Irenaeus of Lyons · a new plain-English translation from the original language
How one and the same departure of the people out of Egypt is shown to be a figure of the departure of the Church out of the Gentiles. For the entire departure of the people out of Egypt was, by God's design, a type and image of the departure of the Church which was to come from among the Gentiles; and for this reason too, at the end, he leads her out from here into his own inheritance, which not Moses the servant of God, but Jesus the Son of God will give as an inheritance. And if anyone attends more carefully to the things said by the prophets concerning the end, and to whatever things John the Lord's disciple received... the nations will receive, which Egypt then received only piece by piece. The presbyter, relating certain such things about the men of old, used to refresh us with these words, and would say: "As for those sins for which Scripture itself censures the forefathers and prophets, it is not for us to cast reproach upon them for such things, nor become like Ham, who mocked his father's shame and fell under a curse; but rather give thanks to God on their behalf, since at the coming of our Lord their sins were forgiven them" — for he said that they gave thanks and gloried in our salvation. "But as for those things which the Scriptures do not rebuke, but simply record, we ought not to become their accusers; for we are not more scrupulous than God, nor can we set ourselves above our Master, but ought rather to seek out the underlying type. For nothing among the things set down beyond reproach in the Scriptures is set down idly." Chapter 31. A demonstration concerning the begetting of children by Lot from his daughters. Just as Lot, who brought his daughters out from Sodom — daughters who bore children by their very own father — and who left his wife standing at the boundary, turned into a pillar of salt, remaining so to this very day. For Lot did not accomplish this type by his own will, nor out of any carnal desire of his own, having no sense or thought of any such act. As Scripture says: "And the elder went in and lay with her father that night; and Lot did not know when she lay down or when she rose." And likewise of the younger it says: "And he did not know when she had lain with him, nor when she had risen." Since the man, then, was unaware, and was not a slave to lust, the dispensation was accomplished whereby the two daughters — that is, the two synagogues — receiving offspring from one and the same father, were prefigured apart from any fleshly desire. For no one else remained who might grant them living seed and offspring, just as Scripture records: "And the older daughter told the younger: Our father has grown old, and no man remains anywhere on earth to approach us in the manner customary everywhere; come, let us give our father wine to drink, and sleep with him, so that we may produce offspring by our father." They indeed, in their simplicity and innocence, supposing that all mankind had perished, as had the Sodomites, and that wrath had come upon the whole earth, said these things. For this reason they too are excusable, believing themselves alone left with their father so that humankind might not die out entirely, and it was on this account that they devised their plan concerning their father. And by their words was signified that there was no one else who could furnish the begetting of children to the elder and the younger synagogue...
The Word of God is the Father of the human race, as Moses shows when he says: Is not this your Father who possessed you, and made you, and created you? When, then, did he pour out this life-giving seed — the Spirit that grants remission of sins, by whom we are quickened — into the human race? Was it not when he shared a table with men, and drank wine here on earth? For it is written that the Son of Man came eating bread and drinking wine; and once he had reclined, sleep overtook him, and elsewhere it is written: sweet was the sleep given to me. Now all this was foreshadowed through Lot, since the seed of the Father of all — the Spirit of God, the agent by which everything came into being — was blended and joined together with flesh, namely with his own creature; and out of this blending and joining arose the two congregations, the synagogues, who bear children alive to the living God, their Father. And meanwhile his wife in Sodom turned, not into perishable flesh any longer, but into a pillar of salt lasting forever — showing thereby, through what is ordinary and familiar to mankind, that the Church too, that same salt of the earth, still stands abandoned at the world's edge, bearing what is proper to human beings; and although her members are frequently torn away from her, that pillar of salt still stands, the very bedrock of faith, giving strength and sending the children onward to their Father.