CAIN, INK & BRONZE
Orlanda R. Brugnola
© 1997
What follows may be a strange wandering. A perhaps
rhizomatic excursion into two texts which seem to
become at times a third text.
The first text is the Genesis text of Cain's deed.
The second text is written not in ink but in bronze. It is
a text of the same narrative, but seen through Christian
eyes in about the year 1015. The third text which
emerges is the experience of this writer, dealing with
the first two texts, with the strange crystallizations of
this saturation.
The text in bronze is to be found in the form of great
doors, originally designed for the church of St.
Michael's monastery in Hildesheim, Lower Saxony.
The doors stand almost five meters high, each wing
divided into eight panels.
Starting at the top, the left wing carries the Genesis
narrative from the creation of Adam through the
accusation of Cain. The narrative of Atonement begins
at the bottom of the right wing with the Annunciation
and ends at the top with the Ascension. This
monumental work is credited to Bishop Bernward,
himself a skilled goldsmith. The panels constitute the
text of a sermon by Bernward, intricately constructed,
the details so inter-related as to give its message to
uneducated and educated viewers according to their
capacities. The elements of Bernward's sermon are
consistent with Romanesque understanding of
scripture. Contrasts are extensively used. For example
the panel in which Cain angrily raises his club is
opposite the panel in which Gabriel calmly holds a
cross-staff as he informs Mary of her blessedness. In
the second of three volumes on Bernward and his
works, Francis J. Tschan 1 gives a lengthy and elegant
analysis of Bernward's homily. My attempt here is not
to repeat Tschan but to enable other elements evoked
by the two texts to emerge and synthesize themselves
as they will.
The first infant to be suckled on this earth was the first
murderer, transgressor par excellence of his Father's
Law.
There is, on Bernward's door, a representation of this
event, of the poignant/pointed suckling of this first
child (of divine countenance, gotten from the Lord) 2
by an Eve who is lean and sad, the first mother of
sorrows, whose son (the first son of man) is to be the
first man of sorrows. On the other wing of the door, on
the corresponding panel are the Immaculate One and
her son (another Son of Man) who will be also a Man
of Sorrows, he who would become sin (for Cain's
sake?) The exile from Eden has taken its toll on Eve.
She eats meagerly despite Adam's toil. One
wonders if the milk she has for Cain can keep him
alive, whether the serpent's poison is in it, whether he
won't be colicky and howl in the wilderness of the
world which his earthly/earthy father seeks to tame. It
is the milk of thorns and thistles Cain drinks while his
counterpart on the other panel will drink the sweet
milk of heaven.
It begins with a suckling. The breast is pointed. The
child sucks as greedily as any child might. His other
hand grabs at the other breast in anticipation of
persisting want. His mother, sloe-eyed, stares ahead at
some moderate point from this insistance at her breast.
She is thinking, perhaps. Determined upon some
possibility whatever it might prove to be. She will be
three times the mother of life, and forever the mother
of death. She appears to ignore Cain and his
preoccupation. Across the way, the Immaculate
Mother (imagine!) looks with her son at the arriving
Magi, expecting, greeting, gracious.
Cain's mother is lean. Perhaps her milk lacks
something, a lack which spurs Cain to reach for the
other breast. She has a certain look. A hungry mother
has it. It is both dream and desperation. The exile of
the first of the world's hungry children from the breast
comes quickly.
Abel is born. A mere breath 3 takes the place of the
child gotten with the Lord. Not such an event as Cain
(the promised pain of womanhood in his birthing.)
Eve knows with Abel what to expect. He is in a way
less important in her experience of herself than was
Cain. And yet his own insistency in his time must be
compelling. A mother responds.
But Cain is already in exile. Doubly in exile as he will
later be triply in exile. Cain turns to the larger body of
the earth, forgoing the body of his mother. His father
Adam has long been trying to understand this matter.
He who had no fleshly mother makes Woman mother,
tries to make Earth reveal her motherhood, an endless
task. Wordlessly Cain follows his father's vain attempt
to eradicate the traces of the Fall with his ceaseless
furrowing.
Cain scratches the ground as he scratched Eve's breast.
He scatters seed, a manly act, after his father Adam.
He tends. The seed springs up. The harvest is mixed.
The land yields thorns and thistles, the promise of the
offended Lord. Eve's breast, the earth's breast are
usurped. By Abel. By thorns.
Cain perseveres. He learned early to reach for the
other breast. He brings such fruit as he has to the altar.
