NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 453 



a pillar happen to be covered in part by the sea, this was enough to 

 arouse the belief that the statue from time to time descended into 

 the Dead Sea depths possibly to satisfy that old fatal curiosity 

 regarding her former neighbors ; did some smaller block of salt 

 happen to be washed out near the statue, it was believed that a 

 household dog, also transformed into salt, had followed her back 

 from beneath the deep ; did more statues than one appear at one 

 time, that simply made the mystery more impressive. 



In facts now so easy of scientific explanation the theologians 

 found wonderful food for discussion. 



One great question among them was whether the soul of Lot's 

 wife did really remain in the statue. On one side it was insisted 

 that, as Holy Scripture declares that Lot's wife was changed into 

 a pillar of salt, and as she was necessarily made up of a soul and 

 a body, the soul must have become part of the statue. This argu- 

 ment was clinched by citing that passage in the Book of Wisdom 

 in which the salt pillar is declared to be still standing as " the 

 monument of an unbelieving soul." On the other hand, it was 

 insisted that the soul of the woman must have been incorporeal 

 and immortal, and hence could not have been changed into a sub- 

 stance corporeal and mortal. Naturally, to this it would be 

 answered that the salt pillar was no more corporeal than the 

 ordinary materials of the human body, and that it had been made 

 miraculously immortal, and that " with God all things are possi- 

 ble." Thus long vistas of theological discussion were opened.* 



As we enter the sixteenth century the Dead Sea myths, and 

 especially the legends of Lot's wife, are still growing. In 1507 

 Father Anselm of the Minorites declares that the sea sometimes 

 covers the feet of the statue, sometimes the legs, sometimes the 

 whole body. 



In 1555 Gabriel Giraudet, priest at Puy, journeyed through 

 Palestine. His faith was robust, and his attitude toward the 

 myths of the Dead Sea is seen by his declaration that its waters 

 are so foul that one can smell them at a distance of three leagues ; 

 that straw, hay, or feathers thrown into them will sink, but that 

 iron and other metals will float ; that criminals have been kept in 

 them three or four days and could not drown. As to Lot's wife, 

 he says that he found her " lying there, her back toward heaven, 

 converted into salt stone ; for I touched her, scratched her, and 

 put a piece of her into my mouth, and she tasted salt." 



At the center of all these legends we see, then, the idea that, 

 though there were no living beasts in the Dead Sea, the people of 

 the overwhelmed cities were still living beneath its waters, prob- 



* For a brief statement of the main arguments for and against the idea that the soul 

 of Lot's wife remained within the salt statue, see Cornelius a Lapide, " Commentarius in 

 Pentateuchum," Antwerp, 1697, chap. xix. 



