Nimrod, the son of Cush, “the mighty hunter before the Lord,” was the
first person,[75] according to Vossius,[76] who introduced the worship of
the _sun_ as a deity. Disgusted with the roving character of his previous
life, and tired of peregrination, he resolves to build himself a permanent
abode, and persuades his followers to embark in the design, “lest they be
scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.”[77] Mankind had
already relapsed into the follies of their antediluvian ancestors. The
awful lesson of the watery visitation was read to them in vain, and again
they verified what God had before that memorable epoch with sorrow
declared, “that every imagination of the thoughts of their hearts was only
evil continually.”[78]
In Babel, the city thus agreed upon to be built, as the anchor of their
stability and the basis of their renown,--we find a “_Tower_” mentioned,
“whose top may _reach_,” says our version (but should it not rather be
_point_?) _towards heaven_.
What was the object of this architectural elevation?
Not certainly, as some have supposed, as a place of refuge in apprehension
of a second deluge; for in that case, it is probable, they would have
built it on an eminence, rather than on a _plain_, _whereas_ the Bible
expressly tells us they had selected the latter.
Much less could it be, what the poets have imagined, for the purpose of
scaling the celestial abodes, and disputing with Jehovah the composure of
His sovereignty.
What, then, was it intended for?
Undoubted as an acknowledgment, however vitiated and depraved, of
dependence upon that Being, whose acts shine forth in universal love, but
whose spiritual adoration was now partially lost sight of, or _merged_ in
the homage thus primarily tendered to the _lucid offspring_ of his
_omnipotent fiat_.
This tower, so erected by Nimrod, in opposition to the established system
of religious belief, and which, therefore--but from a _nobler_ reason than
what was generally imagined, viz. his researches in astronomy, and the
application thereto of instruments--procured him the appellation of
_rebel_ from _nemh_, heaven, and _rodh_, an assault, was, I hesitate not
to say, a temple constructed to the celestial host, the sun, moon, and
stars, which constituted the substance of the _Sabian idolatry_.[79]
Shinaar, in Mesopotamia, was the theatre of this dread occurrence--this
appalling spectacle at once of man’s weakness and God’s omnipotence:--Here
the Noachidæ had been then fixed; and the name by which this innovation
upon their previous usages is transmitted, viz. _Ba-Bel_, corroborates the
destination above assigned.[80]
The word “Baal,” in itself an appellative, at first served to denote the
true God amongst those who adhered to the true religion; though, when it
became common amongst the idolatrous nations, and applied to idols, He
rejected it. “And it shall be in that day that you shall call me Ishi, and
shall call me no more Baali.”[81] Another name by which the _Godhead_ was
recognised was Moloch. The latter, indeed, in accuracy of speech was the
name assigned him by the Ammonites and Moabites--both terms, however,
corresponded in sense, “Moloch” signifying king, and “Baal” Lord, that is,
of the heavens; whence transferring the appellation to the Sun, as the
_source_ and _dispenser_ of all _earthly favours_, he was also called
Bolati, _i.e._, “Baal the _bestower_,” as was the moon, Baaltis, from the
same consideration: whilst the direct object of their internal regard was
not, undoubtedly, that globe of fire which illumines the firmament and
vivifies terrestrials, but, physically considered, _nature_ at large, the
_fructifying germ_ of universal _generativeness_.
The Sun, it is true, as the source of light and heat, came in as
_representative_ for all this adoration. Thus viewed, then, it would
appear that the origin of the institution may have been comparatively
harmless. God being invisible, or only appearing to mortals through the
medium of His acts, it was natural that _man_, left to the workings of
unaided reason, should look on yon mysterious luminary with mingled
sentiments of gratitude and awe. We have every reason, accordingly, to
think, that solar worship at first was only emblematical, recognising, in
the effulgence of the orb of day, the creative power of Him, the
“Father of all, in every age,
In every clime adored,
By saint, by savage, and by sage,
_Jehovah_, _Jove_, or _Lord_”--
who sent it forth on its _beneficent_ errand.
