one who was a follower of Augustine.[1] And another such a one even more palpably was Agobard, Archbishop of Lyons (d. 840), a brave and energetic man, clear-seeing and enlightened, and incessantly occupied with questions of living interest, to which his nature responded more quickly than to theologic lore. Absorbed in the affairs of his diocese, of the Church at large, and of the Empire, he expresses views which he has made his own. Practical issues, operating; upon his mind, evoked a personal originality of treatment. His writings are clear illustrations of the originality which actual issues aroused in the Carolingian epoch. They were directed against common superstitions and degraded religious opinion, or against the Jews whose aggressive prosperity in the south of France disturbed him; or they were political. In fine, they were the fruit of the living issue. For example, his so often-cited pamphlet, "Against the silly opinion of the crowd as to hail and thunder,"[2] was doubtless called forth by the intolerable conditions stated in the first sentence:
"In these parts almost all men, noble and common, city folk and country folk, old and young, think that hail storms and thunder can be brought about at the pleasure of men. People say when they hear thunder and see lightning 'Aura levatitia est.' When asked what aura levatitia may be, some are ashamed or conscience-stricken, while others, with the boldness of ignorance, assert that the air is raised (levata) by the incantations of men called Tempestarii, and so is called 'raised air.'"
Agobard does not marshal physical explanations against this folly, but texts of Scripture showing that God alone can raise and lay the storms. Perhaps he thought such texts the best arguments for those who needed any. The manner of the writing is reasonable, and the reader perceives that the clear-headed archbishop, apart from his Scriptural arguments, deemed these notions ridiculous, as well as harmful.[3]
In like spirit Agobard argued against trials by combat and ordeal. Undoubtedly, God might thus announce His righteous judgment, but one should not expect to elicit it in
