Story of the Fire-God and his secret—Growth of Fire-Worship—Fire an essential in Hindu Worship—The Chaldeans—The Persians—The Hebrews—Fire in Hindu Ceremonies—Duties of Hindu Life—The Serpent and Fire—Phallo-Pythic Solar Shrines—Fire and Phallic Worship—Leaping through Fire—Fire-treading in Scotland—Fire-leaping in Russia—The Medes as Fire Worshippers—The Sabines—Fire and the Ancient Christians—The Roman Church and Fire—The Jews—Temple of Vesta—Fire Worship in Ireland—Phallo-Fire Worship of Greeks and Romans.

The Rev. W. Gill in his “Myths and Songs from the South Pacific” supplies us with a story particularly suitable for notice here, called the “Fire God’s Secret.” The story tells us that originally fire was unknown to the inhabitants of the world, who of necessity ate raw food. That in the nether-world (Avaiki) lived four mighty ones: Manike, god of fire; the Sun-god Ra; Ru, supporter of the heavens; and lastly, his wife Buataranga, guardian of the road to the invisible world. To Ru Buataranga was born a famous son Mani. At an early age Mani was appointed one of the guardians of this upper world where mortals live. Like the rest of the inhabitants of the world, he subsisted on uncooked food. The mother Buataranga, occasionally visited her son; but always ate her food apart, out of a basket brought with her from nether-land. One day, when she was asleep, Mani peeped into her basket and discovered cooked food. Upon tasting it he was decidedly of opinion that it was a great improvement upon the raw diet to which he was accustomed. This food came from nether-world; it was evident that the secret of fire was there. To nether-world, the home of his parents he would descend to gain this knowledge, so that ever after he might enjoy the luxury of cooked food.

The story goes on to say that when Buataranga set out, next day, on her journey to nether-world, Mani followed her, unbeknown to her. He then saw his mother standing opposite a black rock which she addressed in these words: “Buataranga, descend thou bodily through this chasm. The rainbow-like must be obeyed. As two dark clouds parting at dawn, Open, open up my road to nether-world, ye fierce ones!”

At these words the rock divided, and Buataranga descended. Mani carefully treasured up these words; and started off to see the god Tane, the owner of some wonderful pigeons. He begged Tane to lend him one, but as the one Tane lent him did not please him, he returned it, as he did also another and a better one. The only bird that would content him was a certain red pigeon, which was specially prized by its owner and was made a great pet of. Tane at first objected to part with the bird and only did so upon Mani’s faithfully promising to restore it uninjured. Off went Mani with the bird to the place where his mother had descended. Pronouncing the magic words, the rock opened, and Mani descended. The guardian demons of the chasm, enraged at finding themselves imposed upon by a stranger, tried to seize the pigeon, intending to devour it. They only succeeded in getting possession of the tail, which the pigeon went on without. (They say that Mani had transformed himself into a small dragon-fly and was perched upon the pigeon’s back.)

Arrived at nether-land, Mani sought for the home of his mother, which was the first house he saw. The pigeon alighted on an oven-house opposite to an open shed where Buataranga was beating out cloth. She stopped her work to gaze at the bird, which she guessed to be a visitor from the upper world as none of the pigeons in the shades were red. She said to the bird:—“Are you not come from daylight?” The pigeon nodded assent; “Are you not my son Mani?” Again the pigeon nodded. At this Buataranga entered her dwelling and the bird flew to a bread-fruit tree. Mani resumed his proper form, and went to embrace his mother, who inquired how he had descended to nether-world and the object of his visit. Mani answered that he had come to learn the secret of fire. Buataranga said, “This secret rests with the fire-god Manike. When I wish to cook I ask your father Ru to beg a lighted stick from Manike.” Mani inquired where the fire-god lived. His mother pointed out the direction, and said it was called Are-ava, house-of-banyan-sticks. She warned her son to be careful, “for,” she said, “the fire is a terrible fellow, and of a very irritable temper.”

