CAIN'S CONFESSION

1. And behold, after Cain had done this, his pious brother Abel followed him and spoke to him in the name of eternal Love:

2. "O brother, why do you eat the flesh of the serpent when there is plenty of fruit available to satisfy your hunger? Our father Adam drank of the juice of a plant he did not know and which the serpent had prepared with cunning and mastery in its boundless malice to destroy him and his descendants. Because of that he sinned before the Lord of all justice, and all of you through him. And I myself was burdened with the weight of the guilt before God and had to do penance like you who all drank of the juice of perdition, and like you I had to leave Paradise and take your burden upon myself bodily and all your blessings spiritually and thus had a twofold burden because of all.

3. "And you eat the flesh of the live serpent together with its blood. Why did you do that, Cain?"

4. And behold, Cain recovered from his anger and rage, looked at Abel and said: "Behold, I did it out of revenge to destroy the serpent and its kind and to destroy myself since I was never found worthy of the Lord's blessing and because I became the way I am not through my fault, but through the fault of the parents. They were before me, and I came into existence when they sinned before the eyes of Jehovah.

5. "Why must I repent my guilt when I could never have contributed to it since I am only the fruit of sin and not its cause; and why did I have to be deprived of the blessing which all of you received in abundance and had to drag myself along burdened by the undeserved curse of Jehovah, whilst you leapt like harts?

6. "And now behold the reason for my action. The serpent in the grass spoke to me and said: 'Consume me, eat your fill of my flesh and quench your thirst with my blood, and you shall become a lord of the earth. All your descendants will rule upon it and their power and might will surpass that of all the blessed ones. I do not give you any commandment, only the might to rule and the power to subject everything to your will! '