Nor was the keeping up of this fire a mere matter of unmeaning form, a simple custom to which no signification of any particular importance was attached; it was essentially connected with the people’s most ancient and cherished religious beliefs. So serious a matter was it that even the particular kind of wood was specified. Virgil and Plutarch distinctly state that only certain trees ought to be used for such a purpose, and these were kept sacred and forbidden for other uses. The fire, according to Euripides and Ovid, must be kept pure—no polluted object might be cast into it, no offensive action might be performed in its presence.
As we remark in another place, there was one day in the year (March 1st in Rome) when all fires and lights were put out—but immediately renewed with the observation of many rites. The strictest rules had to be attended to on these occasions; it was forbidden to renew the fire from any remaining spark of the old—indeed it was essential to thoroughly extinguish every spark of the previous flame—neither might a spark be struck from flint and steel; only by the sun’s rays or by rubbing two pieces of wood together might the new fire be started into being, for the fire was regarded as the representative of the sun—the greatest of lights and fires, and as such was adored. Well it was not unreasonable or to be wondered at, that men, for want of better knowledge, should render divine honours to that from which they received such benefits; they saw the light and heat of the sun pouring down upon the earth and in conjunction with the rain and dew, softening its crust, swelling and fructifying its seed and bringing forth from it food and nourishment for man and beast. And so they prayed as we read in the Orphic hymns: “Render us always flourishing, always happy, O fire: thou who art eternal, beautiful, ever young; thou who nourishest, thou who art rich, receive favourably these our offerings, and in return give us happiness and sweet health.”
The fire seems to have been perpetually invoked; hardly a monument was made, hardly a household or business duty performed or engagement fulfilled, without a prayer to it; if a man left his home for a brief while, he worshipped the fire; when he returned, before he saluted his nearest relatives, the same duty was observed. Æschylus tells of Agamemnon returning from Troy, and instead of going to the temple and returning thanks to Jupiter, offering thanksgiving before the fire in his own house. Euripides, also, represents the dying Alcestis speaking to the fire: “Mistress, I go beneath the earth, and for the last time fall before thee, and address thee. Protect my infant children; give to my boy a tender wife, and to my daughter a noble husband. Let them not die, like their mother, before the time, but may they lead a long and happy life in their fatherland.”
De Coulanges says “the sacred fire was a sort of providence in the family. Sacrifices were offered to it, and not merely was the flame supplied with wood, but upon the altar were poured wine, oil, incense and the fat of victims. The god graciously received these offerings and devoured them. Radiant with satisfaction, he rose above the altar, and lit up the worshipper with his brightness. Then was the moment for the suppliant humbly to invoke him and give heartfelt utterance to his prayer.”
Corresponding with the “grace” of modern times, recited before and after meals, was the tribute of prayer and praise uttered by the ancient before his fire when he was about to partake of food and when he had satisfied his hunger. He went even further than the modern does, for before a particle of food was eaten a due proportion of meat and drink had to be poured out upon the altar and presented to the god. And when the flame rose up, they regarded it as the deity rearing himself in their midst and consuming what had been presented.
If we turn to the Sacred Books of the East we shall find how strong a hold this Fire Worship has upon the Hindoo mind, and the importance attached to a due observance of all points of ritual connected with it. In the “Laws of Manu” we find directions for his guidance extending to the most ordinary domestic necessities and some of which we cannot very well repeat in these pages. Some of his private necessities must not be satisfied in view of thefire but he must retire either into darkness or out of sight of it. “Let him not blow a fire with his mouth—Let him not throw any impure substance into the fire, let him not warm his feet at it—Let him not place fire under a bed or the like; nor step over it, nor place it when he sleeps at the footend of his bed—Let him keep his right arm uncovered in a place where a sacred fire is kept—A Brahmana who is impure must not touch with his hand a cow, a Brahmana, or fire; nor, being in good health, let him look at the luminaries in the sky while he is impure.” Then again, “A Brahmana shall offer of the cooked food destined for the Vaisvadeva in the sacred domestic fire to the following deities: First to Agni, and next to Soma, then to both these gods conjointly, further to all the gods, and then to Dhanvautari, further to Kuhu (the goddess of the new moon day), to Anumati (the goddess of the full moon day), to Pragapati (the lord of creatures), to heaven and earth conjointly, and finally to Agni Svishtakrit (the fire which performs the sacrifice well).” And so on in many other places, in one of which the king is to behave like fire. “Let the king emulate the energetic action of Indra, of the sun, of the wind, of Yama, of Varuna, of the moon, of the fire, and of the earth. If he is ardent in wrath against criminals and endowed with brilliant energy, and destroys wicked vassals, then his character is said to resemble that of fire.”
