Cain

Role: son of Adam and Eve · First appears: The Birth Of Cain

Cain was born to Eve from her union with Satan, and was the eldest son of Adam. Eve gave birth to him as a radiant figure, and Adam took him with Eve to their home in the east. Cain and Abel each had a twin sister destined to be his wife; Cain desired Abel’s twin sister, and hostility grew between the brothers.

On the fourteenth day of Nisan, God accepted Abel’s offering and rejected Cain’s. Cain’s face turned black, and one day he slew Abel, pelting him with stones. God cursed the ground so it would not yield fruit to Cain, then pardoned him and reduced his punishment, leaving him a fugitive rather than a perpetual wanderer. God marked him, gave him a dog for protection, and afflicted him with leprosy. When Cain told Adam that repentance had propitiated God, Adam praised its power.

After Abel’s murder, Cain was sent back to Erez, where its darkness and flames frightened him into repentance; God accepted his penitence and permitted him to ascend to Arka, which was surrendered to the Cainites as their perpetual domain. At the birth of his son Enoch, Cain founded a city and named it after him. The material gives two distinct accounts of Cain’s end: in one, Lamech (Cain's descendant) killed him while hunting, mistaking him for game; in another, Cain perished in the Flood.