Mani walked up boldly towards the house of the fire-god. Manike, who happened to be busy cooking an oven of food, stopped at his work and demanded what the stranger wanted. Mani replied, “A fire brand.” The fire brand was given. Mani carried it to a stream running past the bread fruit tree and there extinguished it. He now returned to Manike and obtained a second fire brand, which he also extinguished in the stream. The third time a lighted stick was demanded of the fire-god he was beside himself with rage. Raking the ashes of the oven, he gave the daring Mani some of them on a piece of dry wood. These live coals were thrown into the stream as the former lighted sticks had been.

Mani correctly thought that a fire brand would be of little use unless he could obtain the secret of fire. The brand would eventually go out; but how to reproduce the fire? His object therefore was to pick a quarrel with the fire-god, and compel him by sheer violence to yield up the invaluable secret, as yet known to none but himself. On the other hand, the fire-god, confident in his own prodigious strength, resolved to destroy this insolent intruder into his secret. Mani for the fourth time demanded fire of the enraged god. Manike ordered him away, under pain of being tossed into the air; for Mani was small of stature. But the visitor said he should enjoy nothing better than a trial of strength with the fire-god. Manike entered his dwelling to put on his war-girdle; but on returning found that Mani had swelled himself to an enormous size. Nothing daunted at this, Manike boldly seized him with both hands and hurled him to the height of a cocoa-nut tree. Mani contrived in falling to make himself so light that he was in no degree hurt by his adventure. Manike, maddened that his adversary should yet breathe, excited his full strength, and next time hurled him far higher than the highest cocoa-nut tree that ever grew. Yet Mani was uninjured by his fall, whilst the fire-god lay panting for breath.

It was now Mani’s turn. Seizing the fire-god he threw him up to a dizzy height and caught him again like a ball with his hands. Without allowing Manike to touch the ground, he threw him a second time into the air, and caught him in his hands. Assured that this was but a preparation for a final toss which would seal his fate, the panting and thoroughly exhausted Manike entreated Mani to stop and to spare his life. Whatever he desired should be his.

The fire-god, now in miserable plight, was allowed to breathe awhile. Mani said, “Only on one condition will I spare you—tell me the secret of fire. Where is it hidden? How is it produced? Manike gladly promised to tell him all he knew, and led him inside his wonderful dwelling. In one corner there was a quantity of fine cocoa-nut fibre; in another, bundles of fire-yielding sticks—the au, the oronga, the tauinu, and particularly the aoa or banyan tree. These sticks were all dry and ready for use. In the middle of the room were two smaller sticks by themselves. One of these the fire-god gave to Mani, desiring him to hold it firmly, while he himself plied the other most vigorously. And thus runs the Fire-god’s Song:—

“Grant, oh grant me thy hidden fire,
Thou banyan tree!
Perform an incantation;
Utter a prayer to (the spirit of)
The banyan tree!
Kindle a fire for Manike
Of the dust of the banyan tree.”

By the time the song was completed, Mani, to his great joy, perceived a faint smoke arising out of the fine dust produced by the friction of one stick upon another. As they persevered in their work the smoke increased; and, favoured with the fire-god’s breath, a slight flame arose, when the fine cocoa-nut fibre was called into requisition to catch and increase the flame. Manike now called to his aid the different bundles of sticks and speedily got up a blazing fire, to the astonishment of Mani.

The grand secret of fire was secured. The story tells us that the victor then in order to be revenged for his trouble and his tossing into the air, set fire to his adversary’s abode, that in a short time all the nether-world was in flames, which consumed the fire-god and all he possessed.

Mani then picked up the two fire-sticks and hastened to the bread-fruit tree, where the red pigeon awaited his return. His first care was to restore the tail of the bird so as to avoid the anger of Tane. There was no time to be lost, for the flames were rapidly spreading. “He re-entered the pigeon, which carried his fire-stalks one in each claw, and flew to the lower entrance of the chasm. Once more pronouncing the words he learnt from Buataranga, the rocks parted, and he safely got back to this upper world. Mani now resumed his original human form, and hastened to carry back the pet bird of Tane. Passing through the main valley of Keia, he found that the flames had preceded him, and had found an aperture at Teava, since closed up. The king’s Rangi and Mokoiro trembled for their land; for it seemed as if everything would be destroyed by the devouring flames. To save Mangaia from utter destruction, they excited themselves to the utmost, and finally succeeded in putting out the fire. Rangi thenceforth adopted the new name of Matamea, or Watery-eyes, to commemorate his sufferings; and Mokoiro was ever after called Anai, or Smoke.”