But Abel is there also. Abel the not-twice-exiled. Abel
the breath, the insignificant, the afterthought, who in
fact never left/was never exiled from the breast. Abel
who was never weaned but went to suckle with the
young of his flocks. Abel who would piously bring to
the Lord the bodies of his finest foster-brothers, the
kids and the lambs of his foster-mothers. It was Abel
who was in fact to shed first blood. Abel who pledged
bodies to the Lord. Abel who does not speak in the
whole of the text, being still so utterly his mother's,
being so utterly the suckling himself. The Lord shines
upon him. His offering of "fraternal" flesh is
acceptable. The Lord co-opts the mother's sway by
accepting the silent offering of flesh.
The Lord desires of him the very bodies of the
mothers' sons, the firstlings. Abel renders them
wordlessly, for he is his mother's still, does not belong
to his f/Father, has not spoken. He is not aware of
having bought his life/the Lord's pleasure with the
bodies of those who suckled with him in the fields.
And yet by offering them he offers himself, like to
them.
But Cain is another matter. Cain is apt for language,
can be manipulated by speech, will leave the verity of
his mother's ways for the less predictable ways of the
Lord.
He offers from the field of his tillage. Perhaps there
are thorns there, the thorns promised Adam. Perhaps
he offered in jealousy. We do not know. But the Lord
is clear. Abel yes, Cain, no. The Lord has chosen. We
do not know if He has chosen before. We do not know
if He rejects the offering of His heaven-countenanced
son for following the ways of his earth-bound father,
or if He intends that all creatures that suckle be
wounded.
Perhaps He has unfinished business with Woman who
sought His Law and rejected the constraints of it,
wanted to converse with the Lord with the Lord's own
vision. Perhaps Cain's thorns remind Him of the
occasion of His curse on Adam. Remind Him of the
thorns that will be won by His other son just about to
be born in the corresponding panel on the other wing
of the door. That other son would later offer both
Abel's and Cain's gifts in himself. Abel's gift of flesh
and blood, and Cain's substitute, the bread and the
wine of his harvesting.
Cain is furious. His own flame rises to consume the
offering of the Lord's displeasure. He does not speak.
He stares at the ground. Nor will he give his glance
permission to speak. The Lord persists, warning,
instigating, asks why, chides. If He is displeased,
surely Cain understands he has not done it right.
Surely he should know that. And if he remains willful
(and silent, downcast) surely sin will leap on him from
her crouch at the door. Her lust will seize him. She
will have his very flesh and blood as a wild beast of
prey would have it, as a woman would have a man.4
Cain is silent, will not yield to the Lord his voice, his
words, his glance. He is indeed at a threshold. The
beast waits at the doorway for him. He cannot go back
into wordlessness. The Lord has already spoken to
him and his non-answer was answer.
Already his downcast glance is acknowledgement of
language, of the Lord's words, of his own
understanding of those words and refusal of them, of
his own capacity to answer in words if he had so
chosen. He cannot go forward except into language,
except into a denial of his awareness of his deep
connection to the breast against which he has taken up
the manly plow, furrowing where sustenance is not
freely given. He cannot go forward without speaking,
without repression, without becoming subject to the
Law of the Father. He cannot stand timelessly in the
doorway, for it is a doorway in the house of exile and
cannot stand but for the instant. And Cain steps and it
begins.
Cain tries to avert the consequences by speaking not to
the Lord, vertically, but by directing his words to
Abel, horizontally. But this is as much disaster as
horizontal speech was for Eve and the serpent.5 We
do not know Cain's words to Abel. They went into the
field. Away. Cain spoke. Sin leaps, lusts. Does Cain
lust? After his mother's breast? After the fruitfulness
of his mother's, of Earth's, body? After his own sweet
silent brother in the way that boys long to show and to
touch? And if so, then Cain's seductiveness is not
unmixed for he would get pleasure and also deflower
his brother's innocence, saying surely Abel must
remember the animals of his flocks in their fleshly
bounty. I'm not angry at you, he might say, not quite
lying.
And also then he has once again his mother through
his mother's son and he has also his Father through his
Father's favored son. And so, warned or incited, out
of revenge or out of lust which has its own revenge, or
because it is so that brothers walk in fields together, at
first with no intent but in that space and silence
discover their troubles with one another, they walk,
Cain and Abel, in the field. Scripture is silent, does not
know, or will not tell us what was said. Perhaps Cain
spoke to Abel the first poem.
Perhaps nothing in fact was said and so the Lord has
no jurisdiction. Perhaps that time belonged wholly
from beginning to end, to the body, an
incomprehensibility to the story teller. In the end it
belonged to the body. We know the end of it.
