Intermezzo II: Caines iawbone, that did the firſt murder (part I)

Note: The⁶ superscript⁶ numbers⁶ refer to footnotes, which were impossible to avoid this time. The footnotes are published on a separate page → https://telegra.ph/Footnotes-for-Intermezzo-II-10-09

The work on the yet unpublished chapters of Abigor Totschläger album survey unexpectedly stumbled upon a vast topic important for a better understanding of the album artwork. A responsible reader does remember the reference to a review by Colonel Para Bellum; let us quote it once again:

Although the official press release mentions Cain, this persona is most likely a kind of composite character, and at least the jaw in his hand (according to a cunning design idea, it migrated to the backside of the release) refers to the biblical story of Samson: “He [Samson] found the fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached out his hand and took it, and struck down a thousand men [the Philistines]” (Judges 15:15).

A few days after the first chapter of the survey was published, I received an e-mail from Kostas Spr, in which he wrote:

…the jawbone part […] is very interesting. Not only that it points to the Bible verses quoted in your review, but a jawbone is a predecessor of a sickle, which is of a scythe. Thus personification of death. And that would not be far off from the “composite persona”. I think TT said on more than one occasion the Devil has thousand faces. A line from LL: “Protean king of thousand faces and forms”.

There’s more. On the left side of the gatefold we got a sword with “Orkblut (Sieg oder Tod)” lyric fragment. In Kenneth Grant’s Aleister Crowley and The Hidden God, he writes: “Considered as a weapon of war, aggressive and offensive, the sword usually has a masculine connotation. […] The earliest form of a sword or scimitar was in the shape of a sickle which cleaves, divides or cuts into two.”

Now, Grant more often than not goes into far fetched trails, but from one of Bardo [Methodology] interviews we know TT is familiar with Grant’s material.

In an e-mail which followed shortly Kostas spoke in a tone which could be read as a very confident one:

Cain, according to Genesis was a farmer and the first murderer. His murder weapon—a jawbone. As this is the first archetypal murder, it’s the spring of murder as a possibility in our existence. As bloodshed is now an implication that needs to be accepted as fact, the jawbone-sickle, initially used for harvesting, deviates from its initial purpose and on the radical spectrum becomes a weapon exclusively—a sword. Also a scythe, by which we make the connection to death personified.

Jawbone→Sickle→Scythe→Sword

It is indeed no secret, that Genesis 4:8 has no recollection of the first murder weapon. If the info in wiki is correct, then Pentateuchus Turonensis (aka Biblia Pentateuchus aka Pentateuque dit d’Ashburnham ou de Tours) is the oldest surviving Biblia Vulgata manuscript to contain the Book of Genesis. Following is the verse from it, which says nothing about the murder weapon. With the help of Codex Amiatinus — the earliest surviving complete manuscript of the Vulgate — and the Nova Vulgata, we decipher what it says:

Dixitque Cain ad Abel fratrem suum: “Egrediamur foras”. Cumque essent in agro, consurrexit Cain adversus Abel fratrem suum et interfecit eum. (And Cain said to Abel his brother: Let us go forth abroad. And when they were in the field, Cain rose up against Abel, and slew his brother.)

And thus Kostas’s confident tone was apt to provoke scepticism, making it unavoidable to look for more sources necessary to clarify the matter, and to put an end to any empty guessing. (“It is apparent that there is no doctrinal force in making the instrument of Abel’s death the jaw-bone of an ass. The church fathers have little or nothing to say about the instrument, though later commentators sometimes refer to it as a stone or club” — Bonnell, and “no Jewish or Christian commentary ever does transfer Samson’s jaw-bone to Cain.” — Henderson; both explained later.) I wholeheartedly thank Kostas Spr for the journey his messages provoked me to take.

