Lot and his daughters
He ought to have welcomed the love of truth in those who wrote the divine Scriptures, who did not hide even what is unseemly, and so been led to accept the rest too, even the more marvellous things, as not invented. But he has done the opposite: the story of Lot and his daughters (Genesis 19:30–38), which he neither examined according to the letter nor searched out by its higher sense, he called “more lawless than the crimes of Thyestes.”
Now there is no need to speak at present of the figurative sense of the passage: what Sodom is, and what is meant by the word of the angels to the man escaping from there, when they say, “Do not look behind you, nor stop anywhere in the whole surrounding region; escape to the mountain, lest you too be swept away” (Genesis 19:17); and who Lot is, and who his wife, who became “a pillar of salt” (Genesis 19:26) because she turned back; and who his daughters are, who made their father drunk so as to become mothers by him (Genesis 19:32–36).
But come, let us in a few words ease what seems unseemly in the story taken literally. The Greeks too inquired into the nature of things good, evil and indifferent; and those of them who hit the mark place good and evil in the will alone, and say that all things considered apart from the will are, in their own nature, indifferent, but that the will, when it uses these as it ought, is praiseworthy, and when it does not, blameworthy. So they have said, in their treatment of indifferent things, that in its own nature intercourse with daughters is indifferent, even though one must not do such a thing in established societies. And by way of hypothesis, to show that such a thing is indifferent, they have taken the case of a wise man left alone with his daughter after the whole human race has been destroyed, and they ask whether the father will fittingly come together with his daughter, so that, on that very hypothesis, the whole human race may not perish.
Is this, then, soundly said among the Greeks, with the far from contemptible school of the Stoics arguing for it? And when young girls who have heard of the burning of the world but have not understood it clearly see fire spreading over their city and their land (Genesis 19:24–25), and, supposing that an ember of the human race has been left in their father and themselves (Genesis 19:31), wish on that supposition to found the world again, will they be worse than the wise man of the Stoics’ hypothesis, who fittingly comes together with his daughters when all mankind has perished?
