{"author":null,"canonical_references":[],"database_sha256":"8cfbe7284c6936871d57c02dc6aa63ebbdfd4722422d539dd9f716e46e91112e","date_end":null,"date_start":null,"edition_year":null,"id":"sermonindex-ecf-5646","native_reference":{"book_number":10,"chapter_from":13,"chapter_to":13,"system":"MyBible module coordinates (mapping unverified)","verse_from":10,"verse_to":10},"public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"verse-keyed-module-record","review_required":["English edition and exact text","author/work attribution","dating","verse mapping and citation kind","reuse and attribution","split author quotations and deduplicate"],"review_status":"unreviewed","source_html":"<p><b>Ambrose of Milan</b>: Haughtiness is the companion of those who deviate from the truth. In fact, as Abraham was quite humble in that he offered the choice, so Lot was rather insolent in presuming to choose. Virtue humbles itself, whereas wickedness becomes arrogant. Lot should rather have relied on one more wise than he, to be on the safe side. Indeed, he did not have the knowledge to make a choice.<br/><i>— ON ABRAHAM 2.6.33</i></p><p><b>Bede</b>: Therefore, Lot, having lifted up his eyes, saw all the region around Jordan, which was all watered before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, like the paradise of the Lord and like Egypt as you go towards Zoar. And Lot chose for himself the region around Jordan and moved eastward; and the rest up to the point where it says: but the men of Sodom were wicked and great sinners before the Lord. He praises the fertility of the land and at the same time notes the impiety of the inhabitants, so that they may be understood to be deserving of greater damnation, for they turned the greatest gifts of God not to the fruit of piety but to the increase of luxury: where also it is silently added to the praises of blessed Lot, because in that land, living among those natives, neither the wealth of the rich soil nor the example of the inhabitants could in any way corrupt the integrity of his purity. However, concerning which sins the Sodomites were subject to, except for that abominable one which Scripture mentions later, the prophet Ezekiel sufficiently explains, speaking to Jerusalem: Behold, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: pride, fulness of bread, and abundance, and idleness were in her and in her daughters; and they did not strengthen the hand of the poor and needy, and they were haughty and committed abomination before me (Ezekiel 16:49). From all these, blessed Lot was free, as testified by the sacred history, which declares that he received the angels as guests and that through them he was rescued from the perishing impious ones; and the judgment of blessed Peter the apostle proves, where it is said: And righteous Lot, who was oppressed by the filthy conduct of the wicked, was delivered (2 Peter 2:7). For he was righteous by sight and hearing, dwelling among them who day by day tortured his righteous soul with their lawless deeds. For what good merit could be lacking in him, whom the apostolic voice declares righteous? In him, those present could hear nothing but the fame of righteousness, for the deeds and sight of the wicked known to his pure eyes and ears were nothing but torture and affliction. That which is said about him moving from the east to Haran also signifies Mesopotamia, from where he had already long ago physically departed, led by Abraham; but because a reader might doubt whether his mind was still held by love for his kindred and homeland or whether, like Abraham, he had perfectly departed from his country and kindred and from his father's house, Scripture took care to specifically intimate even concerning him that he departed not only in body but in mind from those places and inhabitants, and because of his faith and hope in divine blessing, he consented to remain a perpetual guest and sojourner wherever Abraham chose. For that Haran, a city located to the east of the promised land, is testified by Scripture, which later says: Then Jacob set out and came to the land of the east, when he had indeed journeyed from Bethel to Haran.<br/><i>— Commentary on Genesis (Hexaemeron)</i></p><p><b>Augustine of Hippo</b>: WHAT PARADISE WAS. — The fact that the land of Sodom and Gomorrah before being destroyed is compared to the paradise of God, because it was watered, and to the land of Egypt, which bathes in the Nile, sufficiently demonstrates, I think, how it is to be understood; it was, that paradise that God planted, which he put Adam (Cf. Genesis 2:8). I do not see in fact that God's paradise was something else. And certainly, if the fruit trees of paradise were to be, according to the opinion of some, considered as virtues of the soul, it would not be said of this land that it was \"like the Paradise of God\", since there would not have been in reality of earthly paradise, planted with real trees. [<br/><i>— QUESTIONS ON GENESIS, Q. 26 (tr. J. Litteral, draft)</i></p>","source_html_sha256":"0c07a1772d661476bbcb5878f114f1c5d4c2ae7b2bdd2bd567e9e021cdbaca96","source_module":"ECF","source_row_id":5646,"source_url":"https://www.sermonindex.net/commentary/ecf/","text_sha256":"4912bfdc3ac2389ce06c3b181140c78f16001ede69cb0d8543ec7e204be3d4b9","translator":null,"work":null}