Among numerous sources studied in order to speak of the jawbone in Cain’s hand, the following six were of utter importance, namely:

Kuhl and Bonnell “Cain’s jaw bone”¹, Schapiro “Cain’s jaw-bone that did the first murder”², Scheiber “Kájin és Ábel áldozati füstjéről szóló legenda életrajza”³, Henderson “Cain’s jaw-bone”⁴, Barb “Cain’s murder-weapon and Samson’s jawbone of an ass”⁵ and Guilfoyle “The staging of the first murder in the mystery plays in England.”⁶

Everyone who makes an effort to study these articles will be able to support a substantiated talk on the matter. What you may find in them — and will not find in my text — is the sequence of theories of how the jawbone appeared in Cain’s hand. Also, despite the accent in Kostas’s e-mail was the Jawbone→Sickle→Scythe→Sword transition, I concluded that my focus will be the “Cain’s jawbone of an ass” in art and text, while the archaeological findings and historical transitions are well-presented in Barb⁵ and I won’t do it better.

Barb also finds connections between the jawbone-sickle-weapon imagery and various mythology, which may appear quite interesting for some readers, but he as well hints to the theory that the Northern sword was developed in a different way from the Eastern scimitar.

Shakspeariana

The academic research of Cain’s jawbone seems to have started with Bonnell¹. Being a reader of (and a contributor to?) the Notes and Queries, he was perplexuously inspired by a note in the Shakspeariana section in the August 21, 1880 issue⁸ — the one by Professor Walter William Skeat:

A week later Notes and Queries published the following response to it:

“As if it were Cain’s jaw-bone,” “Hamlet,” V. i. (6th S. ii. 143).—The tradition that Cain slew his brother Abel with the jaw-bone of an ass is of very early date. I have a Bible printed by Day and Serres, in 1549, with spirited woodcuts: that representing the killing of Abel is one of the best, and shows plainly that what Cain is about to strike with is a jaw-bone with teeth in it. The same cuts are in the earlier Bible of Coverdale, I believe. I have seen such representations of still earlier date, but cannot give particulars, as there are no old books here to refer to but my own. These Bibles with woodcuts, so rare and costly now, were plentiful enough in Shakespere’s days, and no doubt his eyes had often lingered over this very vigorous and striking representation.

R. R., Boston, Lincolnshire¹⁰

Note: “Day and Serres” are the misspelt names of [John] Daye and [William] Seres. The attempts to find a digital copy of the Bible printed by them in 1549 led nowhere. But if R. R.’s assumption about the Coverdale Bible (1535) was right, then we may have a look at the woodcut from it. This woodcut by Sebald Beham was, most probably, sort of mass-produced in Nürnberg and offered to the Bible publishers all around and thus can be found in several sources.

Perhaps, Bonnell also saw two other responses in Notes and Queries, the first¹¹ referring to Caxton’s The Game and Playe of the Chesse and the second¹² to Cursor Mundi. (Both quoted in the footnotes, and explained in detail further here.)

Why go into detail? — To illustrate how the exchange of information about the “jaw-bone of an ass” image started as a part of the research in the West, specifically from a written communication in Notes and Queries in the end of the nineteenth century. John Kester Bonnell, as a reader of the periodical, noticed it, and compiled his article which he was about to read before the Modern Language Association in December 1921, but passed away two months earlier. Fortunately his manuscript was discovered by Ernest Peter Kuhl and, in accordance with Mrs. Bonnell’s desire, it was published, after which did inspire further research.

Thus we go on.

Bonnell begins his article quoting Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Act V, scene 1. Later Shapiro does it the same way, so it makes sense to follow their example. The exact lines are absent in the First Quarto, but appear in Second Q., as well as in the First Folio:

(note: the letter ſ {the long s} reads as s)

That skull had a tongue in it, and could ſing once, how the knaue iowles it to the ground, as if twere Caines iawbone, that did the firſt murder, this might be the pate of a pollitician, which this aſſe now ore-reaches; one that would circumuent God, might it not? — Second Quarto, 1604–05¹³

That skull had a tongue in it, and could ſing once, how the knaue iowles it to the ground, as if twere Caines iaw-bone, that did the firſt murder: this might be ey pate of a polliticiã, which this Aſſe now ore-reaches. one that would circumuent God, might it not? — Third Quarto, 1611¹⁴

That Scull had a tongue in it, and could ſing once: how the knaue iowles it to th’ grownd, as if it were Caines Iaw-bone, that did the firſt murther: It might be the Pateof a Polititian which this Aſſe o’re Offices:one that could circumuent God, might it not ? — First Folio, 1623¹⁵

It has been established throughout the Western research that the jawbone in Cain’s hand, both literary and visual, derives from the English vernacular tradition (“early medieval Hiberno-Saxon Insular art”, Barb). The authors of aforementioned articles agree about that and have full confidence in it. Barb traces the origins further, to where the jawbone idea arrived in England from. In my turn, I conclude to focus primarily on the English origins of the image, from their supposed conception, up to approximately the year 1600.

