when they were in the feild, that Cain rose up against Abel
his brother, and slew him. (Genesis, 4:8)
When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield
unto thee her strenght; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou
be in the earth. (Genesis, 4:12)
And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosoever slalyeth Cain,
vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a
mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him. (Genesis, 4:15)
The above quotes are from The Book of Genesis, chapter 4. They are part of the scene that describes Cain’s murder of his brother Abel. Because of Cain’s sin he was forced to walk the earth forever and he was marked by God so that no one would kill him. Cain killed Abel because God looked with favor upon Abel’s sacrifice over Cain’s. This made Cain resentful. God warned Cain not to be resentful. Cain murdered his own brother because he was jealous.
I believe that Cain did (Or maybe does…) bear a physical mark of his sin. I also believe that we all bear the “Mark of Cain” inside of us. It is that surge of anger, that jealous monster, the ugly-faced beast in our hearts that tells us to kill and harm our fellow man. Everybody has this, and we all have those feelings. This is the monster in ourselves. This is shown through Dorian in his killing of Basil, merely because his reaction to seeing the portrait angers Dorian. It shown in Meursault’s killing of the Arab, as opposed to turning around and leaving. In “Beowulf” Grendel is one of the descendents of Cain, and that is why he is an evil monster. As I said earlier, we all bear this mark and we all have monsters in ourselves.
Though mankind has this evil inside of us that will always be with us, I still believe that man in inherently good or at least inherently not evil. If were inherently we wouldn’t try to justify the evil we commit. Even serial killers and sadist have a reason or purpose when they kill. If humanity was truly evil, we would just harm each other and not care why. We would just act. Instead we must justify, at least to ourselves, why we aren’t evil. Dorian did what he did because he felt it was wrong to deprive yourself of experience and even though it may not make sense to us, it did to Dorian. Meursault killed the Arab because he pulled a knife. The only person who is truly evil will be the person who kill, steals, lies, and harms humanity with no reason to himself. It will be the person who sees himself as evil and does evil things because they are evil, this will be the antichrist. The rest of humanity isn’t evil, we are merely The Marked.
