He slew him."
Occasionally we see men start a quarrel and commit murder for a
trivial cause, but no such ordinary murder is described here.
Murderers of this kind immediately afterward are filled with distress;
they grieve for the deeds they have done and acknowledge them to be
delusions of the devil by which he blinded their minds. Cain felt no
distress; he expressed no grief, but denied the deed he had done.

142. This satanic and insatiable hatred in hypocrites is described by
Christ in the words, "When they kill you, they will think that they do
God service," Jn 16, 2. So the priests and the kings filled Jerusalem
with the blood of the prophets and gloried in what they did as a great
achievement; for they considered this as proof of their zeal for the
Law and the house of God.

143. And the fury of popes and bishops in our day is just the same.
They are not satisfied with having excommunicated us again and again,
and with having shed our blood, but they wish to blot out our memory
from the land of the living, according to the description in the
Psalm, "Rase it, rase it, even to the foundation thereof," Ps 137, 7.
Such hatred is not human but satanic. For all human hatred becomes
mellow in time; at all events, it will cease after it has avenged our
injury and gratified its passion. But the hatred of these Pharisees
assumes constantly larger dimensions, especially since it is smoothed
over by a show of piety.

144. Cain, therefore, is the father of all those murderers who
slaughter the saints, and whose wrath knows no end so long as there
remains one of them, as is proved in the case of Christ himself. As
for Cain, there is no doubt of his having hoped that by putting Abel
to death he should keep the honor of his birthright. Thus, the ungodly
always think that their cruelty will profit them in some way. But when
they find that their hope is vain they fall into despair.

145. Now, when the fact of this shameful murder was made known to the
parents, what do we think must have been the sad scenes resulting?
What lamentations? What sighs and groans? But I dwell not on these
things; they are for the man with the gifts of eloquence and
imagination to describe. It was certainly a marvel that both parents
were not struck lifeless with grief. The calamity was rendered the
greater by the fact that their first-born, who had aroused so large
hopes concerning himself, was the perpetrator of this horrible murder.

146. If, th