I am not unaware that some, offended at the intention of Lot’s daughters, have judged the deed unholy, and have said that from unholy unions accursed nations were born, the Moabites and the Ammonites (Genesis 19:37–38). And indeed the divine Scripture is not found clearly approving such a deed as well done, nor charging and blaming it. But however the event stands, it is taken up into a figurative sense, and it also has some defence in itself.
Greek
Δέον δ᾿ αὐτὸν τὸ φιλάληθες τῶν ἀναγραψάντων τὰς θείας γραφὰς ἀποδεξάμενον. μὴ κρυψάντων καὶ τὰ ἀπεμφαίνοντα, προσαχθῆναι καὶ περὶ τῶν λοιπῶν καὶ παραδοξοτέρων ὡς οὐ πεπλασμένων, ὁ δὲ τοὐναντίον πεποίηκε καὶ τὰ περὶ τὸν Λὼτ καὶ τὰς θυγατέρας, οὔτε κατὰ τὸ ῥητὸν ἐξετάσας οὔτε κατὰ τὴν ἀναγωγὴν ἐρευνήσας. τῶν Θυεστείων εἶπε κακῶν ἀνομώτερα. τὰ μὲν οὖν τῆς κατὰ τὸν τόπον τροπολογίας οὐκ ἀναγκαῖον νῦν λέγειν, τίνα τε τὰ Σόδομα. καὶ τίς ὁ πρὸς τὸν ἐκεῖθεν διασῳζόμενον τῶν ἀγγέλων λόγος, φασκόντων· „μὴ περιβλέψῃ εἰς τὰ ὀπίσω μηδὲ στῇς ἐν πάσῃ τῇ περιχώρῳ· εἰς τὸ ὄρος σῴζου, μή ποτε συμπαραληφθῇς,“ καὶ τίς ὁ Λὼτ, τίς τε ἡ γυνὴ αὐτοῦ, γενομένη „στήλη ἁλὸς“ διὰ τὸ ἐστράφθαι εἰς τοὐπίσω, καὶ τίνες αἱ θυγατέρες αὐτοῦ, καταμεθύσκουσαι τὸν πατέρα, ἵνα γένωνται ἐξ αὐτοῦ μητέρες· φέρε δὲ τὰ τῆς κατὰ τὴν ἱστορίαν ἀπεμφάσεως δι᾿ ὀλίγων παραμυθησώμεθα, τὴν τῶν ἀγαθῶν καὶ κακῶν καὶ ἀδιαφόρων ἐζήτησαν καὶ Ἕλληνες φύσιν· καὶ οἱ ἐπιτυγχάνοντές γε αὐτῶν τὰ μὲν ἀγαθὰ καὶ κακὰ τίθενται ἐν προαιρέσει μόνῃ, πάντα δὲ ἀδιάφορα τῷ ἰδίῳ λόγῳ φασὶν εἶναι τὰ χωρὶς προαιρέσεως ἐξεταζόμενα· τὴν δὲ προαίρεσιν τούτοις χρωμένην δεόντως μὲν ἐπαινετὴν εἶναι, οὐ δεόντως δὲ ψεκτήν, εἶπον οὖν ἐν τῷ περὶ ἀδιαφόρων τόπῳ ὅτι τῷ ἰδίῳ λόγῳ θυγατράσι μίγνυσθαι ἀδιάφορόν ἐστιν, εἰ καὶ μὴ χρὴ ἐν ταῖς καθεστώσαις πολιτείαις τὸ τοιοῦτον ποιεῖν, καὶ ὑποθέσεως χάριν πρὸς παράστασιν τοῦ ἀδιάφορον εἶναι τὸ τοιοῦτον παρειλήφασι τὸν σοφὸν μετὰ τῆς θυγατρὸς μόνης καταλελειμμένον, παντὸς τοῦ τῶν ἀνθρώπων γένους διεφθαρμένου, καὶ ζητοῦσιν εἰ καθηκόντως ὁ πατὴρ συνελεύσεται τῇ θυγατρὶ ὑπὲρ τοῦ μὴ ἀπολέσθαι κατ᾿ αὐτὴν τὴν ὑπόθεσιν τὸ πᾶν τῶν ἀνθρώπων γένος. ἆρ᾿ οὖν παρὰ μὲν Ἕλλησιν ὑγιῶς ταῦτα λέγεται, καὶ οὐκ εὐκαταφρόνητος αὐτοῖς αἵρεσις ἡ τῶν Στωϊκῶν συναγορεύει· ἐπὰν δὲ κόρια, περὶ ἐκπυρώσεως τοῦ κόσμου μεμαθηκότα οὐ τετρανωκότα δὲ, ἰδόντα πῦρ διειληφὸς τὴν πόλιν αὐτῶν καὶ τὴν χώραν, ὑπολαμβάνοντα ζώπυρον τοῦ γένους τῶν ἀνθρώπων καταλελεῖφθαι ἐν τῷ πατρὶ καὶ αὐταῖς, βουληθῇ διὰ τὴν τοιανδὶ ὑπόληψιν συστήσασθαι τὸν κόσμον, ἐλάττονα ἔσται τοῦ κατὰ τὴν τῶν Στωϊκῶν ὑπόθεσιν σοφοῦ, καθηκόντως ἐν τῇ φθορᾷ τῶν πάντων ἀνθρώπων μιγνυμένου ταῖς θυγατράσιν; οὐκ ἀγνοῶ δ᾿ ὅτι προσκόψαντές τινες τῷ βουλήματι τῶν τοῦ Λὼτ θυγατέρων καὶ ἀνόσιον τὸ ἔργον εἶναι ὑπειλήφασι καὶ ὡς ἐξ ἀνοσίων μίξεων εἰρήκασι γεγονέναι ἔθνη ἐπάρατα, τὸ Μωαβιτῶν καὶ τὸ Ἀμμανιτῶν, καὶ ἀληθῶς γε οὐχ εὑρίσκεται ἡ θεία γραφὴ σαφῶς παραδεξαμένη ὡς καλῶς γεγενημένον τὸ τοιοῦτον ἢ αἰτιασαμένη καὶ μεμψαμένη· πλὴν ὅπως ποτὲ ἔχει τὸ γενόμενον, ἀνάγεται μὲν ἐπὶ τροπολογιαν ἐχει δέ τινα καὶ καθ᾿ αὑτὸ ἀπολογίαν.