Genesis 12-13 and Early Church Writings [Clement of Rome] 51-55

Chapters 12 through 25 embrace the story of Abraham

Genesis 12 - Abraham is the next “Seed of Eve” by whom redemption will come to man, the first having been Noah.

God addresses Abram and tells him to leave Haran, the home of his father’s clan, to go to “a land that I will show you” (12:1). And then come the great promises – that God will make of him a great nation, that He will make Abram’s name great and him a blessing to “all the communities of the earth” (12:2-3). Abram is 75 when they leave Haran.

When they get to Shechem, a land inhabited by Canaanites (12:6), the Lord appears to Abram and tells him that this is the land he is promising him.  Abram builds an altar there and dedicates it to the Lord (12:7). 

Then we are told that they go further south and “set up camp in the hill country, with Bethel to the west and Ai to the east. There he built another altar and dedicated it to the Lord” (12:8). This location is just a little to the north of where Jerusalem will eventually be.

They continue traveling south in stages. A severe famine hits the land of Canaan, and Abram is forced to “go down to Egypt, where he lived as a foreigner” (12:10).  Abram worries about Sarai’s beauty being a source of conflict, so they agree to say she is his sister.  The Pharaoh indeed does send for her, and we are not told what transpires there, if anything did.  But Abram benefits from the Pharaoh’s favoritism; the Lord is very displeased and strikes Egypt with severe plagues.

There are a number of “foreshadowing details” here in this story—a move to Egypt forced by famine, a position of honor accorded the wandering man of God from Canaan; God’s infliction of a series of plagues; and sending of God’s favored one away from Pharaoh’s kingdom to bring peace back to the kingdom. Even the wealth that Abram gets to take with them when they go. Surely this is a “type” of the later exodus.  And what then could Sarai be as a type - the beloved spouse of God, “Israel”?

Returning to the story, it is the Pharaoh who sets things right and sends the pair away. Abraham is the first of the three key players in our redemption story—to be followed by Moses and Jesus—who will in a sense “come up out of Egypt” to begin their ministries.  The story of his sojourn in Egypt (one of a triplet of like stories) establishes his prosperity, even if it comes as a result of deceit, and Sarah’s value and importance.  Like his people he comes out of Egypt loaded with goods, so much he must separate from Lot (13:5-11).

While Noah foreshadows him somewhat, Abram is the first “seed” of Eve through whom a redemptive process will be introduced into the creation.  Abram is told from the first that he is only the beginning, that it will be through him that a faithful people will be formed, and that this people will have an impact far beyond the borders of the nation they will form—that blessings will come through him and his seed to all mankind (12: 1-3; also 17: 3-8 and again in 22:16-18).  There will be much hardship along the way—exile, slavery and oppression and who knows what else in the distant, distant, future that will come before “all the nations of the earth” will “bless themselves by [Abraham’s] descendants.  But the redemptive process is set in motion through Abram.

The process begins with Abram hearing God’s voice and obeying it.  The voice tells him he must leave the traditions and ties of his father’s people, and we know from what we know of mankind at this stage of history, that family and clan ties were the life-blood of individual people.  To wander away, to break the ties, meant undertaking a great risk, divorcing oneself from the society of man generally.  God is not calling Abram to go to a new land to take up their ways, but to develop a way that God will lead him to—a new way.  That Abram will go down into Egypt briefly en route to the land God is promising is interesting mostly because it will be the start of a narrative motif that will repeat itself many times—for Joseph, for Moses and later for Jesus.  Abraham, Moses and Jesus will all “come up out of Egypt” to begin their ministries.

        

Genesis 13 - In response to God’s call, Abram goes to the Negeb and on to Bethel where he had built an altar on his way down. And they worship there again.

“Lot, who was traveling with Abram, had also become very wealthy with flocks of sheep and goats, herds of cattle, and many tents. But the land could not support both Abram and Lot with all their flocks and herds lving so close together. SO disputes broke out between the herdsmen of Abram and Lot” (13:5-7). Abram suggests to Lot that he go off and find himself a separate place to settle. Lot chooses the Jordan plain.  Abram stays in Canaan, while Lot settled among the cities of the Plain, near Sodom. 

The first thing we hear about Sodom is that in inhabitants were very wicked (13:13).

The chapter ends with the Lord recapitulating the promises he made to Abram: “Raise your eyes now, and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land that you see will give to you and to your offspring forever.  I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth; so that is one can count the dust of the earth, your offspring also can be counted. Rise up, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I will give it to you” (13:14-17). Abram builds an altar at Hebron.

First Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians (96 AD)

Section 51 – “So let us beg forgiveness for all our misdoings, and the wrongs which our Adversary’s intervention has moved us to commit. Those who have taken the lead in promoting faction and discord should bethink themselves of that Hope which is common to us all” (44).

If we are living in the fear and love of God, we would rather suffer than see our neighbor suffer. “It is better for a man to admit his faults frankly than to harden his heart, as the hearts of those who rebelled against Moses . . . were hardened” (44).

