OT § 25

The Lord therefore said: "The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah has been multiplied, and their sin has become very grave." He calls the outcry of Sodom the reputation or rather the infamy of their crimes, from which the Apostle, admonishing us, says: "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and blasphemy, be put away from you, with all malice" (Ephesians 4:31). To this clamor indeed is opposed the clamor of the elect, who confidently supplicating their Creator, individually say: "Lord, hear my prayer, and let my cry come to you" (Psalm 102:2). Indeed, great is their clamor, a sublime merit and the intention of faith seeking heavenly things alone, where Christ sits at the right hand of God; since they do not desire earthly riches, nor vain and perishable glory, nor the fleeting joys of the flesh, but only heavenly goods, everything they do is surely lofty and, as it were, resonates with a clamor. But with the multiplied outcry of sins, that is, their enormous crime, let us see what follows.

Now let us see what he means by saying, "I descended to see whether they have done all that the outcry which has come to me indicates; if not, I will know." Because of this, pagans, and especially the exceedingly foul Manichaeans, are wont to assail us by saying, "Behold, the God of the law did not know what was being done in Sodom." Now we reply with sound understanding and say that God knows the just in one way and sinners in another. What is said concerning the just? "The Lord knows who are his." What is said about sinners? "Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity; I do not know you." Moreover, the apostle Paul says, "If anyone is the Lord's, he knows what I am saying; if anyone ignores this, he shall be ignored." What does it mean, then, "I do not know you"? "I do not recognize you in my pattern; I do not recognize my image in you. My justice knows something to punish in you, but my mercy does not find anything to crown." For this reason if one's actions are unworthy of God, one is said to be unworthy of his knowledge also. "I descended to see"; not in order to know what they are doing but to make them worthy of my knowledge if I find any of them just, repentant, or such as I should know.

It was not that God, who had just said, "their sins were very grave," did not know that they had sinned. This was an example to judges not to prejudge a case, even based on very reliable hearsay. For if he who knows all set aside his knowledge lest he exact vengeance without full knowledge before the trial, how much more should they set aside their ignorance and not effect judgment before the case is heard.

Then, to teach the whole human race that even if their sins are exceedingly great and confessed to be such, he does not pronounce sentence before proof is manifest, he says, "I am going down to see if their deeds correspond to the outcry reaching me, so as to know if it is true or not." What is meant by the deliberation of the expression? "I am going down to see if their deeds correspond to the outcry reaching me, so as to know if it is true or not." What is meant by the considerateness of the expression? "I am going down to see." I mean, does the God of all move from place to place? No indeed! It doesn't mean this; instead, as I have often remarked, he wants to teach us by the concreteness of the expression that there is need to apply precision and that sinners are not condemned on hearsay nor is sentence pronounced without proof.

The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah is multiplied, he said. Well did he say that sins can cry out. Great surely is the cry of sinners as it mounts from earth to heaven. But why does he say that the sins of people cry out? It is because God says his ears are assaulted by the cries of our sins that the punishment of sinners be not delayed. Truly is it a cry, and the cry is great when the love of God is overpowered by the cries of sins to the extent that he is forced to punish the sinners. The Lord shows how unwilling he is to punish even the gravest sinners when he said that the cry of Sodom ascended to him. This means: My mercy urges me to spare them, but the cry of their sins compels me to punish them.

"I will go down," he says, "and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry which has come to me; and if not, I will know." Therefore, when the Lord said that he would go down to see whether the same outcry was true, he did not show his ignorance, who possesses the knowledge of all things, but instructs our rashness, lest we presume to blame the deeds of others before we learn perfectly; which He also teaches us in the construction of the tower, where it is written that the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of Adam had built; for what would He not see from heaven to earth, of whom it is written that "Hell is naked before Him, and there is no covering for perdition"?

