2.

Thus, after their simplicity and innocence, did these daughters [of Lot] so speak, imagining that all mankind had perished, even as the Sodomites had done, and that the anger of God had come down upon the whole earth. Wherefore also they are to be held excusable, since they supposed that they only, along with their father, were left for the preservation of the human race; and for this reason it was that they deceived their father. Moreover, by the words they used this fact was pointed out--that there is no other one who can confer upon the elder and younger church the [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 life-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.