Section 52 – Our “Master,” our God has no “need” and he asks nothing of us of us “save frank confession to Himself” (44). He wants us to call upon Him in times of trouble.

Section 53 – You all know the Sacred Scriptures. “Therefore we write to remind you how, when Moses went up into the mountain and has spent forty days and forty nights in fasting and self-abasement, God said to him, Make haste and go down from here, for your people. . . have broken my law. They have left the way you told them to follow, and have been making molten idols for themselves” . . .Now let me destroy them (44-45).

But Moses pleaded for his people, “No Lord, . . Forgive this people their sin, or else blot me too out of the book of the living” (45). “What immeasurable love! Perfection beyond compare! A minister speaking up boldy to his Lord and demanding pardon for the multitude” (45).

Section 54 – “Is there any man of noble mind among you? A man who is compassionate? A man overflowing with love? Then let such a one say, ‘If it is I who am the cause of any disorder, friction, or division among you, I will remove myself” (45). There have been people like this in the past and we have them still today.

Section 55 – Even among the pagans you will occasionally find kings and rulers willing to suffer to save their people. “As for our own people, we know that many have surrendered themselves to captivity as a ransom for others, and many more have sold themselves into slavery and given the money to provide others with food. Even females have frequently been enabled by God’s grace to achieve feats of heroism” (45). He mentions Judith and Esther. “In fasting and humiliation she made her supplication to the all-seeing Lord of eternity; and when He saw the humbleness of her spirit, He delivered the people for whom she had put herself in jeopardy” (45).

Genesis 9-11 and Early Church Writings [Clement of Rome] 46-50

Genesis 9 - God makes a covenant with Noah, expanding Noah’s “dominion” over the creation by giving him meat to eat as well as plants, providing man refrains from eating the blood of the animals, for the blood is the life of the animal and “the life” is God’s in a special way--man’s lifeblood especially for God will require “an accounting” for the “life” that is so precious to him:

“I will require the blood of anyone who takes another person’s life. If a wild animal kills a person, it must die. And anyone who murders a fellow human must die. If anyone takes a human life, that person’s life will also be taken by human hands. For God made human beings in his own image. Now be fruitful and multiply, and repopulate the earth” (9:5-7).

In this way God seems to concede man his freedom and imperfections while at the same time insisting on accountability for what he chooses to do. 

Wildlife will look at man with “fear” and “dread” just as man will now look to God (9:2). The familiarity and warmth of relationship that characterized pre-fall Genesis is now a thing of the past. But there is to be a covenant between the Creator and His Creation; it is the first of many: “Then God said, ‘I am giving you a sign of my covenant with you and with all living creatures, for all generations to come. I have placed my rainbow in the clouds. It is the sign of my covenant with you and with all the earth. When I send clouds over the earth, the rainbow will appear in the clouds, and I will remember my covenant with you and with all living creatures. Never again will the floodwaters destroy all life” (9:12-15). I see in this a covenant with our Creator to always bring life out of death, hope out of the clouds that cast shadows over our days on earth. It is the first “covenant” mentioned in the scripture narrative. 

Noah, being a descendant of Cain, is a man of the soil (9:20); he plants the first vineyard.  Then he proceeds to get drunk, and his son Ham, “the father of Canaan” (9:18), disgraces himself by looking on his father’s nakedness while he is drunk.  In punishment for this disrespect, Ham is consigned to servitude.  19th century Southern pro-slavery apologists used this to justify the perpetual slavery of the black race, which was believed (by them) to be included as descendants of Ham.  Noah dies when he is 950 years old. Noah is a redemptive figure for Cain, a new man of the soil.

Genesis 10 - The text traces the descent of the sons of Noah. If one looks at a map outlining Josephus’ understanding of the people generated by these three line, the “sons” of Japheth are located in the islands of the Mediterranean and the lands to the north. Europeans were said to have come from this line. Ham. The “sons” of Ham are located in the Mesopotamian region and the “sons” of Shem, Semites, were located along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean and into northern Africa. This map is accessible on Wikipedia.

There is a lot of legendary detail given in this chapter. Cush [Hamite] was an ancestor of Nimrod, “the first heroic warrior on earth” (10:8); and founder of the cities of Babylon and Akkad and Nineveh. Another Hamite, Canaan was the “ancestor of the Hittites” (10:15). One of the “sons” of Shem, was named Eber and he “had two sons. The first was named Peleg, which means ‘division,’ for during his lifetime the people of the world were divided into different language groups” (10:25). This is just a tiny bit of the detail given, the ones that I recognized as having later importance in the story.

Genesis 11 - The splintering of man’s language into many tongues is gone into in this chapter. “At one time all the people of the world spoke the same language and used the same words” (11:1). As they [the Shemites] go east, they arrive at a plain in the land of Babylonia and settled there” (11:2). They set their sights on building a “’great city for ourselves with a tower that reaches into the sky. This will make us famous and keep us from being scattered all over the world’” (11:4).

