Saint Telemachus and the Volcano
This is an interesting article that I found on the internet. Read the full post here.
I learned about Telemachus when I was a child through Adventures in Odyssey. He was a monk that died by entering the Roman colosseum to try to stop the gladiators from killing each other. He died in the process, but when the emperor heard it, he put an end to gladiator games. What I did not know is that it is believed that Telemachus made the journey to Rome because he believed that God used a volcano eruption as a call for him to do so.
Philip Jenkins uses a poem about Telemachus by Alfred Lord Tennyson to show how attitudes toward natural disasters had changed between 400AD and the 1800s. First, people believed that natural disasters were acts of punishment or warning from the gods/God, but later, men acknowledged that they could be explained by science.
This article is based on research for Jenkin's new book Climate, Catastrophe, and Faith: How Changes in Climate Drive Religious Upheaval , which I really want to add to my reading list.