John Eck, the great opponent of Luther, gave to the world an annotated edition of Aristotle's Physics, which was long authoritative in the German universities; and, though the text is free from this doctrine, the woodcut illustrating the earth's atmosphere shows most vividly, among the clouds of mid-air, the devils who there reign supreme.( 222) (222) See Eck, Aristotelis Meteorologica, Augsburg, 1519.
Luther, in the other religious camp, supported the superstition even more zealously, asserting at times his belief that the winds themselves are only good or evil spirits, and declaring that a stone thrown into a certain pond in his native region would cause a dreadful storm because of the devils, kept prisoners there.( 223) (223) For Luther, see the Table Talk; also Michelet, Life of Luther (translated by Hazlitt, p.

321).
Just at the close of the same century, Catholics and Protestants welcomed alike the great work of Delrio.

In this, the power of devils over the elements is proved first from the Holy Scriptures, since, he declares, "they show that Satan brought fire down from heaven to consume the servants and flocks of Job, and that he stirred up a violent wind, which overwhelmed in ruin the sons and daughters of Job at their feasting." Next, Delrio insists on the agreement of all the orthodox fathers, that it was the devil himself who did this, and attention is called to the fact that the hail with which the Egyptians were punished is expressly declared in Holy Scripture to have been brought by the evil angels.

Citing from the Apocalypse, he points to the four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the winds and preventing their doing great damage to mortals; and he dwells especially upon the fact that the devil is called by the apostle a "prince of the power of the air." He then goes on to cite the great fathers of the Church--Clement, Jerome, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas.( 224) (224) For Delrio, see his Disquisitiones Magicae, first printed at Liege in 1599-1600, but reprinted again and again throughout the seventeenth century.

His interpretation of Psalm lxxviii, 47-49, was apparently shared by the translators of our own authorized edition.