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ARA.----This word, and the word Altare (whence the French autel, and our English Altar), were used by the Romans, to signify respectively certain structures, elevated above the ground, at the former of which prayers, with libations, were offered up, and at the latter of which victims were immolated, to their Gods.
As regards pagan antiquity, the first inventor of Altars is unknown; but the custom of raising them for religious purposes evidently passed from the Greeks to the Romans. The Greeks had probably borrowed it from the Egyptians, to whom Herodotus ascribes the original adoption of Altars, and the dedication of images in honor of their deities. Holy Writ here steps in to the aid of historical truth; and teaches us that Noah, a worshipper of the Only True God, was the first who built an altar.