"Nimrod is singled out by the voice of
antiquity as commencing this
fire-worship. The identity of Nimrod and Ninus
...under the name of Ninus, also, he is represented
as originating the same practice.
In a fragment of Apollodorus it is said that
"Ninus taught the Assyrians to worship fire."
The sun, as the great source of
light and heat, was worshiped under the name of Baal. Now, the fact that the
sun, under that name, was worshiped in the earliest ages of the world, shows
the audacious character of these first beginnings of apostasy.
-*-According to the primitive language of mankind, the
sun was called "Shemesh"--that is, "the Servant"--that name, no doubt, being
divinely given, to keep the world in mind of the great truth that, however glorious
was the orb of day, it was, after all, the appointed Minister of the bounty
of the great unseen Creator to His creatures upon earth.
Men knew this, and
yet with the full knowledge of it, they put the servant in the place of the
Master; and called the sun Baal--that is, the Lord--and worshiped him accordingly.
What a meaning, then, in the saying of Paul, that, "when they knew God, they
glorified Him not as God"; but "changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped
and served the creature more than the Creator, who is God over all, blessed
for ever." (Romans 1:21,25).
The beginning, then, of sun-worship, and of the worship of the host
of heaven, was a sin against the light--a presumptuous, heaven-daring sin.
As
the sun in the heavens was the great object of worship, so fire was worshiped
as its earthly representative."
Alexander Hislop