The pagans insisted that Jupiter had sent the storm
in obedience to their prayers, and on the Antonine Column at
Rome we may still see the figure of Olympian Jove casting his
thunderbolts and pouring a storm of rain from the open heavens
against the Quadi. On the other hand, the Christians insisted
that the storm had been sent by Jehovah in obedience to _their_
prayers; and Tertullian, Eusebius, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St.
Jerome were among those who insisted upon this meteorological
miracle; the first two, indeed, in the fervour of their
arguments for its reality, allowing themselves to be carried
considerably beyond exact historical truth.[332]
As time went on, the fathers developed this view more and more
from various texts in the Jewish and Christian sacred books,
substituting for Jupiter flinging his thunderbolts the Almighty
wrapped in thunder and sending forth his lightnings. Through the
Middle Ages this was fostered until it came to be accepted as a
mere truism, entering into all medieval thinking, and was still
further developed by an attempt to specify the particular sins
which were thus punished.
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