Yet, as we near the end of the sixteenth century, some evidences of
a healthful and fruitful scepticism begin to appear.
The old stream of travellers, commentators, and preachers,
accepting tradition and repeating what they have been told, flows
on; but here and there we are refreshed by the sight of a man who
really begins to think and look for himself.
First among these is the French naturalist Pierre Belon. As regards
the ordinary wonders, he had the simple faith of his time. Among a
multitude of similar things, he believed that he saw the stones on
which the disciples were sleeping during the prayer of Christ; the
stone on which the Lord sat when he raised Lazarus from the dead;
the Lord's footprints on the stone from which he ascended into
heaven; and, most curious of all, "the stone which the builders
rejected." Yet he makes some advance on his predecessors, since he
shows in one passage that he had thought out the process by which
the simpler myths of Palestine were made. For, between Bethlehem
and Jerusalem, he sees a field covered with small pebbles, and of
these he says: "The common people tell you that a man was once
sowing peas there, when Our Lady passed that way and asked him what
he was doing; the man answered "I am sowing pebbles" and
straightway all the peas were changed into these little stones.
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