Cain rose up and slew Abel his brother. The text tells
us. The door panel shows Abel tumbling through the
air to the earth, Cain's club still raised, his cloak
flying, the plants reeling away from the violence. But
the text tells us of no club, gives no details. We do not
know if Cain knew what would happen when he
struck, despite his knowledge of Abel's offering and
its implication.
It begins with a blow. Cain's blow will be repeated in
the building of cities, his intention repeated wherever
human aspiration is lifted against the material (even
when the hand of Jesus with its little scourge is lifted
against the moneychangers in the Temple), 6 wherever
material is fashioned to fit a prior notion of what
might be (Abel might never have been born),
wherever the smith is at work (the Christ will appear
as Smith in the vision of St. Elgius). 7 The blow of the
hammer or the sword will be forbidden in the making
of altars. 8 Cain's offering of blows renders
unholiness. The unheard sound of that first blow
resonates, makes to tremble, is the beginning of the
dialogue with Death.
It begins with a blow. A blow which we do not read
but suppose. It (begins) in the middle, with a blow but
unseen and untold. Even the Lord does not seem to
see it. But it will be told, told by blood. Abel's blood
will cry it to the Lord. We might suppose Cain would
hear the clamor rising through the earth. His brother's
blood, the cries, will hound him from city-building to
city-building, Cain ever trying to cover the insistent
noise and accusation with stones piled to great height.
The Lord asks now. Where is Abel? Where is Cain's
brother? A trap? Surely the Lord knows very well
what transpired. The Lord could accuse and judge and
punish Cain without this question. What does the Lord
want? An admission of guilt? A denial of guilt? A
word? A word. Cain will not be able to resist
speaking. He answers, but with a lie, still perhaps
hoping to avoid the snare of language. But the lie is
already a repression. He has been caught finally. He
senses it instantly. He adds another question. He will
at least make the Lord answer him. Am I my brother's
keeper? The Lord parries, does not answer Cain's
question, asks another one, one to which He expects
no answer, a rhetorical question. What have you done?
And then brings forth His witness. The voice of Cain's
brother's blood cries to Him from the ground. His
brother's blood. A formulation which would
encourage forever the definition and redefinition of
kinship.
And now Cain is to be cursed, cursed from the earth
which opened her mouth to receive his brother's blood
from his hand. The earth will no longer yield its
strength to Cain, till as he might. Not thorns, nor
thistles, nothing of importance.
But he shall be a wanderer, a vagabond, an errant upon
the earth. An errant out of error, wrath, wound, fault,
mis-take, sin. 9 An errant from the straight furrow, a
strayer into violence. Homeless, thrown up and thrown
out on the earth, as legend tells his brother's body was
uncovered by the earth in witness to his deed. 10 Cain
speaks then. Speaks directly. His sin is more than he
can bear. Is it too great to be borne? Is it too great for
the Lord to bear? This moment of terrible ambiguity,
of suffering is that prior moment which must precede
any Here I am. The artist makes the statement, asks
the two questions over and over, at first overwhelmed
then incredulous then arrogant. The triple image of the
sinner, and of the artist.
The panel portrays the deed and the accusation in one
scene. Cain appears twice, sinner and accused by the
nimbused finger of the Lord. Cain hides his guilty
hand, his club, under his cloak. He stares into the
Lord's accusation. His face tells it all. Almost childlike
in its defiant, terrified bereftness. The most
compelling of visages. Not a monster, ugly, repulsive,
but the viewer's own face stares up at the Lord.
Bernward's face, perhaps? Perhaps the Bishop himself
did this panel with his goldsmith's skills. It is
impossible to distance oneself from this face, to call it
purely other, not self.
Across the way on the other wing of the door, the
angel is making annunciation to the Virgin. Already
imultaneously with the crime and the accusation,
preparation is underway for atonement, for
redemption.
Cain is driven out from the face of the earth, he will be
hidden from the face of the Lord. He will be invisible
to the Lord, a prisoner of the word which will never
see him or reach him. At the same time anyone who
finds/reaches him will slay him. Not a word but a
blow. Abject, Cain is slipping out of language and yet
cannot.
The problem is strange, impossible. The Lord kills
Cain? Others kill Cain? Cains kills. And will kill.
And will kill.
Vengeance on anyone who might slay Cain.
Sevenfold vengeance for the blow to the invisible one.
Who will witness to such a thing? Cain must be made
visible. A mark is set upon Cain. A sign. A protection.
