Chapter VIII.
By Cain's rebuke, insolence and crime increase. In his words: 'Let us go to the field,' it is shown that deserted and barren places suit wicked actions.
26. Therefore, being warned to keep quiet, he becomes more insolent, and wickedness becomes more bitter. What, then, does he mean when he says: 'Let us go into the field' (ibid., 8)? Is it not because a bare place where offspring are produced is chosen for the act of parricide? For where did the brother have an opportunity to be killed except where fruit was lacking? As if nature, foreseeing such a great crime, had denied the germination of seeds to that place; because it was not fitting that the same place should receive both the contagion of parricidal blood beyond the bounds of nature and that fruits should be produced naturally according to nature. He rightfully says: Let us go to the field. He does not say: Let us go to paradise, where fruits flourish, but to some barren and unfruitful place. The murderers themselves indicate that they cannot have the fruit of their crime, nor can it remain with those who have shown such great impiety. For they flee from the kindness of the elements themselves, like this Cain, who seems to fear that the fertile earth's abundant yield would hinder his sad deed, and the accustomed generosity of fertility, which causes various offspring and fruits to sprout, would also recall in this crime or in some silent appearance the affection of a brother. The thief avoids the light of day as though it were a witness to his crime, the adulterer blushes at the light as though it knows of his adultery, the murderer flees from the fertility of the earth. For how could he behold the companionship of common birth who slew the companion of his own blood? Joseph is cast into a dry pit, Ammon is killed within his house. Therefore, nature has justly bestowed judgment upon those places where patricide would occur by depriving them of the gift of her bounty, so that by the condemnation of an innocent land, she might reveal the great punishments that await the guilty. Therefore, both the elements themselves and human beings are condemned because of the wickedness. Finally, David, in the mountains where Jonathan was killed along with his father, desired the punishment of perpetual sterility, saying: O mountains of Gilboa, may neither dew nor rain fall upon you, you mountains of death (2 Samuel 1:21).