Summary

Portrait of Tertullian Tertullian Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. III, Apologetic… (1885)

And then God said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: am I my brother’s keeper? To whom God said, The voice of the blood of thy brother crieth forth unto me from the earth. Wherefore cursed is the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive the blood of thy brother. Groaning and trembling shalt thou be upon the earth, and every one who shall have found thee shall slay thee.” [2] From this proceeding we gather that the twofold sacrifices of “the peoples” were even from the very beginning foreshown.
Source: Wikisource

Portrait of Tertullian Tertullian Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. III, Apologetic… (1885)

So, again, we show that sacrifices of earthly oblations and of spiritual sacrifices [1] were predicted; and, moreover, that from the beginning the earthly were foreshown, in the person of Cain, to be those of the “elder son,” that is, of Israel; and the opposite sacrifices demonstrated to be those of the “younger son,” Abel, that is, of our people. For the elder, Cain, offered gifts to God from the fruit of the earth; but the younger son, Abel, from the fruit of his ewes. “God had respect unto Abel, and unto his gifts; but unto Cain and unto his gifts He had not respect.
Source: Wikisource

Portrait of Tertullian Tertullian Ante-Nicene Fathers Vol. III, Apologetic… (1885)

In short, when the sacerdotal law was being drawn up, through Moses, in Leviticus, we find it prescribed to the people of Israel that sacrifices should in no other place be offered to God than in the land of promise; which the Lord God was about to give to “the people” Israel and to their brethren, in order that, on Israel’s introduction thither, there should there be celebrated sacrifices and holocausts, as well for sins as for souls
Source: Wikisource

Get perspective with Kwize: daily news enlightened by great literature