A characteristic
specimen is his explanation of the Psalmist's phrase, "The
arrows of the thunder." These, he tells us, are forged out of a
dry vapour rising from the earth and kindled by the heat of the
upper air, which then, coming into contact with a cloud just
turning into rain, "is conglutinated like flour into dough,"
but, being too hot to be extinguished, its particles become
merely sharpened at the lower end, and so blazing arrows,
cleaving and burning everything they touch.[329b]
But far more important, in the thirteenth century, was the fact
that the most eminent scientific authority of that age, Albert
the Great, Bishop of Ratisbon, attempted to reconcile the
speculations of Aristotle with theological views derived from
the fathers. In one very important respect he improved upon the
meteorological views of his great master. The thunderbolt, he
says, is no mere fire, but the product of black clouds
containing much mud, which, when it is baked by the intense
heat, forms a fiery black or red stone that falls from the sky,
tearing beams and crushing walls in its course: such he has seen
with his own eyes.
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