“The inhabitants of Mangaia availed themselves of the conflagration to get fire and to cook food. But after a time the fire went out, and as they were not in possession of the secret, they could not get new fire.

“But Mani was never without fire in his dwelling; a circumstance that excited the surprise of all. Many were the inquiries as to the cause. At length he took compassion on the inhabitants of the world, and told them the wonderful secret—that fire lies hidden in the hibiscus, the urtica argenta, the ‘tauinu’ and the banyan. This hidden fire might be elicited by the use of fire sticks which he produced. Finally, he desired them to chant the fire-god’s song, to give efficacy to the use of the fire-sticks.”

“From that memorable day all the dwellers in this upper world used fire-sticks with success, and enjoyed the luxuries of light and cooked food.

“To the present time this primitive method of obtaining fire is still in vogue; cotton, however, being substituted for fine cocoa-nut fibre as tinder. It was formerly supposed that only the four kinds of wood found in the fire-god’s dwelling would yield fire.

“‘Aoa’ means banyan-tree; for intensity and rhythm the word is lengthed into ‘aoaoaoa.’ The banyan was sacred to the fire-god.

“The spot where the flames are said to have burst through, named Te-oao or the banyan-tree, was sacred till Christianity induced the owner to convert the waste land into a couple of taro patches.”[22]

“Light, then fire, the sun, and the ‘whole host of heaven’ seem successively, and at last collectively, to have become objects of worship to the Arian race; but first of all light, which was to them pre-eminently the object of adoration in Northern India previous to the period of the collection or composition of the hymns of the earliest Hindu Veda, or, in round numbers, thirty-five centuries ago.

“According to Herodotus, the Persians venerated fire as a divinity, and Pliny explains that the magic of Persia might apparently have been learned from the practices of the Britons. There is abundant evidence to show that our heathen ancestors worshipped the sun and moon. It might, therefore, reasonably be inferred that in Britain, as in other countries, fire would be substituted as typical of the great luminary—of its light and its heat—and became an object of adoration, when the sun was obscured or invisible in seasons set apart for celebrating the religious rites of a Sabian worship. But we are not dependent on inference, however rational, for a knowledge of the fact that fire was an object of adoration to our heathen ancestors, even so late as the eleventh century; for in the laws of Cnut fire appears as one of the objects the worship of which is forbidden.”

“Fire seems to have always had the firmest hold upon the wonderment and then the adoration of the infant mind. To the present moment it is an essential part of all Hindoo worship and ceremonies. From his cradle to his grave, when the Hindoo is folded in the god’s embrace, the ancient races around me seek for it, use it, offer sacrifices to it, and adore it.”

The Chaldeans had a high veneration for fire, which they accounted a divinity; and in the province of Babylon there was a city consecrated to this usage, which was called the city of Ur, or of Fire.

The Persians also adored God under the image or representation of fire, because it is fire that gives motion to everything in nature. They had temples which they called “PyrÆa,” fire temples set apart solely for the preservation of the sacred fire. They are said to have in that empire fires still subsisting which have burnt many thousand years.

The worship of the goddess Vesta and of fire, was brought into Italy by Æneas and the other Trojans who landed there; but the Phrygians themselves had received it from the eastern nations. Fire was held in religious veneration among the Gauls; and similar sentiments and practices have prevailed in several countries of America.

The Hebrews kept up the holy fire in the temple. This holy fire descended from heaven, first upon the altar in the tabernacle at the consecration of Aaron and his sons to the priesthood, and afterwards it descended anew on the altar in the temple of Solomon, at the consecration of that temple. And there it was constantly maintained by the priest day and night, without suffering it ever to go out; and with this all the sacrifices were offered that required fire. This fire, according to some of the Jewish writers, was extinguished in the days of Manasseh; but the more general opinion among them is, that it continued till the destruction of the temple by the Chaldeans; after that it was never more restored; but instead of it, they had only common fire in the second temple.

