Cornelius a Lapide
Table of Contents
Synopsis of the Chapter
Lot receives the angels with hospitality, whom the Sodomites seek for an abominable crime; hence the angels, leading Lot out, burn the Pentapolis with heavenly fire, except Segor, for which Lot obtains pardon. Secondly, at verse 26, the wife of Lot, looking back, is turned into a pillar of salt, while his daughters conceive by their father, and bear Moab and Ammon.
Vulgate Text: Genesis 19:1-38
1. And two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gate of the city. When he saw them, he rose up and went to meet them, and bowed down with his face to the ground, 2. and said: I beg you, my lords, turn aside into the house of your servant, and stay there; wash your feet, and in the morning you shall set out on your way. They said: No, but we will stay in the street. 3. He urged them exceedingly to turn aside to him; and when they had entered his house, he made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. 4. But before they went to bed, the men of the city surrounded the house, from boy to old man, all the people together. 5. And they called to Lot, and said to him: Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, that we may know them. 6. Lot went out to them and, shutting the door behind him, said: 7. Do not, I beg you, my brothers, do not commit this evil. 8. I have two daughters who have not yet known a man; I will bring them out to you, and do with them as you please, provided you do nothing evil to these men, because they have entered under the shadow of my roof. 9. But they said: Stand back. And again: You came in, they said, as a stranger; will you now act as a judge? We will deal worse with you than with them. And they pressed upon Lot most violently, and were on the point of breaking down the door.
10. And behold, the men put out their hand and drew Lot to themselves, and shut the door, 11. and those who were outside they struck with blindness, from the least to the greatest, so that they could not find the door. 12. And they said to Lot: "Do you have anyone here of yours? Son-in-law, or sons, or daughters, all who are yours, bring them out of this city: 13. for we will destroy this place, because their outcry has grown before the Lord, who has sent us to destroy them." 14. Lot therefore went out and spoke to his sons-in-law, who were to take his daughters, and said: "Arise, leave this place; for the Lord will destroy this city." But he seemed to them to be speaking in jest. 15. And when it was morning, the angels urged him, saying: "Arise, take your wife and your two daughters whom you have, lest you also perish in the wickedness of the city." 16. As he lingered, they seized his hand and the hand of his wife and of his two daughters, because the Lord spared him. 17. And they brought him out and set him outside the city; and there they spoke to him, saying: "Save your life; do not look back, nor stay in all the surrounding region; but save yourself on the mountain, lest you also perish." 18. And Lot said to them: "I beg you, my Lord, 19. since your servant has found grace before you, and you have magnified your mercy which you have shown me, in saving my life, yet I cannot be saved on the mountain, lest some evil overtake me and I die. 20. There is this city nearby, to which I can flee; it is small, and I shall be saved in it: is it not a little one, and my soul shall live?" 21. And He said to him: "Behold, even in this I have accepted your prayers, that I shall not overthrow the city of which you have spoken. 22. Make haste and save yourself there, for I can do nothing until you enter there." Therefore the name of that city was called Zoar. 23. The sun had risen upon the earth, and Lot entered Zoar. 24. Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah sulphur and fire from the Lord out of heaven: 25. and He overthrew these cities and all the surrounding region, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and everything growing on the earth. 26. And his wife, looking back, was turned into a pillar of salt. 27. And Abraham, rising in the morning, went to the place where he had stood before with the Lord, 28. and looked toward Sodom and Gomorrah, and toward all the land of that region: and he saw the ashes rising from the earth like the smoke of a furnace. 29. For when God overthrew the cities of that region, remembering Abraham, He delivered Lot from the destruction of the cities in which he had dwelt. 30. And Lot went up from Zoar and stayed on the mountain, and his two daughters with him (for he was afraid to stay in Zoar); and he stayed in a cave, he and his two daughters with him. 31. And the elder said to the younger: "Our father is old, and no man remains in the land who can come to us after the manner of all the earth. 32. Come, let us make him drunk with wine, and let us sleep with him, that we may preserve offspring from our father." 33. So they gave their father wine to drink that night. And the elder went in and slept with her father; but he did not perceive when she lay down or when she rose. 34. And the next day the elder said to the younger: "Behold, last night I slept with my father; let us give him wine to drink tonight also, and you shall sleep with him, that we may preserve offspring from our father." 35. So they gave their father wine to drink that night also, and the younger daughter went in and slept with him; and not even then did he perceive when she lay down or when she rose. 36. So the two daughters of Lot conceived by their father. 37. And the elder bore a son and called his name Moab: he is the father of the Moabites to this present day. 38. The younger also bore a son and called his name Ammon, that is, "son of my people": he is the father of the Ammonites to this day.
Verse 1: The Two Angels Arrive at Sodom
And the two angels came. "Two," namely those who had departed from Abraham, while the third remained with him, in the preceding chapter, verse 22. Symbolically, one angel of the three, representing God the Father, had remained with Abraham to bless his household and make him a father for begetting Isaac: whence it seems this angel was the middle and chief one among the three, namely Michael, who sent his two companions Gabriel and Raphael to destroy Sodom. For Gabriel, according to his etymology, is "the strength of God," that is, the strong executor of divine justice, and here he represents the Second Person in the Trinity, namely the Son, because he announced His incarnation to the Blessed Virgin, Luke 1. For the Incarnation was a work of the supreme strength and power of God. Raphael, however, seems to be the angel presiding over chastity and the avenger of impurity: whence he chastely guarded Tobias from Asmodeus, who had killed the seven impure suitors of Sarah, Tobit 7 and 8. Therefore Raphael was sent to Sodom to destroy the impure Sodomites. He represented the Holy Spirit, who is the guardian and avenger of holiness, that is, of purity and chastity, and the supreme enemy of impurity and lust. Therefore by these two angels it is signified that the Son and the Holy Spirit destroyed Sodom: for, as Procopius says: "The Father judges no one, but has given all judgment to the Son; and the Holy Spirit naturally accompanies and is present with the Son." Some add that the Holy Spirit was joined to the Son, because God the Father tempers and mitigates judgment and vengeance with goodness and clemency, which is appropriated to the Holy Spirit, as if to say: I send the Son to judge and destroy you, but I add to Him the Holy Spirit who will invite you to repentance, which if you embrace, and seek pardon, the Holy Spirit will halt and restrain the judgment and vengeance of the Son, and will grant you indulgence.
