"
But it was soon evident that the scientific current was still
working beneath this ponderous mass of theological authority. A
typical evidence of this we find in 1666 in the travels of Doubdan,
a canon of St. Denis. As to the Dead Sea, he says that he saw no
smoke, no clouds, and no "black, sticky water"; as to the statue of
Lot's wife, he says, "The moderns do not believe so easily that she
has lasted so long"; then, as if alarmed at his own boldness, he
concedes that the sea _may_ be black and sticky _in the middle_; and
from Lot's wife he escapes under cover of some pious generalities.
Four years later another French ecclesiastic, Jacques Goujon,
referring in his published travels to the legends of the salt
pillar, says: "People may believe these stories as much as they
choose; I did not see it, nor did I go there." So, too, in 1697,
Morison, a dignitary of the French Church, having travelled in
Palestine, confesses that, as to the story of the pillar of salt,
he has difficulty in believing it.
Pages:
1124
1125
1126
1127
1128
1129
1130
1131
1132
1133
1134
1135
1136
1137
1138
1139
1140
1141
1142
1143
1144
1145
1146
1147
1148