Annotation LXVI, The clause "let us go out into the field," superfluously added by the Septuagint (Genesis 4:8)

Annotatio LXVI

”Cain said to Abel his brother, Let us go forth abroad.” — Genesis 4:8

The Septuagint interpreters, to that which is here read, “And Cain said to Abel his brother,” superfluously added of their own, Διέλθωμεν εἰς τὸ πεδίον — that is, “Let us go forth into the field”;¹ and the interpreter of our Vulgate edition, following them, said, “Let us go forth abroad” — neither of which is in the Hebrew reading: in which only this is read, “Cain said to Abel his brother”; nor is it added what he said, but it must be supplied (says Jerome) [with] those things which God himself had spoken to him. Origen asserts that these words, added here by the Septuagint, are had in the secret [apocryphal] scriptures of the Hebrews. Augustine, Bishop of Kissamos, says that the words which Cain spoke to Abel are found in the Chaldaic [Aramaic] edition: in which he asserts these are read: “Cain said to Abel his brother, ‘There is no justice, nor a judge, nor another world [age]; neither shall the just receive rewards, nor shall the wicked pay penalties’”; and then he slew him. But in But it is uncertain of which edition Augustine speaks; for that Chaldaic translation which is now circulated, in the Complutensian copies, has none of these things.