[power of] giving birth to children, besides our Father. Now the father of the human race is the Word of God, as Moses points out when he says, "Is not He thy father who hath obtained thee [by generation], and formed thee, and created thee?"[1] At what time, then, did He pour out upon the human race the hfe-giving seed—that is, the Spirit of the remission of sins, through means of whom we are quickened? Was it not then, when He was eating with men, and drinking wine upon the earth? For it is said, "The Son of man came eating and drinking;"[2] and when He had lain down. He fell asleep, and took repose. As He does Himself say in David, "I slept, and took repose."[3] And because He used thus to act while He dwelt and lived among us, He says again, "And my sleep became sweet unto me."[4] Now this whole matter was indicated through Lot, that the seed of the Father of all—that is, of the Spirit of God, by whom all things were made—was commingled and united with flesh—that is, with His own workmanship; by which commixture and unity the two synagogues—that is, the two churches—produced from their own father living sons to the living God.
3. And while these things were taking place, his wife remained in [the territory of] Sodom, no longer corruptible flesh, but a pillar of salt which endures for ever;[5] and by those natural processes[6] which appertain to the human race, indicating that the church also, which is the salt of the earth,[7] has been left behind within the confines of the earth, and subject to human sufferings; and while entire members are
- ↑ Deut. xxxii. 6, LXX.
- ↑ Matt. xi. 19.
- ↑ Ps. iii. 6.
- ↑ Jer. xxxi. 26.
- ↑ Comp. [[../../First Epistle to the Corinthians (Clement)#Chapter 11|Clem. Rom. chap. xi.]] Josephus (Antiq. i. 11, 4) testifies that he had himself seen this pillar.
- ↑ The Latin is "per naturalia," which words, according to Harvey, correspond to δί ἐμμηνοῤῥοίας. There is a poem entitled Sodoma preserved among the works of Tertullian and Cyprian which contains the following lines:
"Dicitur et vivens, alio jam corpore, sexus
Munificos solito dispungere sanguine menses." - ↑ Matt. v. 13.
