Theophany and altar; Lot at Sodom's gate

Cyril went on: But when he came into the land of Canaan with his whole house and with all his gear, and toward the holy land he sprang up, the grace of the seeing of God has been given, and the firmness of the hope in the security of freedom, and the being permitted thereafter to raise an altar. And so for us too, according to the equal figure of the word, while we remain with the world and with the most abominable pleasures according to it, there will be no grace from God; but when we have been called and yield to the divine laws, springing up from the desire and eagerness toward anything of the goods as toward a high land, God puts in the knowledge of his own glory, and promises the firmness of the hope; and so he makes the mind in us strong, as already somehow to be able to bring spiritual sacrifices, and to become a sweet smell of Christ to God and Father, according to what is written; and to present also to him the body, a living sacrifice well-pleasing to God, the reasonable and in-spirit worship acceptable with God. For he receives gladly the manners of the worship in spirit, and counts the thing a spiritual sacrifice.

Palladius said: So then it is fitting to shift toward the better, setting out from the more shameful; and to receive as most gladly the calling from above, and to love to linger as much as possible in the things honored from the Law and that have obtained the best vote with God. As for seeking to go backward and to return upon something of the things accustomed to do wrong, we shall not be free of blame.

Cyril: No indeed, my friend. For it is wholly hard to choose to be sick again with the things from which one would go out; so that for those once taken out by the power of God from a worldly way of life, it is very perilous even only to look toward it, and as it were to go toward a remembrance of faults, sending the mind into the love of them. And so the divine Singer pleaded, saying: 'Turn away my eyes from seeing vanity.' For vanity in truth is the distraction of this life, and the empty delight of the temporary things, from which that it is fitting to stand apart and to leave, and for the one who has chosen in truth to walk straight to refuse even the mere looking as still in thoughts and with pleasure, one may learn easily from here too.

Palladius: From what do you say?

Cyril: The inhabitants of Sodom, being wildly stung into the pleasures against nature, and dishonoring the law of intercourse which nature set for the begetting of children, and being whetted by male seasons, and accomplishing everything most out of place, provoked to angers, and as it were forced the Creator, though he is a lover of men, to go toward the penalty upon them. And when the time of the need to suffer was at the doors, the long-suffering toward them having as it were been spent, those who would fulfill this broke in at Sodom. And it is written thus: 'And two angels came to Sodom at evening. And Lot was sitting at the gate of Sodom.'