NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 451 



a statement which is the result of the theological reasoning of 

 centuries, and especially interesting as a typical example of the 

 theological method in contrast with the scientific. He could not 

 understand how the blessed waters of the Jordan could "be allowed 

 to mingle with the accursed waters of the Dead Sea. In spite, 

 then, of the eye of sense, he beheld the water with the eye of faith, 

 and calmly announced that the Jordan water passes through the 

 sea, but that the two masses of water are not mingled. As to the 

 salt statue of Lot's wife, he declares it to be still existing ; and, 

 copying a table of indulgences granted by the Church to pious 

 pilgrims, he puts down the visit to the salt statue as giving an 

 indulgence of seven years. 



Toward the end of the century we have another traveler yet 

 more influential, Bernard of Breydenbach, Dean of Mainz. His 

 book of travels was published in 1486, at the famous press of 

 Schoeffer, and in various translations it was spread through 

 Europe, exercising an influence wide and deep. His first im- 

 portant notice of the Dead Sea is as follows : " In this, Tirus the 

 serpent is found, and from him the Tiriac medicine is made. He 

 is blind, and so full of venom that there is no remedy for his bite 

 except cutting off the bitten part. He can only be taken by strik- 

 ing him and making him angry ; then his venom flies into his 

 head and tail." Breydenbach calls the Dead Sea " the chimney of 

 hell," and repeats the old story as to the miraculous solvent for 

 its bitumen. He, too, makes the statement that the holy water 

 of the Jordan does not mingle with the accursed water of the 

 infernal sea ; but increases the miracle which Caumont had an- 

 nounced by saying that, although the waters appear to come 

 together, the Jordan is really absorbed in the earth before it 

 reaches the sea. 



As to Lot's wife, various travelers at that time had various 

 fortunes. Some, like Caumont and Breydenbach, took her con- 

 tinued existence for granted ; some, like Count John of Solms, 

 saw her and were greatly edified ; some, like Hans Werli, tried to 

 find her and could not, but, like St. Silvia, a thousand years 

 before, were none the less edified by the idea that, for some inscru- 

 table purpose, the sea had been allowed to hide her from them ; 

 some found her larger than they expected, even forty feet high, 

 as was the salt pillar which happened to be standing at the visit 

 of Commander Lynch in 1848 ; but this only added a new proof 

 to the miracle, for the text was remembered, " There were giants 

 in those days." 



Out of the mass of works of pilgrims during the fifteenth cent- 

 ury I select just one more as typical of the theological view then 

 dominant, and this is the noted book of Felix Fabri, a preaching 

 friar of Ulm. 



