142 



Ireland, as well as contrary to the principles of Zoroaster, to have the 

 towers, as some opponents of this theory urge, open at head ; while 

 such means were of course used to carry off any smoke, as Du Perron 

 says,* are adopted to this day by the Persians. The models of these 

 towers were consequently the same with those of the Mahometan 

 minarets, that is to say, those fire-temples of the Magians of the East, 

 introduced by Zoroaster, and which, according to Prideaux, he 

 " caused to be built wherever he came ; for whereas hitherto they 

 had erected their altars, on which their sacred fire was kept, on the tops 

 of hills and high places in the open air, and there performed all the 

 oflfices of their relgious worship, where often by rain, tempests, and 

 storms, the sacred fire was extinguished, and the holy ofiices of their 

 religion interrupted and disturbed ; for the preventing of this he di- 

 rected that, wherever any of these altars were erected, temples should 

 be built over them, that so the sacred fires might be the better pre- 

 served, ***** not that they worshipped the fire, for this 

 they always disowned, but God in the fire/'-f- 



Strabo speaks of these edifices in Cappadocia, his native country. 

 "In Cappadocia (for in that place are many of the Magi, who are 

 called Pyroethi, or fire worshippers, and many temples of the Persian 

 gods,) there are Pyroetheia, i. e. fire temples, certain remarkable 

 enclosures, in the midst of which is an altar, whereon there is much 

 ashes, and the Magi preserve the everlasting fire, and daily entering 

 into this shrine, they, &c. &c.":|: D'Herbelot writes of them very fully, 

 as Pyreia (Bibl. orient : at Aluand and Parsi,) and Maurice, in his 



* Zend. Avesta, torn. 2. p. 569, cited by Lanigan, Eccl. Hist. vol. 4. p. 4 1 1. 

 f Connect. &c. part 1 . b. 4. 



* " E» di Ti) K«WH-«3«x(«, (?reAw yag urn rt t«» M«y«k <pt/A<i» «i x«( Hv^ailei xaXivneu ' 

 ■xeXXx CI x«( rai Xli^rixat B^im isj*,) *#*»«« 55-7, Jj x«( Jlv^»i6u*, (rijxoi risi; 

 alioAoyoj • t» Js tcvtcis ^jo-oi; Buficf, ty u x»AAi| TI trvcio; xeei irv^ ao^so-TO ifvX»Trcv<rtv at fiuyci ' 



Kdi' Jtfitfut h iKTutrti, ivxhv<n,, &c."— Strabo, Geog. lib. 15. p. 1040. Falc. Edit. 



