An Instruction on the Words, “The Cry of Sodom and Gomorrah Is Multiplied to Me” (Gen. 18:20–21)

Oh, how many among men are led astray by evil reports about their neighbors and slander! Many of the best, most well-intentioned, even most intelligent people have committed great crimes, being deceived by evil reports, believing slanders, becoming thoughtlessly instruments of malicious, evil intention. Why is this? Because they forgot the foundation of all virtues, God-pleasing judgment (Mt 23:23). The abandonment of judgment naturally leads to foolish actions. The history of mankind irrefutably testifies that crimes committed by virtuous people were foolish actions, or, which is the same, actions not preceded by judgment.

The holy Fathers, in order to draw us away from such actions, invite us to pay special attention to the words of God: “The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah has indeed become great, and their sin is very grave. I will go down now and see whether they have acted according to the cry which has come to Me”. Let us examine the significance of the words spoken by our Lord God, let us imprint these words in our memory, let us be guided by them in our conduct, so that we might avoid small and great crimes, often committed solely because of the lack of judgment.

The cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were situated in the most fertile valley under the favorable sky of Palestine. Scripture compares this valley in its fertility to Egypt, and in the extraordinary beauty of its nature to paradise (Gen 13:10). The residents, abounding in earthly goods, gave themselves over to the passion of gluttony. For us the degree to which the development of gluttony reached among the ancients, who possessed incomprehensible bodily strength and health, is incomprehensible. “The iniquity of Sodom was pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of wine” (Ezek 16:49). From satiation there ordinarily develops a carnal state, inseparable from carnal reasoning, or the way of thinking of a person “who has joined” the senseless animals and “become like them” (Ps 48:13). An inseparable, principal, essential characteristic of carnal reasoning is pride, which serves as the door to all sins and vices. The proud man is alien to the worship of God, alien to fear of God, to respect for God’s law and civil law, alien to respect for his neighbor, for his well-being and prosperity, to his very life, alien to self-knowledge, to virtue, an enemy and criminal to men and to himself. He is capable of all lawlessness, as if having some special right to commit them. The proud man is one with a hardened heart and a demonic mind. From satiation in the Sodomites there developed a carnal state; pride became the soul of this carnal state. From the union of blind pride and carnal state was born their characteristic child—insatiable, unbridled depravity. This depravity was not satisfied with natural gratification: it desired the unnatural and rushed toward it with frenzy. “The men of Sodom were exceedingly wicked and sinful before God” (Gen 13:13). Their sins were not healed by strong remedies. The Sodomites did not come to their senses, did not repent of their sinful life either after twelve years of subjugation to a foreign people and king (Gen 14:4), or after the defeat of their army and the capture of many of their citizens (Gen 14:10-12). Impenitent sinners, irrevocably carried away by sin, called down heavenly punishment. “The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah has indeed become great,” says God to His beloved prophet, “and their sin is very grave. I will go down now and see whether they have acted according to the cry which has come to Me”.

God, having appeared to man in the form of man, so that man would be capable of listening to His words, also uses the manner of human speech, so that this speech might serve for instruction through its clarity and applicability to all people, even the simplest. The all-knowing, all-seeing, and omnipresent God says: “I will go down and see”. Having gone down, I will see whether in Sodom and Gomorrah those great lawlessnesses are truly being committed of which a report comes to Me. Hidden in these words is the thought: “I do not believe the report; I intend to ascertain the truth by my own investigation, by my own examination.” In these words lies instruction for us, that we not quickly believe the words of those slandering and being slandered, that we not hasten to condemn a neighbor, to punish and execute him, that we not rush to the duties of severity and cruelty, to the trade and office of executioners, before we ourselves have seen and learned with certainty what the neighbor is accused of. It is characteristic of limited intelligence, thoughtlessness, characteristic of a weak and unexalted soul, to trust hastily the words of slanderers, to become angry with the slandered person, to rush at him with vengeance and punishment, without having learned whether the accusation is just or not. Often the malice of evil men is the beginning of evil rumor, and the credulity of thoughtless men is the cause of the spread of this rumor. The malice of cunning men invents slander and transmits it to the thoughtless and limited for sowing in human society; and sometimes a trivial fault, a trivial sin is transformed by the addition of falsehood to truth, adorned with sharp mockeries and malicious suppositions, into the greatest crime. Thus virtue is presented to human society as sin, and a defect like a mote is made into a crime like a beam. Evil especially acts thus to cover itself: it casts a black garment over the neighbor’s activity, hypocritically takes offense at this activity, hypocritically condemns it, so as to present its own activity as bright. It is necessary to have watchfulness, it is necessary to have caution, it is necessary to have the judgment commanded by God, so that a lie is not taken for truth, so that the non-existent is not given existence, so that the insignificant is not transformed into the enormous and the pardonable into the unpardonable. Evil rumor must be verified by one’s own judgment. Teaching us this, God presents His own divine action as an example. “The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah,” He says, “has indeed become great, and their sin is very grave. I will go down now and see whether they have acted according to the cry which has come to Me”. As all-knowing, He knew the sins of the Sodomites and Gomorrahites with perfect precision, but He takes upon Himself an action characteristic of limited beings, so that we might act in accordance with our limitedness, not arrogating to ourselves an action appropriate to an unlimited being, whose hearing and sight cannot be mistaken, who is not subject to deception and delusion. Having heard the cry of Sodom, God does not immediately stretch out His hand for punishment; He precedes punishment with the most precise investigation of the matter, though the matter was known to Him in the most precise manner even without investigation. The abandonment of judgment, the sole foundation for correct and truly good actions, was the cause of great crimes. Men devoted to vanity, who have not consecrated their lives to piety, to the benefit of mankind, to pleasing God, constantly fall into this error. They do not even notice that the manner of their actions is false because of the falsity of the principle from which it proceeds. They do not know of the falsity of this principle because they neither know nor wish to know God’s Law. They commit injustice as if it were justice; they perform crimes, thinking they are performing great good deeds or, at the very least, deeds of justice. “The way of fools is right in their own eyes”, Scripture says (Prov 12:15).