These are the words of the divine Scripture. Let us see, therefore, now what is fitting to be understood in them. "I have descended," the text says, "to see." When responses are delivered to Abraham, God is not said to descend but to stand before him, as we explained above: "Three men," the text says, "stood before him." But now, because sinners are involved, God is said to descend. Beware lest you think of ascending and descending spatially. For this is frequently found in the sacred literature, as in the prophet Micah: "Behold," Scripture says, "the Lord departed from his holy place and came down and will tread upon the high places of the earth." Therefore God is said to descend when he deigns to have concern for human frailty. This should be discerned especially of our Lord and Savior, who "thought it not robbery to be equal with God but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant." Therefore he descended. For "no other has ascended into heaven, but he that descended from heaven, the Son of man who is in heaven." For the Lord descended not only to care for us but also to bear these things that are ours. "For he took the form of a servant," and although he himself is invisible in nature, inasmuch as he is equal to the Father, nevertheless he took a visible appearance "and was found in appearance as a man." But also when he descends he is below with some, but he ascends with others and is above. For he goes up with the chosen apostles "into a high mountain and there is transfigured before them." Therefore he is above with those whom he teaches about the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. But he is below with the crowds and Pharisees, whose sins he reproaches, and he is there with them.… He could not, however, be transfigured below, but he ascended above with those who could follow him, and there he is transfigured.

So also now, therefore, it is said of these who live in Sodom, that if indeed, on his examination, "their deeds are completed as the cry" that has ascended to God, they would be considered unworthy. But if there is any conversion among them, if even ten just men might be found among them, so, at last, God would know them. And for this reason the text said, "But if not, that I might know." It did not say that I might know what they are doing but that I might know them and make them worthy of knowledge of me, if I should find some among them just, if I should find some repentant, if some such as I ought to know.

And they turned themselves from there and went towards Sodom; but Abraham still stood before the Lord, and approaching he said: Will you indeed destroy the righteous with the wicked? If fifty righteous are in the city, will they perish along with the rest, until he said: If ten are found there; and the Lord said: I will not destroy it for the sake of the ten. It is read further that two angels came to Sodom and were received by Lot; hence it seems likely that at this place two angels departed from Abraham, and he spoke with the one who remained with him, interceding for the perishing city. In which intercession, the humility of the blessed Abraham is especially to be considered, who, although he was esteemed so highly by God that he received Him as a familiar guest and interceded with Him as if with a friend of one mind for others, nevertheless in his own estimation he remained vile and despicable; hence in his second prayer he says to Him:

And in this manner, through a series of questions and answers, even if he finds ten righteous people in the city, he promises impunity to the entire people on account of the righteousness of a few. Where do we learn how great a wall is for our country, a virtuous man, how we should not envy holy men, nor disrespect them lightly. For their faith saves us, their justice defends us from destruction. Even Sodom, if it had ten righteous men, could have not perished.

Since I have begun, I will speak to my Lord, though I am but dust and ashes. By this word he clearly rebukes our pride, we who are far distant from the height of his merits, far removed from divine conversation due to our slowness and inertia, nevertheless inflated with the pride of arrogance, do not recall that we are destined to be dust and ashes; for blessed Abraham, the closer he approached the purity of the divine vision, the more certainly he dispersed and cast away the weaknesses of his own frailty. But we, who are excluded from the gaze of inner clarity by the cloud of our own depravity, the less we lament the darkness of misery inherent in us, the more we are accustomed to see nothing but these.

Let us be imitators also of those who in goat-skins and sheep-skins [Hebrews 11:37] went about proclaiming the coming of Christ; I mean Elijah, Elisha, and Ezekiel among the prophets, with those others to whom a like testimony is borne [in Scripture]. Abraham was specially honoured, and was called the friend of God; yet he, earnestly regarding the glory of God, humbly declared, "I am but dust and ashes." [Genesis 18:27] Moreover, it is thus written of Job, "Job was a righteous man, and blameless, truthful, God-fearing, and one that kept himself from all evil." [Job 1:1] But bringing an accusation against himself, he said, "No man is free from defilement, even if his life be but of one day." [Job 14:4-5] Moses was called faithful in all God's house; and through his instrumentality, God punished Egypt with plagues and tortures. Yet he, though thus greatly honoured, did not adopt lofty language, but said, when the divine oracle came to him out of the bush, "Who am I, that Thou sendest me? I am a man of a feeble voice and a slow tongue." [Exodus 4:10] And again he said, "I am but as the smoke of a pot."