“But the Lord came down to look at the city and the tower the people were building. ‘Look!’ he said. ‘The people are united, and they all speak the same language. After this, nothing they set out to do will be impossible for them! Come, let’s go down and confuse the people with different languages. Then they won’t be able to understand each other.’” (11:5-7).

Then the line of descent is traced from Shem to Abraham: Arphaxad > Shelah > Eber > Peleg > Reu > Serug > Nahor > Terah > Abram, Nahor and Haran.  Haran dies in Ur, where he was born. Abram and Nahor marry. Abram’s wife is Sarai and Nahor’s wife is Milcah [daughter of Haran – his niece].

Then Terah, Abram, Haran’s son Lot, and Abram’s wife leave for Canaan but only get to Haran (now a land or city, not his son). Terah dies in Haran.

First Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians (96 AD)

Section 46 - It is the example of such Old Testament men who suffered at the hands of the wicked – men like Daniel, Ananias, Azarias and Misael – who should be our heroes. “[L]et us take the innocent and the upright for our companions, for it is they who are God’s chosen ones” (42).

“Why must there be all this quarrelling and bad blood, these feuds and dissensions among you? Have we not all the same God, and the same Christ? Is not the same Spirit of grace shed upon us all? Have we not all the same calling in Christ? Then why are we rending and tearing asunder the limbs of Christ, and fomenting discord against our own body? Why are we so lost to all sense and reason that we have forgotten our membership of one another?” (42)

The disunity in Corinth has led many astray.

Section 47 – He tells them they should read Paul’s letter to them again. The divisions he addressed there were not as serious as today’s. “It is shameful, my dear friends, shameful in the extreme, and quite unworthy of the Christian training you have had, that the loyal and ancient church of Corinth, because of one or two individuals, should now be reputed to be at odds with its clergy” (42).

Section 48 – Do not lose any time putting an end to this state of affairs. Let us all “fall on our knees before the Master and implore Him with tears graciously to pardon us, and bring us back again into the honorable and virtuous way of brothers who love one another. For that is the gateway of righteousness, the open gate to life” (43).

“There are many gates standing open, but the gate of righteousness is the gate of Christ, where blessings are in store for every incomer who pursues the path of godliness and uprightness, and goes about his duties without seeking to create trouble” (43).

If you are a true believer and able to “expound the secrets of revelation” and virtuous in all your ways, the higher your reputation, “the more humble-minded” you need to be; and your “eyes should be fixed on the good of the whole community” (43), not just on your personal advantage.

Section 49 – “No tongue can tell the heights to which love [for God] can uplift us. Love binds us fast to God. Love casts a veil over sins innumerable. There are no limits to love’s endurance, no end to its patience. Love is without servility, as it is without arrogance. Love knows of no division, promotes no discord; all the works of love are done in perfect fellowship” (43).

“It was in love that the Lord drew us to Himself; because of the love He bore us, our Lord Jesus Christ, at the will of God, gave His blood for us – His flesh for our flesh, His life for our lives” (43).

Section 50 – “Let us beg and implore of His mercy that we may be purged of all earthly preferences for this man or that, and be found faultless in love” (43).

Genesis 8 and Early Church Writings [Clement of Rome] 41-45

Genesis 8 - For a 150 days, the waters are at their crest.  Then God “remembered Noah and all the wild animals and livestock with him in the boat. He sent a wind to blow across the earth, and the floodwaters began to recede” (8:1-2). After another 150 days, the “boat came to rest on the mountains of Ararat” (8:4).  Then 40 days later, Noah sends out a raven, and then a dove.  Three periods of 7 days are required until the dove can leave permanently. 

Noah is now 601 years old (8:13). When they leave the ark, the first thing Noah does is build an altar and sacrifice at least one of every clean animal aboard the ark. In response to the “sweet odor” of the sacrifices, God promises -- resolves within himself -- never to doom the earth again “because of man, since the desires of man’s heart are evil from the start” (8:21). “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease” (8:22).

First Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians (96 AD)

Section 41 – “[W]hen we offer our own Eucharist to God, each one of us should keep to his own degree. His conscience must be clear, he must not infringe the rules prescribed for his ministering, and he is to bear himself with reverence. The continual daily sacrifices, peace-offerings, sin-offerings and trespass-offerings are by no means offered in every place, brothers, but at the altar in front of the Temple; and then only after a careful scrutiny of the offering by the High Priest and the other ministers aforesaid. Anything done otherwise than in conformity with God’s will is punishable with death. Take note from this, my brother, that since we ourselves have been given so much fuller knowledge, the peril that we incur is correspondingly graver” (39-40).

