ed a churchman to oppose
them, the theologians and ecclesiastics ere long began to adopt them and
to clothe them with the authority of religion.

Both among the pagans of the Roman Empire and among the barbarians of
the North the Christian missionaries had found it easier to prove the
new God supreme than to prove the old gods powerless. Faith in the
miracles of the new religion seemed to increase rather than to diminish
faith in the miracles of the old; and the Church at last began admitting
the latter as facts, but ascribing them to the devil. Jupiter and Odin
sank into the category of ministers of Satan, and transferred to
that master all their former powers. A renewed study of Scripture by
theologians elicited overwhelming proofs of the truth of this doctrine.
Stress was especially laid on the declaration of Scripture, "The gods of
the heathen are devils."(217) Supported by this and other texts, it soon
became a dogma. So strong was the hold it took, under the influence
of the Church, that not until late in the seventeenth century did its
substantial truth begin to be questioned.

(217) For so the Vulgate and all the early versions rendered Ps. xcvi,
5.

With no field of action had the sway of the ancient deities been more
identified than with that of atmospheric phenomena. The Roman heard
Jupiter, and the Teuton heard Thor, in the thunder. Could it be doubted
that these powerful beings would now take occasion, unless hindered by
the command of the Almighty, to vent their spite against those who had
deserted their altars? Might not the Almighty himself be willing to
employ the malice of these powers of the air against those who had
offended him?

It was, indeed, no great step, for those whose simple faith accepted
rain or sunshine as an answer to their prayers, to suspect that the
untimely storms or droughts, which baffled their most earnest petitions,
were the work of the archenemy, "the prince of the power of the air."

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.(218)

(218) For St. Jerome, see his Com. in Ep. ad Ephesios (lib. iii, cap.6):
commenting on the text, "Our battle is not with flesh and blood," he
explains this as meaning the