THOMAS
There are several personalities in the biblical narrative whose names, having become common nouns, forever turned into synonyms for evil. Popular rumor traditionally calls a traitor Judas, a cruel and ruthless person - Herod, a rude and tactless person - Ham. And the first in this row is the name of the person who shed the blood of his brother. This name - Cain - gave rise to many neologisms: “Cain’s seed”, “Cain’s seal”. Who really was Cain and is his role in human history so clear?
Crime and Punishment
If you carefully analyze everything that the Bible says about Cain, then the key word in determining his place in history will be “first.” Cain is the first child of Adam and Eve. That is, the first man, not directly created by God, but born of people. In addition, he is the first builder - the creator of the first city on our planet. But, alas, it is not for this primacy that people have been remembering his name for several millennia. Cain became the culprit of the first death on Earth. He killed his brother.
The reason for this murder was a feeling that subsequently many times pushed people to commit crimes - envy. The Bible says that Cain was a farmer and his younger brother Abel was a sheep herder. When the time came, each of them brought the results of their labors as a gift to God: Cain - part of the harvest, and Abel - the best animals of his herd. But God did not accept Cain's sacrifice. According to legend, fire sent by the Lord descended on Abel’s sacrifice and it, engulfed in flames, rushed to the sky. But the fire, signifying that the sacrifice was pleasing to God, never descended on Cain’s gift. And Cain was very upset. Obsessed with envy, he lured his brother into a field and killed him. For which he was cursed, branded and expelled from the place where he then lived.
But why, in fact, did God not accept Cain’s sacrifice? It is clear that it is impossible to kill your brother in any case. And yet, didn’t Cain have, so to speak, extenuating circumstances? After all, both worked, each brought to God what they had, and suddenly such a different attitude towards sacrifices! Maybe Cain just needed to give up his farming and take up cattle breeding, since God wanted sheep to be sacrificed to Him, and not wheat and corn? But, if you look at it, it turns out that God doesn’t need sacrifice at all. Well, indeed, everything that a person can bring to Him as a gift was essentially created by Him. And to suggest that God needs lamb more than vegetables is, at the very least, frivolous. The meaning of sacrifice is completely different.
After all, when a child treats his parents to sweets from a New Year's gift, which they themselves bought for him, he can choose for them the most delicious sweets, or maybe a couple of sticky caramels. But if he regretted sharing what was better, parents have reason to be upset. Of course, the point is not that they won’t get sweets. It's just that a child exchanged love for a chocolate hare.
So it is with a sacrifice to God - the person himself needs it in order to show his love for Him. By sacrificing the best, a person seems to say: look, Lord, how I have multiplied what You have given me! This is how he responds to Divine love and care with his love and gratitude. So Abel brought the best sheep of his flock as a gift to God.
And Cain, it seems, performed his sacrifice according to the principle: “It is on you, O God, that it is not good for us.” In the canonical biblical text there is only an indirect indication of this, but the Tradition of the Church has preserved a more detailed story about his sacrifice. According to one version, it was unripe grain and unripe fruits that could not be eaten; according to another, it was empty corn cobs. In any case, there is no need to talk about love here.
Moreover, even after killing his brother, Cain was not horrified by what he had done. To the direct question: “Where is Abel, your brother?” - asked by God to give him the opportunity to repent, he cynically replied: “I don’t know, am I my brother’s keeper?” But only a person with a completely darkened mind and a perverted moral sense can try to deceive God.
And God condemned him to exile from his native places and wandering, marking him with a special sign, which later became known as the “seal of Cain.” It is difficult to say what it was. There are all sorts of assumptions. The Bible only says that God himself gave this sign to Cain. Hence the saying: “God marks the rogue.”
The “seal of Cain” began to be understood as a kind of mark, similar to those burned on the forehead of convicted criminals. But the Bible says something completely different.