Section 42 – The Gospel was given to us by the Lord Jesus Christ, and Christ was sent from God. The Apostles were sent by Christ “to proclaim the coming of God’s kingdom. And as they went through the territories and townships preaching, they appointed their first converts – after testing them by the Spirit – to be bishops and deacons for the believers of the future. (This was in no way an innovation, for bishops and deacons had already been spoken of in Scripture long before that; there is a text that say, I will confirm their bishops in righteousness, and their deacons in faith.) (40 – citing Isaiah 60:17)

This translation of 60:17 is pretty far off the mark at least if you look at any modern translation. “Instead of bronze, I'll bring gold, and instead of iron, I'll bring silver; instead of wood, bronze, and instead of stones, iron. I'll appoint peace as your supervisor and righteousness as your taskmaster” [International Standard Version]

Section 43 – It is not a surprise that Christian men, “entrusted by God with such a mission, should have made these appointments” (40). Moses appointed men under him and set ordinances in place that were to be observed. Clement goes into Moses’ ordering leaders of the 12 tribes to bring “staves, each with the name of his tribe inscribed upon it” (40), which he bound together, sealed and placed on “God’s table in the Tabernacle of Witness” (40).There is an implication that Clement believed that the Spirit similarly opened to early Church leaders who the leaders of the church should be, and the people of Corinth should not be doubting that now.

Section 44 – In a similar way, the apostles knew “through our Lord Jesus Christ, that there would be dissensions over the title of bishop. In their full foreknowledge of this, therefore, they proceeded to appoint the ministers I spoke of, and they went on to add an instruction that if these should fall asleep, other accredited persons should succeed them in the office” (41).  It is not possible for us to “think it right for these men now to be ejected from their ministry, when, after being commissioned by the Apostles (or by other reputable persons at a later date) with the full consent of the Church, they have since been serving Christ’s flock in a humble, peaceable and disinterested way, and earning everybody’s approval over so long a period of time” (41).

You Corinthians have however “in more than one instance . . . turned men out of an office in which they were serving honorably and without the least reproach” (41).

Section 45 – “By all means be pugnacious and hot-headed, my brothers, but about things that will lead to salvation” (41). Look at the Scriptures: “You are not going to find men of piety evicting the righteous there. The righteous were indeed persecuted, but only by men who were wicked” (41).

Genesis 6-7 and Early Church Writings [Clement of Rome] 36-40

Genesis 6 – “Then the people began to multiply on the earth, and daughters were born to them. The sons of God saw the beautiful women and took any they wanted as their wives” (6:1-2).  This story of the “sons of god” are mythological deities mating with the daughters of man and presumably bringing forth the Nephilim, from whom the heroes of men arose. The Greek myths we are familiar with are full of these stories of gods and goddesses seeking out mortal partners and bringing forth heroic people.

Despite whatever luster these heroes might have had, the Lord becomes more and more pained at the extent of evil on the earth.  Man’s heart seemed to “fashion nothing but wickedness all day long” (6:5). Finally God regrets having made him at all. So he decides to destroy every living thing (6:7). 

“God saw that the earth had become corrupt and was filled with violence” (NLT 6:12). There is only one good man - Noah whose name means “may this one comfort our sorrow.” God tells Noah to build an ark of gopherwood (NAB--NRSV says cypress) according to the dimensions he gives. The dimension are given in cubits; a cubit is equal to the length of a man’s forearm.  In feet the dimensions are 50’ wide by 300’ long and 30’ high according to some translations. The NLT translation was it should be 450’ long, 75’ wide and 45’ high. 

God says, “I am about to cover the earth with a flood that will destroy every living thing that breathes. Everything on earth will die. But I will confirm my covenant with you. So enter the boat—you and your wife and your sons and their wives. Bring a pair of every kind of animal—a male and a female—into the boat with you to keep them alive during the flood” (6:17-19).

So Noah and his family build the ark and bring onto it, two (later for priestly reasons, seven) of the clean animals (two of all others).  Noah, unlike Adam but like Abraham, carries out “all the commands that God gave him” (6:22).

Really Important Themes:

Simultaneously Punishing/Saving God: God will later give similarly specific instructions when he tells the Jews how to build the Ark of the Covenant and later the temple. In a sense this is already the second time God has intervened to “save” man from the consequences of his own evil. The first is when he helps to equip man (by providing clothes) for life in the fall and alienation from God; now again God works not only to punish but to save the human race.

Throughout scripture, we see this same paradox – God punishing man and simultaneously offering the hand of salvation. 

Collective vs. individual responsibility: What is also interesting is that not only does God want to destroy mankind for the evil they do but all living things – innocent birds and animals.  There is a sense in which the one given dominion – man in this case (later the king or the priests) – stands for everyone over whom they wield authority. So here, when man is evil, all the innocent creation must endure the punishment of those in position of responsibility; later when there is a monarchy, or later a priestly leadership class, the innocent, poor and dependent people they are responsible for also bear the chastisement brought on by the “shepherds” who fail. 

There is a tension in the story between this kind of “collective” vision and an equally strong vision of individual responsibility and existence before God.  Later we will be told in no uncertain terms that children will not be held responsible for the sins of their fathers, that each person will be judged on his or her own “merits” whether those merits be earned or won through faith in Christ.  But the “collective” dimension has continuing reality as well. Christ’s own incarnation and death speak of it for he comes to share our human nature, to bear our burdens and die for our shortcomings in a way only God can do.

