FIRE, in theology. See HELL.
We read of the sacred fire in the first temple of Jerusalem, concerning which the Jews have a tradition that it came down from heaven: it was kept with the utmost care, and it was forbidden to carry any strange fire into the temple. This fire is one of the five things which the Jews confess were wanting in the second temple.
The Pagans had their sacred fires, which they kept in their temples with the most religious care, and which were never to be extinguished. Numa was the first who built a temple to Fire as a goddess, at Rome, and instituted an order of priestesses for the preservation of it. See VESTALS.
Fire was the supreme god of the Chaldeans; the magi were worshippers of fire; and the Greeks and Armenians still keep up a ceremony called the Holy
Fire, upon a persuasion that every Easter-day a miraculous fire descends from heaven into the holy sepulchre, and kindles all the lamps and candles there.