In the evening of the same day on which they had dined with Abraham, in the preceding chapter, verses 1 and following. Symbolically, the angels bring light to the just, as to Abraham; but darkness to the wicked, as to the Sodomites. So says St. Ambrose, book II of On Abraham, chapter 6. Second, the evening signified that evening and ruin were imminent for the city, says Cajetan. Third, the evening here portends the eternal night threatening the Sodomites. So says St. Gregory, book II of the Morals, chapter 2.
While Lot was sitting. The Jews think that Lot was sitting here as the chief judge among other judges, who at that time sat in the gates of cities, as is evident from Deuteronomy 21:22. But that this is false is clear from verse 9. I say therefore with Abulensis: Lot, having formerly dwelt in the house of Abraham, learned hospitality there; he therefore practices it here in his accustomed manner, sitting at the gate of the city to gather in guests, lest they suffer violence and abuse from the Sodomites, such as they attempted against the two angels in verse 5. Lot thought, just as Abraham did, that they were men, not angels, Hebrews 13:2.
And he bowed before them. Note Lot's humility in his hospitality: for he bowed to these strangers, not knowing they were angels; for the beauty and splendor of their countenance indicated they were serious men, or Prophets sent by God. So says St. Augustine, Question 41. Moreover, he calls himself their "boy," that is, servant, as the Hebrew has it.
Verse 2: The Angels Decline, Then Accept Lot's Hospitality
No. The angels, invited by Lot, first decline out of courtesy, but soon when pressed they acquiesce. Therefore Cassian is mistaken, Conferences XVII, 24, who thinks the angels here changed their mind.
Verse 3: Lot Urges Them Exceedingly
He urged them exceedingly. He invited and pressed them in a remarkable manner. Unleavened bread. Bread without leavening he quickly baked in an oven or a pan, such as Abraham had baked: for unleavened bread is the same as bread baked under ashes. See what was said at chapter 18, verse 6.
Verse 4: All the People Surround the House
All the people together, even from the farthest parts of the city, as the Hebrew has it; and this either to perpetrate or to witness the crime. Moses notes this so that it may be clear that there were not ten righteous in Sodom, but all, except Lot and his family, were wicked and abominable Sodomites. So say Burgensis, Cajetan, and Pererius.
Verse 5: The Sodomites Demand to Know the Visitors
That we may know them -- that is, that we may shamefully abuse them. This is the Sodomitic crime, on whose enormity see Hamer here, and Hieronymus Magius in an entire volume published on this subject.
Verses 7-8: Lot Offers His Daughters
"Abuse them." Some excuse this speech and action of Lot, as if he had held (which Dominic Soto held, book IV of On Justice, Question 7, article 3, and many other theologians, and St. Thomas sufficiently suggests, Question 1 of On Evil, article 5, ad 14, and St. Ambrose, book I of On Abraham, chapter 6) that it is lawful for one wishing to commit a greater crime to counsel a lesser one: thus to one wishing to commit sodomy or rape, it is lawful to counsel him rather to go to prostitutes in a brothel, and to a robber wishing to kill a traveler, it is lawful to counsel him rather to rob him. By the same reasoning, therefore, Lot could lawfully counsel fornication to those attempting sodomy. Whence Gabriel Vasquez, II-II, Question 43 on Scandal, doubt 1, from this deed of Lot teaches that it is lawful to counsel a lesser evil to one determined to commit a greater evil, even if the person was not thinking of the lesser one. For thus Lot, to those wishing to commit sodomy, proposed and counseled the defilement of his daughters, which they were not thinking of.
Add that Lot does not counsel, but merely offers his daughters, obedient to him in all things, to defilement, in order to avert a greater outrage and injury to such important men.
But I say that Lot sinned, because he ought to have been more concerned and watchful (as a father) for the reputation and chastity of his daughters, and the danger of their consenting to sexual acts, than for the safety of foreign guests, even if they were holy men and prophets.
Second, Lot was not the master of his daughters, and consequently was not the master of their bodies and chastity; therefore he could not offer them, especially without their consent, to defilement: for they were not bound, indeed they could not, obey their father in this offering; and it is quite likely that they refused to obey their father in this matter; for what honest virgin would not shudder at such personal defilement rather than that of anyone else?
Third, the Sodomites were not thinking of violating Lot's daughters; therefore he unjustly proposed and exposed them to such impure men in order to protect his guests; for it is not lawful to prevent harm to Peter by causing harm to Paul, by saying to a robber wishing to rob Peter: "Rob Paul instead," of whom the robber was not thinking, as our Lessius learnedly teaches, book II of On Justice, chapter 13, doubt 3, number 19.
Nevertheless, the thoughtlessness and confusion of Lot in so perilous a situation seems to have greatly diminished the gravity of his sin; for Lot was perplexed and at a loss for counsel in so complicated a matter: for he wished by every means to provide for the safety, honor, and chastity of such venerable guests, and no other course occurred to him than to offer his daughters in their place, which he immediately embraced, not thinking or realizing that by this means he was doing injury to his own daughters. So say St. Augustine in On Lying, chapter 9, Lyra, Thomas the Englishman, Tostatus, Lipomanus, and Pererius.
