On the Sacrifices of Abel and Cain 14

¹To each of these the sacred pages have their counterword. To the first, with whom memory is dead and oblivion strong and living, the scripture says: “When thou hast eaten and art filled, and hast built fair houses and dwelt in them, and thy sheep and oxen are increased, and thy silver and gold and all that thou hast is multiplied, take heed lest thou be uplifted in thy heart and forget the Lord thy God” (Deut. 8:12–14). When then wilt thou not forget God? Only when thou dost not forget thyself. For if thou rememberest thine own nothingness in all things, thou wilt also remember the transscendence of God in all things. ²But him that believes himself to be the cause of the good things which befall him the scripture recalls to wisdom thus: “Say not ‘my strength or the might of my hand hath gotten me all this power,’ but thou shalt keep ever in remembrance the Lord thy God who gave thee strength to get power” (Deut. 8:17 f.). ³The third, he, that is, who thinks himself worthy of the possession and enjoyment of good, may learn a better lesson from the oracle which says “Not for thy righteousness nor for the holiness of thy heart dost thou go into the land to inhabit it,” but first “because of the iniquity of these nations,” since God visited their wickedness with destruction, and next “that he might establish the covenant which he sware to our fathers” (Deut. 9:5). Now the covenant of God is an allegory of His gifts of grace, and it may not be that any of His gifts should be imperfect. Thus, all the bounty of the Uncreated must be perfect and complete. But amongst all existing things the one that is complete is virtue and virtuous actions. ⁴If then we destroy forgetfulness and ingratitude and self-love and their parent vice, vainglory, we shall no longer through backwardness fall short of true service, but passing over things created, and staying not to embrace aught that is mortal, we shall run and leap to meet our Master, having made ourselves ready to do His bidding.