Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/612

594 The adjustment of recent orthodox thought to this view presents some curious features. As typical we may take the travels of two German theologians between 1860 and 1870—John Kränzel, pastor in Munich; and Peter Schegg, lately professor in the university of that city.

The archdiocese of Munich-Freising is one of those in which the attempt to oppress modern scientific thought has been most steadily carried on. Its archbishops have constantly shown themselves assiduous in securing cardinals' hats by thwarting science and by stupefying education. The twin towers of the old cathedral of Munich have seemed to throw a killing shadow over intellectual development in that region. Naturally, then, these two clerical travelers from that diocese did not commit themselves to clearing away any of the Dead Sea myths; but it is significant that neither of them follows the example of so many of their clerical predecessors in defending the salt-pillar legend; they steadily avoid it altogether.

The more recent history of the salt pillar, since Lynch, deserves mention. It appears that the travelers immediately after him found it shaped by the storms into a spire; that a year or two later it had utterly disappeared; and about the year 1870 Prof. Palmer on visiting the place found at some distance from the main salt bed, as he says, "a tall, isolated needle of salt or salt rock, which does really bear a curious resemblance to an Arab woman with a child on her shoulders."

Three years later Smith's "Dictionary of the Bible" makes its concession to the old belief regarding Sodom and Gomorrah as slight as possible, and the myth of Lot's wife entirely disappears.

The theological effort to compromise with science now came in more strongly than ever. This effort had been made long before: as we have seen, it had begun to show itself decidedly as soon as the influence of the Baconian philosophy was felt. Clerc thought that the shock caused by the sight of fire from heaven killed Lot's wife instantly and made her body rigid as a statue. Eichhorn suggested that she fell into a stream of melted bitumen. Michaelis suggested that her relatives raised a monument of salt rock to her memory. Friedrichs suggested that she fell into the sea, and that the salt stiffened around her clothing, thus making a statue of her. Some claimed that a shower of sulphur came down upon her, and that the word which has been translated "salt" could possibly be translated "sulphur." Others hinted that the salt by its antiseptic qualities preserved her body as a mummy. De Saulcy, as we have seen, thought that a piece of salt rock fell upon her; and very recently Principal Dawson ventures the explanation that a flood of salt mud coming from a volcano incrusted her.