Daniel 3:27

Verse 27. Upon whose bodies the fire had no pouter] The heathens boasted that their priests could walk on burning coals unhurt; and Virgil mentions this of the priests of Apollo of Soracte: -

Summe Deum, sancti custos Soractis Apollo!

Quem primi colimus, cui pineus ardor acervo

Pascitur; et medium, freti pietate, per ignem

Cultores multa premimus vestigia pruna.

VIRG. AEn. xi. 785.

O Phoebus, guardian of Soracte's woods

And shady hills; a god above the gods;

To whom our natives pay the rites divine,

And burn whole crackling groves of hallowed pine;

Walk through the fire in honour of thy name,

Unhurt, unsinged, and sacred from the flame.

PITTS.

But Varro tells us that they anointed the soles of their feet with a species of unguent that preserved them from being burnt. Very lately a female showed many feats of this kind, putting red hot iron upon her arms, breasts, c., and passing it over her hair without the slightest inconvenience but in the case of the three Hebrews all was supernatural, and the king and his officers well knew it.