Genesis 7 – “When everything was ready, the Lord said to Noah, ‘Go into the boat with all your family, for among all the people of the earth, I can see that you alone are righteous. Take with you seven pairs—male and female—of each animal I have approved for eating and for sacrifice, and take one pair of each of the others. Also take seven pairs of every kind of bird. There must be a male and a female in each pair to ensure that all life will survive on the earth after the flood (7:1-3). You can see here the addition of numbers to the story because it is a somewhat different version of the story inserted by the priests when the story was redacted.

The flood comes when Noah is 600 years old. For forty days and forty nights, the rains came down and covered the face of the earth. The magical number 40—forty days and nights of rain; forty years in the desert; forty night and days in the desert—the number of the salvation journey.

“As the waters rose higher and higher above the ground, the boat floated safely on the surface. Finally, the water covered even the highest mountains on the earth, rising more than twenty-two feet above the highest peaks” (7:18-19). The waters cover the earth for 150 days.

First Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians

Section 36 – It is through Christ, our High Priest, that we can see “as in a glass, the peerless perfection of the face of God. Through Him the eyes of our hearts are opened, and our dim and clouded understanding unfolds like a flower to the light; for through Him the Lord permits us to taste the wisdom of eternity” (37).

Section 37 – Clement turns to the imagery of warfare – Lamb’s warfare I presume. We must consider ourselves to be under His command in a large force with many different levels of authority. “Every organism is composed of various different elements; and this ensures it own good. Take the body as an instance; the head is nothing without the feet, nor are the feet anything without the head. Even the smallest of our physical members are necessary and valuable to the whole body; yet all of them work together and observe a common subordination, so that the body itself is maintained intact” (38).

Section 38 – “In Christ Jesus, then, let this corporate body of our be likewise maintained intact, with each of us giving way to his neighbor in proportion to our spiritual gifts” (38).

“[J]ust consider, my brothers, the original material from which we took our being. What were we, pray, and who were we, at the moment of our first coming into the world? Our Maker and Creator brought us out of darkness into His universe as it were out of a tomb; even before our birth He was ready with His favors for us. To Him we own everything, and therefore on every count we are under the obligation to return thanks to Him. Glory be to Him for ever and ever, amen” (38)

Section 39 – Men who have no understanding of these things may mock us, but merely mortal men can effect nothing. Those who are fools will never amount to anything. Long quotes from Scripture on the uselessness of those who are not the Lord’s.

Section 40 – “All these things are plain to us who have scanned the depths of sacred lore” (39). God created an order through which men should approach him. “[I]t was His command that the offering of gifts and the conduct of public services should not be haphazard or irregular, but should take place at fixed times and hours. Moreover, in the exercise of His supreme will He has Himself declared in what place and by what persons He desires this to be done, if it is all to be devoutly performed in accordance with His wishes and acceptably to His will” (39).

The priesthood has its place and the ministries of the Levites, and lay people “are bound by regulations affecting the laity” (39). Here certainly we finally come to the specifics of the concerns, which has caused Clement to write this letter. The problem is that his reference to it is so lacking in detail, it is really not possible to understand much about it. Clearly it has to do with “disorder” over ministries and particularly conflicts between lay persons and presbyters, which has led to the removal of some of these presbyters. There is an interesting article online “Clement’s Answer to the Corinthian Conflict in AD 96” by Davorin Peterlin in a journal called The Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society (1996).

Section 35 – “How blessed, how marvelous are the gifts of God, my friends! Some of them, indeed, already lie within our comprehension – the life that knows no death, the shining splendor of righteousness, the truth that is frank and full, the faith that is perfect assurance, the holiness of chastity – but what of the things prepared for those who wait?” (37) We cannot really know these things.

So we must fix our minds on God and do His will: “Wickedness and wrongdoing of every kind must be utterly renounced; all greed, quarrelling, malice and fraud, scandal-mongering and back-biting, enmity towards God, glorification of self, presumption, conceit, and want of hospitality” (36). These all must be laid aside.

Genesis 4-5 and Early Church Writings [Clement of Rome] 31-35

Genesis 4 - The two first children of woman are Cain and Abel, a tiller of the ground (now cursed) and a tender of sheep (4:2). Their story will introduce a recurring Old Testament pattern or theme – that in a world where the eldest son always was seen as the favored one, it will be the younger, the less “important” child who will always be favored by God.

We see them here offering the work of their hands to the Lord. Cain gives offerings from his labors – fruit of the soil; and Abel from his labors – “one of the best firstlings of his flock” (4:4).  We are not told, nor is Cain why his offerings are found less pleasing (4:5). Perhaps God favors offerings that are “live,” over those from the soil and wits of men. Perhaps it is because the soil is weighted down with the curse He placed on it in Gen. 3:17. God will favor shepherds throughout His story and also will He favor the “younger” over the older. But we may also perhaps assume that there is something awry in the heart of Cain, something only God can discern but which makes all the difference between them. 