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.
But I am answered that the tower of Ardmore, which has within it no
vestiges of divisional compartments, could offer no hindrance to the
ascent of the smoke, or its consequent discharge through the four
cardinal openings. To which I rejoin, that if there had _ever_ been a fire
lighted within that edifice, and continued for any length of time, as the
sacred fire is known to have been kept perpetually burning, it would have
been impossible for the inner surface of that stately structure to
preserve the beautiful and white coating which it still displays through
the mystic revolutions of so many ages. The same conclusion applies to the
tower of Devenish, which, though it has no inside coating, yet must its
elegant polish have been certainly deteriorated, if subjected to the
action of a perpetual smoke.
[Illustration: ARDMORE.]
The instance which is adduced of the four temples described by Hanway in
his _Travels into Persia_, proves nothing. It certainly corresponds with
the architectural character of some of our Round Towers, but leaves us as
much in the dark as to the era and use of both as if he had never made
mention of any such occurrence.
To me it is as obvious as the noon-day sun that _they too_ on examination
would be found of a more comprehensive religious tendency than what could
possibly relate to the preservation of the sacred fire; for it is well
known that when temples were at all appropriated to this consecrated
delusion, it was within a small _crypt_ or _arched vault_--over which the
temple was erected--that it was retained. The Ghebres or Parsees, the
direct disciples of Zoroaster, the reputed author of this improved
institution, “build their temples,” says Richardson,[83] “over
_subterraneous fires_.”
Whenever a deviation from this occurred, it was in favour of a low
stone-built structure, all over-arched, such as that which _Hanway met
with at Baku_, and _corresponding in every_ particular with the edifices
of this description to be seen at Smerwick, county Kerry, and elsewhere
throughout Ireland.[84]
The fire-house which Captain Keppel visited at a later period at Baku, in
1824, was a small square building, erected on a platform, with three
ascending steps on each side, having a tall hollow stone column at every
side, through which the flame was seen to issue, all _in the middle of a
pentagonal enclosure_--comprising also a large altar, whereon naphtha was
kept continually burning.
Now, could anything possibly _correspond more minutely_ with Strabo’s
description of the Pyratheia than does this last account? “They are,” he
says, “_immense enclosures_, in the centre of which was erected an altar,
where the Magi used to preserve, as well a quantity of ashes, as the
ever-burning fire itself.” And could anything possibly be _more opposite_
to our Round Towers than all these accounts?
When, therefore, we are told[85] that at the city of Zezd in Persia--which
is distinguished by the apellation of Darub Abadat, or seat of
religion--the Ghebres are permitted to have an Atush Kidi, or fire-temple,
which they assert had the sacred fire in it since the days of Zoroaster,
we must be prepared to understand it as corresponding in architectural
proportion with one or other of the instances just now detailed; and in
truth, from recent discovery, I have ascertained--since the above was
composed--that it is nothing more than a _sorry hut_.
But Pennant’s view of Hindostan is brought forward as at once decisive of
the matter. What says Mr. Pennant, however? “All the people of this part
of India are Hindoos, and retain the _old religion_, with all its
superstition. This makes the pagodas here much more numerous than in any
other part of the peninsula; their form too is different, being chiefly
buildings of a _cylindrical_ or _round tower_ shape, with their tops
either pointed or truncated at the top, and ornamented with something
eccentrical, but frequently with a round ball stuck on a spike: this ball
seems intended to represent the _sun_, an emblem of the deity of the
place.”
