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Genesis 4:1-16 as a Paradigm for Self-Understanding in the Early Church
It seems reasonable to assert that the writers of the New Testament, when reflecting on
Gen 4:1-16, came to understand the story of Cain and Abel in a new way in light of the Paschal
Mystery. Thatcher argues that the LXX text of Gen 4:1-16 helped the early Christians to
understand the world in which they lived, as well as to conceptualize the dynamics at play within
the nascent Church. 228
First, when Christians experienced perceived persecution from outside forces, Cain and
Abel could serve to explain why the righteous sometimes suffer at the hands of the
wicked. Second, when Christian communities were divided by serious doctrinal
differences, the evocation of Cain and Abel could explain the emergence of tensions
between “brothers” in terms that would valorize one’s own position while villainizing
that of the opponents. 229
In this sense, the LXX rendering of Cain and Abel acted as an interpretive lens through which
the early Christians could come to understand their experience of society and their experience of
their community through the perspective of faith. In this way, Mt 23:34-35 could be seen as
speaking to the experience of exclusion and persecution early Christians faced at the hands of
some Jewish authorities. Hebrews 11:4 could be seen as an affirmation to the early Christians
that the ultimate sacrifice for the faith, martyrdom, would not prove to be the folly of faith, but
rather the confirmation of faith and of life eternal. 1 John 3:11-12, on the other hand, could be
seen as speaking to divisions arising amongst early Christians over the interpretation and living
out of the Gospel, with the writer urging his hearers to emulate the righteousness of Abel rather
than the wickedness of Cain.
228
229
Ibid, 740.
Ibid.