על צאצאי קין י״דOn the Posterity of Cain and his Exile 14
א׳
1[49] The next thing for us to consider is why Cain, all alone as he is, appears in the narrative as founding and building a city; for a multitude of men needs a good-sized city to dwell in, whereas for the three that then existed some foot-hill or small cave would have been a quite adequate habitation. I said “for three,” but most likely it was for one, Cain himself only: for the parents of the murdered Abel would not have brooked dwelling in the same city with his slayer, seeing he had incurred a more defiling guilt than that of a man-slayer by slaying his brother.
ב׳
2[50] Everyone can see how the building of a city by a single man runs counter not only to all our ideas but to our reason itself. How is such a thing possible? Why, he could not have built even the most insignificant part of a house without employing others to work under him. Could the same man at the same moment do a stone-mason’s work, hew timber, work iron and brass, surround the city with a great circuit of walls, construct great gateways and fortifications, temples and sacred enclosures, porticoes, arsenals, houses, and all other public and private buildings that are customary? Could he in addition to these construct drains, open up streets, provide fountains and conduits and all else that a city needs?
ג׳
3[51] It would seem, then, since all this is at variance with reality, that it is better to take the words figuratively, as meaning that Cain resolves to set up his own creed, just as one might set up a city.