But before fixing the focus on England, let me say a word about the Hebrew tradition.

The Hebrew tradition

Professor Oliver F. Emerson writing of “the instrument which Cain used in murdering his brother” in his Legends of Cain¹⁶ not only provides a list of the earliest written sources in which the jawbone is mentioned (all of them of the English origin), but expresses his confidence that the stone, as the murder weapon, is of the Hebrew tradition.¹⁷ He stands upon one reputable source (enough for me) — Louis Ginzberg, a rabbi and a Talmudic scholar, who writes:

Das Mordinstrument, womit Kain seinen Bruder tödtete, war nach einer alten Haggada ein Stein; so das Buch der Jubiläen [Kap. IV]: denn mit einem Stein hatte er den Abel getödtet. Auch im Midrasch wird diese Ansicht von den Meisten getheilt: ורבנן אמרי באבן הרגו שנ׳ […] הרגתי לפצעי דבר […] עושה פצעים (Genesis Rabbah 22. 4) „Die Gelehrten sagen: Er hat ihn mit einem Steine getödtet, w.e.h.: Und einen Mann zu meiner Beule, d.i. ein Ding, welches Beulen macht“. Nach einem anderen Midrasch war der Tod Abels sehr qualvoll: עשה לו פציעות פציעות חבורות חבורות באבן בידו [בידיו] וברגליו (Tanch. Bereschith 7 b).¹⁸

Without knowledge of the Hebrew script, nor of the mentioned sources, I have to take a closer look at the text.

The Book of Jubilees, according to Britannica, is “preserved in its entirety only in an Ethiopic translation”, and according to Wikipedia, is “considered canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church as well as Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews).” Hence, I search for the English translation of it, and find it done by R. H. Charles, and there I discover those words: “…for with a stone he had killed Abel…”¹⁹

The indication of the verse 22:4 in Genesis Rabbah is maybe a misprint, because it can be discovered as actual verse 22:8 in the English translation by Freedman and Simon.²⁰

It was a struggle to identify what “Tanch. Bereschith 7 b” meant. Either again a misprint, or an editorial change in the 123 years since the publication of Ginzberg’s text, but today this excerpt is to be discovered as Midrash Tanchuma, Bereshit 9 (not 7!). Here’s how it looks with punctuation:

וְהֵיאַךְ הֲרָגוֹ? עָשָׂה לוֹ פְּצִיעוֹת פְּצִיעוֹת, חַבּוּרוֹת חַבּוּרוֹת בָּאֶבֶן בְּיָדָיו וּבְרַגְלָיו, שֶׁלֹּא הָיָה יוֹדֵעַ מֵהֵיכָן נִשְׁמָתוֹ יוֹצֵאת עַד שֶׁהִגִּיעַ לְצַוָּארוֹ.

Now, let’s assemble a possible elaborated translation of the paragraph from Ginzberg:

The instrument with which Cain murdered his brother was a stone. Thus is according to an old Haggadah, and to the Book of Jubilees, too, which in 4:31 says “…for with a stone he had killed Abel…”

This view is generally shared in the Midrash as well. The Rabbis said “He killed him with a stone: ‘For I have slain a man for wounding me’ indicates a weapon which inflicts wounds.” (Genesis Rabbah 22:8)

According to another Midrash, the death of Abel was very gruesome: “How did he kill him? He inflicted numerous bruises upon his body with a stone. He smote him over his entire body, from his hands and feet to his throat, for he had no way of knowing from where his soul would depart.” (Midrash Tanchuma, Bereshit 9)

