But the strongest effect of this growing scepticism is seen near the end of that century, when the eminent Dutch commentator Clericus (Le Clerc) published his commentary on the Pentateuch and his Dissertation on the Statue of Salt.
At great length he brings all his shrewdness and learning to bear against the whole legend of the actual transformation of Lot's wife and the existence of the salt pillar, and ends by saying that "the whole story is due to the vanity of some and the credulity of more."
In the beginning of the eighteenth century we find new tributaries to this rivulet of scientific thought. In 1701 Father Felix Beaugrand dismisses the Dead Sea legends and the salt statue very curtly and dryly—expressing not his belief in it, but a conventional wish to believe.
In 1709 a scholar appeared in another part of Europe and of different faith, who did far more than any of his predecessors to envelop the Dead Sea legends in an atmosphere of truth—Adrian Reland, professor at the University of Utrecht. His work on Palestine is a monument of patient scholarship, having as its nucleus a love of truth as truth: there is no irreverence in him, but he quietly brushes away a great mass of myths and legends: as to the statue of Lot's wife, he treats it warily, but applies the comparative method to it with killing effect, by showing that the story of its miraculous renewal is but one among many of its kind.(438)
(438) For Zwinner, see his Blumenbuch des Heyligen Landes, Munchen,
1661, p. 454. For Mezger, see his Sacra Historia, Augsburg, 1700, p. 30.
For Doubdan, see his Voyage de la Terre-Sainte, Paris, 1670, pp. 338,
339; also Tobler and Gage's Ritter. For Goujon, see his Histoire et
Voyage de la Terre Saincte, Lyons, 1670, p. 230, etc. For Morison,
see his Voyage, book ii, pp. 516, 517. For Maundrell, see in Wright's
Collection, pp. 383 et seq. For Clericus, see his Dissertation de Salis
Statua, in his Pentateuch, edition of 1696, pp. 327 et seq. For Father
Beaugrand, see his Voyage, Paris, 1701, pp. 137 et seq. For Reland, see
his Palaestina, Utrecht, 1714, vol. i, pp. 61-254, passim.
Yet to superficial observers the old current of myth and marvel seemed to flow into the eighteenth century as strong as ever, and of this we may take two typical evidences. The first of these is the Pious Pilgrimage of Vincent Briemle. His journey was made about 1710; and his work, brought out under the auspices of a high papal functionary some years later, in a heavy quarto, gave new life to the stories of the hellish character of the Dead Sea, and especially to the miraculous renewal of the salt statue.
In 172O came a still more striking effort to maintain the old belief in the north of Europe, for in that year the eminent theologian Masius published his great treatise on The Conversion of Lot's Wife into a Statue of Salt.
Evidently intending that this work should be the last word on this subject in Germany, as Quaresmio had imagined that his work would be the last in Italy, he develops his subject after the high scholastic and theologic manner. Calling attention first to the divine command in the New Testament, "Remember Lot's wife," he argues through a long series of chapters. In the ninth of these he discusses "the impelling cause" of her looking back, and introduces us to the question, formerly so often treated by theologians, whether the soul of Lot's wife was finally saved. Here we are glad to learn that the big, warm heart of Luther lifted him above the common herd of theologians, and led him to declare that she was "a faithful and saintly woman," and that she certainly was not eternally damned. In justice to the Roman Church also it should be said that several of her most eminent commentators took a similar view, and insisted that the sin of Lot's wife was venial, and therefore, at the worst, could only subject her to the fires of purgatory.
The eleventh chapter discusses at length the question HOW she was converted into salt, and, mentioning many theological opinions, dwells especially upon the view of Rivetus, that a thunderbolt, made up apparently of fire, sulphur, and salt, wrought her transformation at the same time that it blasted the land; and he bases this opinion upon the twenty-ninth chapter of Deuteronomy and the one hundred and seventh Psalm.
Later, Masius presents a sacred scientific theory that "saline particles entered into her until her whole body was infected"; and with this he connects another piece of sanctified science, to the effect that "stagnant bile" may have rendered the surface of her body "entirely shining, bitter, dry, and deformed."