Fire Worshipers
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Fire Worshipers. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
those who worship fire, especially the followers of Zoroaster in Persia and the Parsees in India. The ancient religion of Iran or Persia recognized a single god, a being who created and ruled the universe. Its followers venerated the sun as the emblem of deity, and fire as the representative of the sun on earth. A sacred fire was kept burning continually, watched and tended with incessant care lest it be extinguished. It is believed that the fire has burned for centuries and is still burning. This religion of ancient Persia was of a purer and higher type than that of other ancient nations. In the course of time it degenerated. Fire, which was but a symbol originally, came to be regarded as a deity in itself. The sun, moon, and stars were worshiped. Many strange beliefs were prevalent, and many strange rites instituted. Then Zoroaster claimed to have received direct revelations from Ormazd, the god of all good. The Zend-Avesta is a book containing his teachings, which are in large degree ennobling. The exact time of Zoroaster's life is unknown. Scholars place him from one to five centuries before Christ. In 641 A. D. Persia was conquered by the Caliph Omar and converted to Mohammedanism by the sword. A part of the followers of Zoroaster fled to India and there preserve their former faith. They are called Parsees. Others remained loyal at home in Persia. They have suffered persecution at the hands of the Mohammedans. They are called Guebres and are now allowed religious freedom. Together, the Guebres and the Parsees are estimated to number about 150,000. They are a highly respectable class, in many instances ranking among the wealthy and most intelligent citizens. They still regard fire as sacred; but scholars claim that, at least among the more intelligent, it is not worshiped, but regarded as an emblem of divinity. Among the more ignorant it is probably itself defied. See Parsees ; Zoroaster ; Bombay
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the Zoroastrians called also Guebres. Herodotus, about 450 b. c., said "The Persians think fire to be a god." Strabo, about 50 A. D., says, "They peculiarly sacrifice to fire and water, placing dry wood on the fire stripped of its bark, with fat thrown upon it." The Rev. Dr. Wilson, of Bombay, alleges that "they actually address it in supplication, as if it were sentient, intelligent, divine, and omnipresen nipresent, and ready to hear, bless, assist, and deliver." No prominent race now in India has become more rapidly modified by intercourse with Europeans. The fire worshipers have, in the course of their history, suffered the most cruel persecution from the Mohammedans.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's 1910 note that scholars placed Zoroaster "from one to five centuries before Christ" has been overturned: linguistic study of the oldest Avestan hymns, the Gathas, now puts him in roughly the second millennium BCE, closer to 1200-1000 BCE. The label "fire worshipers" itself has been abandoned by scholars and is rejected by Zoroastrians, who hold the position Aiton allowed only for "the more intelligent" - that fire is a symbol of Ahura Mazda, not a god. The community has shrunk rather than grown from the 150,000 Aiton estimated: India's census counted about 57,000 Parsis in 2011, roughly half the 1941 figure, and in 2013 the Indian government launched the Jiyo Parsi scheme to subsidise fertility treatment and slow the decline. In Iran, Zoroastrians hold a reserved seat in parliament under the post-1979 constitution while remaining a legally subordinate minority; the sacred fire the old entry described is still tended, most famously the Iranshah at Udvada in Gujarat.
Written for this edition, 2026.