NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 453 



the Epistle to the Ephesians.* Saint Augustine held the same view as 

 beyond controversy, f 



During the middle ages this doctrine of the diabolical origin of 

 storms went on gathering strength. Bede had full faith in it, and nar- 

 rates various anecdotes in support of it. J Saint Thomas Aquinas gave 

 it his sanction, saying in his all-authoritative "Summa": "Rains and 

 winds, and whatsoever occurs by local impulse alone, can be caused 

 by demons." " It is," he says, " a dogma of faith that the demons 

 can produce wind, storms, and rain of fire from heaven." * 



Albert the Great taught the same doctrine, and showed how a cer- 

 tain salve thrown into a spring produced whirlwinds. || The great 

 Franciscan the " seraphic doctor " Saint Bonaventura, whose services 

 to theology earned him one of the highest places in the Church, and 

 to whom Dante gave special honor in paradise, set upon this belief his 

 high authority. A The lives of the saints, and the chronicles of the 

 middle ages, were filled with it. Poetry and painting accepted the 

 idea and developed it. Dante wedded it to verse, Q and at Venice this 

 thought may still be seen embodied in one of the grand pictures of 

 Bordone : a ship-load of demons is seen approaching Venice in a storm, 

 threatening destruction to the city, but Saint Mark, Saint George, and 

 Saint Nicholas attack the vessel, and disperse the hellish crew.J 



The popes again and again sanctioned this doctrine, and it was 

 amalgamated with various local superstitions, pious imaginations, and 

 interesting arguments, to strike the fancy of the people at large. A 

 strong argument in favor of a diabolical origin of the thunderbolt was 

 afforded by the eccentricities of its operation. These attracted espe- 

 cial attention in the middle ages, and the popular love of marvel gener- 

 alized isolated phenomena into rules. Thus, it was said that the light- 

 ning strikes the sword in the sheath, gold in the purse, the foot in the 

 shoe, leaving sheath, and purse, and shoe unharmed ; that it consumes 

 a human being internally without injuring the skin ; that it destroys 



* Thus, in his "Com. in Epist. ad Ephesios" (iii, 6), commenting on the text, "Our 

 battle is not with flesh and blood," he explains this as meaning the devils in the air ; and 

 adds : " Nam et in alio loco de daemonibus quod in aere isto vagentur, Apostolus ait : In 

 quibus ambulastis aliquando juxta saeculum mundi istius, secundum principem potestatis 

 aeris spiritus, qui nunc operatur in Alios difBdentiae " (Ephes. ii, 2). "Haec autem omnium 

 doctorum opinio est, quod aer iste qui coelum et terram medius dividens, inane appellatur, 

 plenus sit contrariis fortitudinibus." See also his "Com. in Isaiam," xiii, 50 (Migne, 

 " Patr. Lat.," xxiv, 477). 



f- As to Augustine, see the " De Civitate Dei," passim. 



X See Bede, "Hist. Eccles.," i, 17; "Vita Cuthberti," c. 17. 



tt See Thomas Aquinas, " Summa," pars I, qu. Ixxx, art. 2, cited by Maury, "Legendes 

 Pieuses," 11. The second citation I owe to Rydberg, "Magic of the Middle Ages," 73, 

 where the whole interesting passage is given at length. 



I See Albertus Magnus, "De Potentia Daemonum " (cited by Maury, as above). 



A See Bonaventura, " Comp. Thcol. Veritat.," ii, 26. 



See Dante, " Purgatorio," c. 5. 



X See Maury, " Legendes Pieuses," 1 8, note. 



