ABELE (ebr. Hébel; greco dei Settanta Ἀβελ). - 1. IN SACRED SCRIPTURE. - Second son of Adam, whose name is interpreted by the rabbis as "breath," with an allusion to his ephemeral life, while the word recalls the Sumerian ibila, reproduced in the Assyrian aphu, ablu (son, heir).
While the firstborn Cain (v.) devoted himself to agriculture, A. tended his flock. At the close of a certain time, perhaps at the end of the year, both offered the firstfruits to God; but the Lord rejected Cain's offering and expressed satisfaction with the sacrifice (holocaust or, rather, offering of the fat parts of chosen heads: Gen. 4:4; cf. Num. 18:27; Lev. 3:3) of A., perhaps causing fire to fall from heaven, according to the interpretation of Theodotion (ἐνετύριεν). The reason for the divine satisfaction was the inner religiosity of the sacrificer, sustained (Heb. 11:4) by a living faith. Cain, having become angry, killed his brother, who was later replaced by Seth (Gen. 4:1-16). Sacred Scripture affirms that A. "being dead yet speaketh" (Heb., loc. cit.), his death being a type of the sacrifice of Christ, who calls him "just," and places him at the head of the martyrs who have suffered for the triumph of good (Mt. 23:31-35; cf. Heb. 12:24). A. is also remembered in the canon of the Mass, in which God is asked to "accept the new sacrifice as that of his just servant Abel." The blood of A. cries out from the ground to Yahweh (Gen. 4:10), from whom it demands vengeance (2 Macc. 8:3; Rev. 6:10).
Bibliography2 works
Faustino Salvoni
2. IN ARCHAEOLOGY
Unknown in cemetery painting, the offering of A. and Cain is represented in 14 funerary sculptures. Usually the two brothers present themselves with their gifts before God, represented with a beard, seated on a rock in the act of speaking. A.'s gift is always a lamb or a kid; Cain's, which is a bunch of grapes in the oldest example, soon becomes a sheaf of ears of grain (cf. Gen. 4:2). Exceptionally the deity is represented by Jesus, or by two or three persons. The scene probably figured among the mosaics of the dome of St. Constance in Rome. If, originally, funerary art seems to have seen in it the representation of the just man of the Old Testament, shortly after Constantine it interprets it as the prototype of the sacrifice on the cross. It does not appear that the other allegorical interpretations of the patristic age, according to which Judaism would represent Christianity, and A. the shepherd the Bonus Pastor, were reflected in ancient art. A. and Cain figure among the titles of Prudentius' Dittochaeum. The fratricide depicted in the miniatures of the Cotton Bible inaugurates the further development of this historical cycle.
Bibliography2 works
Luciano De Bruyne
3. IN RABBINIC LITERATURE
Rabbinic literature sees in A. and Cain the symbol of the rivalry between agriculture and pastoralism. A.'s corpse is guarded by a dog that drives away birds of prey (Pirqé R. Eliezer, 21). A raven covers the body of its dead mate with sand, and Adam decides to do the same with A.'s corpse. Pure birds and animals buried A. Therefore a blessing is pronounced at the moment when they are slaughtered. According to a tradition (Midraš Cant., ed. Schechter) collected by St. Jerome (In Ez. 27:18), the killing took place in the place where Damascus later arose (dam "blood," šaqah "to drink").
Bibliography4 works
Eugenio Zolli
4. IN ART
The story of A., which in the Vatican codex canus of Cosmas Indicopleustes (7th-8th century) appears as a Virgilian shepherd, offered to the artistic imagination, with the scenes of Cain and A. in the act of sacrifice and of the subsequent fratricide, a subject that informed countless works of art from the miniatures of the Ashburnham Pentateuch (7th century, Paris) to the paintings of Titian (Venice, S. Maria della Salute) and of Tintoretto (ibid., Galleria dell'Accademia). Both scenes are depicted at Hildesheim (bronze door, 1007-15), at Modena (façade of the Cathedral, 1106), at Schöngrabern (13th century). A more explicit illustration of the biblical narrative is given by the mosaics of St. Mark's in Venice, of the Palatine Chapel in Palermo and of the cathedral of Monreale (13th century), by the reliefs of Ghiberti on the eastern door of the Florentine Baptistery and those of Bellano in the basilica of the Santo in Padua (1484-88). With symbolic meaning, that is, as a prefiguration of the Eucharistic sacrifice, the sacrifice of A. is already found in three early Christian sarcophagi. In a mosaic of S. Vitale in Ravenna it is, with identical meaning, represented next to the sacrifice of Melchizedek. But in S. Apollinare in Classe (ibid., 7th century), in the sacramentary of Drogo (Paris, 9th century) and in the enamels of the portable altar of Eilbertus (Munich-Gladbach, 12th century) it is accompanied also by that of Abraham. - See Pl. IV.
Bibliography4 works
Kurt Rathe