We see an example of such action and conduct in the action and conduct of Potiphar, Pharaoh’s official, toward the chaste and virtuous Joseph. Potiphar’s wife was infected with a criminal passion for Joseph and, not receiving satisfaction, slandered him out of vengeance before her husband—this innocent and righteous man. Potiphar, without any inquiry or investigation, imprisoned Joseph. To Potiphar his action seemed so well-founded and proper, certainly because of his habit of such a manner of action, that he did not even think to verify it throughout the long time Joseph languished in prison, until he was delivered from it by God’s Providence. It is not surprising that a pagan, who did not know the true God, was subject to such an error joined with crime: holy men also were subject to it when they forgot that actions toward the accused and their punishment must be preceded by judgment. Forgetting this, the equal-to-the-Apostles Emperor Constantine put to death his virtuous, beloved son Crispus, slandered by his stepmother Fausta for the same reason Joseph was slandered by the Egyptian woman. Subsequently the truth appeared. The Emperor fell into deep sorrow, wept, lamented, repented of his thoughtless action, and found himself forced, after the execution of the innocent, to subject the guilty to execution. Fausta lost her life. Two executions followed—one righteous, one unrighteous; the cause of both was the abandonment of the judgment commanded by God and rash, hasty action upon slanders.

In the Life of the holy John the Compassionate, Patriarch of Alexandria, we read the following instructive and at the same time terrible narrative. A certain monk walked for several days through Alexandria with a young, very beautiful girl. Many who saw this were scandalized, thinking he had her for sin, and reported this to the patriarch. The patriarch immediately ordered that both be seized and, after inflicting severe physical punishment, imprisoned. When night came, the monk appeared in a dream to the patriarch, showing his back lacerated by cruel beatings. “Is this pleasing to you, master?” he said. “Is this how you have been taught by the Apostle to pastor Christ’s flock ‘not under compulsion, but willingly, as God would have you’ (1 Pet 5:2). Believe me, that you have erred as a man.” Saying this, the monk departed from him. The patriarch awoke and began to reflect on the vision; understanding his transgression, he sat upon his bed, grieving and lamenting over his thoughtless and hasty action. At the coming of dawn he ordered the monk brought to him, so that he might see him and learn whether it was he who had appeared to him in a dream. The monk came with great difficulty, for he could scarcely move from his grievous wounds. The patriarch, seeing him, became as if dead and could not speak a word. Coming to himself, he asked the monk to remove his clothing so as to assure himself whether he was wounded as had appeared in the dream. With difficulty the monk bent to remove his clothing. When he removed it, it was revealed that he was a eunuch, which was not apparent from his appearance because he was young. The patriarch, seeing his lacerated body, very much regretted this and, summoning those who had slandered him, excommunicated them from the Church for three years, and begged the monk’s forgiveness, saying to him: “Brother! Forgive me, for I did this in ignorance. I have sinned before God and before you. However, you should not have walked so openly through the city with a girl, so as not to scandalize the laity: for you have the appearance of a monk.” Then the monk answered with great humility. “Believe me, master, I will reveal to you the whole truth of the matter. Before this I was in Gaza and, going to venerate the tomb of the holy martyrs Cyrus and John, I met this girl in the evening. She fell at my feet and with tears begged me to allow her to accompany me. I refused her and wanted to depart from her. But she, following after me, said: ‘I beseech you by God of Abraham, who came to save sinners and will judge the living and the dead, do not abandon me.’ Hearing this, I said to her, ‘Why do you beseech me so, girl?’ She, weeping, answered me: ‘I am a Jewess. I wish to abandon the evil faith of my fathers and become a Christian; I beseech you, father, do not abandon me, but save my soul, which desires to believe in Christ.’ Hearing this, I feared God’s judgment and, taking her with me, taught her the holy faith. Coming to the tomb of the holy martyrs, I baptized her in the church and have walked with her in simplicity of heart, intending to place her in a women’s monastery.’ The patriarch, hearing this, sighed and said: ‘How many hidden servants God has! And we, wretches, do not know them.’ And before all he related the vision that had come to him that night. He took a hundred coins and offered them to the monk; but the monk refused to take even one, saying: ‘If a monk believes that God cares for him, he does not need gold; if he loves gold, then he does not believe in God’s existence.’ Saying this, the monk bowed to the patriarch and departed. Having learned through hard experience, the patriarch guarded against thoughtless condemnation of neighbors and taught the same to his flock. Among our spiritual ailments, produced in us by the fall, is noticed: the failure to see our own defects, the striving to hide them, and at the same time the hunger to see, to expose, and to punish the defects of our neighbor. For lack of means to discover the defects in a neighbor, or because the defects we wish to see in him do not exist in him, we resort to fabrications, covering and adorning them with brilliant, sharp words. Our own defect appears to us as excusable and insignificant; our neighbor’s defect we strive to magnify, to present it as worthy of every censure, every punishment. This spiritual ailment is developed in the highest degree in those who are heedless of themselves; but it exists also in those who are watchful of their salvation. It is necessary to be vigilant over ourselves to avoid being carried away by this ailment. The holy David fell into grave sin and, for a considerable time, as often happens with those who have fallen into a sinful abyss, could not come to a state of consciousness and repentance. The Lord commanded the prophet Nathan to convict David. The prophet presented to the king his sin in a parable, by which both sin and sinner were covered, and asked judgment and punishment for the sinner. Immediately David pronounced judgment far exceeding in severity the requirement of the law (2 Sam 12:1-14). Such is the character of our fallen nature! For our own sin we seek leniency and mercy; for the sins of our neighbor, we seek punishment and execution. It is necessary to have discernment and caution; it is necessary to be cautious of ourselves. Do not judge according to your own opinion and conjecture, formed from slanders, from hearsay and rumors, from your own superficial observation; but imitate God, who said: ‘The cry of Sodom and Gomorrah has indeed become great, and their sin is very grave. I will go down now and see whether they have acted according to the cry which has come to Me’. Assure yourself in the most precise manner, and only then resolve to condemn if the law requires this of you—a law which forbids even condemnation of a neighbor when it is done arbitrarily, without the law’s requirement. Envy, hatred, and slander have presented to human society the greatest righteous men, even the God-man Himself, in the guise of the greatest criminals.

God-pleasing judgment must precede not only all our actions toward our neighbor, to avoid condemning and accusing innocent and righteous people or taking harsh measures against sins which do not call for such measures; it must precede all our actions in general, both external and internal. This judgment the holy Fathers call spiritual discernment, that principal virtue upon which depends the correctness and consequently all the merit of all other virtues. A virtue can be improper, and evil can be clothed with virtue’s mask. Our natural goodness is mixed with evil and corrupted by it; because of our corruption we cannot trust either the good thoughts that appear in us or the good, seemingly, desires of the heart. Both our limitedness and our fallen state require that our actions necessarily be preceded by examination.