The part played by fire in the life of a Hindoo is a remarkable one, and shews the immense extent to which this form of worship has prevailed and still prevails in some countries. In the man’s earliest days—in his childhood—at the ceremony called the investiture of the thread, fire is kindled from the droppings of the sacred cow, sprinkled with holy water and blessed. Then are brought to it various offerings of grain, butter, &c., by the worshippers who are supplicating blessings, the officiating priest all the while reading passages from the sacred books. The child’s father and mother pray to Agni (Fire) that its past sins may be forgiven, having been done in ignorance; then they declare him to be of an age to know good and evil—he is between seven and nine. The sacred thread is then, after being duly washed and held over the fire, placed around the child’s neck, constituting him a Brahm Achari—one sworn to practise the laws and behests of Brahm or Almighty God. Dubois, in Moeurs des Indes, says—“A pious father will then say privately to his child, ‘Remember, my son, there is but one God, the Sovereign Master and Principle of all things, and every Brahman is bound to worship him in secret.’”

A fortnight afterwards, a kind of confirmation ceremony takes place, again before the fire, in which the parents promise that they will see that he gets married and leads a good life.

Marriage is the principal feature in a Hindoo’s life, and this, as most people know, takes place very early and is attended with many important ceremonies.

Here, again, fire is conspicuous as an object of worship, the ceremony before it—the God Agni—being the last and most serious of all. With clothes tied together, bride and bridegroom parade round about the deity casting to him their offerings which now “symbolise,” says Forlong, “the sacrifice of all their virgin modesty to the god, as the emblem of sexual fire.” The final oath of mutual love and faith is then taken in an address to the fire, and the pair, who are mere boy and girl, are duly married.

A little further on when the period arrives for cohabitation, the fourth ceremony is then gone through, fire again being adored and sacrifice offered.

In the final scene, when death has taken possession of the body, fire is again called into requisition; it is carried before the corpse by the nearest relatives, and ultimately reduces the inanimate form to its original dust and ashes.

Forlong says—“Fire enters into every duty of a Hindoo’s life. Before partaking of his morning meal he utters incantations to Agni, offers to him portions of that meal; and in like manner, before he wears a new cloth or garment, he must take some threads or parts of it and offer these to the same deity.”

“It is from the rubbing together of the wood of trees, notably of the three Banian figs—Peepal, Bar, and Gooler, the favourite woods for Phallic images, that holy fire is drawn from heaven, and before all these species do women crave their desires from God.”

“Cave and fire rites are not yet extirpated from Jerusalem, nor, indeed, from any nation of the earth. Christians still rush for sacred fire to the holy cave at the birth of Sol, and men and women strive, in secret nooks, to pass naked through holy fire.”“Syrians, as well as all other nations, connected the Serpent with Fire. Thus the Jews had their fire altars, on which the holy flame must be ever burning and never go out; and they carried about a serpent on a pole as their healer. So also the writer of the Acts of the Apostles speaks of the Christian Holy Ghost as having serpent-like ‘cloven tongues of fire,’ which the margin of orthodox Bibles very properly connects with Isaiah’s Seraphim.”

Forlong says:—“I began my study of British ruins about eight years ago (from 1882), during a two-year-furlough, attracted to it at first by my friend the late Sir James Simpson—President of the Society of Antiquaries, Edinburgh—at that time writing and debating much on these matters; and I came then to the same conclusion as I hold to-day; viz.: that the ruins of Armorika, those of Stonehenge, Abury, and various others, known popularly as ‘Druid Circles,’ are, or originally were, Phallo-Pythic—Solar shrines, or places where all the first five elemental faiths more or less flourished; the first (Tree) very little, and the last (Sun) very abundantly; and if so, then we see the cause why European writers so pugnaciously hold out, some for Sun, some for Fire; one that they are mere places for sacrifices or burial, or for assembly of rulers, clans, &c.; whilst a few outlying writers hint that the large stones are Lingams, or mere groups of such stones as that of Kerloaz—the Newton stone, &c. Colonel Forbes Leslie, in his ‘Ancient Races of Scotland,’ has very nearly told us the truth, his long residence and travels in Asia having enabled him almost to pierce the cloud, though he seems at first not to have fully appreciated the ever very close connection between Sun, Fire, Serpent and Lingam faiths, which I believe he does now.”