God’s displeasure with Cain enrages Cain, and the jealousy he feels leads directly to his act of violence against his brother. The soil—cursed along with Adam—is Cain’s medium.  He will further debase it by pouring his brother’s blood out on it.  We see in his violence and violation of family love the furthest consequences of the alienation which Adam and Eve initiated.

God’s words to Cain -- “Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master” (4:7) -- are, I think, true of all men/women in the fall.  God tells Cain he must “master” it, and so must we.  We can do this.  This warning comes before Cain’s act. There are some fascinating details in this story when God confronts Cain with what he has done: God tells him his brother’s blood calls out to God (4:10).

The story of Cain and Abel reveals to us the broader consequences of man’s fall as they extend beyond the lives of the perpetrators into the lives of their children (i.e. all of us).  Cain and Abel represent two ancient modes of life – the shepherd’s and the farmer’s.  Both are in the practice already of relating to God through the giving of gifts, offerings or sacrifices.  Why this mode of relating to the creator is adopted is not explained.  It is simply assumed. 

God bans Cain from the soil, which is what he takes his living from, and forces him to be a wanderer, thus deepening the alienation and exile imposed by the first fall.  Whereas the soil for Adam was cursed, for Cain it will yield nothing.  He is exiled from it completely and must find his way using his wits, his “technologies.” 

He will be a fugitive and a wanderer, belonging to no real community, yet alive.  This is the completion of that spiritual death begun in his parents lives. These stories are clearly meant to show the evolution of mankind from our beginnings in the creative life of God to the situation the holy writers saw as the reality of their day—how things were technologically, morally and socially, the origins of people and civilizations in a state of debased dignity, excelling in talents but debased in many ways morally and spiritually.  By the time of Noah, God wishes he hadn’t created us, and in fact moves to begin the project all over again, from scratch so to speak.

That Cain is responsible for the founding of a city – either the first or one of the first – adds a sociological dimension to the fall.  The text traces the descent from Cain and goes on to tell of the birth of Seth to Adam and Eve to take the place of Abel.

Genesis 5 - Records the descendants of our first parents, the descent of “man,” as it implies: Adam is 130 years old when his son Seth is born, “a son who was just like him—in his very image” (5:3). Adam was 930 years old when he died.

When Seth was 105, he became the father of Enosh; Enosh was 90 when he became the father of Kenan (5:9). When Kenan was 70, he became the father of Mahalalel. Mahalalel is 65 when Jared is born, and Jared is 162 years old when his son Enoch is born. All these guys live into their 800s or 900s. Enoch who will become the father of Methuselah when he is 65 will live 365 years, the number of days in the solar year, a kind of perfection that explains why he will be “taken up” to God. Methuselah, who lives the longest - 968 years – will become the father of Lamech and Lamech the father of Noah. 

By the time Noah is 500 years old, he has become the father of the three sons: Shem (father of the Semites), Ham (father of the Hamites), and Japheth (father of the Indo-Europeans).

First Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians

Section 31 – “Let us be intent on this blessing [the blessing from God that is the really important thing to achieve], then, and see which roads can lead us to it” (35) And Clement turns to the “pages of history” to learn more.  For him “history” was what the Bible taught of the past. He looks at Abraham, Isaac and Jacob first of all. It was their faith that “prompted [them] to acts of righteousness and truth” (35).

Section 32 – The fruits of that “faith” and those “acts” done by the founders of the tradition have brought forth a “magnitude of gifts” (35) from God: the long line of priests and Levites, the kings and princes and rulers that have sprung from them, and even the Lord Jesus who “according to the flesh” (35) have come from them. God promised that their “posterity will be like the stars of heaven” (35). And we too who have been “called in Christ Jesus, are not justified by ourselves or our own wisdom or understanding or godliness, nor by such deeds as we have done in holiness of heart, but by that faith through which alone Almighty God has justified all men since the beginning of time” (36).

Section 33 – But putting such emphasis on faith doesn’t mean we should not continue to DO good. “God forbid that we  . .  should ever come to such a pass. On the contrary, let us be earnestly, even passionately eager to set about any kind of activity that is good. Even the Architect and Lord of the universe Himself takes a delight in working” (36).

The whole creation is God’s “work”! And man is his masterpiece. “[W]ith His own sacred and immaculate hands he fashioned man, who in virtue of his intelligence is the chiefest and greatest of all His works and the very likeness of His own image; for God said, Let us make man in our image and likeness; and God created man, male and female he created them” (36).

“We see, then, that good works have not only embellished the lives of all just men, but are an adornment with which even the Lord has delighted to deck Himself; and therefore, with such an example before us, let us spare no effort to obey His will, but put all our energies into the work of righteousness” (36).

