Old Words, Italian

Listening to "Way with Words" on NPR yesterday (a show about where do words come from), a caller asked about an old expression his wife used:  "I can put my hand on the fire!"  It says, this is absolutely true, I'll stake everything on it.

Where did that come from?

From old Italy, from a pre-Christian temple truth-testing ritual, where apparently there was a flame always present, and as a "spiritual" test very like the medieval water tests or combat tests, it was a way to swear to the truth.  If you could hold your hand over the flame, you were innocent of any falsehood.  Even swearing that you COULD do it was convincing.

Other things from old Italy?  When Catholicism became the religion of the Empire, some elements of other religions were sort of swept into the theology of the area.  This is pretty much the missionary equivalent of "love me, love my dog" thing, in which we accept the opinion with the one who holds it.  The same has happened in every century:  easter eggs, Christmas trees, the DATE of Christmas celebrations, naming the months of the year, etc.

You can probably think of some examples of cultural beliefs becoming articles of faith.  On the second Sunday in a new pastorate, I was met by a small delegation after church.  Their request:  "We need to sing the old, familiar hymns, and you need to pick them!"  It did take another meeting or two to realize what were THEIR old, familiar hymns.  Actually, you could have divided the church into five groups (having moved in from elsewhere), based on their definition of "old, familiar".

Culture - - - faith - - - always mixing together, and the wise Christian always wants to know the source of the "absolute belief" that slides into the conversation.