“The European mind having once lost the old ideas of what these words meant, and from having still such objects as Sun, Fire, and Serpent before them, is always thinking of these visible objects, which I might almost say a true Sivaite never recognises per se; for in fire the true Phallic worshipper sees no flame, and in the sun no far-out resplendent orb as we know, standing apart, as it were, in space, and to which we all gravitate; he sees simply a source of fertility, without which the Serpent has no power or passion, and in whose absence the animal and vegetable world must cease to exist. The fire here, then, is not that which the real Sivaite sees or cooks by, but Hot or Holy Fire, or the ‘Holy Spirit,’ or the fire of passion, which to a certain small extent, and in certain symbolic forms and positions, he recognises in flame, as when raised on a tower, coming out of an obelisk, or rising in a column or pillar over an ark, or smouldering in the secret adytum; for the first impresses him with the Arkite, the second with the Phallic and Arkite, and the third with the purely feminine idea; in all, he merely sees representative male and female energies which are excited and fructified by the Sun, Apollo, or the Sun-Serpent, as in his old coin, where fertility fed by fire feeds the shell. In a column, be it wood, stone, or fire, he sees the Sun-stone, such as the Mudros of Phoenicia, the Mindir of Ireland, and obelisk of Egypt; and in the cist, shell, or Akros, the womb, Yoni, or sun-box; in all, the column or Palas, and its Caput-oline.”

“Leaping or walking through the fire, so frequently mentioned in Jewish writings in connection with Molek, is still quite common in the less civilised parts of India, being usually done in fulfilment of a vow for blessings desired, or believed to have been conferred by the deity upon the Nazarite or Vower. I have known of it being gone through for recovery from a severe illness, and for success in an expedition or project which the Nazarite had much at heart.”

Some say fire should be trod because Drupadi, the mythical wife of the Pandoos, did this, after defilement through the touch of Kichaka, and because Sita proved her purity by fire. Where the British Government can prevent this rite, flowers are thrown into the fire-pit, which seems as if the fire were looked upon as a female energy. Fire-treading is commonly accomplished by digging a deepish narrow pit, and filling it with firewood, and then when the flames are scorching hot, leaping over it; usually the rite begins by first walking closely round the fire, slowly at first, then faster and faster, with occasional leaps into and out of it in the wildest excitement. Mr. Stokes, of the Madras Civil Service, thus describes the rite as it came officially to notice in April, 1873.

In a level place before the village deity, who was Drupadi Ama (Mother D.), a fire-pit, in size 27 by 7½ feet by 9 inches deep, was excavated east and west, and the goddess set up at the west end. Six Babool or Acacia trees (this being a fiercely burning wood) were cut and thrown in; thirteen persons trod this fire, and one died from the effects. They followed each other, some with tabors, others ringing a bell, and each, after passing through the fire, went into a pit filled with water, called the “milk pit.” All merely wore a waist cloth, and had their bodies daubed over with sandal. The one who died, fell into the fire, and had to be pulled out. The fire was lit at noon, and “walking it” took place at two p.m., when it had become very bright and hot. The Poojore, or priest of the temple, said it was his duty to walk annually through the fire, and that he had done so for seven or eight years. It was the mother of the dead man who had vowed that if her son recovered from an attack of jaundice she would tread the fire, but the old woman being blind, her son fulfilled the vow. Some said that the dead man himself had vowed thus to the Goddess Drupadi: “Mother, if I recover, I shall tread on your fire.” Death is rarely the result of this practice, but Mr. Stokes adds that a few years ago, a mother and her infant died from the effects.

