
Secondly, woman will be mother still, as she would have been in the state of innocence, but her honour will be a burden. Moreover, she will give birth to her children amid cruel pains, and sometimes even death must be the consequence of her infant’s coming into the world. The sin of Eve will thus be memorialised at every birth, and nature will violently resist the first claims of him whom sin has made her unwelcome lord.
Lastly, she who was at first created to enjoy equality of honour with man is now to forfeit her independence. Man is to be her superior, and she must obey him. For long ages, this obedience will be no better than slavery, and this degradation will continue till that Virgin comes, whom the world will have expected for four thousand years, and whose humility will crush the serpent’s head. She will restore her sex to its rightful position, and give to Christian woman that influence of gentle persuasiveness which is compatible with the duty imposed on her by Divine justice, and which can never be remitted: the duty of submission.
