Because of its mysterious origin and its uncontrollable power for good or ill, fire was supposed from the earliest times to be divine. The Bible tells us that the Lord went before the children of Israel in their journey from Egypt to the Promised Land in a pillar of fire by night. From the earliest hours of religious history the sun has been worshiped as a god. All the tribes of antiquity had a fire god. It was Agni in ancient India; Moloch among the Phoenicians; Hephaestus in Greece; Vulcan among the Romans; Osiris in Egypt; and Loki among the Scandinavians. In ancient religious belief fire and the human soul were supposed to be one and the same in substance. In some instances fire was held to be the very soul of nature, the essence of everything that had shape. "From Jupiter to the fly, from the wandering star to the tiniest blade of grass, all beings owed existence to the fiery element." This theory was believed by the Aztecs, who invoked in their prayers "fire the most ancient divinity, the father and mother of all gods." Of these ancient fire-divinities some were good and some evil; just as fire itself is both beneficent and malignant. Among some peoples fire was used for purification from sin and the cure of disease. It also burned upon the tombs of the dead to dispel evil spirits. Greek colonists, in setting out from the mother country for the purpose of founding new homes, took fire from the home altar with which to kindle fires in their new homes. Upon some altars fires were kept constantly burning, and their extinguishment was considered a matter of great alarm. If by chance the fire that burned in the Roman temple of Vesta went out, all tribunals, all authority, all public and private business had to stop immediately until the fire should be relighted. The Greeks and the Aztecs received ambassadors of foreign countries in their temples of fire, where at the national hearth they prepared feasts for their guests. In some cases ambassadors were not received until they had stood close to fire in order that any impurities they might have brought should be singed away. No Greek or Roman army crossed a frontier without taking an altar whereon burned night and day fire brought from the public council hall and temple at home. The Egyptians had a fire burning night and day in every temple, and the Greeks, Romans, and Persians had such a fire in every town and village.