Cajetan adds that Lot offered his daughters, not with the intention of redeeming one crime with another, but of appeasing the raging people with hyperbolic submission; for he thought, and reasonably (as the outcome of the matter proved), that the people would not accept such an offer, but that, appeased by such great submission on Lot's part, they would desist from their attempt; and all the more reasonably, since his daughters were already betrothed to citizens of Sodom. Just as a man seeking to appease another whom he has offended by injury offers him a naked dagger saying: "Kill me" -- not with the intention of being killed, but so that the offended party may be appeased by such great submission. Therefore Lot said these things by way of exaggeration, just as David said to Jonathan, I Kings 20:8: "If there is iniquity in me, kill me yourself, and do not bring me to your father"; and Judah, Genesis 42, said to his father Jacob: "Kill my two sons if I do not bring Benjamin back to you." So says Cajetan.
Morally, St. Chrysostom, in Homily 43, marvels at Lot's charity toward his guests and strangers, whose safety he places above the modesty of his own daughters. "But we," he says, "when we often see our brothers falling into the very depths of impiety and, as it were, into the jaws of the devil, we do not deign even to speak to them, nor to counsel them, nor to admonish them with words, nor to snatch them from wickedness and lead them by the hand to virtue. 'For what do I have in common with him?' you say. 'I have no concern, no business with him.' What are you saying, man? Nothing in common with him? He is your brother, of the same nature as you; you are under the same Lord, often also partakers of the same spiritual table," etc.
Under the shelter of my roof. In Hebrew, "under the shadow of the beam" or "of the ceiling," that is, of my roof and house; for the roof overshadows those who are in the house, like a shadow, and protects them from heat and other injuries of the weather. Moreover, strangers are under the shadow, that is, the protection and care of their host, whose duty it is to provide that no harm be done to them in his house, and this is precisely what Lot intends here.
Verse 9: The Sodomites Threaten Lot
Get out of the way. Be gone from here. You came in as a foreigner; will you now act as judge? In Hebrew it is: "That one came to sojourn (to dwell among us as a stranger), and shall he judge us by judging?" as if they say: Has that foreigner come to be our judge, to judge us? Hence the Septuagint translates: "You entered to dwell, not also to pronounce judgment."
And they pressed upon Lot violently. Some were pushing him back and trying to drag him away; others were breaking down the door, which Lot, going out to them, had shut behind himself, verse 6.
Verse 10: The Angels Rescue Lot
They drew Lot to themselves and shut the door. The two angels opened the door that Lot had shut, in order to bring him, snatched from the violence of the Sodomites, into the house; and once he was brought in, they shut the door again, lest the Sodomites likewise enter.
Verse 11: The Sodomites Struck with Blindness
They struck them with blindness. The Septuagint has aorasia, that is, "non-seeing," by which, while seeing other things, they could not see only the door of Lot, which they were seeking. So say Josephus, St. Ambrose, Chrysostom, and Augustine, Question 43. Hence Vatablus translates: "They dazzled their eyes, so that they hallucinated, and even when exhausted they could not find the door." For, says St. Augustine, if they had been completely blind, they would not have sought Lot's door, but guides to lead them home.
Note: This happened in this way, that God presented another appearance to them, so that in place of the door they saw, for example, a solid wall, or something else; and He did this by one of these four modes: namely, by changing either the appearance of the object, or the intervening air, or the power of sight, or the common sense, to which all visions and sensations are referred. In a similar manner, the Syrians in IV Kings 6, seeking and seeing Elisha, did not see him, nor recognize that it was Elisha. So Christ after the resurrection appeared to the two disciples as a stranger, and to Magdalene as a gardener.
Similar was the illustrious miracle of Gregory the Wonderworker, who, fleeing with his deacon from persecutors into a mountain, when he had been betrayed by someone, the persecutors surrounded the mountain on all sides and searched it, yet they did not see him; returning therefore to the betrayer, they rebuked him; he firmly asserted that the man had been in that place: but they claimed that in the spot he had indicated, they had found not two men, but two trees. After they departed, the betrayer ascended to the place and saw Gregory with his deacon praying with hands raised to heaven, who had appeared to the pursuers to be two trees; wherefore, falling at his feet and converting to Christ, he became a fugitive with him instead of a persecutor. So says Gregory of Nyssa in his Life.
Tropologically, St. Ambrose says: "Here it is shown that all lust is blind, and does not see what is before it."
So that they could not find the door. In Hebrew it is vaiialu limtso happetach, "and they labored," or "were exhausted seeking the door": but in vain, because they could not find it with all their effort.
St. Chrysostom adds from the Hebrew iilu, that is, "they were exhausted," that the Sodomites had their limbs dislocated, so that their strength and the movement of their limbs failed them, and that this was done by God to this end: to signify that they were blind and enfeebled in mind and vices, and that lust above all blinds the mind and enfeebles it just as much as the body.
The door. Ribera (on Zephaniah chapter 1, number 81), Delrio, and others think that Moses speaks of the door of every house, both of Lot and of each Sodomite; as if each one, returning to his own house, could not find or enter it: for this is what the Wise Man seems to assert, Wisdom 19:16. For it was fitting that those who wished to break down others' doors should not find their own.
But St. Ambrose, Chrysostom, Augustine, and Pererius better judge that Moses speaks here only of the door of Lot's house alone, which the Sodomites were trying to break down, but, struck with blindness, they could not find it despite all their effort: for this is what the plain text of Scripture, especially the Hebrew, and the sequence of the narrative require. The Wise Man, however, in Wisdom chapter 19, verse 16, speaks of the Egyptians, not of the Sodomites: for he only compares the Egyptians to the Sodomites in this, that both were struck with blindness, and that just as the Sodomites could not find Lot's door which they sought, so too each of the Egyptians could not find his own door which he sought, in the three-day darkness of Egypt.
Tropologically, Gregory, book VI of the Morals, chapter 16: "What does it mean that while the wicked oppose him, Lot is brought back within the house and fortified, except that each just person, while enduring the snares of the depraved, returns to his own mind and remains undaunted? But the Sodomite men cannot find the door in Lot's house, because the corrupters of minds find no avenue of accusation against the life of the just. For, struck with blindness, they go around the house as it were, because in their envy they scrutinize words and deeds: but because on every side a strong and praiseworthy action from the life of the just confronts them, wandering about they grope at nothing but the wall. Well therefore is it said: 'As in the night, so they shall grope at midday': because when they cannot accuse the good that they see, blinded by malice they seek out evil which they do not see, in order to accuse."
