ESSAY ON THE SACRED FIRE

We have seen this cult as extremely pure in its origin; and so it must have been. The opinions of the Pagans regarding Fire, even after several centuries of superstition, still contain remnants of this primitive purity; one need only cast an eye upon their writings. According to Varro Marcus Terentius Varro (116–27 BCE), a prolific Roman scholar and writer, Fire was the soul of Nature. Plutarch adds something more precise. Fire, he says, is the most brilliant image of the immortal power whose hand arranges and preserves the Universe; it is the principle of everything, the soul of the world. What can one say in response to this passage? The ancients clearly explained their belief regarding Fire; yet we refuse to give credit to their words; we abandon their books; we reject their sentiments, all for the pleasure of attributing to them those which we ourselves imagine.

Fire was so thoroughly regarded as the image of life that extinguished torches were placed upon tombs; lit ones were placed in the hands of newlyweds; and similar torches were given to Hymen The Greek god of marriage ceremonies and to Love Cupid or Eros. The fable of Prometheus provides yet another irrefutable proof; he stole Fire from Heaven to animate Man; the ancients therefore regarded this Element as life, the soul of the world.

If in the times most distant from this cult—when superstition and error had caused humanity to lose all the most sound knowledge of the Divinity, whom they dishonored in their fables—they nevertheless preserved

AND ON THE VESTALS.

these ideas regarding Fire: is it not natural to think that they were born in the earliest ages? In those times, men must have been simpler, more deeply moved by the wonders of the Being they adored, and these ideas partially stayed afloat upon the vast ocean of errors that later covered the face of the Earth.

CHAPTER III.

On the Cult of Fire among the Chaldeans and the Persians.

THE BABYLONIANS are the first people to have existed on the earth after the flood; secular monuments, when reconciled with sacred ones The author refers to the harmonization of classical history with the Bible, leave little doubt in this regard. Some have wished, I know not why, to have the Assyrians precede them by making a single man out of Nimrod and Asshur, even though the Scripture distinguishes them; the honor of primacy has also sometimes been given to the Egyptians, because more fables remain to us concerning them than all others. This is not the place for such discussions; one must stick to the opinion of the most exact Historians and assume the most likely to be true.

Nimrod was the founder of Babylonia; Chaldea formed a division of it; its inhabitants, applying themselves to study and multiplying their knowledge, became the Scholars and the Priests

original: "Varron, Plutarque, Himen, Amour, Promethée, Nimbroth, Assur, Assyriens, Egyptiens, Babylonie, Chaldée"