Chapter 31. One Should Not Condemn as Crimes What Scripture Did Not Condemn.
Chapter 31
1. When relating such things about the ancients, the Presbyter was wont to refresh us and say: “We ought not to rebuke the Patriarchs and the Prophets with the sins with which Scripture rebukes them, or to become like Ham who ridiculed his father’s shame, and so fell under a curse. Rather, we should give thanks to God for them, because by the Lord’s coming the sins were forgiven them; for he said that they give thanks and rejoice in our salvation. On the other hand, in regard to sins, which Scripture relates simply and does not reprove, we ought not to make any accusations, since we are not more diligent than God, and we cannot be above the Master; rather we must seek their type. For nothing of the things set down in Scripture without being condemned is purposeless.”
An example is Lot, who led his daughters out of Sodom, who [later] were with child by their father; he had left his wife at the boundary as a pillar of salt until this present day. For, Lot did not get the knowledge and idea of such an act from his own will or carnal desire, yet he fulfilled a type. As Scripture says, And that night the firstborn went in, and lay with her father, and Lot did not know when she lay down and when she arose; and of the younger the same is said, And he did not know when she lay down with him, or when she arose. So since the man was unaware of the matter, and was not satisfying lust, an economy was being fulfilled, by which the two daughters, namely, the two assemblies [Jews and Gentiles], were pointed out as having children from one and the same father without carnal lust. Nor was there any other who could have given them the “seed” and the fruit of children, as was written, And the firstborn said to the younger, “Our father is old, and there is not a man left on earth to come in to us after the manner of all the earth. Come, let us make our father drunk with wine, and we will lie with him, that we may raise up offspring from our father.”
2. Thus, in their simplicity and innocence these daughters spoke in that way, because they thought that all men had perished, just as the Sodomites had, and that God’s wrath had descended on the entire earth. And so they are excusable, since they thought they alone, with their father, were left for the conservation of the human race, and for that reason they circumvented their father. By their words it was pointed out that there was no other than our Father who could give the power of bearing children to the elder and the younger Assemblies.
The Father of the human race is the Word of God, as Moses points out when he says, Is not he your Father, who created you, and made you and established you? So when did he pour out on the human race this “seed,” that is, the Spirit of forgiveness of sins by whom we are given life? Was it not when he was wont to eat with men and to drink wine on the earth? For it says, The Son of Man came eating and drinking; also when, while reclining, he slumbered and fell asleep, as he says through David, I lay down and have taken a sleep. That he did this while associating with us in this life, he says again, And my sleep was pleasant to me. All this was pointed out through Lot, because the “seed” of the Father of all, namely, the Spirit of God, by whom all things were made, was commingled and united with flesh, namely, with his handiwork; and by this comingling and union the two Assemblies bear living children from their Father for the living God.
3. And while this was taking place, his wife remained in Sodom. She was no longer perishable flesh but remained a statue of salt always. By means of those natural things, customary among men, she manifested that the Church, which is the salt of the earth, was left within the boundaries of the earth, enduring the conditions of men. And while members are always taken away from her, she continues entire as the statue of salt, that is, the bulwark of the faith, giving strength to the children and sending them on to the Father.