As such, originally they had no temples dedicated to the occasion; they met in the open air, without the precincts of any earthly shrine: there they poured forth their vows and their thanksgivings, under the aërial canopy of the vaulted expanse; nor can it be denied but that there was something irresistibly impressive in such an assemblage of pious votaries, paying their adoration to the throne of light in the natural temple of his daily splendours.[82]
The degeneracy of man, however, became manifest in the sequel, and, from the frequency of the act, the type was substituted in room of the thing typified. “Solum in cœlis deum putabant solem,” says Philobibliensis, in his interpretation of Sanchoniathon. Nor did it stop here, but, proceeding in its progress of melancholy decay, swept before it the barriers of reason and moral light; and, from the bright monarch of the stars, who rules the day, the seasons, and the year, with perpetual change, yet uniform and identical, bowed before the grosser element of material fire, as his symbol or corporeal representative.
But the worst and most lamentable is yet untold. The sign again occupied the place of the thing signified, and the human soul was prostrated, and human life often immolated, to propitiate the favour of earthly fire, now by transition esteemed a god. They had, it is true, from a faint knowledge of the sacred writings, and a perverted exercise of that inspired authority, something like an excuse for, at least, a decent attention in the ordinary management of that useful article. In Lev. vi. 13 it is said: “The fire upon the altar shall ever be burning, it shall never go out.” This injunction given by the Lord to Moses, to remind His people of the constant necessity of sacrifice and prayer, the Gentiles misconstrued into reverence for the fire itself, and “quoniam omnes pravi dociles sumus,” hence the ready admission with which the doctrine was embraced, and the general spread of that which was at first but partial and figurative.
Indeed we find that God Himself had appeared to Moses in a “flame of fire in the midst of a bush” (Ex. iii. 2), and in presence of the whole Israelitish host (Ex. xix. 18). “The Lord descended upon Mount Sinai, as the smoke of a furnace;” while in Ex. xiii. 21, it is declared that “the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light.” So accordingly we find Elijah, 1 Kings xviii. 24, when challenging the priests of the false divinities, propose a decision by fiery ordeal. “Call you on the name of your gods,” he says, “and I will call upon the name of the Lord: and the God that answereth by fire, let him be God; and all the people answered, it is well spoken.”
The infidels, therefore, who could not concede any superiority to the religion of the Hebrews, and yet could not deny those manifestations of divine support, thought they best proved their independence by instituting a rivalship, and got thereby the more confirmed in their original idolatry. Their bloody sacrifices themselves originated, we may suppose, in some similar way. God must, undoubtedly, have prescribed that rite to Adam, after his fall in Paradise, else how account for the “skins” with which Eve and he had covered themselves? The beasts to which they belonged could not have been slain for food; for it was not till a long time after that they were allowed to eat the flesh of animals. We may, therefore, safely infer that it was for a sin-offering they had been immolated; and the subsequent reproof given to Cain by the rejection of his oblation, evidently for the non-observance of the exact mode of sacrifice prescribed, coupled with the command issued to Abraham, to try his obedience, by offering up his own son, are undeniable proofs of the truth of this inference.
In “Ur” of the Chaldees, a name which literally signifies “fire,” the worship of that element first originated. Thence it travelled in its contaminating course, until all the regions of the earth got impregnated therewith. In Persia, a country with which this island had, of old, the most direct communication, we also find a city denominated “Ur”; and who does not know that the Persians, having borrowed the custom from the Chaldean priests, regarded fire with the utmost veneration? Numerous as were the deities which that nation worshipped, “fire,” on every occasion, in every sacrifice—like the Janus of the Romans—was invoked the first. Their Pyrea, in which they not only preserved it ever burning, but worshipped it as a deity, have been noticed by Brisson—but without the necessary adjunct of their being an innovation.
Even the ordinary fire for culinary or social purposes participated in some measure in this hallowed regard; as they durst not, without violating the most sacred rules, and stifling the scruples of all their previous education, offer it the least mark of impious disregard, or pollute its sanctity by profane contact.
It was, however, only as symbolical of the sun that they, like the Chaldeans, paid it this extraordinary reverence—a reverence not limited to mere religious rules, but which exercised control over and biassed the decisions of their most important secular transactions. Accordingly, we learn from Herodotus, lib. vii., as quoted by Cicero in “Verrem,” that when Datis, the prefect of Xerxes’ fleet, flushed with the result of his victory over Naxos and the city of Eretria in Eubœa, might easily have made himself master of the island of Delos, he however passed it over untouched in honour of that divinity before whom his country had bowed, having been sacred to Apollo or the sun, and reputedly his birthplace.
But do I mean to say that the Round Towers of Ireland were intended for the preservation of the sacred fire? Far, very far indeed, from it. That some few of them were therewith connected—I say connected, not appropriated—may, I think, be well allowed; nay, it is my candid belief, so far as belief is compatible with a matter so unauthenticated. But having all through maintained that they were not all intended for one and the same object, I must have been understood, of course, by the numerous supporters of that fashionable proposition as including fire-worship within the compass of my several views. I put it, however, frankly to the most ardent supporter of that theory, who for a moment considers the different bearings and peculiarities of those several structures, comparing them first with one another, and then with the description of fire-receptacles which we read of elsewhere, whether he can dispassionately bring himself to say that all our Round Towers, or indeed above two of those at present remaining, could have been even calculated for that purpose?
Where, let me ask, is it they will suppose the fire to have been placed? In the bottom? No; the intervening floors, of which the GREATER PORTION retain evident traces, would not only endanger the conflagration of the whole edifice, as it is most probable that they were made of wood, but would also prevent the egress of the smoke through the four windows at the top, for which use, they tell you, those apertures were inserted.