For so it is written, And it came to pass after certain days that
Cain brought of the fruits of the earth a sacrifice unto God, and
Abel he also brought of the firstlings of the sheep and of their
fatness.
And God looked upon Abel and upon his gifts, but unto Cain and unto
his sacrifices He gave no heed.
And Cain sorrowed exceedingly, and his countenance fell.
And God said unto Cain, Wherefore art thou very sorrowful and
wherefore did thy countenance fall? If thou hast offered aright and
hast not divided aright, didst thou not sin? Hold thy peace.
Unto thee shall he turn, and thou shalt rule over him.
And Cain said unto Abel his brother, Let us go over unto the plain.
And it came to pass, while they Were in the plain, that Cain rose up
against Abel his brother and slew him.
Ye see, brethren, jealousy and envy wrought a brother's murder.
By reason of jealousy our father Jacob ran away from the face of Esau
his brother.
Jealousy caused Joseph to be persecuted even unto death, and to come
even unto bondage.
Cain brought of the fruits of the earth a sacrifice unto God, and
Abel he also brought of the firstlings of the sheep and of their
fatness.
And God looked upon Abel and upon his gifts, but unto Cain and unto
his sacrifices He gave no heed.
And Cain sorrowed exceedingly, and his countenance fell.
And God said unto Cain, Wherefore art thou very sorrowful and
wherefore did thy countenance fall? If thou hast offered aright and
hast not divided aright, didst thou not sin? Hold thy peace.
Unto thee shall he turn, and thou shalt rule over him.
And Cain said unto Abel his brother, Let us go over unto the plain.
And it came to pass, while they Were in the plain, that Cain rose up
against Abel his brother and slew him.
Ye see, brethren, jealousy and envy wrought a brother's murder.
By reason of jealousy our father Jacob ran away from the face of Esau
his brother.
Jealousy caused Joseph to be persecuted even unto death, and to come
even unto bondage.
But shortly after, «Dathan» and «Abiram» are mentioned as victims of their own envy:
1Clem 4:11-12:
By reason of jealousy Aaron and Miriam were lodged outside the camp.
Jealousy brought Dathan and Abiram down alive to hades, because they
made sedition against Moses the servant of God.
Jealousy brought Dathan and Abiram down alive to hades, because they
made sedition against Moses the servant of God.
In 792 CE, Theodore Bar Konai, Scholia 11:
About the Cainites, they derive their name from the name of Cain. They reject the Law of Moses and they blaspheme who talks in the Law. They deny the resurrection of bodies, they praise Cain, the first killer, and they claim that he is a great power. They praise also the betrayer Judas and the follower of Core, of Dathan and of Abiron, just as the people of Sodoma.
These Gnostics believed that Dathan and Abiron, just as Cain and the Sodomites, were victims of the envy of the god of the Jews.
The final evidence that 1 Clement was written against the Gnostics is given by the verse immediately preceding the quote above:
1Clem 3:4
For this cause righteousness and peace stand aloof, while each
man hath forsaken the fear of the Lord and become purblind in the
faith of Him, neither walketh in the ordinances of His commandments
nor liveth according to that which becometh Christ, but each goeth
after the lusts of his evil heart, seeing that they have conceived an
unrighteous and ungodly jealousy, through which also death entered
into the world.
man hath forsaken the fear of the Lord and become purblind in the
faith of Him, neither walketh in the ordinances of His commandments
nor liveth according to that which becometh Christ, but each goeth
after the lusts of his evil heart, seeing that they have conceived an
unrighteous and ungodly jealousy, through which also death entered
into the world.
Pseudo-Clement is quoting Wisdom 2:24:
But by the envy of the devil, death entered the world,
and they who are allied with him experience it.
and they who are allied with him experience it.
Pseudo-Clement is so cursing the people who consider the death as a liberation from the god of the Jews, since by the Death they can ascend to the Father (the supreme god distinct from the creator). Therefore the death is their «ally».
But for pseudo-Clement, the Death is entered in the world de jure by the sin of Adam, and de facto by the sin of Cain.
The similar idea is shown in Ad Autolycum 2:29:
When, then, Satan saw Adam and his wife not only still living, but also begetting children — being carried away with spite because he had not succeeded in putting them to death — when he saw that Abel was well-pleasing to God, he wrought upon the heart of his brother called Cain, and caused him to kill his brother Abel. And thus did death get a beginning in this world, to find its way into every race of man, even to this day.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/02042.htm
So according to this Catholic passage, Satan was deceived by the his belief that the creator was right, when he promised (Genesis 2:17):
but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Note that the same false promise of a rapid death (after the Original Sin) was considered by the Gnostics as evidence of the envy and falsity of the demiurge (Adam died when he was 930 years old). But now the same falsity of that promise is interpreted by the Catholics as the mere effect of the piety of the creator for the conversion of Adam and Eve, after the Original Sin, provoking as result the envy of Satan against them.
The Catholic author has to admit that the promise of a rapid death in Genesis 2:17 was falsified.
What proves that this exegesis of Genesis is anti-Gnostic, is the fact that Satan takes the role of the god of the Jews:
- he existed before the Genesis
- he existed before the Fall of the Angels (chapter 6 of Genesis)
- he is jealous and full of envy
So, if 1 Clement is written in 95 CE, this means that the Gnostic haters of YHWH existed already by that time.