Verse 12: The Angels Warn Lot to Gather His Family
They said. Those two men, as the Hebrew has it, namely the two angels.
Verse 14: Lot's Sons-in-Law Think He Is Jesting
As though speaking in jest. To play and joke, or to rave, and to speak frivolous things rather than serious ones.
Verse 15: Take Your Wife and Daughters
Take your wife and your two daughters. These four, therefore, namely Lot, his wife, and his two daughters, believed the angels and went out of Sodom and were saved: but the sons-in-law, servants, and maidservants of Lot did not believe, but remaining in Sodom they were burned with the rest.
Verse 16: Lot Lingers
As he lingered. In Hebrew vaittmama, that is, "when he was making delays": either to persuade his sons-in-law to depart, as St. Ambrose holds; or to rescue his house and furniture from the fire, as Rupert holds; or praying God to spare the city, as Abulensis holds. Behold, the pleasantness and riches of the Pentapolis had invited Lot to itself; those same things now detain him and nearly destroy him. Learn to despise earthly and pleasant things.
Verse 17: Save Your Life; Do Not Look Back
Save your life. Rescue your life from this fire; leave behind your house, furniture, and all other things: lest if you linger and wish to save them with yourself, you perish and burn with them.
In a similar manner, during the Gothic sack of Rome in the year of the Lord 410, Pope St. Innocent was rescued by God, on account of the innocence and holiness of his life, by which he also defended St. Chrysostom, and therefore excommunicated the Emperor Arcadius and Eudoxia, who had driven him into exile; and he condemned the rising heresy of Pelagius: and for this reason he is praised by St. Jerome in his letter to Demetrias, and frequently by St. Augustine disputing against the Pelagians. Concerning this Paul Orosius, his contemporary, writes in book VII of his History, chapter 39: "Alaric arrives, besieges trembling Rome, disturbs it, breaks in," etc. "It also happened, the more to prove that the invasion of the city was accomplished by God's indignation rather than by the enemy's valor, that St. Innocent, Bishop of the Roman Church, like the just Lot taken from Sodom, by the hidden providence of God was then at Ravenna and did not see the destruction of the sinful people."
Nor you with yours: for this command is given not to Lot alone, but also to his wife and daughters; for Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt because she looked back against this command. So says Abulensis.
Do not look back. Vatablus thinks this is a proverb, meaning: Do not regret what you have begun. For thus in Luke 9 it is said: "No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God." But I say these words are to be taken not proverbially, but literally; this is clear from the fact that Lot's wife was punished because she looked back, not because she regretted the journey she had undertaken.
You will ask, why did God so strictly forbid Lot and his family from looking back? I respond first, to exercise Lot's obedience: for thus God exercised Adam's obedience by forbidding the fruit in paradise. Second, for the detestation of a wicked people, whom God did not wish His own to look upon; for God did not wish Lot to grieve for the perishing Sodomites; but He wished to erase all compassion, thought, and memory of the most impious men from the minds of His own: indeed He wished that when their own house and goods perished with the wicked, they should not grieve; for He had determined to make the entire city an anathema of fire and divine burning on account of its impiety.
So Christ commanded the Apostles to shake the dust from their feet against those who rejected the Gospel, so that by this sign they might protest that they wished to have nothing in common with such impious men, not even dust. Third, because God wished Lot to flee as quickly as possible and save himself: for the conflagration was imminent. Moreover, God wished to teach that we all ought to mortify our curiosity, says Philo of Cyprus in the Catena. Fourth, because God did not want to give Lot any sign of repentance, such as looking back; and this so that by this example He might tropologically teach all Christians, especially those zealous for their salvation and perfection, to forget what lies behind, always to press forward, and to ascend to the summit of the mountain, that is, the height of Evangelical perfection. So says St. Augustine, book XVI of The City of God, chapter 30.
Save yourself in the mountain -- namely, the one that overlooks the city of Segor; for Lot fled there, verse 30. Tropologically, St. Gregory, Part III of the Pastoral Rule, admonition 28: "To flee burning Sodom," he says, "is to shun the illicit fires of the flesh; the height of the mountains is the purity of the continent; to stand on the mountain is to cling to the flesh without being carnal. But those who cannot climb to the mountains are saved in Segor, because the conjugal life is neither far removed from the world, nor yet excluded from the joy of salvation."
Arsenius, tutor of the Emperor Arcadius, fleeing into the desert, once came down to a river. There was an Ethiopian girl there, who touched his sheepskin cloak; he rebuked her, but she said: "If you are a monk, go to the mountain." The old man, stung by this word, said to himself: "Arsenius, if you are a monk, go to the mountain"; and there he continually said to himself: "Arsenius, why did you come out?" Thus he lived in the desert for 55 years, and died at the age of 95.
Verse 18: I Beseech You, Lord
I beseech you, Lord. There were two angels, but one was leading Lot and his wife by the hand: this one Lot addressed saying, "Lord"; the other, following behind in the middle between the two daughters, was likewise leading them.
Verse 19: I Cannot Save Myself on the Mountain
Nor can I save myself on the mountain. As if to say: I tremble and fear, since I am old and slow of step, that I will not climb the slope quickly enough, but the fire will overtake me. This was not a prompt but a slow and reluctant obedience on Lot's part, blameworthy in this respect, that relying too much on his own weakness, he distrusted the angel companion and divine Providence; yet praiseworthy in another respect, namely that under this pretext he requested and obtained that the city of Segor be spared.
Verse 20: Is It Not a Small One?
Is it not a small one? As if to say: Since this city of Segor is small, it has few citizens, and has sinned only moderately, so grant me its small offenses, that you may preserve it, small as it is, as a refuge and asylum for me.
