Philo's allegorical treatise reading Genesis 4's Cain and Abel, and the Exodus/Leviticus laws of firstborn and firstfruits offerings, as a psychology of the soul choosing virtue over vice.
On the Birth of Abel (often shortened to Sacrifices) is one of Philo of Alexandria's allegorical commentaries on Genesis, built around the terse note that Eve "went on to bear his brother Abel" (Gen. 4:2). Philo treats Cain and Abel not primarily as historical brothers but as two rival "opinions" contending within a single soul: Cain, whose name he glosses as "possession," stands for the self-loving doctrine that the mind is the ruling principle of everything; Abel, "one who refers back to God," stands for the God-loving doctrine. From there Philo works outward through a chain of Mosaic texts -- Jacob and Esau, Rebecca's oracle, the laws of the firstborn and the firstfruits offering, the exchange of a donkey for a sheep, the consecration of the Levites -- treating each as further encoding of the same inner contest.
A long central set-piece imagines Pleasure and Virtue as two women vying for the soul, each delivering an extended speech: Pleasure catalogues sensory delights and promises ease, while Virtue counters that toil is the necessary root of every genuine good, comparing it to the light without which neither eye nor color can produce sight. Philo then turns to the specific complaint against Cain's offering in Genesis 4:3 -- that he gave "after some days" and "from the fruits" rather than the firstfruits -- reading the delay as ingratitude and forgetfulness of God, and the failure to give first things as preferring creation to the Creator. He works through the Levitical formula for firstfruits (new, parched, crushed, ground grain) as stages of the soul's education, and through the Exodus and Numbers laws about redeeming the firstborn of unclean animals and consecrating the Levites in place of Israel's firstborn sons.
The treatise matters as a sustained example of Philo's method: Mosaic law and narrative, read through Greek philosophical categories (mind versus passion, virtue attained through ponos/toil), yield a coherent inner ethics without abandoning the literal text as a starting point. It is also one of the fullest surviving ancient discussions of what firstfruits and sacrificial offerings were thought to symbolize psychologically rather than just ritually.
“The imprint of the first is Cain, called ‘possession,’ because he seems to possess everything; the imprint of the other is Abel”
— On the Birth of Abel (Sacrifices) · read this chapter →
“There are, my friend, treasuries of all human goods in my possession”
— On the Birth of Abel (Sacrifices) · read this chapter →
“For, to tell the truth, God has shown toil to be the beginning of every good thing”
— On the Birth of Abel (Sacrifices) · read this chapter →
“There are two charges against the self-lover: one, that it was 'after some days' and not immediately that he gave thanks to God; the other, that it was 'from the fruits' but not from the first fruits”
— On the Birth of Abel (Sacrifices) · read this chapter →
“the departure of vice brings about the entrance of virtue, just as, conversely, when the good withdraws, the evil that lies in wait comes in upon it.”
— On the Birth of Abel (Sacrifices) · read this chapter →
It is an allegorical commentary on Genesis 4:2-4, reading Cain and Abel as rival inner dispositions -- self-love versus love of God -- and then extending that reading through related Mosaic laws about firstborn animals, firstfruits offerings, and the Levites. Philo treats the biblical narrative and legal texts as an encoded psychology of the soul choosing between vice and virtue.
Philo says Cain is charged on two counts: he offered 'after some days,' showing delay and ingratitude rather than immediate thanksgiving, and he offered from ordinary 'fruits' rather than 'firstfruits,' showing that he ranked creation above the Creator. Both faults trace back to forgetting God as the true cause of one's good things.
They are personified rival speakers who each try to persuade the mind to join them. Pleasure promises ease, sensory delight, and treasuries of goods stored up for the taking; Virtue counters that toil is the necessary companion of every real good and refuses to conceal the hardship her way requires.
Drawing on Numbers 3:13, Philo allegorizes God's claim on Israel's firstborn, redeemed by consecrating the Levites in their place, as the wise or governing part of the soul acting as a ransom that frees the rest of the self from destructive mastery.
Philo etymologizes Cain's name as meaning 'possession' because Cain's outlook treats the mind as though it owns and controls everything by itself, in contrast to Abel, whose name Philo glosses as 'one who refers back to God,' acknowledging God as the true source of all things.
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