4. Worship of the Elements and Forces of Nature.
The elements and forces of nature, Volney believes, inspired the first ideas of God and religion:
“Man, reflecting on his condition, began to perceive that he was subjected to forces superior to his own, and independent of his will. The sun enlightened and warmed him, fire burned him, thunder terrified him; the wind beat upon him, and water drowned him.”
“Considering the action of the elements on him, he conceived the idea of weakness and subjection on his part, and of power and domination on theirs; and this idea of power was the primitive and fundamental type of every idea of the Divinity.”
“The action of these natural existences excited in him sensations of pleasure and pain, of good or evil; and by a natural effect of his organization he conceived for them love or aversion; he desired or dreaded their presence; and fear or hope gave rise to the first idea of religion.”
From this elemental worship Indra, Agni, Zeus, Odin, Jehovah and other gods were evolved. Jehovah was originally a god of the atmosphere. He manifested himself in the tempest; he unchained the waves of the sea; the wind was his breath; the thunder was his voice, the lightning his messenger. He filled the air with frost; he precipitated the hail; he blanketed the earth with snow; he deluged the land with rain; he congealed the water of the stream, and parched the verdure of the field.
Fire worship overspread Asia, and Jehovah, like Moloch, became a god of fire. “There went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoured; coals were kindled by it” ([2 Sam. xxii, 9]). He appeared to Abram as “a smoking furnace and a burning lamp” ([Gen. xv, 17]). He revealed himself to Moses in the burning bush. “The bush burned with fire, but the bush was not consumed” ([Ex. iii, 2]). When David called to him “he answered him from heaven by fire” ([1 Ch. xxi, 26]). To the fleeing Israelites he was a “pillar of fire” ([Ex. xiv, 24]). “The Lord descended upon” Sinai “in fire” ([xix, 18]). When he appeared upon Horeb “the mountain burned with fire unto the midst of heaven” ([Deut. iv, 11]), “and the Lord spake out of the midst of the fire” ([12]). “The cloud of the Lord was upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was on it by night” ([Ex. xl, 38]). On the Jewish altar for centuries the sacred fire was kept burning. When Aaron, Gideon, Solomon and Elijah made offerings to Jehovah “there came a fire out from before the Lord, and consumed” the offerings ([Lev. ix, 24]; [Jud. vi, 21]; [2 Ch. vii, 1]; [1 K. xviii, 38]). Elijah was translated in “a chariot of fire” ([2 K. ii, 11]). Elisha was surrounded by “horses and chariots of fire” ([vi, 17]). With fire he consumed his enemies. “The Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire” ([Gen. ][472]]xix, 24). When Nadab and Abihu “offered strange fire before the Lord” ([Lev. x, 1]), “there went out fire from before the Lord and devoured them” ([2]). When the Israelites displeased him at Taberah, “the fire of the Lord burnt among them and consumed them” ([Num. xi, 1]). When the hosts of Satan encompassed the Christian saints, “fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them” ([Rev. xx, 9]).
“It is now a matter of demonstration,” says M. Soury, “that at the time of the Exodus from Egypt, in the desert, and even in the time of Judges, light and fire were not to the Israelites mere symbols of the deity, but were the deity himself.”
Christ inherited the fiery nature of his Father. He baptized his disciples with fire. “He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire” ([Matt. iii, 11]). “And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them” ([Acts ii, 3]). He consigned his enemies to everlasting punishment in the unquenchable fires of hell. “The Son of man shall send forth his angels, and they shall gather out of his kingdom all things that offend, and them which do iniquity; and shall cast them into a furnace of fire” ([Matt. xiii, 41, 42]). “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire” ([xxv, 41]). “To be cast into hell fire: where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched. For every one shall be salted with fire” ([Mark ix, 47–49]). His disciples were imbued with the same spirit and belief. “And they (the Samaritans) did not receive him.... And when his disciples James and John saw this, they said, Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven and consume them?” ([Luke ix, 53, 54].)
Some vestiges of ancient fire worship have been transmitted to our time. John Newton says: “A sacred fire, at first miraculously kindled, and subsequently kept up by the sedulous care of priests and priestesses, formed an important part of the religion of Judea, Babylonia, Persia. Greece and Rome, and the superstition lingers amongst us still. So late as the advent of the Reformation, a sacred fire was kept ever burning on a shrine at Kildare, in Ireland, and attended by virgins of high rank, called ‘inghean au dagha,’ or daughters of fire. Every year is the ceremony repeated at Jerusalem of the miraculous kindling of the Holy Fire at the reputed sepulchre, and men and women crowd to light tapers at the sacred flame” (The Assyrian Grove).