“On the 29th of June, men, and even babes, had to be passed through the fire. ‘On this night,’ says Dr. Moresin, ‘did the Highlanders run about on the mountains and high grounds with lighted torches, like the Cicilian women of old, in search of Proserpine,’ and Scotch farmers then used to go round their corn-fields with blazing torches, as was the custom at the Cerealia. The ancient Roman Kalendar states, among other matter, that fires are made on the 23rd; ‘Boys dress in girls’ clothes; waters are swum in during the night. Water is fetched in vessels and hung up for purposes of divination; fern is esteemed by the vulgar because of the seed...; girls gather thistles, and place a hundred crosses by the same;’ for has not the thistle a cap like the lotus, and is it not a trefoil?

“In the ‘Englishwoman in Russia,’ p. 223, a writer says that ‘on midsummer eve a custom still (1855) exists in Russia, among the lower classes, that could only be derived from a very remote antiquity, and is perhaps a remnant of the worship of Baal. A party of peasant women and girls assemble in some retired unfrequented spot, and light a large fire, over which they leap in succession. If by chance one of the other sex should be found near the place, or should have seen them in the act of performing the rite, it is at the imminent hazard of his life, for the women would not scruple to sacrifice him for his temerity.’ The writer was assured that such instances had often been known. Thus this ‘Fire-dance’ is a very serious matter, and one which under the circumstances, we can learn very little about: from its secret practice here by women it is clearly connected with Agni, the Procreator or Fertiliser. Our ancestors were inveterate fire-worshippers, especially at the four great solar festivals. They thought no cattle safe unless passed through the May Day and Midsummer Beltine fires, and no person would suffer a fire within their parish which had not been then kindled afresh from the Tin-Egin, or sacred fire produced by friction.”

The Medes were undoubtedly worshippers of Fire, “as the most subtle, ethereal, incomprehensible, and powerful agent. They were averse to all temples or personification of the material things, or of Ormazd. Like our Parsee fellow-subjects, they never allowed their hearth-fires to be extinguished, nor would they even blow out any ordinary fire or candle; in the Magian days, he who did so forfeited his life.”

“We still see the remains—some very perfect—of the lone Fire-towers, which Greeks called Puraitheia, amidst the lofty hills of Armenia, Azerbijan, Koordistan and Looristan, some of which were Dakmas, or ‘Towers of Silence,’ having gratings for roofs, through which the bones fell when the body was destroyed. The Fire-God was called At-Ar.”

The Sabines were, perhaps, more nearly related to our ancestors than is generally thought; at least we may believe so from the Sabine and GÆlic languages having more affinity even than the Welsh and Irish, and from other evidence. Dr. Leatham, in his work on Descriptive Ethnology, says that ‘much of the blood of the Romans was Keltic, and so is much of the Latin language,’ and a study of the movements of ancient peoples will show how this is so. Like the Skyths, these old Sabines were devoted to all the worship of Sivaites, and particularly of Mars’ symbol, the Quiris or Spear, after which we still call their greatest fÊte Quirinalia, and their Mount Zion, the Quirinal. The worship of the Quiris has not yet ceased in high Asia, nor, I believe, in America. It was prominent on the summits of all the Skythian bonfire piles and mounds at which these Aryan fathers worshipped, and is connected with most rites. We also see it on numerous sculpturings which have been unearthed from the ruins of the Skuti, or Kelts of Ireland and Scotland—much to the perplexity of local antiquaries. Hue, in his ‘Travels in Tartary,’ gives us these Phalli as existing all over the immense extent of country he traversed, including Northern China, Mongolia, Thibet. Spears are, however, too valuable to be left sticking in ‘these Obos,’ as he calls them, and therefore ‘dried branches of trees’ are substituted in very good imitation of spears.

