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 of το παν, the whole, and sometimes under the appellation of μονος, 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 because stat 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 called vestibula, 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 Horace æterna 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, called capeduncula. 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 the σοφοι among 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, from mige-gush, which signified, in the language of the 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.