Abel as a Protological and Polyvalent Figure in Early Christian Intertextuality

The overarching thesis of this paper is that the metaleptic echoes of Abel in the NT consistently present him as a protological figure of Jesus Christ and his followers but not in a monovalent way. The interplay between Abel as he stands in Genesis 4:1–16 and references to him in portions of Matthew, Luke, and Hebrews regularly present Abel as a kind of “first” exemplar for the righteous actions that Jesus and his followers ultimately embody and exceed. However, while various NT writers link Abel to Jesus and or his followers, they accentuate different righteous actions. Therefore, the metaleptic echoes of the protological Abel are polyvalent and indicate that early Christians had the ability to view OT figures of Jesus and the church as round rather flat characters. This conclusion is based upon the results that emerge from the metaleptic examination of the NT’s four explicit references to Abel. First, the result of the interplay between Abel and Jesus in Matthew 23:35 and Luke 11:35 is that Abel functions as the first exemplar of subsequent righteous martyrs whose blood finally finds its vindication through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Second, the result of the interplay between Abel and the original auditors in Hebrews 11:4 is that Abel functions as the first exemplar of the faith that God regards as righteous but a faith that must ultimately be redirected towards Jesus to be regarded as righteous. Third, the result of the interplay between Abel and Jesus in Hebrews 12:24 is that Abel’s death functions as the first exemplar of a priestly sacrifice that speaks a word, but that word is exceeded by the speech of Jesus’ sacrifice. Fourth, the result of the interplay between Abel and the original auditors of 1 John 3:12 is that Abel stands as the first exemplar of a righteous victim that suffers at the hands of Satan’s offspring, Cain, but his death is exceeded by the greater righteous victim Jesus whose death is in place of his brethren and the example of love par excellence to them. In light of this metaleptic treatment of the interconnections between Abel, Jesus, and followers of Jesus, the paper concludes by suggesting that other figures from the Pentateuch which are echoed in the NT may share a similar protological and polyvalent quality. Consequently, it may in fact be a defining quality of Early Christian intertextuality.