XI.] MELANCHOLY HOURS. 375 



into natural causes. Some have imagined, and strongly 

 asserted, that his central fire was figurative of the sun, 

 and, therefore, that he had an idea of its real situation ; 

 but this opinion, so generally adopted, may be combated 

 with some degree of reason, I should be inclined to think 

 Pythagoras gained his idea of the great, central, vivify- 

 ing, and creative fire from the Chaldeans, and that, there- 

 fore, it was the representative not of the sun, but of the 

 Deity. Zoroaster taught that there was one God, Eter- 

 nal, the Father of the Universe : he assimilated the Deity 

 to light, and applied to him the names of Light, Beams, 

 and Splendour. The Magi, corrupting this representa- 

 tion of the Supreme Being, and taking literally what was 

 meant as allegory or sj^mbol, supposed that God was this 

 central fire, the source of heat, light, and life, residing in 

 the centre of the universe ; and from hence they intro- 

 duced among the Chaldeans the worship of fire. That 

 Pythagoras was tainted with this superstition is well 

 known. On the testimony of Plutarch, his disciples held, 

 that in the midst of the world is fire, or in the midst of 

 the four elements is the fiery globe of Unity, or Monad — 

 the procreative, nutritive, and excitative power. The 

 sacred fire of Vesta, among the Greeks and Latins, was a 

 remain of this doctrine. 



As the limits of this paper will not allow me to take.in 

 all the branches of this subject, I shall confine my atten- 

 tion to the opinions held by these early nations of the 

 nature of the Godhead. 



Amidst the corruptions introduced by the Magi, we may 

 discern, with tolerable certainty, that Zoroaster taught 

 the worship of the one true God : and Thales, Pythagoras, 

 and Plato, who had all been instituted in the mysteries 

 of the Chaldeans, taught the same doctrine. These phi- 

 losophers likewise asserted the omnipotence and eternity 

 of God ; and that he was the creator of all things, and 

 the governor of the universe. Plato decisively supported 

 the doctrines of future rewards and punishments ; and 

 Pythagoras, struck with the idea of the omnipresence of 

 the Deity, defined him as animus per universas inundl 

 partes omnemque naturam commeans atque difusus ex 