Turning to the Rig Veda we find “Hymns to Agni (the god of fire) and the Maruts (the storm gods).”
“1. Thou art called forth to this fair sacrifice for a draught of milk; with the Maruts come hither, O Agni!”
“2. No god, indeed, no mortal, is beyond the might of thee, the mighty one; with the Maruts come hither, O Agni!”
“3. Those who know of the great sky, the Visne Devas without guile; with those Maruts come hither, O Agni!”
“4. The wild ones who sing their song, unconquerable by force; with the Maruts come hither, O Agni!”
“5. Those who are brilliant, of awful shape, powerful, and devourers of foes; with the Maruts come hither, O Agni!”
“6. They who in heaven are enthroned as gods, in the light of the firmament; with the Maruts come hither, O Agni!”
“7. They who shoot with their darts across the sea with might; with the Maruts come hither, O Agni!”
“9. I pour out to thee for the early draught the sweet juice of Soma; with the Maruts come hither, O Agni!”
Another one says:—“O Agni, thou art the life, thou art the patron of man. In return for our prayers, bestow glory and riches on the father of a family who now addresses thee. Agni, thou art a wise protector and a father; to thee we owe life, we are of thy household.”
De Coulanges says:—“So the hearth-god was, as in Greece, a tutelary deity. Men asked of him abundance, and that the earth might be productive. He was prayed to for health, and that a man might long enjoy the light and arrive at old age like the sun at his setting. Even wisdom is demanded, and pardon for sin. For as in Greece the fire-god was essentially pure, so not only was the Brahmin forbidden to throw anything filthy into his fire, but he might not even warm his feet at it. The guilty man, also, as in Greece, might not approach his own hearth before he was purified from the stain he had contracted.”
Assuredly the Greeks did not borrow this religion from the Hindoos, nor the Hindoos from the Greeks; but Greeks, Italians, and Hindoos, belonged to one and the same race, and their ancestors at a very early period had lived together in Central Asia. There they had learnt this creed, and established their rites. When the tribes gradually moved further away from one another, they transported this religion with them, the one to the banks of the Ganges, and the others to the Mediterranean. Afterwards, some learnt to worship Brahma, others Zeus, and others again Janus; but all had preserved as a legacy the earlier religion which they had practised at the common cradle of the race.
It is remarkable that in all sacrifices, even in those offered to Zeus or to Athene, it was always to the fire that the first invocation was made. At Olympia assembled Greece offered her first sacrifice to the hearth-fire, and the second to Zeus. Similarly at Rome, the first to be adored was always Vesta, who was nothing else but the fire. And so we read in the hymns of the Veda: “Before all gods, Agni must be invoked. We will pronounce thy holy name before that of all the other immortals. O Agni, whatever be the god we honour by our sacrifice, to thee is the holocaust offered.”It was not that Jupiter and Brahma had not acquired a much greater importance in the minds of men, but it was remembered that the fire was much older than the gods.
When the populations of Greece and Italy had learnt to represent their Gods as persons, and had given each a proper name and a human shape, the old worship of the fire was similarly modified. The sacred fire was called Vesta. The common noun was made a proper name, and a legend by degrees attached to it. They even went so far as to represent the fire in statues under the features of a woman, the gender of the noun having determined the sex of the deity.
