Jerome, of a heretic who was changed into a log of
wood, which was then burned.
He gives a statement of the Hebrews that Lot's wife received her
peculiar punishment because she had refused to add salt to the food
of the angels when they visited her, and he preaches a short
sermon in which he says that, as salt is the condiment of food, so
the salt statue of Lot's wife "gives us a condiment of wisdom."[[233]]
There were, indeed, many discrepancies in the testimony of
travellers regarding the salt pillar--so many, in fact, that at a
later period the learned Dom Calmet acknowledged that they shook
his belief in the whole matter; but, during this earlier time,
under the complete sway of the theological spirit, these
difficulties only gave new and more glorious opportunities for faith.
For, if a considerable interval occurred between the washing of one
salt pillar out of existence and the washing of another into
existence, the idea arose that the statue, by virtue of the soul
which still remained in it, had departed on some mysterious
excursion.
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