Bede

The flour that Sarah mixed to refresh the angels is the internal sweetness of God's word, which the prophet promises to the heavenly Jerusalem, that is, the holy Church, saying of the Lord: "He makes peace your borders, and fills you with the finest of the wheat" (Psalm 147:14). And immediately, explaining more clearly what the finest wheat is, he added: "He sends out his command to the earth." Now there are three measures of this same flour because in the sacred Scripture there is a threefold sense of understanding, namely the historical, the allegorical, and the anagogical; for example: "Lord, I have loved the beauty of your house" (Psalm 26:8); according to history, he desired the beauty of the house which Solomon made for the Lord to remain inviolate, being praised by his people in it. According to allegory, he desired the beauty of the holy Church to shine throughout the whole world, to whom the Apostle says: "For you are the temple of God" (2 Corinthians 6:16). According to anagogy, that is, the sense leading to higher things, he desired to see the beauty of the heavenly homeland, that is, the house not made with hands but eternal in the heavens. The Lord also mentions this threefold measure in the gospel parable, saying: "The kingdom of heaven is like leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened." For the evangelical leaven the woman hid in the three measures of flour to leaven the whole, when the holy Church, which Sarah signifies in this place, either preaches history in the Scriptures, reveals allegory, or lifts up the eye of its exposition to contemplate higher things. It always instills the power of either the Lord's or fraternal charity in its words. And no one should think they have rightly understood Scripture in which they have not found the institution of charity. A "measure" was a type of measurement among the Palestinians, holding one and a half bushels.

And when they had eaten, they said to him, “Where is Sarah your wife?” He answered, “Behold, she is in the tent.” Then he said, “I will return to you at this time next year, if life be with us, and Sarah your wife shall have a son.” Both indeed the lords of the house, and evidently Abraham and Sarah, prepared with the utmost haste a meal; but as if in a well-ordered house, Abraham, with the meals prepared, more boldly approached the Lord; Sarah, with womanly fear and modesty, restrained herself in the tent, in fact behind the tent door, and no longer dared to approach, but listened from within to what her husband spoke with the Lord. Therefore, since she was both devoted to God and well subjected to her husband, she heard the joy of childbirth which she greatly desired; not indeed any childbirth, but that in which both she in the future and all nations would receive a blessing. And well, after the angels had eaten, they promised a son to their hosts, because when the Lord has accepted the meals of our good work and faith, he rewards us with the grace of his blessing. But the angels ate, or rather seemed to have eaten, as holy Raphael explained to Tobias, to signify the mystery of the Lord’s Incarnation, in which he, the Angel of Great Counsel, was to eat as a man, not only visibly appearing, but even sitting at the table of men and eating; but they, as the same Raphael said, used invisible food, that is, which cannot be seen by men living in the flesh, namely the joy of contemplation; of which also the Lord in the Gospel: “For their angels,” he says, “always see the face of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 18:10); for they always see, that is, even when they come outside to us to minister something; it is credible, moreover, that the food which they ate, as soon as it touched their spiritual or ethereal body, was consumed like water thrown into a burning flame, and not like water poured into dry land to refresh their bodies, as happens to us when we eat.

They were both old and advanced in years, and it had ceased to be with Sarah after the manner of women. To highlight the growth of heavenly power, he says that both were old, and moreover that Sarah, having been barren, was now also deprived of her menstrual blood, because of which she could no longer conceive, even if she had not been barren. Further, if a woman is of such an advanced age that the usual flow of women still occurs to her, she can conceive from a young man, but not from an old man; although the old man can still beget from a young woman, as Abraham, after Sarah's death, was able to beget from Keturah, because he found her age to be vigorous; this therefore is what the Apostle clearly commends when he says: "He believed against hope in hope, that he might become the father of many nations, according to what was said to him: Thus shall your offspring be; and not weakening in faith, he did not consider his own body already dead, being about a hundred years old, and the deadness of Sarah's womb; in the promise of God he did not doubt" (Romans 4:18). For this reason he says that Abraham's body was already dead, because he could still beget from any woman who still had some final period of time left for bearing children at that age: we must understand the body as dead for some purposes, not for all; for if for all, then it is not the old age of the living, but the corpse of the dead.

"Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son." With this statement heard, all doubt was so removed, and her faith so confirmed, that the Apostle rightly says of her: "By faith even Sarah herself received power to conceive." But when he says "I will return to you," and added "with life as a companion," he speaks in a human manner, as if he were to say: "If life is a companion." But it should be understood more deeply that the angels always converse with life as a companion either in heaven or descend to earth, certainly with that life that says: "For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son also to have life in Himself;" by whose vision and enlightenment the angels and holy men are perpetually blessed. Indeed, this place seems comparable by contrast with the deeds of the first man; for after his transgression, he did not see the Lord God but is said to have heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden; here, the future blessing's faith, hope, and love inflamed he saw the Lord standing, because surely with this he was to remain, the contemplation of divine clarity having departed from him. Hearing the voice of the Lord God, trembling he hid himself because he truly blushed at his error. Here, having seen the Lord, he immediately joyfully ran, believing that by the merit of obedience he had pleased Him. He on the cool of the day, this one at the very heat of the day; because this one burned with the fire of divine love, the other by sinning had driven away the light of divine protection and love from himself. This one receives and entertains the Lord as a guest, to show with the carnal feast provided that he would foster Him with spiritual feasts in his heart by living devoutly, according to what the Lord Himself promised about His lovers: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me" (Revelation 3:20). The other, that is, the first man, who ate what was forbidden, lost those delights which he could have had perpetually in the presence of the Lord and His angels, also being visibly excluded from the tree of life so that it might be openly shown that he had lost the incorruptible fruit of wisdom, which he used to enjoy invisibly. And because the blessed Abraham by the merit of pious devotion had already tasted the fruit of wisdom and life, which is Christ, rightly he is said to have seen and received the Lord standing under a tree. There Eve, having abandoned the fear of God, having neglected her husband's counsel, rashly approached the serpent, in which the devil was speaking, by whom she was deceived into eating what was forbidden, and also made her husband complicit in her transgression; for which reason, receiving the sentence of just condemnation with her husband, she heard among other things: "In pain you shall bring forth children" (Genesis 3:16); and first she bore Cain, the cursed son and fratricide. Here Sarah, submitted to the fear of God, following likewise the religious faith and deeds of her husband, awaited at home the Lord's appearance until her husband came and learned what should be done; but also with the dishes prepared for the Lord's reception, she nevertheless modestly remained at home and rejoiced in having her husband go ahead with them to the Lord and offer the gifts of her devotion and his own. Therefore both received the reward of their kindness with a promised offspring; and not just any offspring, but indeed the one in whom all nations would be blessed. And rightly so, for there the guilt of transgression was punished with due retribution in the first Adam; here the time of redemption through the second Adam was both foreshadowed and prepared. It follows:

When the men got up from there, they directed their eyes toward Sodom, and Abraham was walking with them to see them on their way. When it is said that the men got up from there, it is shown that while they were sitting, Abraham was standing and ministering to them, although he had initially seen them standing. They directed their eyes toward Sodom so that just as they rewarded the faith of blessed Abraham with joyful promises, they would destroy the faithlessness of the impious city with avenging flames, according to what the Psalmist said, who after proclaiming the Lord's mercy toward the holy: "The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and His ears are attentive to their cries" (Psalm 34:16), immediately added His severity in the punishment of the wicked: "But the face of the Lord is against those who do evil, to blot out their name from the earth" (v. 17). But that Abraham walked with the angels to see them on their way, he is believed to have done from the custom of devoted hospitality; but blessed were those steps by which a man was deemed worthy to walk with angels on earth, and to lead them who had come to visit him back to heaven; now blessed are those lives that follow the angelic way of life on earth, by living soberly, righteously, piously, and chastely, and by always, as much as mortal is possible, devoting themselves to divine praises. Truly, blessed Abraham, because he so joyfully received the Lord coming, that he cared to see them off as if they were household members, deserved to know higher secrets of divine works; who, understanding himself the strictness of the forthcoming divine retribution on the world, as he had previously shown himself devoted to God in receiving guests, so afterward he showed himself solicitous for his neighbors by interceding for them.

