Kebra Nagast

Concerning the Kingdom of Adam stirred me again and again to meditate upon the great- ness of kings. 3. And now I will begin." CONCERNING THE KINGDOM OF ADAM And I go up from Adam and I say, God is King in truth, for Him praise is meet, and He appointed under Him Adam to be king over all that He had created. And He drove him out of the Garden, because of his apostasy through the sin of the Serpent and the plotting of the Devil. And at that sorrowful moment Cain was born, and when Adam saw that the face of Cain was ill-tempered (or, sullen) and his appearance And then Abel was born, and when eyil he was sad. Adam saw that his appearance was good and his face " This is my son, the heir of good-tempered he said, my kingdom." CONCERNING ENVY And when they had grown up together, Satan had 4. envy of him, and he cast this envy into the heart of Cain, who was envious [of Abel] first, because of the " He words of his father Adam, who said, who hath the good-tempered face shall be the heir of my kingdom " and secondly, because of his sister with the beautiful face, who was born with him and who had been given unto Abel, even as God commanded them to multiply and fill the earth now the face of the sister who had been born with Abel resembled that of Cain, and their father had transferred them (i.e., the two sisters) when giving them [in marriage] and ; ; thirdly, because when the two [brothers] offered up sacrifice, God accepted the offering of Abel and rejected the offering of Cain. And because of this envy Cain killed Abel. Thus fratricide was first created through Satan's envy of the children of Adam. And having Cain fell into a state of trembling and horrible fright, and he was repulsed by his father and his Lord. And [then] Seth was born, and Adam killed his brother, A 2 1