Cain builds the first city and names it after his son Enoch. This is one of the most important symbolic moments after the Fall.
The Garden is given by God. The city is built by man. The Garden is paradise received. The city is civilization constructed after exile. It is shelter, order, memory, and protection — but also the first collective structure raised outside Eden.
This first city is not yet Babylon, but Babylon is already hidden inside it. The city is the beginning of the human attempt to replace Paradise with architecture, technology, law, and power. It can become a Temple, a place where heaven and earth meet in right order. Or it can become a Tower, a structure of self-exaltation and rebellion.
In the Western Mystery Tradition, the city is always ambiguous. Jerusalem and Babylon are both cities. The heavenly Jerusalem is the city transfigured; Babylon is the city corrupted. Cain’s city is the seed of both.
Within the Royal Art, the task is not to flee the city forever but to restore it to sacred order. The end of the story is not a return to Eden alone, but the descent of the Holy City: the Garden and the City reconciled.