by the evil angels.[1] Citing from the Apocalypse, he points to the four angels standing at the fourcorners of the earth, holding back the winds and preventing their doing great damage to mortals;[2] and he dwells especially upon the fact that the devil is called by the apostle a "prince of the power of the air."[3] He then goes on to cite the great Fathers of the Church, Clement, Jerome, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas.[4]
This doctrine was spread, not only in ponderous treatises, but in light literature, and by popular illustrations. In the "Compendium Maleficarum" of the Italian monk Guacci, perhaps the most amusing book in the whole literature of witchcraft, we may see the witch, in propria persona, riding the diabolic goat through the clouds while the storm rages around and beneath her; and we may read a rich collection of anecdotes, largely contemporary, which establish the required doctrine beyond question.[5]
The first and most natural means taken against this work of Satan in the air, was Prayer; and various petitions are to be found scattered through the Christian liturgies—some very beautiful and touching. This means of escape has been relied upon, with greater or less faith, from those days to these. Various mediæval saints and reformers, and devoted men in all centuries, from Saint Giles to John Wesley, have used it with results claimed to be miraculous.[6] Whatever theory any thinking man may hold in the matter, he will certainly not venture a reproachful word: such prayers have been in all ages a natural outcome of the mind of man in trouble.
But against the "powers of the air" were used other means of a very different character and tendency, and foremost among these was Exorcism. In an exorcism widely used and ascribed to Pope Gregory XIII, the formula is given: "I, a priest of Christ, ... do command ye, most foul spirits, who do stir up these clouds, ... that ye depart from them, and disperse yourselves into wild and untilled places, that ye may be no longer able to harm men or animals or fruits or herbs or whatsoever is designed for human use." But this is mild, indeed, compared to some later exorcisms, as when the ritual runs: "All the people shall rise, and the priest, turning toward the clouds, shall pronounce these words: 'I exorcise ye, accursed demons, who have dared to use, for the accomplishment of your iniquity, those powers of Nature
- ↑ This interpretation of Psalm lxxviii, 47-49, was apparently shared by the translators of our own authorized version.
- ↑ Revelation, vii, 1.
- ↑ Ephesians, ii, 2. Even according to modern commentators (e. g. Alford) the word here translated "power" denotes, not might, but government, court, heirarchy; and in this sense it was always used by the ecclesiastical writers, whose conception is best rendered by our plural—"powers."
- ↑ See Delrio, "Disquisitiones Magicæ," lib. ii, c. 11.
- ↑ See Guacci, "Compendium Maleficarum" (Milan, 1606).
- ↑ For the cases of Saint Giles, John Wesley, and others stilling the tempests, see Brewer, "Dictionary of Miracles," s. v. "Prayer."
