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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 Pilgerfahrt, p. 129. For Masius, see his De Uxore Lothi in Statuam Salis Conversa, Hafniae, 1720, especially pages 29-31. For Dean Prideaux, see his Old and New Testament connected in the History of the Jews, 1720, map at page 7. For Bachiene, see his Historische und geographische Beschreibung von Palaestina, Leipzig, 1766, vol. i, pp. 118-120, and notes. But, from the middle of the eighteenth century, the new current sets through Christendom with ever-increasing strength. Very interesting is it to compare the great scriptural commentaries of the middle of this century with those published a century earlier. Of the earlier ones we may take Matthew Poole's Synopsis as a type: as authorized by royal decree in 1667 it contains very substantial arguments for the pious belief in the statue. Of the later ones we may take the edition of the noted commentary of the Jesuit Tirinus seventy years later: while he feels bound to present the authorities, he evidently endeavours to get rid of the subject as speedily as possible under cover of conventionalities; of the spirit of Quaresmio he shows no

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