of such fires became a sacred rite, and the
``Eternal Lamps'' kept burning in synagogues
and in Byzantine and Catholic churches may
be a survival of these customs.

There is a theory that all architecture,
public and private, sacred and profane, began with
the erection of sheds to protect the sacred fire.
This naturally led men to build for their own
protection as well, and thus the family hearth
had its genesis.

Another theory holds that the keepers of the
sacred fires were the first public servants, and
that from this small beginning sprang the
intricate public service of the present.

The worship of the fire itself had been a
legacy from the earliest tribes; but it remained
for the Rosicrucians and the fire philosophers
of the Sixteenth Century under the lead of
Paracelsus to establish a concrete religious
belief on that basis, finding in the Scriptures
what seemed to them ample proof that fire
was the symbol of the actual presence of God,
as in all cases where He is said to have visited
this earth. He came either in a flame of fire,
or surrounded with glory, which they conceived
to mean the same thing.