The sign God gave to Cain was not a punishment at all, but evidence that, despite the crime he had committed, he was under the protection of the Lord. Moreover, God applied this sign to him at the request of Cain himself. Having opened the account of human deaths, he was very afraid that in exile he himself might be killed. “And the Lord made a sign for Cain, so that no one who met him would kill him.” So God immediately stopped a possible series of murders based on blood feud, which could have flared up among the first people. So the “seal of Cain” is not a sign of anger, but of God’s mercy, with which He treats all people without exception. Even to people like the first killer Cain...
First blade. The history of the appearance of the weapon of Cain and Dean Winchester
There are a lot of different evil spirits in Supernatural, and one of the most powerful are the so-called Knights of Hell. They were created by Cain himself - the first son of the first man, after Cain received his mark as an assassin. In the series, we were shown that Cain killed Abel not out of envy, but because he learned that the younger brother was not talking to God, but to Lucifer. He loved his brother so much that he made a deal with the fallen angel - his soul in exchange for Abel's soul. Lucifer agreed, but on one condition - Cain himself must send Abel to heaven.
Cain, in order to save his brother’s soul, agreed to commit the first murder, but kept silent about his real motives, and therefore became the first murderer for everyone, whose entire family was doomed to eternal damnation. But Cain could not take the life of his younger brother with his bare hands, so he used the first blade. And it was this weapon that became the most terrible for all the fiends of Hell - it was capable of killing any demon, knight of Hell and even its king, including the one who gave him such power, that is, Cain himself.
Cain was played by actor Timothy Omundson in the TV series Supernatural. Photo: still from the film
It is important to note here that the blade acquired such power only if it was controlled by a person or creature with the mark of Cain on it. In this case, it is Cain himself and Dean Winchester, to whom he transferred his mark. This mark was received by Cain from God himself. People, seeing her, should have known that this was the first murderer in front of them and should not have taken his life. In the series, the seal constantly demanded more and more victims from its bearer, and the presence of a blade nearby only intensified this thirst for destruction. So what was the first blade and where did it come from?
The first blade is a bone with teeth from an animal's jaw. Photo: still from the film
The first blade is a bone with teeth from the jaw of an animal, in this case, as Cain himself said in the series - the jaw of a donkey. It was the first thing that came to his hand at the moment when he had to take his brother’s life. But there is an important clarification here - the animal itself died a natural death - Cain only picked up the bone from the ground. As a result, the bone of an innocent dead animal, sprinkled with the blood of an innocently killed person, turned into a powerful weapon.
Even Cain could not control the weapon, so he got rid of the blade, throwing it into the Mariinsky Hollow. Photo: still from the film
Even Cain himself could not cope with its power - so he chose to get rid of the blade - and threw it into the Mariinsky Hollow. But when Dean needed help to defeat Abadon, Crowley returned the blade.
A culture that destroys harmony
What did Cain, expelled from his native land, do? He built a city and named it after his son.
A significant fact in the history of mankind - the first city on Earth was built by a murderer.
For what? Yes, to create an artificial border between yourself and the rest of the world, to protect yourself from the environment. Today, when the conflict between urban civilization and nature has escalated to the limit, when around us there are polluted rivers, dying forests, and the city air itself is saturated with toxic exhausts, the very phrase “environment” sounds some kind of alienation, as if a person flew to Earth from another planet and painfully tries to master a world hostile to him.
It all started with the first “ecological disaster” in history, when Cain, having killed his brother, shed his blood on the ground. This is what the Bible says about this: “And the Lord said: What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood cries to Me from the earth; and now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened its mouth to receive the blood of thy brother at thy hand; when you cultivate the land, it will no longer give its strength to you; you will be an exile and a wanderer on earth.”
This is how Cain first upset the ecological balance. The world became alien to him, everything that surrounded him turned into a source of danger.
