How John Owen and Augustine Differed in Their Understanding of Cain and Abel

City of Man, City of God

Augustine’s City of God, written between 412 and 427, is his longest work and one of his most influential treatises.¹ Its composition was inspired mainly by the Goths’ sack of Rome in 410. Since it was largely assumed that the health of the political state reflected the health of its citizens, many of Augustine’s contemporaries wondered if Rome’s vulnerability and destruction also indicated Christianity’s vulnerability and soon-coming demise. Further, pagan critics accused Christianity of being the cause of Rome’s destruction, especially the loss of her prosperity and power.² In his response to these concerns, Augustine distinguished between the “city of God” (Ps. 87:3) and the “earthly city” (or, as it is often said, the “city of man”) not as two geographical cities but as two groups of people (i.e., citizens) defined by their ultimate loves.³ The city of man is oriented toward self-love, while the city of God is oriented toward the love of God as the ultimate goal of human life.⁴ These two cities are founded among humans by the first two brothers, Cain and Abel.⁵

Cain as the Founder of the City of Man

These two cities are characterized according to their two loves. The “love of self, even to the point of contempt for God, made the earthly city, and love of God, even to the point of contempt for self, made the heavenly city.”⁶ Those in the earthly city seek their own glory through their own strength to dominate others, while those in the city of God seek God’s glory (Ps. 3:3) according to God’s strength (Ps. 18:1) to serve others.⁷ The city of man is built by Cain, who, in the story of Genesis 4, kills his brother Abel, receives the punishment and mark from God, and then “buil[ds] a city” (Gen. 4:17) in which he “rests content with its temporal peace and temporal happiness.”⁸ Cain’s city is contrasted with the generations of Seth as citizens of the city of God and sojourners on earth.⁹ “Abel, as a pilgrim,” stands in sharp contrast to Cain’s city building in this world. This is because the “city of the saints is on high.”¹⁰ It is only when “they rise again in their bodies” that they will receive “the promised kingdom,” where “they shall reign for time without end” “with their prince, the king of the ages (1 Tim. 1:17).”¹¹ The city that Cain builds seeks temporal rest and temporal peace and is named after his son Enoch (meaning “dedicated”) because this city is dedicated to the temporal world (Augustine cited Ps. 49:11). Yet Seth, whose name means “resurrection,” has a son named Enosh, whose name means “man or human person,” indicating, if we put the names together, that his descendants are designed to be a “resurrection people.”¹²

Cain as the Founder of the Persecuting Church

Rather than viewing Cain as the founder of the city of man in opposition to the church, Owen considered Cain as the founder of a “false church” (or a second church) within the visible church in persecution of the true church.¹³ Owen based this interpretation, in part, on the biblical context wherein we meet Cain and Abel: a worship service. The two come together as brothers in the worship of God, yet Cain persecutes his righteous brother. So, Owen said, Genesis presents Cain and Abel to us “to give an example of the two churches, the suffering and the persecuting, to the end of the world.”¹⁴

Before Cain’s “defection,” Adam and Eve’s family constituted the entire church of God and the entire human race.¹⁵ This is instructive for us today insofar as in the story of Cain and Abel, “we have the prototype,” or “the pattern and example,” of the two churches “in all ages.”¹⁶ They differ in their distinct “inward . . . principles”—one is empowered by the Spirit, and the other is under the power of sin.¹⁷ While Abel attended “unto the mind of God and conduct of faith, . . . Cain trusted unto the formality of the outward work, without much regard to either of them.”¹⁸ Cain’s punishment is likewise described in terms of church discipline—further evidencing that Cain is part of the church and is a type of others inside the church.¹⁹

Commenting on Hebrews 11:6—“Without faith it is impossible to please [God]”—Owen contrasted those who please God with those who attempt to do so without faith. Cain intended to please God, but he “did it not in faith. And this is the great difference always in the visible church.”²⁰ Those who follow in the steps of Cain are “contented with the outward performance of duties, . . . but when they find others professing that the sincerity of saving faith and that working in serious repentance . . . are necessary unto this pleasing of God, . . . they are full of wrath, and are ready even to slay their brethren.”²¹ The differences between Cain and Abel are seen today “between true believers and persecuting hypocrites.”²² The one pleads for grace “by faith, that is invisible”; the other trusts “unto their outward works”—for example, Owen named “the masses, purgatories, pilgrimages, vows, [and] disciplines . . . that constitute the Roman church.”²³

Owen called Abel the “proto martyr” (primus martyr), who falls “victim to treachery.”²⁴ Owen particularly praised Abel as a martyr without the public spectacle of his suffering. Although there is no human audience to witness this unjust persecution, Scripture records the speech of Abel’s blood (Gen. 4:10) as a “type of the future persecutions and sufferings of the church.”²⁵ Owen commented that this testimony “might be instructive unto faith and patience in suffering, as an example approved of God, and giving evidence unto future rewards and punishments.”²⁶ So while Abel is martyred without fanfare, God sees his faithful suffering. The persecuted church in every age can then be encouraged from the story of Abel to know that “God’s approbation is an abundant recompence for the loss of our lives.”²⁷ That is, Abel’s faithful worship ultimately costs him his life, but it is well worth it, considering that the ultimate result is God’s approval.

This article is adapted from Owen Among the Theologians: Conversations Across the Christian Tradition by Kelly M. Kapic and Ty Kieser.

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