Slaughter, Fratricide and Sacrilege Cain and Abel Traditions 527 chapter”(4). This paper seeks to demonstrate how the author of 1 John 3 skillfully arranged his argument in a way that resonates with a number of facets of the Cain and Abel traditions. The contrast with Christ incorporates much more of the interpretive traditions associated with the Genesis 4 story and its later development than is sometimes appreciated. The way into this investigation is by examining unusual terminology that echoes some of these traditions. 1. Cain the Fratricide 1 John 3,15 states that everyone who hates his brother is an . This word is usually translated as ‘murderer’ or ‘manslayer’, anqrwpoktono" j v and is rarely used in classical Greek (5). Of the two times it appears in Euripides it is used to describe a peculiar type of murder. In the Cyclops (ln 127) ajnqrwpoktovno" describes how humans are eaten by the Cyclopes. In Iphigenia in Tauris (ln 386) ajnqrwpoktovno" is used in the context of human sacrifice. While the scarcity of the term in ancient literature signals the need for caution, the impression is that when it was used ajnqrwpoktovno" did not refer to murder in general, but to those acts of killing which were considered to be particularly repugnant including, but probably not limited to, the sacrifice and/or devouring of a human victim. In the NT, ajnqrwpoktovno" appears only twice, once each in John 8,44 and 1 John 3,15. In the Gospel Jesus uses it to label the devil as one who was a murderer from the beginning. In the Epistle there is no explicit connection between Cain and ajnqrwpoktovno" but the implications are understood. Cain hated and killed his brother and as the first murderer serves as the chief representative for all brother haters who are labeled an ajnqrwpoktovno". It is striking that both times the term is used in the NT there is a connection to the devil. In John 8,44 the devil is the father of the Jews and in 1 John 3,12 Cain is said to be from the evil one. Rather than tackle the more complicated questions surrounding the relationship between the Gospel and the Epistle, it seems more prudent to agree with Lieu and others that the similarities between the two documents are the result of being heirs to the same set of interpretive traditions (6). The depiction of Cain as the son of the devil was a well established tradition in Jewish and Christian literature and the tradition’s probable influence on the Gospel and 1 John can be acknowledged without rehearsing it in detail here (7). The use of ajnqrwpoktovno" by both the Gospel (4) LIEU, “What was from the Beginning”, 470. See also D. Muñoz León who suggests that the Cain and Abel story affects the structure of the entire letter and is reflective of the split in the Johannine community (“El derás sobre Caín y Abel en 1 Jn y la situación de la comunidad joánica”, EstBib 53 [1995] 213-238). (5) R. BROWN, The Epistles of John (ABC 30; Garden City, NY 1982) 447. (6) LIEU, “What was from the Beginning”, 476-477. R.B. EDWARDS, The Johannine Epistles (Sheffield 1996) 55; J. PAINTER, 1, 2, and 3 John (SP 18; Collegeville, MN 2002) 233. (7) J. DOCHHORN, “Mit Kain kam der Tod in die Welt: Zur Auslegung von SapSal 2,24 in 1 Clem 3, 4; 4, 1-7, mit einem Seitenblick auf Polykarp, Phil. 7,1 und Theophilus, Ad Autol. II, 29, 3-4”, ZNW 98 (2007) 105-159. KUGEL, Traditions of the Bible, 147, 157; LIEU, “What was from the Beginning”, 467-468. N.A. DAHL, “Der Erstgeborne Satans und der Vater des Teufels (Polk. 7 1 und Joh 8 44)”, Apophoreta. Festschrift für Ernst Haenchen (Berlin 1964) 70-84.