And behold, the men reached out their hands and brought Lot to them and closed the door, and they struck with blindness those who were outside, from the least to the greatest, so that they could not find the door. And the rest is up to the point that Lot said to his sons-in-law: "Get up, leave this place, for the Lord will destroy this city," and he seemed to be speaking jestingly. That the angels closed Lot's door, so that neither he nor anyone from his house could be taken by the Sodomites to destruction, clearly indicates that none of God's elect will be lost to the impiety and persecution of the reprobates, as the Lord says about his sheep: "And I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand" (John 10:28). That Lot, having the authority given by the angels, could not bring back to salvation any of the wicked citizens, not even his own relatives or friends, even though he tried very much, signifies that no human effort can add even one soul to the number of the predestined, who were chosen by the Lord before the foundation of the world; for the Lord knows who are his own. Indeed, although the weakness of our condition may hide from us the fate of those who belong to the lot of the elect, we must not cease from caring about our own salvation, nor should we be silent in instructing our neighbors. But, following the example of the blessed Lot, we ought to live chastely and devote ourselves to the correction of those who err, for it is certain that even though we cannot save those predestined to destruction, we do not lose the reward of our kindness, which we extend toward their salvation.

And they led him out and placed him outside the city. There he spoke to him: "Save your soul, do not look back, nor stay in any region around, but save yourself on the mountain, lest you also perish together." Generally, indeed, the fire and destruction of Sodom, from which Lot was rescued, designates the punishment of ultimate severity; when, with the completion at the end of the age of the total number of the elect, all the impious will be seized into eternal fire, the Lord explaining, who said: "Similarly as it happened in the days of Lot, they ate and drank, bought and sold, planted and built; but the day Lot went out from Sodom, fire and sulfur rained from heaven and destroyed them all. So will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed" (Luke 17:28). To which the apostle Jude also attests, saying: "Just as Sodom and Gomorrah and the neighboring cities, which likewise indulged in sexual immorality and pursued unnatural desire, serve as an example by undergoing a punishment of eternal fire” (Jude 7). However, the same fire of Sodom can also, not incongruously, suggest the flames of the vices with which the reprobate are burned in this life and are thus prepared for eternal fire; who, although they now do not cease to burn with earthly desires and carnal allurements, then will never cease to burn with the fire of vengeance. This sense, too, the Lord affirms, indeed even teaches, who says: "In that hour, let the one who is on the housetop, with his goods in the house, not come down to take them away; and likewise, let the one who is in the field not turn back. Remember Lot's wife" (Luke 17:31). For we are not taught that in the approaching moment of the final judgment, deserting the peak of upright conduct, we should turn our mind to the depths of worldly desire; or, leaving the plow of spiritual agriculture, that we should look back, when no further correction of our works remains to us, but rather the reckoning of what we have worked is at hand. Rather, indeed, as judgment approaches, the faithful are given this exhortation, to persist in good and wholesome beginnings, lest, repeating the contagions of sins which they had left behind, they imitate Lot's wife, who, when she looked back heedlessly at the sulfurous burning Sodom, was turned into a pillar of salt. Therefore, as the Lord forbids us from imitating Lot's wife, he certainly shows that the burning of the city, to which she had looked back, expresses the flames of vices which we are both able and ought to avoid. Hence now the exhortation of the angels, by which they had admonished Lot, who was led out of Sodom, not to look back, nor to stay in any region around, but to seek the mountain to be saved, must be spiritually understood and followed with the utmost intention by us; lest we carelessly repeat the ardor and incentives of the vices we seemed to have momentarily escaped, nor consent to remain, as much as possible, in the vicinity of sinners, lest by their example we deviate from the rectitude of our path, as the Psalmist says of the blessed man: "And he does not stand in the way of sinners" (Psalm 1:1), but we should quickly strive to ascend to the height of elevated conduct.