Verse 21: I Have Received Your Prayers
I have received your prayers -- I have received and heard you, and your prayers and petitions. The Septuagint translates it as ethaumasa, "I have marveled," that is, I have wonderfully respected and honored your person, inasmuch as out of love and reverence for you, according to your wishes, I spare the city that was condemned to fire.
Therefore the name of that city was called Segor -- the city that was previously called Bala was now named Segor, that is, "small," because Lot pleaded for it as a small city, that it not be burned, in verse 20. Therefore four cities of the Pentapolis, namely Sodom, Gomorrah, Adama, and Seboim, were consumed by this heavenly fire; the fifth, Segor, destined for the common conflagration of the others, was saved by Lot's prayers.
Theodoretus, Procopius, Suidas, and Lyranus think that Segor too, after Lot left it and fled to the mountain, was devastated and swallowed up by an opening in the earth. But the contrary is more true; for the Lord had already spared it at Lot's prayers, verse 21, and so it alone was preserved. So say St. Jerome, Josephus, Borchardus, and others.
You will say: In Wisdom 10:6, it is said that fire descended upon the Pentapolis, therefore also upon Segor. I respond: "upon the Pentapolis," that is, upon that region which was called the Pentapolis from its five cities, fire descended and burned everything, except Segor. Concerning Segor, from St. Jerome, Bredembach, Borchardus, William of Tyre, and others, Adrichomius writes thus: "Segor, a small city, formerly called Bala, or Bale, or Bela, in Hebrew Salissa, in Latin 'the heifer that tramples' (some corruptly read 'consternating'), was so called because it was swallowed up and laid prostrate by a third earthquake (which is what Segor means in Hebrew, Bala)."
In Syriac it is called Zoar, Zoarae, and Seora; now it is called Balezona. This alone of the five cities of the Pentapolis was saved from the conflagration by Lot's prayers. Near it grows balsam, and the fruit of palm trees, signs of its ancient fertility. In the time of St. Jerome it was called Palmerina; it is five leagues distant from Jericho, situated below Mount Engaddi.
Verse 22: Until You Enter There
Until you enter there -- "there" means not into the city, but into the territory of Segor, for while Lot was traveling between Segor and Sodom, Sodom was already burning; for between Segor and Sodom, Lot's wife, looking back at this conflagration, was turned into a pillar of salt, which still stands to this day. So say Abulensis, Adrichomius, Borchardus, and others.
Our Prado, commenting on Ezekiel chapter 9, verse 6, beautifully presses these words of God, "I cannot do anything until you enter there": "O," he says, "what an ocean of divine goodness! Was it not enough to have pledged His word that God's angel would rescue Lot from the burning of Sodom? Why such great delay? Evidently the angel had received from God a command not only to save Lot, but also to preserve him safe, unharmed, secure, and free from all anxiety. 'I cannot do anything,' he says; but the sins of Sodom are exceedingly great. 'I cannot do anything'; but the crimes of the shameless are fulfilled. 'I cannot do anything'; but they cry out to heaven. 'I cannot do anything'; but you have come to execute the sentence without pardon. 'I cannot do anything' until Lot takes himself to the mountain. Why such extraordinary providence? So that neither fire may touch nor reach the nephew of Abraham, servant of God, nor may the calamity of the perishing trouble him. How rightly David sang: He who dwells in the help (in the shelter, in the hiding place) of the Most High, shall abide in the protection (in the shadow) of the God of heaven. He shall say to the Lord: You are my refuge (my asylum and my fortress)."
Verse 23: The Sun Had Risen; Lot Entered Segor
The sun had risen upon the earth, and Lot entered Segor. As if to say: Lot, who left Sodom before dawn, arrived in Segor at sunrise, when Sodom was already burning. So say Lipomanus and Cajetan; whence it seems that very early in the morning at twilight, as soon as Lot had left, Sodom was set ablaze.
Verse 24: The Lord Rained Sulfur and Fire
The Lord rained from the Lord -- that is, the Lord rained from Himself, namely from His own omnipotence, not from natural causes, as if to say: This rain of fire and sulfur was not natural, but heavenly and divine. So say Cajetan, Pagninus, Vatablus, and Oleaster. Therefore this burning of Sodom was not terrestrial, exhaled and belched forth from the earth, as Strabo claims in book XV of his Geography, who proves it from verse 28 here, but wrongly.
Second, this phrase suggests a distinction of Persons in the Godhead, as if to say: The Lord rained from the Lord, that is, the Son rained from the Father; for the Son receives from the Father His essence, and likewise His power and every capacity to rain and to act. So say St. Hilary, book V On the Trinity; Eusebius, book V of the Demonstration, chapter 23; Jerome, on Zechariah chapter 2; Augustine, and others; indeed the Council of Sirmium, Canon 13, defines this very point.
You will object: The Council of Sirmium in that passage condemns the first sense. I respond: It condemns it only according to the mind of Photinus, who from this passage inferred that the Son is not God, nor co-eternal with the Father. Add that this Council was not received by the Church except insofar as it condemns Photinus; indeed, as I said in the preceding chapter, this Council was that of the Arians; for it teaches that the Son, insofar as He is God, is obedient and ministering to the Father.
Sulfur and fire. By sulfur the stench of the sins was rightly signified and punished; by fire, the ardor of lust, says Gregory, book IV of the Moralia, chapter 10. Again, this fire and sulfur were symbols and foretokens of the fire of hell. Thus Laius, king of Thebes, although a pagan, judged that those who emasculate others, as perverters of the laws of nature, should be punished with the penalty of fire, says Plato, as cited by Coelius, book XV, chapter 16.
Verse 25: All the Inhabitants Destroyed
All the inhabitants. Therefore in Sodom both men and women were all most wicked and Sodomites, either in act, or in desire and consent. See Ezekiel 16:49.
You will say: By what right, for what reason were the little ones and all the innocent burned? I respond: because God, who is Lord of all, and of death and destruction, wished through them also to punish the parents, and to punish so great a crime of the parents; but He provided well for the little ones by this death, lest, if they survived, they would follow in their fathers' footsteps, and so be consigned to eternal fires.