Section 34 – A good, industrious worker accepts the “reward of his labor with assurance, but one who is idle and shiftless cannot look his employer in the face” (36). So we must work well. We should serve His will like the “vast company of angels” who stand before him. “In the same way ought we ourselves, gathered together in a conscious unity, to cry to Him as it were with a single voice” (36-37).

Section 35 – “How bless, how marvelous are the gifts of God, my friends! Some of them, indeed, already lie without our comprehension – the life that knows no death, the shining splendor of righteousness, the truth that is frank and full, the faith that is perfect assurance, the holiness of chastity – but what of the things prepared for those who wait?” (37) We cannot really know these things.

So we must fix our minds on God and do His will: “Wickedness and wrongdoing of every kind must be utterly renounced; all greed, quarrelling, malice and fraud, scandal-mongering and back-biting, enmity towards God, glorification of self, presumption, conceit, and want of hospitality” (36). These all must be laid aside.

Genesis 3 and Early Church Writings [Clement of Rome] 26-30

Genesis 3 - Now the drama begins.  There is a serpent in the garden who approaches the woman and asks her if God forbade them any of the fruits of the garden, and Eve tells him of the prohibition on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil along with the threatened penalty, which I must point out is a prohibition given to Adam – before Eve was even part of the picture! She has HEARD of the prohibition from Adam. 

The serpent then tries to convince Eve that God is bluffing them, that they won’t die if they eat from this tree.  Furthermore, the serpent offers, God is just trying to keep man from being “like a god,” for knowing good and evil is a trait pertaining to divinity.

The language of the serpent is important: “’You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil’” (3:4-5).

Eve considers all the good things the fruit seems to offer – its pleasing look (beauty), its good as a food (practical usefulness), and she appreciates the desirability of the knowledge it promises to give her (philosophical good).  So she disobeys God, trusts in the word of the serpent and eats.  Her husband, who is with her throughout, also eats.  Then the text tells us “the eyes of both of them were opened” (3:7). They see that they are naked, but of course they always saw that – it’s just that now they feel differently about it.

A lot of the meaning of this story rests in understanding that it is all about “seeing” and less about really eating and learning.  And, I think there is a good deal of irony in the dialogue that is not commented upon.  First of all, when the serpent tells Eve that God doesn’t want them to eat the fruit because it will make them “like god we mustn’t forget that God has specifically created them to be “like us/God” (1:26).  He wants them to be not only like gods but “like” the one and only God. 

Similarly when the text says, “the eyes of both of them were opened”, it is being completely sarcastic – before they ate of the forbidden fruit, their eyes were opened – it is partly the beauty of the fruit that draws Eve into disobedience.  But after disobeying God, they are now really blinded to their true nature and to the nature of their relationships to each other and to God.

Another interesting thing to point out is that Eve is not drawn into disobedience by desiring anything bad; she convinces herself that what she really is seeking is “good.”  The problem is that the first step she must take is a failure of trust in God, for he has already given her the good things she seeks here. And by failing to trust in Him, she will lose the very things she is seeking through her own independence from God.

Back to the story - Later, when God comes to talk to them, the shame they first experienced in relation to each other now comes between God and them.  They are afraid, and God sees that things have changed between him and them.  They have separated themselves from him and from the divine nature He planted in them. 

When he confronts them they proceed to obfuscate and deceive.  The man blames the woman; the woman blames the serpent.  No one accepts responsibility for the act of disobedience (1:9-13).  The consequences of this disobedience are both explicit and implicit.  The consequences already displayed in the story are a dramatic alteration of the way reality is “seen” by man and woman; the rising up of shame and defensiveness--which divides us from each other and from God--and an inability or refusal to accept responsibility for the acts we chose. 

To these consequences God adds others: the serpent is separated from the rest of the animal kingdom.  There will be an on-going struggle between the serpent (what it represents) and the offspring  (seed) of the woman.  The offspring of Eve will struggle with the principle of evil as long as evil strikes at our heels or “dogs our steps” if you will.  “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel” (NRSV 1:15).

Here it is important to comment briefly on the promise Christians have always attached to these words, and here again the salience of the words is directly related to the translation one works from. Consider just the following:

·      “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed; He shall crush your head, and you shall lie in wait for his heel”(Confraternity).

·      “And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel”(KJV).

·      “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike at your head, while you strike at his heel”(NAB).

Christians saw in these words a kind of ur-promise to mankind, or more specifically to Eve and through her to all mankind, that one of her line would eventually overcome the power of evil, and this seed of Eve was seen as a prophesy of Jesus.  The word seed, therefore, took on significance – for many indeed the significance of the two other great images for Christ – God’s Word and God’s Light.  All three of these images may take their origin from these stories of the creation. I must say of all the changes the newer translations have brought the worst change has been abandonment of the word “seed,” for offspring.  So much biblical meaning is tied into the word seed that I just think it should be kept.

