emblem in a box, chest, or ark which they worshipped as the "God of
Hosts," the "Life Giver," etc. It has been observed that although
the Jews frequently lost their ark, they were never without their
serpent-pole. At a certain stage in the religious development of mankind
all the temples in Africa and Western Asia were dedicated to Vulcan the
fire god or the "Lord of Fire," to whom all furnaces were sacred. The
principal festivals in honor of this Deity took place in the spring, at
the Easter season, and on the 23d of August, when it is said that the
licentiousness practiced in the temples compared with those of the
"Harvest Homes" of Europe when the sun was in Libra and the harvest had
been garnered in. Vulcan was the "God of fornication" or of passion.

These excesses, which remained unchecked down to the fourth century
before Christ, are said to have somewhat abated after the rise of the
Stoic philosophy.

Various philosophers of early historic times as well as many of the
early fathers in the Christian church believed that God was a corporeal
substance which in some way is manifested through fire.

In Egypt, during the early ages of Christianity, "a great dispute
took place among the monks on the question, whether God is corporeal."
Tertullian declared that "God is fire"; Origen, that "he is a subtle
fire"; and various others that "he is body."

There is little doubt that in early historic ages the Persians, who had
undertaken to purify their religion, were the strongest and purest sect
of this cult; they were in fact the genuine worshippers of the pure
creative principles which they believed resided in fire.

We have observed that force or spirit was originally regarded as a
part of Nature, or in other words that it was a manifestation of, or
an outflowing from matter, but so soon as it began to be considered
as something apart from Nature, there at once arose a desire for some
corporeal object to represent this unseen and occult principle.

During many of the ages of fire-worship, holy fire, although a material
substance, seems to have been too subtle to clearly represent the
god-idea, hence everywhere the worship of the serpent is found to be
interwoven with it. In fact, so closely are serpent, fire, pillar, and
other phallic faiths intermingled that it is impossible to separate
them.

The Persians are by some writers said to have been the earliest
fire-worshippers: by others the truth of this statement is