One may ask whether any of the Sodomites, seeing their houses in flames, repented at death and were saved. St. Jerome asserts this, but commonly the other authorities generally think that all died in their wickedness and were damned; for they were engaged in flagrant crime on the very night when they had sought to assault the two angels, verse 2. Add this: the sudden flame seized and stunned them, so that they had neither the consciousness nor the time for repentance. It was different in the flood, which, increasing gradually and slowly, gave them time for repentance. So say Tostatus, Pererius, and others, and St. Jude indicates this in his epistle, verse 7.
All the green things of the earth. Note here the remarkable punishment of Sodomitic lust. The Pentapolis was formerly fertile and pleasant, like paradise; after the sin and the heavenly conflagration, the whole area became barren and foul. For the outer part remained burned and covered with ashes: trees growing there produce beautiful fruit, but if you touch them, they turn to dust. The remaining inner part is covered with the foulest and thickest waters bursting forth from the earth, upon which everywhere float masses of bitumen, which the pits with which this valley was filled vomited up from the depths; hence this lake was called Asphaltites, and because it produces no fish nor anything living, it is called the Dead Sea; and from its extreme saltiness it is the saltiest of seas; from the flat and desert place it is called the Sea of the Desert, which extends for 72 miles in length and six in width. The Jordan flows into this lake, and the fish with it, which die as soon as they enter the lake. If any living animal, such as a horse, an ox, or a man, is thrown into it, it floats and does not sink. So say Tertullian in his poem On Sodom, Josephus, Orosius, Tacitus, Solinus, Pliny, and others, where they treat of the Asphaltites.
Philo adds, in his book On Abraham, that this sea, or lake, continuously exhales smoke and sulfur, as if remnants of this conflagration. And Borchardus, an eyewitness, in his Description of the Holy Land: The Dead Sea, he says, is always smoking and dark, as I saw with my own eyes, so that it seems to be the mouth of hell; it smokes with so foul a vapor that it renders the surrounding area barren for half a day's journey, that is, for five or six leagues, so that they produce not even a sprout.
Indeed, the Wise Man says in Wisdom 10:7: "As a testimony of wickedness, the smoking wasteland stands desolate, and trees bearing fruit at uncertain seasons." If these things were done in Sodom, what will happen in hell? See, mortals, see, you who are carnal, your example and type, 2 Peter 2:6. "Learn justice, you who are warned, and do not despise the gods." Who among you will be able to dwell with devouring fire (of body and soul)? to dwell with everlasting burnings? With this fire, and with the meditation on fire, smother the fire of your concupiscence. For all the fires and all the punishments of this world, compared to the fire and torment of hell, are only like a painted fire compared to a true and great fire, says St. Polycarp the priest in the Life of St. Sebastian.
Note: This destruction and burning of the Pentapolis happened precisely one year before the birth of Isaac, which occurred in the hundredth year of Abraham. This is clear: for the angels who overthrew Sodom had dined the day before with Abraham, and had promised him that Isaac would be born the following year, chapter 18:10; and from there on the same day they went to Sodom, and in the evening were received by Lot, and during the following night the Sodomites attacked them, and therefore at the earliest dawn Sodom was burned by those same angels. Whence it follows that the burning of Sodom occurred in the 99th year of Abraham; since Abraham was born in the year 292 from the flood, add the 99 years of Abraham's life, and you will have the year 391 from the flood, in which this destruction of Sodom occurred, which was the year of the world 2047; before the plagues of Egypt and the departure of the Hebrews from Egypt, this was the year 406.
Verse 26: Lot's Wife Turned into a Pillar of Salt
And his wife, looking behind her. This happened near the city of Segor, to which the angels had led her with Lot and the daughters as if to safety, and from there they soon executed God's vengeance upon Sodom, raining sulfur and fire upon it.
She looked back, roused by the noise of the fire and the rain of sulfur and the cries of the perishing, partly from fear lest the flame seize her too, partly from curiosity, partly from grief over her lost possessions and her fellow citizens and her burning homeland. She is punished, therefore, because she was disobedient and unbelieving, as Wisdom 10:7 says; for she did not believe it mattered for her safety and well-being whether she looked back or not. Hence Dionysius the Carthusian holds that she sinned mortally. Others, however, think this was only a venial fault, both because Lot's wife looked back struck by excessive fear, and because not looking back seemed to her a trivial matter, and so she did not think this was commanded and binding under mortal sin; she was punished nevertheless, because God wished to make her an example to others, as I shall soon explain. For in a similar way, as an example to others, God punished with death that Prophet whose story is told in 3 Kings 13, for a disobedience that was only venial, as it seems.
She was turned into a pillar of salt. Vatablus translates: she was turned into an everlasting pillar; thus in Numbers 18:19, a covenant of salt is mentioned, that is, an everlasting covenant. But this is sufficiently improper and far-fetched; whence generally the other authorities judge that she was properly turned into a pillar of salt, nor is it permissible to doubt this.
Note first: This statue was in the form of a woman. For it was a statue of Lot's wife, and therefore the statue retained her form.
Second, this salt appears to have been of the mineral kind, which resists rain and is useful in buildings for its solidity, about which Pliny writes, book 31, chapter 7; for this statue lasted for many centuries. Hear Tertullian, in his poem on Sodom: "The image itself, preserving its form without a body, endures to this day, never destroyed by rains or winds; indeed, if any stranger should mutilate the form, it immediately fills up the wounds from within itself. It is said that the living female sex, now in another body, is accustomed to mark her monthly courses with blood."
Note here the word "living" -- not that this statue truly lives, but that in the manner of a living woman it pours forth a kind of menstrual flow, which is equally wondrous as the other thing Tertullian asserts here, that this statue, if mutilated by anyone, soon repairs and fills up this mutilation as if healing its own wound. Let the credibility of these claims rest with Tertullian.
