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Reply to Faustus the Manichaean

44.

Knowing that their father would condemn their design, Lot's daughters thought it necessary to fulfill it without his knowledge. We are told that they made him drunk, so that he was unaware of what happened. His guilt therefore is not that of incest, but of drunkenness. This, too, is condemned by the eternal law, which allows meat and drink only as required by nature for the preservation of health. There is, indeed, a great difference between a drunk man and an habitual drunkard; for the drunkard is not always drunk, and a man may be drunk on one occasion without being a drunkard. However, in the case of a righteous man, we require to account for even one instance of drunkenness. What can have made Lot consent to receive from his daughters all the cups of wine which they went on mixing for him, or perhaps giving him unmixed? Did they feign excessive grief, and did he resort to this consolation in their loneliness, and in the loss of their mother, thinking that they were drinking too, while they only pretended to drink? But this does not seem a proper method for a righteous man to take in consoling his friends when in trouble. Had the daughters learned in Sodom some vile art which enabled them to intoxicate their father with a few cups, so that in his ignorance he might sin, or rather be sinned against? But it is not likely that the Scripture would have omitted all notice of this, or that God would have allowed His servant to be thus abused without any fault of his own.

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Contra Faustum Manichaeum libri triginta tres

44.

Ab illo autem opere ita patrem abhorrere sentiebant, ut id se impleturas esse non crederent, nisi eius ignorantiam procurarent. Namque, ut scriptum est, inebriaverunt eum et se nescienti miscuerunt. Quapropter culpandus est quidem, non tamen quantum ille incestus, sed quantum illa meretur ebrietas. Nam et hanc lex aeterna condemnat, quia cibum ac potum ad ordinem naturalem non nisi gratia conservandae salutis admittit. Quamvis ergo inter ebriosum et ebrium plurimum intersit – nam nec ebriosus semper est ebrius nec quisquis aliquando ebrius consequenter ebriosus est – tamen in homine iusto huius ipsius etsi non ebriositatis, at certe ebrietatis causa quaerenda est. p. 636,14 Quid enim tandem cogebat, ut filiabus suis crebra vina miscentibus aut fortasse nec mixta crebro porrigentibus consentiret aut crederet? An ad hoc filias nimiam tristitiam fingentes ita voluit consolari, ut illius destitutionis et materni luctus dolor de cogitatione mentis ebriae fugaretur, etiam ipsas tantundem bibere existimans et aliqua fraude agentes ne biberent? Sed etiam talem tristibus suis adhibere consolationem quomodo virum iustum decuerit, non videmus. An aliqua Sodomitarum arte pessima etiam paucis poculis patrem sic inebriare potuerunt, ut illud peccatum cum ignorante vel potius de ignorante committerent? 636,24 Sed mirum, si hoc scriptura divina tacuisset vel servum suum deus sine aliquo voluntatis eius vitio perpeti sineret.