“We have abundant proof that Fire was never neglected by ancient Christians, either on tomb or altar. In a letter from Rome, we find that in front of the Cubiculum, or square tomb of Cornelius the martyr, is a short pillar supporting an ever-burning lamp of oil; and when this custom of never-dying flame—alike common to all faiths—was revived in the third century A.C., we read that the Popes used to send to kings and queens a few drops of the oil from this lamp of the tomb of Cornelius. (See Cor.—Ill. Lon. News, 3-72.) Nor need we be astonished at this, seeing that Vesta’s shrine still flourished and received Papal attention, and that in every corner of the world Fire-faith existed. To this day none may neglect the rites of this faith in Syria—cradle of the God, as the poor Turkish Bey of Antioch and his son found to their cost, when, after the earthquake of April 3rd, 1872, they and their officers kindly, reverently and wisely buried the Christian dead, but without the fire-symbols and bell-ringing (which they failed to understand), thereby greatly offending a powerful sect of Antioch, called the Dusars, who, still clearly worshipping Baal and Astaroth, rose upon the poor Turks and smote them hip and thigh.”

“In the county of Kildare, Ireland, ‘everlasting fire’ was preserved by ‘holy virgins—called Ingheaw Andagha, or daughters of fire,’ down to the time of the Reformation. These were often the first ladies of the land, and never other than those of gentle birth.”

“No blessing can be asked or granted from the altar of any Catholic Church until the candles are lighted. If a woman when pregnant desires to be blessed by the Christian Church, she is instructed ‘to wait on her knees, at the door of the church, with a lighted taper in her hand,’ nor can any cross be blessed until three tapers are lighted by the ‘man of God,’ had placed at its base. See Picart II., 117, where he gives some graphic plates of Christian Phallo-solar-fire rites.

“In Goodwin’s Civil and Ecclesiastical Rites, under the head of Feasts of the Expiation, which we have reason to believe was at one time a period of human sacrifice, we have the great Winter-Christmas Saturnalia, or Juvenalia Festival of Lights and Fires described, when not only the temples of Jews and Christians, but every house had to be carefully lighted. Jews taught that the lights must be held in the left hand, and the holder must ‘walk between two commandments,’ which seems to denote the climatic or solar turn of the year. This old writer tells us that it was ‘woman’s peculiar province to light their lamps;’ and that ‘there are certain prayers appropriated to this festival, and among the rest one in praise of God, who hath ordained the lighting up of lamps upon Solemn Days.’ Here we see a close resemblance between the faith of the Jew and the Islami, whose wives are enjoined personally to see to the lighting of the household lamps on Venus’ Eve. Jerusalem, we know, acknowledges the God of Agni to the present hour, by annually giving out that holy Fire descends from heaven at a stated season into the dark Adyta of the Sacred Shrine; all old fires must be extinguished at this the season of Sol’s renewed vigour, so when the priest emerges from the adytum with the new fire in his hand (and Christian priests have often done this, if they do not do so still), crowds of every hue and creed rush towards him, light their tapers, and bear away the new fire to their homes.”

Referring to the Temple of Vesta mentioned by Davies, Forlong says—“Now, what was this Temple of Vesta? In its rites and surroundings, its duties social and political, it was one with the temples still existing in Asia devoted to Phallic and Fire-worship combined, or perhaps I should say a temple to Phallic worship only, but the cult in the dawn of brighter faiths was somewhat hid away by the priests in the darkest recesses of their temples, and not well-known by many of the worshippers, and scarcely at all by European writers even of the middle ages. Any student of Delphic lore and of Eastern travel, however, will recognise at once in Delphi’s Oracle and Vesta’s Temple, ‘The Old Faith’ and its priestess worshippers, although the writer in Smith’s Dictionary of Antiquities does not appear to do so. He describes Vesta’s as merely a Fire-temple, and says that there were six Vestales or Virgin Priestesses to watch the eternal Fire which blazed everlastingly on the altar of the goddess. On the Pope has descended the name of their superior as ‘Pontifex Maximus.’ If by any negligence or misfortune the Fire went out, the Pontifex Maximus scourged the erring vestal virgin, for had not she—a woman—permitted the procreative energy of the god to forsake mankind?”

