Abel
historical figure · 6 works · 9 mentions · 13 anchored passages
He who had pleased God is slain, and that by a brother · blessed Abel
in the texts
Letters
Brother slain by Cain.
After the question of the Lord, "Where is Abel your brother?
Now in the things ventured by Cain the first sin is envy at the preference of Abel;
but nevertheless a man, and he has died, as Adam, as Abel, as Noah, as Abraham, as Moses, as any you might name of those who shared the same nature.
Stromata
Biblical figure cited as an example of faith through his sacrifice.
"By faith Abel offered a fuller sacrifice than Cain, through which he was witnessed to be just, God bearing witness over his gifts;
" And the Shepherd, having put the saying simply about those who have fallen asleep, knows certain just men among the nations and among the Jews, not only before the coming of the Lord, but also before the law, according to their pleasing of God, like Abel, like Noah, like any other just man.
Adversus Judaeos
Righteous younger son whose sacrifice God accepted; killed by his brother Cain; typifies the younger/Gentile people.
For the elder-born Cain offered to God gifts from the fruit of the earth, but the younger son Abel from the fruit of his sheep.
Therefore, since God instituted Adam neither circumcised nor keeping the Sabbath, he consequently also praised his offspring Abel, who offered him sacrifices, though uncircumcised and not keeping the Sabbath, accepting graciously what he offered in simplicity of heart, and rejecting the sacrifice of his brother Cain, who did not rightly divide what he offered.
In short, let them show, as we have already said before, that Adam kept the Sabbath, or that Abel, offering to God a holy victim, pleased him by the religion of the Sabbath, or that Enoch, translated, was a keeper of the Sabbath, or that Noah, the builder of the ark, observed the Sabbath on account of the immense flood, or that Abraham offered his son Isaac in observance of the Sabbath, or that Me …
Adversus Marcionem
The son of Adam whose sacrifice God regarded with favor, and whose blood cries out from the earth in the account of Cain's questioning.
As of Cain He inquires where his brother is — as though He had not already heard the blood of Abel crying out from the earth;
" For even if He had regard to the oblations of Abel, and smelled the holocausts of Noah with pleasure — what gladness is there either in the entrails of a wether or in the reek of burning victims?
Adversus Valentinianos
Son of Adam taken by the Valentinians as the type of the animal, middling nature.
the animal, deliberated to a middle hope, they set down to Abel;
Scorpiace
The first righteous man slain, killed by his own brother, described but not named directly (an allusion to Abel and Cain).
He who had pleased God is slain, and that by a brother.