was
converted into salt, and, mentioning many theological opinions, dwells
especially upon the view of Rivetus, that a thunderbolt, made up
apparently of fire, sulphur, and salt, wrought her transformation at the
same time that it blasted the land; and he bases this opinion upon the
twenty-ninth chapter of Deuteronomy and the one hundred and seventh
Psalm.

Later, Masius presents a sacred scientific theory that "saline particles
entered into her until her whole body was infected"; and with this
he connects another piece of sanctified science, to the effect that
"stagnant bile" may have rendered the surface of her body "entirely
shining, bitter, dry, and deformed."

Finally, he comes to the great question whether the salt pillar is still
in existence. On this he is full and fair. On one hand he allows that
Luther thought that it was involved in the general destruction of Sodom
and Gomorrah, and he cites various travellers who had failed to find it;
but, on the other hand, he gives a long chain of evidence to show
that it continued to exist: very wisely he reminds the reader that the
positive testimony of those who have seen it must outweigh the negative
testimony of those who have not, and he finally decides that the salt
statue is still in being.

No doubt a work like this produced a considerable effect in Protestant
countries; indeed, this effect seems evident as far off as England, for,
in 172O, we find in Dean Prideaux's Old and New Testament connected
a map on which the statue of salt is carefully indicated. So, too, in
Holland, in the Sacred Geography published at Utrecht in 1758 by
the theologian Bachiene, we find him, while showing many signs of
rationalism, evidently inclined to the old views as to the existence
of the salt pillar; but just here comes a curious evidence of the real
direction of the current of thought through the century, for, nine years
later, in the German translation of Bachiene's work we find copious
notes by the translator in a far more rationalistic spirit; indeed,
we see the dawn of the inevitable day of compromise, for we now have,
instead of the old argument that the divine power by one miraculous
act changed Lot's wife into a salt pillar, the suggestion that she was
caught in a shower of sulphur and saltpetre, covered by it, and that the
result was a lump, which in a general way IS CALLED in our sacred books
"a pillar of salt."(439)

(439) For Briemle, see his Andachtige Pi