he statue, by virtue of the soul which still remained
in it, had departed on some mysterious excursion. Did it happen that one
statue was washed out one year in one place and another statue another
year in another place, this difficulty was surmounted by believing that
Lot's wife still walked about. Did it happen that a salt column was
undermined by the rains and fell, this was believed to be but another
sign of life. Did a pillar happen to be covered in part by the sea,
this was enough to arouse the belief that the statue from time to time
descended into the Dead Sea depths--possibly to satisfy that old fatal
curiosity regarding her former neighbours.

Did some smaller block of salt happen to be washed out near the statue,
it was believed that a household dog, also transformed into salt, had
followed her back from beneath the deep. Did more statues than one
appear at one time, that simply made the mystery more impressive.

In facts now so easy of scientific explanation the theologians found
wonderful matter for argument.

One great question among them was whether the soul of Lot's wife did
really remain in the statue. On one side it was insisted that, as Holy
Scripture declares that Lot's wife was changed into a pillar of salt,
and as she was necessarily made up of a soul and a body, the soul must
have become part of the statue. This argument was clinched by citing
that passage in the Book of Wisdom in which the salt pillar is declared
to be still standing as "the monument of an unbelieving SOUL." On the
other hand, it was insisted that the soul of the woman must have been
incorporeal and immortal, and hence could not have been changed into a
substance corporeal and mortal. Naturally, to this it would be answered
that the salt pillar was no more corporeal than the ordinary materials
of the human body, and that it had been made miraculously immortal,
and "with God all things are possible." Thus were opened long vistas of
theological discussion.(434)

(434) For a brief statement of the main arguments for and against the
idea that the soul of Lot's wife remained within the salt statue, see
Cornelius a Lapide, Commentarius in Pentateuchum, Antwerp, 1697, chap.
xix.

As we enter the sixteenth century the Dead Sea myths, and especially the
legends of Lot's wife, are still growing. In 1507 Father Anselm of the
Minorites declares that the sea sometimes covers the feet of the statue,
sometimes the legs, sometimes