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But while the Church has thus secured the first place for her most venerated figures, the influence of pagan feeling is clearly seen in the popular conception of this ‘God.’ His position is just such as that of Zeus in the old régime. He is little more than the unnamed ruler among many other divinities. His sway is indeed supreme and he exercises a general control; but his functions are in a certain sense limited none the less, and his special province is the weather only. Ζεὺς ὕει, said the ancients, and the moderns re-echo their thought in words of the same import, βρέχει ὁ Θεός, ‘God is raining,’ or ὁ Θεὸς ῥίχνει νερό, ‘God is throwing water[82].’ So too the coming and going of the daylight is described as an act of God; ἔφεξε, or ἐβράδει̯ασε, ὁ Θεός, say the peasants, ‘God has dawned’ or ‘has darkened.’ When it hails, it is God who ‘is plying his sieve,’ ῥεμμονίζει[83] ὁ Θεός. When it thunders, ‘God is shoeing his horse,’ καλιγώνει τ’ ἄλογό του, or, according to another version[84], ‘the hoofs of God’s horse are ringing,’ βροντοῦν τὰ πέταλα ἀπὸ τ’ ἄλογο τοῦ Θεοῦ. Or again the roll of the thunder sometimes suggests quite another idea; ‘God is rolling his wine-casks,’ ὁ Θεὸς κυλάει τ’ ἀσκιά του[85], or τὰ πιθάρι̯α του. And once again, because a Greek wedding cannot be celebrated without a large expenditure of gunpowder, the booming of the thunder suggests to some that ‘God is marrying his son’ or ‘God is marrying his daughters,’ ὁ Θεὸς παντρεύει τὸν ὑγιό του[86], or ταὶς θυγατέραις του[87].