Vesta, in mythology, was one of the principal deities of the Pagans. Those who have diligently investigated the religion of the Pythagorean philosophers pretend that by Vesta they meant the universe, to which they ascribed a soul, and which they worshipped as the sole divinity sometime under the name ofτο παν, the whole, and sometimes under the appellation ofμονος, unity. However, fabulous history records two goddesses under the name of Vesta; one the mother of Saturn, and wife of Cœlum, and the other the daughter of Saturn, by his wife Rhea. The first was Terra, or the Earth, called also Cybele, and derived her name Vesta, according to some, from clothing, because the earth is clothed,vestitur, with plants and fruits, or, according to Ovid, from the stability of the earth becausestat vi terra sua, or it supports itself. Hence the first oblations in all sacrifices were offered to her, because whatsoever is sacrificed springs from the earth; and the Greeks both began and concluded their sacrifices with Vesta, because they esteemed her the mother of all gods.
The second was Fire, and Vesta whose power was exercised about altars and houses, derives her name, according to Cicero, from fire or hearth. Accordingly the poets frequently use Vesta for fire or flame; as they do Jupiter for air, Ceres for corn, &c. An image of Vesta, to which they sacrificed every day, was placed before the doors of the houses at Rome; and the places where these statues were erected were calledvestibula, from Vesta. This goddess was a virgin, and so great an admirer of virginity, that when Jupiter her brother gave her leave to ask what she would, she besought that she might always be a virgin, and have the first oblations in all sacrifices.
This goddess is called by Horaceæterna Vesta, and it was in honour of her that Numa erected a temple at Rome, and dedicated virgins to keep a perpetual fire upon her altars. One way of representing this goddess, it is said, was in the habit of a matron, holding in her right hand a flambeau or lamp, and sometimes a Palladium or small Victory.
The worship of Vesta and of fire was brought from Phrygia into Italy by Æneas and the other Trojans who resorted thither. To this purpose Virgil observes that Æneas, before he left the palace of his father, had taken away the fire from the sacred hearth. The name Vesta was synonymous with the Chaldean and Persian Avesta and hence Zoroaster gave to his book on the worship of fire, the name of Avesta or Abesta,i.e., the custody of fire.
The Vestals were the virgins in Ancient Rome, consecrated to the service of the goddess Vesta, whose worship, we have said, was brought into Italy by Æneas, and one of their special duties was the watching of the sacred fire, the going out of which was visited upon them with such severe whipping. This fire, which they had to watch so jealously and carefully, was neither on an altar nor on a hearth, but in little earthen vessels with two handles, calledcapeduncula. It was held a pledge of the empire of the world. If it went out, it was judged a very unlucky prognostic, and was to be expiated with infinite ceremonies. Among the Romans, Festus tells us, it was only to be rekindled by rubbing a kind of wood proper for the purpose. But among the Greeks, Plutarch, in his life of Numa, observes, it was to be rekindled by exposing some inflammable matter in the centre of a concave vessel held to the sun. It is to be noted, the Romans were not the only people who kept the perpetual fire of Vesta, in imitation of the celestial fires; but the Greeks were possessed with the same superstition; particularly the Delphians, Athenians, Tenedians, Argives, Rhodians, Cyzicenians, Milesians, Ephesians, &c.
Magi, or Magians, was the title which the ancient Persians gave to their wise men and philosophers. Whatever may be the origin of the word, and upon this great diversity of opinion seems to have prevailed, it corresponds with theσοφοιamong the Greeks; sapientes among the Latins; Druids among the Gauls; Gynosophists among the Indians; and prophets, priests among the Egyptians.
Plato, Apuleius, Laertius, and others agree that the philosophy of the Magi related principally to the worship of the gods; they were the persons who were to offer prayers, supplications and sacrifices, as if the gods would be heard by them alone.
They teach their doctrine concerning the nature and origin of the gods, says Laertius, whom they think to be fire, earth, and water; they reject the use of pictures and images, and reprobate the opinion that the gods are male and female; they discourse to the people concerning justice; they think it impious to consume dead bodies with fire; they all practise divination and prophecy, pretending that the gods appear to them; they forbid the use of ornaments in dress; they clothe themselves in a white robe; they make use of the ground as their bed, of herbs, cheese and bread for food, and of a reed for their staff. Strabo also relates, that there were in Cappadocia a great number of Magi, who were called “Pyrethi,” or worshippers of fire, and many temples of the Persian gods, in the midst of which were altars attended by priests, who daily renewed the sacred fire, accompanying the ceremony with music.
