Introduction to the History of Religions Handbooks on the...

318. There was, doubtless, a time when man had not learned to produce fire, and there may now be tribes unacquainted with its domestic uses. But such ignorance, if it exists, is rare; savages generally know how to make fire, and to use it for warmth and for the preparation of food. When men began to reflect on the origin of things, fire seemed to them so wonderful that they supposed it must have been discovered or invented, and the knowledge of it bestowed on men by higher beings, gods or demigods; such benefactors are Hastsezini (of the Navahos), Lightning (of the Pawnees), the Beaver and the Eagle (of the Thompson River Indians of British Columbia), Maui (of the Maoris), Agni, Prometheus.590

319. Though, like other mysterious things, it has been regarded generally (perhaps universally) as sacred, there is no clear proof that it has been worshiped as divine. What may have been the case in remote ages we cannot tell, but, according to the information we possess, it has been, and is, merely revered as in itself mysterious or sacred,591 or as the abode or production of a spirit or a deity. Possibly in the early stages of culture known to us there is a fusion of the element with the indwelling or controlling god or spirit.592 The divine patrons of fire are found in all parts of the world, varying in form and function according to the degrees of advancement of the various communities, from the beast-gods of the Redmen to the departmental deities of the Maoris, Babylonians, Mexicans, and others, and to the more complicated gods of Hindus, Greeks, and Romans.593

320. The most elaborate and most interesting of all fire-cults is the Persian. The ritual of the Avesta appears at times to describe a worship of the element itself: in Fargard xviii the fire implores the householder to rise, wash his hands, and put pure wood on the flame; Yaçna lxi is a hymn of homage and petition addressed to the fire, which is called the son of Ahura Mazda—the householder asks that all the blessings of life may be his as a reward for his sacrifice. The numerous temples devoted to the fire-cult, mentioned by later writers,594 might seem to look in the same direction. But a comparison of other parts of the Avesta makes it doubtful whether in the passages just cited anything more is meant than that the fire, as a creation of Ahura Mazda and sacred to him, is for his sake worthy of reverence and through him a source of blessing. Thus Yaçna xvii is a hymn in honor of Ahura Mazda and all his creatures, among which are mentioned the law of Zarathustra, the fire (and five different fires are named), the soul of the ox, and pure deeds, along with the Amesha-spentas, the heavenly bodies, and good men. This collection shows vagueness in the conception of the divine and the sacred, and, to say the least, leaves it uncertain whether the singer does not think of the fire simply as a symbol of the Supreme God.

321. The relation of fire to the gods, and especially its use in sacrifice, have led to a number of religious ceremonies in which it plays a principal part.595 Certain fires must be kindled by specially appointed sacred persons: among the Todas of Southern India, when a new dairy is visited or an old dairy is reconsecrated;596 among the Lacandones of Central America, on the occasion of the renewal of the incense-bowls;597 in the Peruvian temple at the feast of Raymi, when the flame was intrusted to the care of the Virgins of the Sun, and was to be kept up during the year;598 in the temples of Hestia and Vesta; throughout Greece, when the fires had been polluted by the presence of the Persians, it was ordered that they should be put out and rekindled from the sacred fire at Delphi.599

323. As the physical means of sacrifice, fire acquired a certain symbolic significance; in the Hebrew ritual "fire-offerings" are regarded as specially important. By Carthaginians, Moabites, and Hebrews children were devoted to the deity by fire.600