Furthermore, Borchardus, who lived three hundred years ago, testifies that this statue still existed in his time, between Engaddi and the Dead Sea, and Adrichomius teaches that it still stands. The Jerusalem Targum also adds that this statue will endure until the day of resurrection and judgment. Hence there is a riddle about this salt statue of Lot's wife: "A corpse, yet it has no tomb; a tomb, yet it has no corpse; yet tomb and corpse are within," because she is her own corpse and her own tomb.
One may ask why Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt. The Hebrews, according to Lyranus, respond that it was because on the preceding evening, when Lot received the angels at supper, she did not set out salt, with which foods are usually seasoned, and this from a hereditary hatred of guests and hospitality; for the Sodomites were inhospitable. But this is a Jewish fable and fiction.
I say therefore: Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt so that it might serve as a kind of marble monument, an everlasting memorial of divine chastisement, by which posterity would be taught to obey and serve God in all things, and not to look back so as to abandon good beginnings and return to the pleasures of the world and the flesh. For salt by its dryness aids the memory and preserves bodies from corruption; mineral salt, moreover, is solid; whence it is a symbol of eternity and eternal memory. Hence a covenant of salt is called an eternal covenant.
Hence tropologically St. Prosper, book I of On Predictions and Promises, chapter 16: "Lot's wife," he says, "made into a statue of salt, seasoned the foolish by her example, teaching that in the holy resolution toward which the advancing are striving, one must not look back with harmful curiosity." For to these Christ says, Luke 17:31: "Remember Lot's wife." Likewise St. Augustine in Psalm 75 applies this to apostates who break their vow of chastity.
One may ask secondly whether only the body of Lot's wife perished, or whether her soul too perished and was turned into a pillar of salt. That the soul was transformed into a statue along with the body seems to be suggested, first, by the fact that here it is said absolutely, in a marvelous and unheard-of manner, that the wife was transformed into a statue; but a wife consists of soul as much as, indeed more than, of body. Second, because the Wise Man seems to say this in Wisdom 10:7, when he says: "A standing monument of salt, the memorial of an unbelieving soul."
But I respond and say that only the body was turned into a statue; for this transformation was the death of Lot's wife. In death, however, the soul does not perish, but only the body is changed into a corpse and thence into earth. Second, because the soul is incorporeal, and therefore could not properly be transmuted into a body, namely a statue. Third, the soul is immortal, and therefore cannot perish or be changed. And why, I ask, would God by a miracle and against nature have made it mortal here, and indeed actually die, when this would serve no example to men? For this purpose it suffices that the visible body be converted into a visible statue. Therefore by the Wise Man this is called the monument of an unbelieving soul, that is, of the person; for otherwise neither the soul, nor a transformation of the soul, but only a transformation of the body into a statue, can be perceived. And so the soul of this wife, when the body was changed into a statue, survived and went to hell, or rather to Purgatory; for this looking back of hers seems to have been only a venial fault, as I have said.
Verse 27: Abraham Looks Toward Sodom
With the Lord -- with that third angel of whom chapter 18:23 speaks, who in verse 33 had already departed from Abraham.
Verse 28: The Ashes Rising Like Smoke
Ashes -- a mixture of smoke, flame, and embers. So say the Hebrews, Chaldeans, and the Septuagint. For Abraham was watching the very conflagration of Sodom.
Verse 29: God Remembered Abraham
He remembered Abraham -- lest He destroy the righteous Lot, Abraham's nephew, along with the wicked Sodomites, on account of the merits and prayers of Abraham, who had prayed saying: "Do not destroy the righteous with the wicked," chapter 18:23.
Verse 30: Lot Flees to the Mountain
And he went up and remained on the mountain. The angel had forbidden them only not to look back while on the road; therefore when Lot arrived in Segor from the road, he looked back, and seeing that terrible rain of fire and sulfur, and the conflagration devastating far and wide, he was terrified, forgetful of himself and of the angelic promise, and as if he were not yet safe enough in Segor, he fled from Segor to the mountains.
Verse 31: No Man Remained in the Land
No man remained in the land. Origen thinks that Lot's daughters had received a tradition from their father that the world, just as it had once perished by flood, would perish a second time by fire; whence the excessive fear and horror of this Sodomitic conflagration drove them to think that the whole world had been consumed, and this error, which they could and should have corrected either through their father or through the passage of time, drove them to incest, not lust. See St. Augustine, book 22 Against Faustus, chapters 42 and 43.
Note: Josephus, St. Chrysostom, Theodoretus, and Ambrose excuse these daughters of Lot from sin, and this for two reasons: first, from their invincible ignorance; second, that in such a case where they alone with their father would have been the survivors, their union with their father would have been lawful for the preservation of the human race, says Ambrose, book I On Abraham, chapter 6. For thus Eve, who was made from Adam's rib and was therefore like a daughter to Adam, was nevertheless his wife, because she was at that time the only woman in the world.
But St. Augustine and the theologians commonly teach the contrary. First, this ignorance and error of the daughters was vincible, as I have said; second, the union of a daughter with her father is against all natural modesty, whence it is lawful in no case or necessity, unless God should dispense and grant it.
Morally, Lipomanus rightly notes that the cohabitation of women with men, even if they are related by blood, is never without danger. Hence St. Augustine admitted neither nieces nor sisters into his house.
Verse 33: Lot's Drunkenness
To drink wine -- which they had bought in Segor, and had carried with them along with other provisions for several days' sustenance. "Lot sinned," says St. Augustine, book 22 Against Faustus, chapter 44, "not to the degree that incest deserves (which, drunk and beside himself, he committed beyond all expectation and suspicion), but by that drunkenness." This drunkenness, however, seems to have been only venial. So say Theodoretus, St. Chrysostom, and Pererius. For Lot was utterly dismayed and deeply grieved by the loss of his wife and all his goods, and therefore drank a little too freely to relieve his sadness, but not so much that he thought he would become intoxicated. But the wine, perhaps unfamiliar to him or stronger than usual, quickly overwhelmed and overpowered his brain, already weakened by toil and sorrow; for those who are sad are immediately seized by wine.