The chief doctrine of the Magi was, that there were two principles, one of which was the cause of all good, and the other the cause of all evil. The former was represented by light, and the latter by darkness, as their truest symbols; and of the composition of these two they supposed that all things in the world were made. The good god they always worshipped before fire, as being the cause of light, and especially before the sun, as being in their opinion the most perfect fire, and causing the most perfect light; and for this reason they had in all their temples fire constantly burning on altars erected in them for that purpose. Before these sacred fires, they performed all their public acts of devotion, as they likewise practised their private devotions before their private fires in their own houses. Such were the tenets of this sect when Smerdis, who was the principal leader of it, having usurped the crown after the death of Cambyses, was slain by seven princes of Persia; and many of the Magians, who adhered to him, shared likewise the same fate. In consequence of this event, those who adopted the sentiments of this sect were called, by way of derision, Magians, frommige-gush, which signified, in the language ofthe country then in use, one that had his ears cropped. The whole sect of the Magians would soon have sunk into utter extinction if it had not, in a few years after this period, been revived and reformed by Zoroaster. This celebrated philosopher, called by the Persians Zerdusht or Zaratusht, began about the thirty-sixth year of the reign of Darius to restore and reform the Magian system of religion. He was not only excellently skilled in all the learning of the East that prevailed in his time, but likewise thoroughly versed in the Jewish religion, and in all the sacred writings of the Old Testament that were then extant, whence some have inferred that he was a native Jew both by birth and profession; and that he had been servant to one of the prophets, probably Ezekiel or Daniel. He made his first appearance in Media, in the city of Xiz, afterwards called Aderbijan, as some say; or according to others, in Ecbatana, afterwards Tauris. Instead of admitting the existence of two first causes with the Magians, he introduced a principle superior to them both—one supreme God, who created both these, and out of these two produced, according to his sovereign pleasure, everything else.
Zoroaster caused fire temples to be erected wherever he came: for having feigned that he was taken up into heaven, and there instructed in the doctrines he taught by God himself, out of the midst of a great and most bright flame of fire, he taught his followers that fire was the truest shekinah of the divine presence; that the sun being the most perfect fire, God had there the throne of his glory, and the residence of his divine presence in a peculiar manner; and next to this in our elementary fire; and, therefore, he ordered them to direct all their worship to God, first towards the sun, which they called Mithra, and next towards their sacred fires; and when they came before these fires to worship, they always approached them on the west side, that having their faces towards them, and also towards the rising sun at the same time, they might direct their worship towards both. And in this posture they always performed every act of their worship. Zoroaster also pretended that he brought some of the heavenly fire with him on his return and placed it on the altar of the first fire temple, which he erected at Xiz, in Media, whence it was propagated to all the rest; and on this account their priests carefully watched it and never suffered it to be extinguished.
Zoroaster, having assumed the character of a divine prophet and reformer of religion, retired into a cave, devoting himself to prayer and meditation, where he composed the book called the Zend, in which his pretended revelations were contained. From Media he removed into Bactria; and he went also into India among the Brachmans, and having acquired all their knowledge in mathematics, philosophy and astronomy, returned and communicated the knowledge to his Magians; and thus they became famous for their skill in these sciences; so that a learned man and a Magian were equivalent terms. The vulgar conceived of them as persons actuated and inspired by supernatural powers; and hence those who pretended to wicked and diabolical acts, assumed the name of Magians; and the term Magician acquired its evil meaning. However, this distinguished knowledge was confined to those who were by way of eminence, the Magi, or the priests; who, like those of the Jews, being of the same tribe, appropriated their learning to their own families. These priests were distributed into three orders, viz.: the inferior priests, who conducted the ordinary ceremonies of religion; the superintendents who governed them and presided over the sacred fire; and the archimagus, or high-priest, who possessed supreme authority over the whole order; and their churches or temples were also of three sorts, parochial or oratories, in which the people performed their devotions, and where the sacred fire was kept only in lamps; fire-temples, in which fire was kept continually burning on a sacred altar, where the higher order of the Magi directed the public devotions, and the people assembled to perform magical incantations, hear interpretations of dreams, and practise other superstitions; and lastly, the fire-temple in which the archimagus resided, which was visited by the people at certain seasons with peculiar solemnity, and to which it was deemed an indispensable duty for every one to repair at least once in his life. Zoroaster at length carried his religious system to the royal court at Susa, and made Darius a proselyte, together with most of the great men of the kingdom.