[Daniel 8:27] "And I, Daniel, languished and was sick for some days. And when I rose from my bed, I performed the king's tasks." This is the same thing as we read in Genesis about Abraham, for after he had heard the Lord speaking to him, he averred that he was but dust and ashes (Genesis 18:27). And so Daniel states that he languished as a reaction to the horror of the vision, and suffered illness. And after he had risen from his sick-bed, he says he performed the tasks assigned to him by the king, rendering to all men all that was due them and bearing in mind the gospel principle: "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's" (Luke 20:25).

"And I was amazed at the vision, and there was no one who could interpret it." If there was no one who could interpret it, how was it that the angel interpreted it in the previous passage? What he means is that he had heard mention of kings and did not know what their names were; he learned of things to come, but he was tossed about with uncertainty as to what time they would come to pass. And so he did the only thing he could do: he marveled at the vision, and resigned everything to God's omniscience.

Who could worthily praise the God of all for his marvelous long suffering and considerateness or congratulate the good man for enjoying such great confidence? "He continued to speak," the text goes on. " 'But what if only forty can be found there?' He replied, 'For the sake of the forty I will not destroy it.' " Then at that point the good man, while respecting God's ineffable long suffering and being afraid of ever seeming to go too far and surpass the limit in his entreaty, said, "Pardon me, Lord, if I continue to speak: if only thirty can be found there?" Since he saw God was disposed to kindness, he still did not proceed gradually with his compromise. He sought to rescue not merely five good people but ten in pursuing his request thus, "If only thirty can be found there?" He replied, "I will not destroy it if I find thirty there." Consider the degree of the good man's persistence. As though he personally were due to be liable for sentence, he takes great pains to snatch the people of Sodom from the impending punishment. "He said, 'Since I am able to speak to the Lord, what if there are only twenty there?' He replied, 'For the sake of the twenty I will not destroy it.' " O, the goodness of the Lord beyond all telling and all imagining! I mean, which of us living in the middle of countless evils could ever choose to exercise such wonderful considerateness and loving kindness in executing a sentence against our peers?

(Verse 32) And he said, 'Is it, Lord, if I speak?' Which is written in Greek, μήτι, Κύριε, ἐὰν λαλήσω. Secondly, Abraham spoke to the Lord, which does not seem to clearly indicate what he is saying. Therefore, in Hebrew it is written more explicitly: 'Please do not be angry, Lord, if I have spoken.' For since he seemed to be questioning, he qualifies what he seeks by beginning with a plea.

For proof that such persons' good standing is a means of winning long suffering for us, take heed in that very story to what he says to the patriarch: "If I find ten good people, I will not destroy the city." Why do I say ten good people? No one was found there free from lawlessness, except alone the good man Lot and his two daughters. His wife, you remember, perhaps on his account escaped punishment in the city but paid later the penalty for her own indifference. Now, however, since through God's ineffable love the growth of religion was taking place, there were many people unobtrusively in the heart of the cities capable of appealing to God, others in hills and caves, and the virtue of these few succeeded in canceling out the wickedness of the majority.The Lord's goodness is immense, and frequently he finds his way to grant the salvation of the majority on account of a few just people. Why do I say on account of a few just people? Frequently, when a just person cannot be found in the present life, he takes pity on the living on account of the virtue of the departed and cries aloud in the words, "I will protect this city for my own sake and the sake of my servant David." Even if they do not deserve to be saved, he is saving. And [they] have no claim on salvation; yet, since showing love is habitual with me and I am prompt to have pity and rescue them from disaster, for my own sake and the sake of my servant David I will act as a shield; he who passed on from this life many years before will prove the salvation of those who have fallen victim to their own indifference.

Finally, because no one besides Lot is found who would repent, no one would be converted. He alone is known; he alone is delivered from the conflagration. Neither his children, having been admonished, nor his neighbors nor his next of kin followed him. No one wished to know the mercy of God; no one wished to take refuge in his compassion. Consequently also no one is known.These things indeed have been said against those who "speak iniquity on high." But let us give attention to make our acts such, our manner of life such, that we may be held worthy of knowledge of God; that he may see fit to know us; that we may be held worthy of knowledge of his Son Jesus Christ and knowledge of the Holy Spirit; that we, known by the Trinity, might also deserve to know the mystery of the Trinity fully, completely and perfectly, the Lord Jesus Christ revealing it to us. "His is the glory and sovereignty forever and ever. Amen."