He did not perceive. There was some sensation in Lot, as is evident; but it was confused, dulled, and disturbed, such as is usual in those who are sleeping, especially in those half-asleep and half-awake. So says Cajetan. In particular, therefore, Lot did not perceive or recognize his daughter, nor her approach and departure.
Verse 35: The Second Night
They gave their father wine to drink that night also. This second drunkenness of Lot was a greater sin than the first, because from the first he had already experienced the power of the wine and his own intoxication, and should have been wiser and more cautious, and restrained himself from wine, lest he fall into a second bout. But who, especially when so afflicted, is so prudent in all things?
Verse 37: Moab
Moab. Moab is said to be as if from me'ab, that is, "from the father," as if to say: This son I bore from my father, so that the same man is both his father and grandfather; this daughter was shameless in her union with her father, and more shameless still in the name of her offspring, by which she publicizes her crime.
Verse 38: Ammon
Ammon. In Hebrew, ben ammi, that is, "son of my people," or as the Septuagint has it, "of my race," whom I conceived from my own race and nation, from my kinship and parentage, namely from my father. As if to say: This son of mine was not begotten by the impious Sodomites, among whom I lived, but is entirely from my own people and nation, born indeed from the seed of his parent and the conception of his daughter. God willed that the memory of this paternal incest, so infamous, should remain in the children, so that the Hebrews would not defile themselves with their marriages under the pretext of kinship. So says Theodoretus.
Moral Excursus on Drunkenness
Wherefore appropriately, "St. Paula, traveling through the Holy Land, when she came to Segor or Zoar, remembered Lot's cave, and turning to tears, she admonished her companion virgins that wine, in which is lust, must be avoided, for the Moabites and Ammonites are the product of it," as St. Jerome relates in her Life.
See here what drunkenness is, even involuntary drunkenness, and to what absurdities it drives a person. What then is voluntary drunkenness? To what evils does it drive? For how many has it been fatal?
What is drunkenness? Hear St. Basil, in his homily on drunkenness: "It is a voluntary demon, the mother of malice, the enemy of virtue; it makes a strong man cowardly, turns the temperate man into a wanton, is ignorant of justice, and extinguishes prudence. What, I ask, are drunkards other than the idols of the nations? They have eyes, and do not see."
What is drunkenness? Hear St. Ambrose, On Elijah and Fasting, chapter 16: "It is the fuel of lust, the incitement of madness, the poison of folly. Through it men lose their voice, change color, their eyes blaze, they gasp for breath, they snort through their nostrils, they burn with fury."
What is drunkenness? "It is a man neither dead nor alive," says St. Jerome on Galatians chapter 5.
What is a drunkard? "He is a voluntary demon, an animated corpse; a disease that admits no pardon, a ruin that lacks excuse, a common disgrace to our race; where there is drunkenness, there is the devil, there are shameful words; where there is excess, there the demons dance their choruses," says St. Chrysostom, homily 57 to the People.
Again, homily 58 on Matthew: "How much better is a donkey than a drunkard? How much more excellent a dog? Certainly all beasts, when they drink or eat, do not take more than enough of their own accord, even if a thousand men were to force them."
What is drunkenness? "It is voluntary insanity," says Seneca, epistle 83.
Second, do you wish to know the effects of drunkenness? First, it provokes the wrath of God. Isaiah 5: "Woe to you who rise early to pursue drunkenness." Proverbs 23: "Who has woe? Who has quarrels? Who has pits? Who has wounds without cause? Who has bloodshot eyes? Is it not those who linger over wine and study their cups to drain them?" Second, it snatches away the mind. Proverbs 23:31: "Do not look at wine when it turns golden, when its color sparkles in the glass: it enters smoothly, but in the end it will bite like a serpent." Hosea 4:11: "Fornication, and wine, and drunkenness take away the heart." Third, it inflames lust, as is evident here in Lot. Proverbs 20:1: "Wine is a luxurious thing, and drunkenness is riotous." Ephesians 5:18: "Do not be drunk with wine, in which is lust." Fourth, it causes the loss of life and fortune. Sirach 37:34: "Many have died from drunkenness; but he who is abstinent will add to his life"; and chapter 19:1: "A drunken laborer will not grow rich." Fifth, it removes shame, and when shame is removed, a person breaks out into filthy, quarrelsome, contentious words, and even into blows and killings. Sixth, it has this peculiar quality, that it places the sinner in the certain and unavoidable danger of eternal damnation; for other sinners, if death comes upon them, repent, since they are in possession of their reason, and are purified by the sacraments; the drunkard alone is capable of neither repentance nor the sacraments, so that if he is injured or suffocated by a catarrh, he is most certainly damned. Hence Paul says, 1 Corinthians 6:10 and Galatians 5:21, that drunkards shall not possess the kingdom of God.
Third, do you want examples? Lot, whom Sodom did not defeat, when drunk committed a double incest. Noah, a perfect man, was stripped naked when drunk and mocked by his son. Samson, filled with wine, was betrayed to the enemy through Delilah. The drunken Holofernes had his head cut off by Judith. The sons of Job, while they were drinking wine, were crushed by the collapse of the house. Herod at his cups ordered the head of John the Baptist to be cut off. The rich man Epulo, on account of his excess in drink, did not deserve to have even a drop of water after this life, says St. Chrysostom. Alexander, when drunk, killed his dearest friend Clitus, and indeed himself too by the Herculean cup. Belshazzar, the last monarch of the Babylonians, while drunk saw a hand writing mene, tekel, peres; and that very night he was stripped of his kingdom and his life by Cyrus. Let the drunkard reflect that the same sentence is pronounced against him by God: mene, the days of your life are numbered and cut short; soon, and perhaps on this day, at this hour, you will die; tekel, you are weighed and found wanting, lacking sobriety and virtue, because you are heavy with wine and vices; peres, you are divided; your body, which you have so fattened, will be given to worms for a feast, your soul will be given to demons for mockery and torment.