"
The great fathers of the Church had easily found warrant for
this doctrine in Scripture. St. Jerome declared the air to be
full of devils, basing this belief upon various statements in
the prophecies of Isaiah and in the Epistle to the Ephesians.
St. Augustine held the same view as beyond controversy.[337]
During the Middle Ages this doctrine of the diabolical origin of
storms went on gathering strength. Bede had full faith in it,
and narrates various anecdotes in support of it. St. 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
certain salve thrown into a spring produced whirlwinds. The
great Franciscan--the "seraphic doctor"--St. Bonaventura,
whose services to theology earned him one of the highest places
in the Church, and to whom Dante gave special honour in
paradise, set upon this belief his high authority.
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