The legend thus amplified we shall find dwelt upon by pious
travellers and monkish chroniclers for hundreds of years: so it
came to he more and more treasured by the universal Church, and
held more and more firmly--"always, everywhere, and by all."
In the two following centuries we have an overwhelming mass of
additional authority for the belief that the very statue of salt
into which Lot's wife was transformed was still existing. In the
fourth, the continuance of the statue was vouched for by St.
Silvia, who visited the place: though she could not see it, she was
told by the Bishop of Segor that it had been there some time
before, and she concluded that it had been temporarily covered by
the sea. In both the fourth and fifth centuries such great doctors
in the Church as St. Jerome, St. John Chrysostom, and St. Cyril of
Jerusalem agreed in this belief and statement; hence it was,
doubtless, that the Hebrew word which is translated in the
authorized English version "pillar," was translated in the Vulgate,
which the majority of Christians believe virtually inspired, by the
word "statue"; we shall find this fact insisted upon by theologians
arguing in behalf of the statue, as a result and monument of the
miracle, for over fourteen hundred years afterward.
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