period, that the bitumen could only he dissolved by such fluids
as in the processes of animated nature came from the statue.

The legend thus amplified we shall find dwelt upon by pious travellers
and monkish chroniclers for hundreds of years: so it came to be more
and more treasured by the universal Church, and held more and more
firmly--"always, everywhere, and by all."

In the two following centuries we have an overwhelming mass of
additional authority for the belief that the very statue of salt into
which Lot's wife was transformed was still existing. In the fourth, the
continuance of the statue was vouched for by St. Silvia, who visited the
place: though she could not see it, she was told by the Bishop of Segor
that it had been there some time before, and she concluded that it
had been temporarily covered by the sea. In both the fourth and fifth
centuries such great doctors in the Church as St. Jerome, St. John
Chrysostom, and St. Cyril of Jerusalem agreed in this belief and
statement; hence it was, doubtless, that the Hebrew word which is
translated in the authorized English version "pillar," was translated
in the Vulgate, which the majority of Christians believe virtually
inspired, by the word "statue"; we shall find this fact insisted upon by
theologians arguing in behalf of the statue, as a result and monument of
the miracle, for over fourteen hundred years afterward.(430)

(430) See Josephus, Antiquities, book i, chap. xi; Epist. I; Cyril
Hieros, Catech., xix; Chrysostom, Hom. XVIII, XLIV, in Genes.; Irenaeus,
lib. iv, c. xxxi, of his Heresies, edition Oxon., 1702. For St. Silvia,
see S. Silviae Aquitanae Peregrinatio ad Loca Sancta, Romae, 1887, p.
55; also edition of 1885, p. 25. For recent translation, see Pilgrimage
of St. Silvia, p. 28, in publications of Palestine Text Society for
1891. For legends of signs of continued life in boulders and stones
into which human beings have been transformed for sin, see Karl Bartsch,
Sage, etc., vol. ii, pp. 420 et seq.

About the middle of the sixth century Antoninus Martyr visited the Dead
Sea region and described it, but curiously reversed a simple truth in
these words: "Nor do sticks or straws float there, nor can a man swim,
but whatever is cast into it sinks to the bottom." As to the statue of
Lot's wife, he threw doubt upon its miraculous renewal, but testified
that it was still standing.

In the seventh century the Targum of Jerusalem not only test