A warning. Woe to those who would slay the son of
man!
The mark is a blemish. Perhaps it is a prior blemish.
A mark already there, suddenly made intensely
visible. Levitical injunction knows this, prohibits the
blemished from offering the bread of God. 11 The
blemish can be lameness (like that of mythic smiths,
like that of Jesus in the Talmud). 12 The mark can be
something superfluous, a raised mole, a spot on the
forehead (like the itinerant smiths of the ancient
world, like that of the Christ in Augustine. 13 The
mark is perhaps the first anointing. Cain shall have
dominion over adversity in his wandering.
Inscribed, he will inscribe himself and the rawness of
his temper in cities. He will inscribe the lives of
people in the texts of cities.
The second Son of Man will be inscribed by the nails
of the cross, inscribing the righteousness of his temper
in the heavenly Jerusalem, inscribing the lives of
people in the texts of holiness.
Each is strangely marked, anointed, sovereign, alone,
neither finds resting place in the earth. Each has felt
abandonment by the Lord.
Cain will go from the presence of the Lord into his
wandering, into Nod, there to have a wife, to sire a
son, to build a city, to name the city after his son. His
descendants will be herders (to replace the loss of
Abel's enterprise), and musicians and most especially
smiths, craftsmen in bronze and in iron. Cain's mother
will eventually bear Seth as a replacement for Abel,
the slain one. Cain's death is not told. As far as the text
is concerned he continues to dwell in the land of
wandering. The city and its people will come to be the
focus of the Lord's wrath, directly and indirectly
throughout scripture. It will be wept over and longed
for as though it promised an end to exile.
With the banishment, the door comes to the end of
Cain's story or to the beginning of our hope with the
Annunciation. The right wing will take us through the
passion of Christ. The final panel at the top right
depicting the Ascension corresponds to the first panel
of the Genesis narrative, God raising up Adam from
the dust. The cycle is complete.
The great genius of Bernward gave the viewer the face
of Cain as a mirror, a mirror with which to find the
source of evil in the self, the only place where it can
be grappled with in any hope of honesty or chance of
success.
The story of Cain is endlessly rich. This paper has
been but one facet of the text(s). Other facets may
bring Abel's perspective forward. The contemporary
Hebrew poet, Don Pagis, a Holocaust survivor, has
given voice to such a perspective. Some of his poems
are appended.
WORKS CITED
Brueggeman,Walter, Genesis: Interpretation, (Atlanta: John
Knox Press, 1982)
Eliot, Alexander, ed., Myths, (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976)
Graves, Robert, The White Goddess, (New York: Farrar, Straus,
and Giroux, 1966)
Jung, Leo, Fallen Angels in Jewish, Christian and
Mohammedan Literature, (New York: ktav, 1974)
Neher, Andre, The Exile of the Word, (New York: Jewish
Publication Society, 1981)
Platt, Rutherford H., ed., The Lost Books of the Bible and the
Forgotten Books of Eden, (Cleveland: Collins World, 1977)
Przywara, Erich, An Augustine Synthesis, (London: Sheed &
Ward, Ltd., 1945)
Taylor, Mark, Erring, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1984)
Tschan, Francis J., Saint Bernward of Hildesheim, (Indiana:
Notre Dame, 1951)
1
2
Francis J. Tschan, Saint Bernward of Hildesheim, (Indiana: Notre Dame, 1951)
Zohar Gen.4:1 and elsewhere, quoted by Leo Jung, Fallen Angels in Jewish,
Christian and Mohammedan Literature) (New York: ktav, 1974), 78]
3
Heb. hevel, see Ps.144:4, Job 7:16
4
5
6
Walter Brueggeman, Genesis: Interpretation, (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1982), 56]
Andre Neher, @U(The Exile of the Word), (New York: Jewish Publication Society, 1981), 95]
John 2:15
7
Depicted in a Danish fresco, ca. 1300, Jutland, now in the National Museum, Copenhagen. Alexander Eliot, ed.,
@U(Myths), (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1976), 126]
8
9
Deut. 27:5-6]
Mark Taylor, @U(Erring), (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 11f.]
10
Rutherford H. Platt, ed., @U(The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden), (Cleveland: Collins World,
1977), 58]
11
Lev. 21:18-21.]
See the discussion in Robert Graves, @U(The White Goddess), (New York: Farrar, Straus and
Giroux, 1966), 334f]
13
Erich Przywara, @U(An Augustine Synthesis), (London: Sheed & Ward, Ltd., 1945), 288]
12