The Venerable Cassian the Roman reports to us the following excellent teaching of the holy Anthony the Great on spiritual discernment. Once the holy elders from the surrounding deserts and monasteries gathered with this saint of God, and during a prolonged nighttime discussion they examined the question of which virtue preserves a monk from self-delusion and the devil’s snares. Some of the elders pointed to fasting and vigils because by them the mind is refined and, having acquired purity, can more easily draw near to God. Others named renunciation and contempt for possessions because the mind, having broken the bonds of various earthly cares, is easily appropriated to God. Still others gave preference to almsgiving, basing themselves on the words of the Lord: “Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world,” and so forth (Mt 25:34). Having heard everyone’s opinion, the Great Anthony answered: “All that you have said is both necessary and beneficial for those seeking God; but it is impossible to give decisive preference to these virtues for the reason that we see many who have lived lives of fasting and vigils, who have withdrawn into the desert, who have maintained the strictest renunciation, who have given away all their possessions in almsgiving and have come to extreme poverty because of almsgiving, and who have then sadly fallen away from virtue, slipped into a sinful life, and even into apostasy from the faith. What was the cause of their spiritual disorder? In my opinion, nothing other than the fact that they did not possess the gift of discernment. Discernment teaches a man to avoid excess in all things and to walk the royal path. It does not allow him to be robbed from the right hand by immoderate abstinence, nor to be thrown down from the left hand by excessive indulgence toward the body. It is for the soul what an eye and light are, according to the teaching of the Gospel, which says: ‘The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness’ (Mt 6:22-23). It is indeed so! Discernment, examining all the thoughts and deeds of a man, removes every wicked thought and intention displeasing to God, and saves us from delusion. This can be proven by Holy Scripture. Saul, the first king of Israel, not having discernment, was darkened by a thought and could not understand that obedience to God’s commandment is more pleasing to God than a voluntary sacrifice; he angered God by that which he thought would please Him. Saul would not have been subject to this if he had possessed the light of discernment. The Apostle calls discernment the sun: ‘Let not the sun’, he said, ‘go down on your wrath’ (Eph 4:26). Discernment is called the governance of our life, as is said in Scripture: ‘Where there is no counsel, a people falls, but in the multitude of counselors there is safety’ (Prov 11:14). In Scripture it is also called counsel, without which we ought to do nothing. Even the spiritual wine that gladdens man’s heart is forbidden to drink without counsel: ‘Do everything with counsel, and drink wine with counsel’ (Prov 31:4). Also: ‘Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control’ (Prov 25:28). In discernment are united wisdom, understanding, and spiritual sense, which distinguishes good from evil (Heb 5:14), without which neither is our inner house built up, nor can spiritual wealth be gathered (Prov 24:3-4). By this it is clearly proved that without the gift of discernment not one virtue can either be established or remain firm to the end. The mother and guardian of all virtues is discernment.” With this position and opinion of the great Anthony the other Fathers agreed.

Spiritual discernment is acquired through reading Holy Scripture, especially the New Testament, and through reading the holy Fathers, whose writings correspond to the mode of life led by the Christian. A Christian living in the world should read Fathers who have written instruction for all Christians in general; a Christian living in a cenobitic monastery should be nourished by the reading of paternal instruction for cenobitic monks; a Christian remaining in solitude should immerse himself in the depths of the teaching of holy hermits who remained constantly in self-examination and who, from spiritual, gracious vision of themselves, passed on to spiritual, gracious vision of God. It is necessary that living correspond to reading: “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves” (Jas 1:22). It is necessary that living correspond to reading, that reading be realized through action, so that it does not arouse mere barren dreaminess, leading to excitement and self-delusion. “Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” (Ps 118:105), Holy Scripture says, calling activity in general the feet, particular actions of a Christian the path, and spiritual discernment the light. In studying God’s law, in one’s own effort to fulfill God’s law, one must ask for gracious illumination from above through fervent and humble prayer. And this Scripture teaches us: “Do not remove Your commandments from me!” (Ps 118:10); “teach me Your statutes!” (Ps 118:12); “open my eyes, that I may see wonderful things from Your law!” (Ps 118:18); “do not hide Your commandments from me” (Ps 118:19).

It is a salvific teaching of Holy Scripture and the holy Fathers to precede all our actions with God-pleasing judgment, to subject to this judgment all our intentions, all our thoughts, all our heart’s strivings and desires, to direct both our inner and outer life according to God’s word, according to God’s understanding. Without this our conduct cannot be prudent or virtuous or pleasing to God. Without this we are constantly subject to deception from without and self-delusion from within. Let fear of God instruct us in watchfulness and caution, and let the study of God’s Word and life according to God’s Word furnish us with spiritual discernment, which is the door to the chamber of virtues and to the treasury of spiritual goods. The words of the Lord will surely be fulfilled over us: “For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you” (Mt 7:2). Amen.

Saint Dmitry of Rostov, Metropolitan. Chronicle. The Saint borrows the explanation of these words of Scripture from the holy John Chrysostom, Gregory the Great, Isidore of Pelusium, and Pimen the Great.

See the orations of Cicero against Antony.

“The soul will not be humbled if not deprived of bread,” said the Venerable Pimen the Great. The Alphabetical Patericon.

To the holy Abraham, Patriarch and Prophet.

Saint Dmitry. Chronicle.

Saint Dmitry. Chronicle.

Physical punishment was in general use among the ancients. They were not exempted from it, even the highest officials of the Roman Empire and the patriarchs. For example, the Constantinople Patriarch, the holy Flavian, the Roman Pope, the holy Martin, and others underwent severe physical punishment.

The Life of the holy John the Compassionate. Menaion Reader, November 12.

The holy Isaac the Syrian. Discourse 89. On the Harm of Unreasonable Zeal.

The Venerable Cassian the Roman. Collatio secunda, de discretione.

The Venerable Cassian. Collatio secunda, de discretione.