These are they who made a confederacy at the salt ravine. For the place of vices and passions is hollow and rough and ravine-like; salt indeed, and bitter are the pangs which it brings. The covenant of alliance which they swore was destroyed by wise Abraham, for he knew that it had not the sanctity of oaths or covenant-rites. Thus we read “all these joined their voices to come to the salt-ravine; this is the salt sea” (Gen. 14:3). Observe further those who were barren of wisdom and blind in the understanding which should naturally be sharp of sight, their qualities veiled under their name of Sodomite—how the whole people from the young men to the eldest ran round and round the house of the soul to bring dishonour and ruin on those sacred and holy Thoughts which were its guests, its guardians and sentinels; how not a single one is minded to oppose the unjust or shrink from doing injustice himself. For we read that not merely some but the “whole people surrounded the house, both young and old” (Gen. 19:4), conspiring against the divine and holy Thoughts, who are often called angels.
On the Confusion of Tongues 8
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