Anyway, to return to the story, woman will suffer in and through the having of offspring, yet she will be tied in an unequal yoke with man.  She will yearn for that unity promised with man, but he will lord it over her instead, frustrating both.  Man is burdened with the difficulty of eking out an existence from the soil, yet his labors will be filled with hardship and with a sense of futility, for “you are dirt, and to dirt you shall return” (1:19).

The two of them are helped by God to some garments to cover their nakedness and then banished from the garden.  At the entrance to the garden God posts sentries armed with a flaming, “revolving” sword (1:24), so that they will not be able to come back in, eat the fruit of the tree of life and live forever.  The further implicit consequences of all this are the stuff of the later stories, but these are the main ones: the peace of the garden is disrupted; the union and friendship with God is shattered.  This is the fallen condition in which we live.

Now we must return to the problem alluded to before.  What is the death Adam and Eve suffer as a result of their disobedience?  Have they already suffered it?  Does it hang over their heads for the future – when they return to the dirt or dust from which they came?  Early in history, people who read this story tended to believe that the death threatened by God was an eventual bodily death, an allusion to their mortality which, readers believed, was never part of the intention of God when He created them.  Some more modern theorists, seeing the problem presented by evolutionary theory in this kind of idea, posit that the mortality of man, which is, they admit, part of the natural condition of man’s existence was meant to be overcome supernaturally by God (by God giving us access to the tree of life). 

An insight I had some years ago into this promise of supernatural intervention is that the cross of Christ might well be that supernatural tree and the body and blood of Christ offered us in the Eucharist might well be seen as the fruit of the Tree of Life. The irony of what “seems” to be death being “life” is then applied to BOTH baptism and Eucharist.

Still, the story says that God said that the death we were to suffer would come upon them the very day they eat the fruit.  And that death seems to me to be a spiritual death.  This is not a subtle, nuanced thing but a dramatic change in the way man sees, feels, thinks and responds to his God and to other men and women as well.  They are separated from the closeness from God they were intended to enjoy and from the closeness promised between them as man and woman. Later we will see that the death includes also the turning of man to violence against his brother, and the deep ignorance we have in our “natural” fallen state of what our true nature is and what we are in God’s creative scheme.

The question of what this story has to tell us or teach us about the state of relations between men and women is one that has interested readers for centuries at least.  For many Christians, the story has served to explain why women are to be subordinated to men, just as it explains or pretends to explain why women have pain in childbirth while other animals seem to deliver their young without undue pain.  But the thing that interests me is that both circumstances are not part of God’s intention with respect to our lives, only the results of that deep sin which all mankind begins in “naturally”.   As we enter into the redemption offered by God, however, the consequences of the fall begin to weaken and the lives we are called into begin to free us from the baneful effects of Adam’s disobedience.

The two creation stories together also stimulate in my mind another interesting idea.  Could it be that “man” – male and female together – is for God what Eve is for Adam?  Did God perhaps create us to be his companion, his other?  Sometimes when I look at people and see how amazing they are – how sensitive they are, how profoundly they think and create, I feel in myself—sometimes only for a fleeting moment, but intensely—how God must love us, how lonely it must be to be God and how desirable man is.  God seeks humanity, I believe, because we are “bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh.” He seeks to be wedded to us as Adam seeks Eve.  Complimentarity, mutuality, love, admiration, dignity, and incredible goodness—all are at the heart of this infinitely huge and unfathomable creation we are part of.  The miracle is that we can even sense it in part. 

First Epistle of Clement of Rome to the Corinthians (96/97 AD) Sections 26-30

Section 26 – Still discussing the importance of the Phoenix story, Clement says he finds the story meaningful because it helps us to see resurrection as a reasonable hope for “those who have served Him in holiness and in the confidence of a sound faith” (34). And he quotes from the Book of Job: “You will raise up this flesh of mine which has had all these trials to endure” (34).

Section 27 – “Seeing then that we have this hope, let us knit fast our souls to Him who is ever true to His word and righteous in His judgments. He who has forbidden us to use any deception can much less be a deceiver Himself; untruth is the only thing that is impossible to God” (34).

It is God’s Word that has brought together all that exists, so he is able to end it if he chooses.

Section 28 – Let us approach our Lord with awe. There is “nothing He does not see and hear” (34). He quotes psalm 139: “Whither shall I go, and where shall I hide from your presence? If I climb up to heaven, you are there; if I retire to the ends of the earth, your right hand is there; if I make my bed in the pit, there is your Spirit” (34)

Section 29 – “It follows that we must approach Him in holiness of spirit, lifting up pure and undefiled hands to Him in love for the gracious and compassionate Father who has chosen us to be His own” (34).

Section 30 – Since we are the “Holy One’s own special portion, let us omit no possible means of sanctification” (35). We must abandon slander, “lewd and unclean coupling”, drinking and rioting, lust and pride. “Let us clothe ourselves in a mutual tolerance of one another’s views, cultivating humility and self-restrain, avoiding all gossiping and backbiting, and earning our justification by deeds and not by words” (35).

And the “testimony to our good deeds is for others to give” (35), not for us to advertise.