The main occupation of Cain's descendants becomes the creation of civilization: they build cities and develop crafts, trade, and art. So is it really necessary to commit fratricide first in order to create civilization? Can civilization be built only on blood, and does it itself require blood?

It is not quite that after all. Perhaps the question is why civilization is created. The answer would seem clear: to make life more comfortable and safer. At first glance, cities, the development of crafts, and the appearance of art all serve precisely these goals. If not for one small episode with Lamech, who boasts that he avenged the injury done to him in such a way that no one would ever again even think of daring anything like it. And here the reverse side of civilization shows through, the side soaked in blood.

It would seem Lamech was not the first to begin. He only struck back. But he struck with all his might, wildly, not in order to defend himself, but in order to kill, to destroy the enemy, to destroy him as an example to anyone who would dare attack. This is no longer self-defense, but vengeance: vengeance not only for himself, but also for Cain, who had had to humble himself and ask God for protection (for someone who, like Cain, considers God an enemy and a merciless judge, such a request cannot but be humiliating).

Self-assertion grounded in force and vengeance - this is the spiritual foundation of fallen civilization. It is no surprise that its history begins with fratricide. It is not hard to guess what its end can be.

How new the Revelation given by God through the Lord Jesus Christ was can be seen in the disciples' confusion, which we read about in today's Gospel passage. The Lord speaks of invisible things and uses analogies from everyday life. But His disciples, even while discussing His words, still think within the framework of human religiosity. They suppose that the Lord is reproaching them because they did not bring bread and, where they are sailing, they will have to resort to food that has passed through the hands of the Pharisees. In the same way, under Soviet rule one could not come to the military training department in jeans, because they were "the pants of the presumed enemy."

The Lord, however, is not speaking about ritual separation from someone, but about the way of thinking and acting of the Pharisees and Herod's supporters. In chapter 12, the evangelist Luke conveys His words this way: "beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." In essence, at this moment the disciples are demonstrating precisely what Christ is warning them against. The experience of the community of Christ's disciples tells us that this temptation of Pharisaism, characteristic of fallen human nature, is always near us. And when we read this account today, it is useful to think not about how slow-witted the disciples turned out to be, but about how much of this kind of confusion there is in our own life.

The fact that an entire civilization is built on the line of Cain says that the human race is poisoned from the beginning. The sacred writer shows how the terrible machine of evil gathers speed. The words, "if Cain is avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy times seven," mean precisely this. And Lamech's words, "I killed a man for wounding me," mean that the murder was committed in revenge for some evil done to him, Lamech. But in fact, is this not what we see throughout all of human history? As soon as a person gets some new technical achievement into his hands, the forces of evil soon take hold of it. This process is best described by the expression "arms race," which sounded out in the terrible twentieth century: that is the kind of arms race that has run throughout all human history.

But Seth was given in place of Abel: for wicked Cain, revenge, evil, and new deaths; for good Abel, a new birth, a new human being. This fact serves as an answer to superficial judgments that the Old Testament allegedly permits or even glorifies revenge: if that were so, revenge for Abel would have been glorified. But no, the birth of Seth is glorified for Abel.