"If there was a Pandora, whom Hesiod mentions as the first woman, hers was the first head the Graces crowned, for she received gifts from all the gods, whence she got her name Pandora. But Moses, a prophet, not a poet-shepherd, shows us the first woman Eve having her loins more naturally girt about with leaves than her temples with flowers. Pandora then is a myth."(98) 98) Tertullian, vol. i., p. 341. Woman, who was originally the gift of Wisdom, or Minerva, and who when created was garlanded with flowers as the crown of creation, became, in course of time, an accursed and wicked thing who must henceforth cover herself with leaves to hide her shame. Tertullian, who, with the rest of the early fathers in the Christian church, had imbibed the latter doctrine concerning her, could not believe the tradition set forth by Hesiod; therefore Pandora was a myth, while the corrupted fable, that of Eve as the tempter, was accepted as a natural representation of womanhood. When woman was created, "all the gods conferred a gifted grace." "Round her fair brow the lovely-tressed Hours A garland twined of Spring's purpureal flowers: The whole attire Minerva's graceful art Disposed, adjusted, form'd to every part."(99) 99) Hesiod, Works and Days. Later, however, Pandora herself becomes the pourer forth of ills on the head of defenceless man. CHAPTER XI. FIRE AND PHALLIC WORSHIP. "Know, first a spirit with an active flame Fills, feeds, and animates the mighty frame; Runs through the watery worlds and fields of air, The ponderous Earth and depths of Heav'n and there Burns in the Sun and Moon, and every brilliant Star Thus mingling in the mass, the general soul Lives in its parts and agitates the whole." Although earth, air, water, and the sun were long venerated as objects of worship, as containing the life principle, in process of time it is observed that fire attracted the highest regard of human beings, and on their altars the sacred flame, said to have been kindled from heaven, was kept burning uninterruptedly from year to year, and from age to age, by bands of priests "whose special duty it was to see that the sacred flame was never extinguished." The office of the vestal virgins in Rome was to preserve the holy fire. The Egyptians, and in fact all the earlier civilized nations, knew that force proceeds from the sun, hence the frequent appearance of this orb among their symbols of life. Indeed there is not a country on the globe in which, at some time, divine honors have not been paid to fire and to light. The Hindoos, "believing fire to be the essence of all active power in Nature, kept perpetual lamps burning in the innermost recesses of their pagodas and temples, and in the sacred edifices of the Greeks and Barbarians fires were preserved for the same reason."