“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.