The psychology of the killer is clear: he is scared, anxious and always wants to hide. This is inherent in human nature - those who have committed evil fear the same retribution. But who did Cain want to protect himself from? After all, there were no other people on earth except members of his family. According to legend, after the murder was committed, wild animals began to hunt Cain (before that they had not attacked people). It was then that the Earth ceased to be a home for humans and turned into an “environment.” A person who commits a mortal sin breaks his connection not only with God, but with all of nature. The mechanism of this gap cannot be explained, but its consequences are obvious. By the way, in the history of the Church there are many examples when saints (that is, people who have restored this connection with God and the world He created) communicated with the most dangerous predators as with domestic animals.
Thus, the construction of the first city was a direct consequence of fratricide. All the coming wars, civil strife, the struggle for survival in a changing climate - the entire tragic history of mankind is prophetically depicted in the biblical story about the first man born on earth.
It was the descendants of Cain who laid the foundation for the phenomenon that we today call civilization. About one of them, Jubal, it is said that “he was the father of all those who play the harp and flute.” Another, his brother Tubalcain, “was a forger of all tools made of copper and iron,” the herald of the “Copper” and “Iron” Ages. Cain's descendants began to arm themselves - the first fratricide predetermined the inevitability of further wars. And the agricultural tools made by Tubalcain were needed to forcefully snatch from the earth those benefits that it had ceased to give to the people who had watered it with blood. And art helped to shield ourselves from the emptiness that invaded human life.
But, fortunately for us, Adam and Eve also had a third son - Seth.
The Bible says that it was his children who began to call on the name of God, that is, try to live on earth without breaking off relations with its Creator. It was the desire for God of the sons of Seth, intertwined with the artistic delights of the descendants of Cain, that led to the emergence of such art, thanks to which we even today feel that there is something greater in the world than ourselves and all our earthly affairs and concerns. And at the sound of the music of the famous church singer, Bach, you want to pray, even if you don’t know how to do it. Because such art has preserved the memory of the harmony of all things, so carelessly destroyed at the very beginning of our history.
First Blade
Since Cain was an incredibly powerful hero, he had powerful weapons that also worked supernaturally. Seasons 9 and 10 explore the power of the First Blade very well.
It represents the jaw of an animal, and it was with it that he killed his brother Abel. During Dean's first meeting with the hero in Supernatural, Cain does not tell Winchester where the blade is. It later turns out that after Collet's death, he left his weapon at the bottom of the Mariana Trench, where no one, not even himself, could reach it. The reason for getting rid of the blade was a promise to his dying wife, according to which Cain should not avenge her death and kill people, which he followed before meeting Dean.
When Dean and Crowley learned the location of the blade, the latter went in search of it. Later he finds out that Cain's weapons are no longer at the bottom of the ocean. The Winchesters then learn that the blade was found by the Keepers of Knowledge, also known as the Enlightened Ones. It was stolen from the vault by Magnus. Dean later takes the blade from Magnus, and Crowley hides it from the elder Winchester.
Mark of Cain
Even though the First Blade is the most dangerous weapon, it is no more than an animal jaw when in the hands of ordinary people and even creatures. In order for the blade to harm any powerful demon or archangel, it must be used by a person with the Mark of Cain.
Lucifer gave Cain a special Mark that would symbolize the sale of his soul and would always remind him of the murder of his brother. Also, it gave its wearer incredible strength and immortality. Despite all the advantages, the Mark is, in a way, one of the first curses of the world, because its bearer turned into a demon after death. Cain passed it on to Dean, which forced him to fight his urge to kill.
Other films of the actor
Actor Timothy Omundson made people believe he was Cain (Supernatural). The most popular projects with his participation are the films “Judging Amy”, “Xena – Warrior Princess” and “Psych”.
Other projects in which the actor has starred include “Starship Troopers,” “Mission: Impossible 3,” and “Password Swordfish.” He can also be seen in the series "Galavant", "Criminal Minds" and "Boston Legal"
