UNIVERSAL SUN-WORSHIP

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 13, 1901

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 27, No. 11.

UNIVERSAL SUN-WORSHIP.

The following is only one of the many evidences which are found in the history of every land and people of the universality of sun-worship. This is from “Notes on Irish History,” in the Catholic Mirror of February 9, 1901, by M. P. Kehoe:—

The mixed nature of the creed of the ancient Irish seems to be intimated in their mode of designating their own priesthood, to whom they applied the Celtic as well as the Persian denomination, calling them Druids or Magi.

The great object of Phœnic adoration, the sun, was under the name of Baal or Bel, the chief deity of the Irish. That the worship of the sun formed a part of the pagan system which St. Patrick found established on his arrival, appears from the following passage of his confession: “The sun whom we behold rises daily at the command of God for our use. Yet will he never reign, nor shall his splendor endure; and all those who adore him will descend wretchedly into punishment. But we believe and adore the true sun, ‘Christ.’”

Even at the present time there remains evidence of the Fire Worshipers, in the custom of the peasants lighting bonfires on the first night of May, and in some parts of Ireland they carry a “May bush,” on which a number of candles are lighted.

The worship of fire, once common to all religions of the world, constituted a part of the old Irish superstitions, and the inextinguishable fire of St. Brigid was a transfer to Christian shrines of a rite connected thru long ages with the religious feelings of the people.

Annually, at the time of the vernal equinox, the great festival of La Baaltinne, or the Day of the Baal-fire, was celebrated, and thru every district of Ireland it was strictly ordered that on that night all fires should be extinguished, nor could any, under the pain of death, be lighted again until the pile of sacrifices in the Palace of Tara was kindled.

Among the almost universal customs which have come down from the ancient sun-worship is the observance of Sunday, which a writer has well characterized “the wild solar holiday of all pagan times.” Just as sun-worship usurped the place of the true worship of God, so Sunday usurped the place of the Sabbath of the true God.