To strengthen his and our confidence, Emerson refers to the Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan, which wikipedia calls a “Christian extracanonical work found in Geez {liturgical language of the Ethiopian church}, translated from an Arabic original.” Due to the guidelines of a scientific article Emerson quotes only a few sentences, but I cannot refuse the reader the joy to read more from its fantastic text here quoted as in S. C. Malan²¹:

As to Cain, he was so sullen and so angry that he went into the field, where Satan came to him and said to him, “Since thy brother Abel has taken refuge with thy father Adam, because thou didst thrust him from the altar, they have kissed his face, and they rejoice over him, far more than over thee.”
    When Cain heard these words of Satan, he was filled with rage; and he let no one know. But he was laying wait to kill his brother, until he brought him into the cave, and then said to him:—
    “O brother, the country is so beautiful, and there are such beautiful and pleasurable trees in it, and charming to look at! But brother, thou hast never been one day in the field to take thy pleasure therein.
    “To-day, O, my brother, I very much wish thou wouldest come with me into the field, to enjoy thyself and to bless our fields and our flocks, for thou art righteous, and I love thee much, O, my brother! but thou hast estranged thyself from me.”
    Then Abel consented to go with his brother Cain into the field.
    But before going out, Cain said to Abel, “Wait for me, until I fetch a staff, because of wild beasts.”
    Then Abel stood [waiting] in his innocence. But Cain, the froward, fetched a staff and went out.
    And they began, Cain and his brother Abel, to walk in the way; Cain talking to him, and comforting him, to make him forget everything.

CHAPTER LXXIX.
Murder of Abel the Just, whom his brother, Cain the Infidel, did kill.

And so they went on, until they came to a lonely place, where there were no sheep; then Abel said to Cain, “Behold, my brother, we are weary of walking; for we see none of the trees, nor of the fruits, nor of the verdure, nor of the sheep, nor any one of the things of which thou didst tell me. Where are those sheep of thine thou didst tell me to bless?”
    Then Cain said to him, “Come on, and presently thou shalt see many beautiful things, but go before me, until I come up to thee.”
    Then went Abel forward, but Cain remained behind him.
    And Abel was walking in his innocence, without guile; not believing his brother would kill him.
    Then Cain, when he came up to him, comforted him with [his] talk, walking a little behind him; then he hastened, and smote him with the staff, blow upon blow, until he was stunned.
    But when Abel fell down upon the ground, seeing that his brother meant to kill him, he said to Cain, “O, my brother, have pity on me. By the breasts we have sucked, smite me not! By the womb that bare us and that brought us into the world, smite me not unto death with that staff! If thou wilt kill me, take one of these large stones, and kill me outright.”
    Then Cain, the hard-hearted, and cruel murderer, took a large stone, and smote his brother with it upon the head, until his brains oozed out, and he weltered in his blood, before him. And Cain repented not of what he had done.

Emerson concludes the “murder-weapon” narration with the following paragraphs:

The fathers are for some reason strangely silent as to the instrument of the murder, but later commentators generally made it a stone or a club. I need not quote, but many will be reminded of the pictures in the old family Bible.

For the legend that made the instrument used by Cain the jawbone of an ass, I find nothing beyond the references in English itself. (When reading part of this paper before the Philological Club of Western Reserve University, Prof. Borgerhoff informed me that, as a boy, he was taught this legend in a Belgian* Sunday School.) Dr. Ginzberg informs me that it is not Rabbinical in origin. I can suggest only that it may easily have come from some confusion with the story of Samson (Judges, 15, 16), but otherwise know of no explanation at present.

(* The reason for this will soon become clear to the attentive reader soon.)

Thus, we here agree and conclude that the stone as the murder weapon derives from the Hebrew tradition.

Another source to read of the Hebrew tradition I found in Shapiro’s footnotes — a very good article by Aptowitzer²² where he added a Rohrstab (Germ. cane or stick) to the Hebrew tradition in the first murder weapon chapter, and explained that the Hebrew texts shall be understood either the way that Abel was a grown-up when he was killed with a stone, or that he was a boy when he was killed with a stick.

Continue reading → https://telegra.ph/Cains-jawbone-part-II-10-10