The sacred fire was carefully watched in the temple of Vesta, at Rome, by virgins consecrated to this spe- cial service (^Virfjinesqne. Vesiales in urbe custodiunto iynem foci puhlici sempiternum, Cic. De Leg. ii, 8), and the extinction of this fire was regarded as a fearful omen, portending great disaster to the state, so that the unhappy Vestal whose carelessness or ill luck was the occasion of such a misfortune atoned therefor b}' a severe and degrading punishmcHt (Liv. xxviii, 11). The ancient Greeks paid worship to the same divinity in Hestia, reckoned one of the twelve great gods, and symbolized by the fire which burns npcfn the hearth, a deity admitted to the penetralia of domestic life.
AVe find the worship of the heavenh' bodies fre- (juenth' mentioned in connection with that of the gods of fire, and the former was doubtless older, as it was the hiiiher form of worship (Dent, xvii, 3; 2 Kings xvii, IG, 17; xxi, 3; xxiii, 5, 11; Isa. xxvii, 9; Jer. viii, 2; Ezek. viii, 16; Zeph. i, 5; Herodotus, I. c. ; Stralio, /. c). There appears, therefore, to have been some connection between them. According to the Greek legends, it was Prometheus, the fire-bearer, who, purloining the ethereal and beneficent element from the sun, the high divinity of the Sabfean wor- ship, conveyed it by stealth to earth as a gift to men, braving therefor and incurring thereby the anger of Zeus, tiie Greek form of the name by which, according to Herodotus and Strabo, the circuit of the heavens was called b}' the Magi, and probably the same as Jlitlira. jMay we not find sj^mbolized in this Prome- thean legend the connection and the conflict l^etween sun-worship and fire-worship, Sabfeanism and Ma- gism ? For an abstract of the relation of the Mithraic worship and the original doctrines of the Zend-Avesta, with references to works of modern writers on this subject, see De Guignaut's translation of Creuzer's ReL de rAntiqmte, notes viii, ix, to bk. ii, vol. i, pt. ii, p. 72f^.-Smith, Diet, of the Bible, s. v. Molech and Fire ; Auct. Univ. Ilixf. (Lond. 1747, 21 vols. 8vo ; see index in vol. xx) ; Gibbon, Decline and Fall of Rom. Empire (N. Y. 1852, 6 vols. 12mo), i, 226-238 ; Smith, Gentile Nations (N. Y.) ; Stoddart, Introd. Univ. Hist. p. 228-9, 301 ; Hyde, De Relig. vet. Persarum (Oxon. 1700, 4to) ; Creiv/X'T, Peliyion de VAntiquite; Anquetil du Perron, Zend-Avesta, etc. (improved in German translation by discussions of Kloukcr) ; Richter, Aelteste Jteligionen des Orients. (J. W. M.)
Firkin QiirpijTi'ir, a measurer, occurs onh- in John li, 6), a metrites, i. e. the Attic ,\MPnoRA, a measure f(ir liquids, cciuivalent to the Hebrew iJATii, and con- taining abciut 8^ gallons (Smith's Diet, of Class. An- tiq. s. V. Mctretes). See Metrology.
Firmament, a term introdticed into our language from the "Yulgate, which gives frmamentnm as the equivalent of the aTip'oofia of the Sept. and the raki'a
(""^Pf) °^ *^^ Hebrew text (Gen. i, 6); more fully D1''211"rT ^'■y^'}, firmament of the heavens, Gen. i, 14, 15, 17). See Heaven.
1. The Hebrew term is generally regarded as ex' pressive of simple expansion, and is so rendered in the margin of the A.V. (1. c); but the true idea of the word is a complex one, taking in the mode by which the expansion is effected, and consequently im])lying the nature of the material expanded. The verb "p"i, raha' , means to expand by heating, whether by the hand, the foot, or any instrument. It is especially used, however, of beating out metals into thin plates (Exod. xxxix, 3; Numb, xvi, 30), and hence the sub- stantive Di;^';?"!, " broad plates" of metal (Numb, xvi, 38). It is thus apyjlied to the flattened surface of the solid earth (Isa. xlii, 5 ; xliv, 24 ; Psa. cxxxvi, 6), and it is in this sense that the term is applied to the heaven in Job xxxvii, 18, " Hast thou spread (rather hammer- ed) out the sk}' which is strong, and as a molten look- ing-glass"— the mirrors to which he refers being made of metal. The sense oi solidity, tlierefore, is combined with the ideas of expansion and tenuity in the term rakia. Saalschiitz (^.Archdol. ii, 67) conceives that the idea of solidity is inconsistent with Gen. ii, 6, which implies, according to him, the passage of the mist through the rakia ; he therefore gives it the sense of pure expansion — it is the large and lofty room in which the winds, etc. have their abode. But it should be ob- served that Gen. ii, 6 implies the very reverse. If the mist had penetrated the rakia it would have descended in the form of rain : the mist, however, was formed under the 7-akia, and resembled a heavy dew — a mode of fructifying the earth which, from its regularity and quietude, was more appropriate to a state of innocence than rain, the occasional violence of which associated it with the idea of divine vengeance. But the same idea of solidity runs through all the references to the rakia. In Exod. xxiv, 10, it is poetically represented as a solid floor, "a paved work of a sapphire stone;" nor is the image much weakened if we regard the word P!^? as applying to the transparency of the stone rath- er than to the pianng as in the A. V., either sense be- ing admissilile. So again, in Ezek. i, 22-26, the " firm- ament" is the floor on which the throne of the Most High is placed. That the rakia should be transparent, as implied in the comparisons with the sapphire (Exod. 1. c.) and with crystal (Ezek. 1. c. ; conip. Rev. iv, 6\ is bj' no means inconsistent with its solidity. Further, the office of the rakia in the economy of the world de- manded strength and substance. It was to serve as a division between the waters above and the waters be- low (Gen. i, 7). In order to enter into this description we must carrj'^ our ideas back to the time when the earth was a chaotic mass overspread with watci', in which the material elements of the heavens were in- termingled. The first step, therefore, in the work of orderly arrangement was to separate the elements of heaven and earth, and to fix a floor of partition be- tween the waters of the heaven and the waters of the earth ; and accordingly the rakia was created to sup- port the upper reservoir (Psa. cxlviii, 4; comp. Psa, civ, 3. where Jehovah is represented as " building his chambers of water," not simply "in water," as the A. Vers. ; the prep. 3 signifying the mateiial owt of which the beams and joists were made), itself being supported at the edge or rim of the earth's disk by the mountains (2 Sam. xxii, 8 ; .Job xxvi, 11). In keeping with this view the rakia was provided with "windows" (Gen. vii, 11 ; Isa. xxiv, 18; Mai. iii, 10) and "doors" (Psa. ixxviii, 23), through which the rain and the snow might descend. A secondaiy purpose which the rakia served was to support the heavenly bodies, sun, moon, and stars (Gen. i, 14), in which they were fixed as nails, and from which, consequently, they might be said figuratively to drop off (Isa. xiv, 12 ; xxxiv, 4 ;