591 chapter 5: the priest of the mystical temple things without an act of good intention and without a heartfelt reflection on God? Believe me, you are not unlike a brute beast. You will have wasted the day, unless perchance God, who created you from nothing and redeemed you for His glory, accepts what He has ordained to be done well and properly by you. Yet, what merit would indifferent works have, which are neither good nor bad, unless you make them good by your good intention? It seems to me that the sacrifices of Cain were faulty by a defect of this good intention. “For the Lord looked with favor on Abel and his gifts; but He did not look with favor on Cain and his gifts” (Gen 4:4-5). Theodosion56 translates this passage thus: “And the Lord was highly pleased by Abel and his sacrifice, but was not pleased by Cain and his sacrifice.” Why so? “For,” as Ambrose says,57 “when Cain was offering God his gifts, he kept his own being for himself. God did not accept such a portion, but said “Son, offer me your heart.” But he kept his heart for himself and offered God the fruits of the earth.”58 The most magnificent God rejected those gifts that were offered not out of love, but in some other spirit, either from brotherly rivalry or a meaningless and futile ceremony. Love, the Priest, was absent when the sacrifice was made; the sacrifice was not accepted. Therefore, whether you are praying, or reading, or writing, or saying good things, meditating, working, eating, drinking, worthily refreshing your spirit, or whatever you do that is virtuous, devout, holy, useful or praiseworthy, do it all out of the love of God, to the glory of God in such a way, that a particular intention always precedes what you do, or at least follows close after it. 56 This probably refers to a translater named Theodotion, who in trying to correct the Septuagint translation, made a Greek translation of the Old Testament in the second century. Cf. Hozakowski, Wl., Biblijne tłumaczenia (Biblical Translations): PEK 34, p. 331. 57 The author of the text quoted here is not Ambrose but Rupert; see below, footnote 58 (p. 591). 58 Rupertus of Deutz, On the Holy Trinity and its works — Commentaries on Genesis, IV books, on Genesis IV, 2: CChrM, 21, 282. So too in LCG, p. 105 (in Ch. IV). Therefore the words are not taken from the work of Ambrose On Cain and Abel: PL 1415, 184, as Jarra erroneously states.
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