The End.
PHALLIC SERIESCr. 8vo, Vellum, 7/6 Each.Only avery limited number, privately printedPhallicism.—A Description of the Worship ofLingam-Yoniin various parts of the World, and in different Ages, with an Account of Ancient and Modern Crosses, particularly of theCrux Ansata(or Handled Cross) and other Symbols connected with the Mysteries ofSex Worship.Only a few copies to be sold with sets at 7/6, or separately, 10/6.Ophiolatreia.—An Account of the Rites and Mysteries connected with the Origin, Rise, and Development ofSerpent Worshipin various parts of the World, enriched with Interesting Traditions, and a full description of the celebrated Serpent Mounds and Temples, the whole forming an exposition of one of the phases ofPhallic, or Sex Worship.Phallic Objects,Monuments and Remains; Illustrations of the Rise and Development of thePhallic Idea(Sex Worship), and its embodiment in Works of Nature and Art.Etched Frontispiece.Cultus Arborum.—A Descriptive Account ofPhallic Tree Worship, with illustrative Legends, Superstitious Usages, &c.; exhibiting its Origin and Development amongst the Eastern and Western Nations of the World, from the earliest to modern times.
PHALLIC SERIES
Cr. 8vo, Vellum, 7/6 Each.
Only avery limited number, privately printed
Phallicism.—A Description of the Worship ofLingam-Yoniin various parts of the World, and in different Ages, with an Account of Ancient and Modern Crosses, particularly of theCrux Ansata(or Handled Cross) and other Symbols connected with the Mysteries ofSex Worship.
Only a few copies to be sold with sets at 7/6, or separately, 10/6.
Ophiolatreia.—An Account of the Rites and Mysteries connected with the Origin, Rise, and Development ofSerpent Worshipin various parts of the World, enriched with Interesting Traditions, and a full description of the celebrated Serpent Mounds and Temples, the whole forming an exposition of one of the phases ofPhallic, or Sex Worship.
Phallic Objects,Monuments and Remains; Illustrations of the Rise and Development of thePhallic Idea(Sex Worship), and its embodiment in Works of Nature and Art.Etched Frontispiece.
Cultus Arborum.—A Descriptive Account ofPhallic Tree Worship, with illustrative Legends, Superstitious Usages, &c.; exhibiting its Origin and Development amongst the Eastern and Western Nations of the World, from the earliest to modern times.
Footnotes:
[1]Moule’s Heraldry.
[2]Maitland’s Church in the Catacombs.
[3]Forlong.
[4]Moule’s Heraldry.
[5]Northern Tour.
[6]Gorham, Hist. S. Neots.
[7]Rivers of Life.
[8]Ancient Faiths, vol. i.
[9]Rivers of Life.
[10]Riv. Life, Forlong.
[11]Nineveh, &c.
[12]Selden’s Syrian Deities.
[13]Forlong.
[14]Rivers of Life.
[15]Leslie’s Early Races of Scotland.
[16]Rivers of Life.
[17]Forlong, Riv. Life.
[18]Rivers of Life.
[19]See Pop. Science Rev., vol. x.
[20]Hindu Pantheon.
[21]See Asiat. Res., vol. iii.
[22]For a somewhat longer account of this and other Myths, see Rev. W. Gill’s Book.
[23]Chardin’s Voyages, vol. ii.
[24]Thalia, 16, Rawlinson.
[25]Pennant, vol.I., p. 111.
[26]Pennant, vol.III.
[27]Selden’s Syrian Deities. Hauser’s Translation.
[28]Jeremiah xxxii. 35.
[29]See Bresciani and Forrester’s Sardinia.
[30]Selden’s Syrian Deities, Hausser’s Translation.