To this ascription of this learned traveller I most fully, most heartily
respond. Pagoda is a name invented by the Portuguese, from the Persian
“Peutgheda,” meaning a temple of idols, in which they supposed them to
abound, but which in reality were only so many figures or symbols of the
“principle of truth,” the “spirit of wisdom,” the “supreme essence,” and
other attributes of the Godhead, which, I believe, they in a great measure
spiritually recognised. Those structures, therefore, as the very word
implies, had no manner of relation to the sacred fire, but they had to the
sun and moon, the supposed authors of _generation_ and _nutrition_, of
which fire was only the corrupt emblem; and the different forms of their
constructural terminations, similar to those elsewhere described by
Maundrell, some being _pointed_, and some being _truncated_, harmonises
most aptly with the _radial_ and _hemispherical representations_ of the
two celestial luminaries, as well as with that organ of human
_procreation_ which we shall hereafter more particularly identify. These
are the two Baals dwelt so largely upon in the Scriptures--Baal masculine,
the sun, and Baal feminine, the moon, from both of which the Hindoos
derive their fabulous origin. Indeed it was from their extreme veneration
for the “queen of night” that they obtained their very name; Hindoo
meaning, in the Sanscrit language, the moon; and accordingly we find among
them Hindoo-buns, that is, children of the moon, as we do Surage-buns,
children of the sun, the other parent of their fanciful extraction.
Here then, methinks, we have at once a clue to the character of those
Round Towers so frequent throughout the East, of whose history, however,
the Orientals are as ignorant as we are here of our “rotundities.”
Caucasus abounds in those columnar fanes, and it must not be forgotten
that Caucasus has been claimed as the residence of our ancestors. On Teric
banks, hard by, there is a very beautiful and lofty one as like as
possible to some of ours. The door is described as twelve feet from the
ground, level and rather oblong in its form. Lord Valentia was so struck
with the extraordinary similitude observable between some very elegant
ones which he noticed in Hindostan and those in this country, that he
could not avoid at once making the comparison. The inhabitants, he
observes, paid no sort of regard to those venerable remains, but pilgrims
from afar, and chiefly from Jynagaur, adhering to _their old religion_,
used annually to resort to them as the shrines of their ancient worship.
Yet in the ceremonies there performed we see no evidence of their
appropriation to the sacred fire--however _tradition_ may have ascribed
them as once belonging to the Ghebres! Franklin mentions some he has seen
at Nandukan, as do other writers in other sites. In short, all through the
East they are to be met with, and yet all about them is obscurity, doubt,
and mystery, a proof at once of the antiquity of their date, and of their
not being receptacles for fire, which, _if the fact_, could be _there_ no
secret.
Yes, I verily believe, and I will as substantially establish, that they
were, what has already been affirmed, in reference to those in Ireland,
viz. temples in honour of the sun and moon, the procreative causes of
general fecundity, comprising in certain instances, like them, also the
additional and blended purposes of funeral cemeteries and astronomical
observatories. The Septuagint interpreters well understood their nature
when rendering the “high place of Baal”[86] by the Greek στηλη του βααλ,
or Pillar of Baal, that is, the pillar consecrated to the sun; while the
ancient Irish themselves, following in the same train, designated those
structures Bail-toir, that is, the tower of Baal, or the sun, and the
priest who attended them, Aoi Bail-toir, or superintendent of Baal’s
tower. Neither am I without apprehension but that the name “Ardmore,”
which signifies “the great high place,” and where a splendid specimen of
those Sabian edifices is still remaining, was in direct reference to that
religious column; but this _en passant_.
In the _sepulchral_ opinion I am not a little fortified by the
circumstance of there being found at Benares pyramids corresponding in all
respects, save that of size, to those in Egypt, having also subterranean
passages beneath them, which are said to extend even for miles together. A
column also, besides a sphinx’s head, which has been discovered not long
since in digging amid the ruins of an ancient and unknown city, on the
banks of the Hypanis, bearing an inscription which was found to differ on
being compared with Arabic, Persia, Turkish, Chinese, Tartar, Greek, and
Roman letters; but bore “a manifest and close similarity with the
characters observed by Denon on several of the mummies of Egypt,” gives
strength to the idea of the identity of the Egyptian religion with that of
the Indians, as it does to the identity of destination of their respective
pyramids.