"It seems as though the same train of symbolism which had adapted the mid-winter festival to the Nativity, may have suggested the dedication of the mid-summer festival to John the Baptist, in clear allusion to his words 'He must increase but I must decrease.' "(137)
137) Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. ii., p. 271.
In a description recently given of the "moral, religious, and social disease" which broke out A.D. 1374, in the lower Rhine region, and which was denominated as the "greatest, perhaps, of all manifestations of possession," Andrew D. White says: "The immediate origin of these manifestations seems to have been the wild revels of St. John's Day."(138)
138) Pop. Science, vol. xxxv., p. 3.
Upon this subject Toland observes that he has seen the people of Ireland running and leaping through the St. John's fire proud of passing through it unsinged. Although ignorant of the origin of this ceremony, they nevertheless regarded it as some kind of a lustration by means of which they were to be specially blessed.
To every domestic hearth was carried the seed of Bealtine, or St. John's fire, which during the year was not permitted to go out.(139)
139) Although the preservation of holy fire upon every hearth was
clearly a religious observance, still, as in those days there were
no matches, the material benefit to be derived from this precaution
doubtless had a significance apart from that connected with worship.
According to the testimony of Tylor, the festival of John the Baptist was celebrated in Germany down to a late date. This writer quoting from a low German book of the year 1859, refers to the "nod fire" which was sawed out of wood to light the St. John's bonfire "through which the people leapt and ran and drove their cattle."
With regard to the worship of Fire and Light it is related that in Jerusalem, at the present time, the Easter service is performed by the bishop of the church emerging from a tomb with lighted tapers "from which all crave lights."
On the authority of Peter Martyr, Bishop of Alexandria in the third century, we are informed that the place in Egypt where Christ was banished, which is called Maturea, a lamp is kept constantly burning in remembrance of this event. Although the story of this banishment is doubtless borrowed from the life of the Hindoo god Crishna, the fact is evident that those who appropriated it, and used it in furbishing the mythical history of Christ, had no scruples against fire worship—a religion which we have been taught to regard as belonging exclusively to the pagans.