'"
In the light of the previous history, there is something at once
pathetic and comical in this attempt to throw the myth upon the
shoulders of the poor Arabs. The myth was not originated by
Mohammedans; it appears, as we have seen, first among the Jews,
and, I need hardly remind the reader, comes out in the Book of
Wisdom and in Josephus, and has been steadily maintained by
fathers, martyrs, and doctors of the Church, by at least one pope,
and by innumerable bishops, priests, monks, commentators, and
travellers, Catholic and Protestant, ever since. In thus throwing
the responsibility of the myth upon the Arabs Dr. Geikie appears to
show both the "perfervid genius" of his countrymen and their
incapacity to recognise a joke.
Nor is he more happy in his rationalistic explanations of the whole
mass of myths. He supposes a terrific storm, in which the lightning
kindled the combustible materials of the cities, aided perhaps by
an earthquake; but this shows a disposition to break away from the
exact statements of the sacred books which would have been most
severely condemned by the universal Church during at least eighteen
hundred years of its history.
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