“Dr. George Petrie, who in 1845 still combatted, but without force, the pre-Christian idea of Irish Towers, acknowledges signs of a very strong and all-prevailing Fire Worship in Ireland. This he sees in Bel or Bil-tene—‘the goodly fire,’ in which Bel, the sun in Ireland, as of old in Babylon, was the great purifier. The Druids, he says, used to worship in presence of two fires, and make cattle walk between them to keep off evil. Even in Dublin we have still May-fires, and those of St. John’s Eve; and an old manuscript of Trinity College tells us that ‘Bel was the name of an idol at whose festival (Bel-tine) a couple of all cattle were exhibited as in his possession,’ which I conclude means—fixed by his rays. The name of this feast in Scotland was Egin-Tin, in which we can recognise Agin, Ag, or Agni-fire, and the fire-god of all Asia. In the island of Skye—says Dr. Martin, quoted by Petrie, page xxxviii.—the Tin Egin was a forced fire or fire of necessity which cured the plague and murrain amongst cattle. All the fires in the parish were extinguished, and eighty-one married men (a multiple of the mystic number nine) being thought the necessary number for effecting this design took two great planks of wood, and nine of them were employed by turns, who, by their repeated efforts, rubbed one of the planks against the other until the heat thereof produced fire, and from this forced fire each family is supplied with new fire.

“This is the true ‘fire which falls from heaven,’ and it must still be so produced at the temples of all fire-worshipping races, and at the hearths of the Guebre or Parsees, as it was in this remote Isle of Skye.

“I must now make a few general observations upon the marked Phallo-Fire Worship of the Greeks and Romans, too commonly called ‘Fire and Ancestor Worship,’ it not being perceived that the ancestor came to be honoured and worshipped only as the Generator, and so also the Serpent, as his symbol.

“The ‘Signs’ or Nishans of the generating parents, that is the Lares and Penates, were placed in the family niches close to the holy flame—that ‘hot air,’ ‘holy spirit,’ or ‘breath’—the active force of the Hebrew BRA, and the Egyptian P’ta—the engenderer of the heavens and earth, before which ignorant and superstitious races prayed and prostrated themselves, just as they do to-day before very similar symbols.

“The Greeks and Romans watched over their fires as do our Parsees or Zoroastrians. The males of the family had to see that the holy flame never went out, but in the absence of the head, and practically at all times, this sacred duty devolved on the matron of the house. Every evening the sacred fire was carefully covered with ashes so that it might not go out by oversight, but quietly smoulder on; and in the early morning the ashes were removed, when it was brightened up and worshipped. In March or early spring it was allowed to die out, but not before the New Year’s Fire had been kindled from Sol’s rays and placed in the sanctuary. No unclean object was allowed to come near Agni; none durst even warm themselves near him; nor could any blameworthy action take place in his presence. He was only approached for adoration or prayer; not as fire, which he was not, but as sexual flame or life. Prayers were offered to him similar to those Christians use; and with most he held just such a mediatorial office as Christ does. The Almighty was addressed through him, and he was asked for health, happiness wisdom and foresight; guidance in prosperity and comfort in adversity, long life, off-spring, and all manly and womanly qualifications. His followers were taught that it was the most heinous sin to approach him with unclean hearts or hands, and were encouraged to come to him at all times for repentance and sanctification.

“Before leaving the house, prayer had to be made to the sacred fire; and on returning, the father must do so even before embracing his wife and children. Thus Agamemnon acted, we are told, on his return from Troy. Sacrifices, libations, wine, oil and victims were regularly offered to the Fire, and as the god brightened up under the oils, all exulted and fell down before him. They believed that he ate and drank, and with more reason than the Jew said this of his Jehovah and El-Shadai. Above all, it was necessary to offer food and wine to him; to ask a blessing before every meal, and return thanks when it was over. From Ovid and Horace we see it was thought pious and proper to sup in presence of the sacred flame, and to make oblations to it. There was no difference between Romans, Greeks, and Hindoos in these respects, except that Soma wine in India took the place of the grape of cooler lands. All alike besought Agni by fervent prayers for increase of flocks and families, for happy lives and serene old age, for wisdom and pardon of sin. We see the great antiquity of this faith in the well-known fact, that even when the early Greeks were sacrificing to Zeus and Athene at Olympia, they always first invoked Agni, precisely as had been ordered in the Vedas some 2,000 years B.C., and probably as he had been invoked many thousands of years before the art of writing was known.”