Chapter 6

We have now arrived at the following result. In the first century of our era the religion of the Germans rested mainly upon gods; a thousand or twelve hundred years later, among the northern section of the race, which was the last to exchange the faith of its fathers for a new one, the old system of gods is preserved the most perfectly. Linked by language and unbroken tradition to either extremity of heathenism, both its first appearance in history and its fall, stands central Germany from the fifth to the ninth century. During this period the figures of the heathen gods, in the feeble and hostile light thrown upon them by the reports of recent converts, come before us faded and indistinct, but still always as gods.

I must here repeat, that Tacitus knows no simulacrum of German gods, no image (3) moulded in human shape; what he had stated generally in cap. 9, he asserts of a particular case in cap. 43, and we have no ground for disbelieving his assertion. the existence of real statues at that time in Germany, at least in the parts best known to them, would hardly have escaped the researches of the Romans. He knows of nothing but signa and formas, apparently carved and coloured, which were used in worship as symbols, and on certain occasions carried about; probably they contained some reference to the nature and attributes of the several deities. The model of a boat, signum in modum liburnae figuratum (cap. 9), betokened the god of sailing, the formae aprorum (cap. 45) the god to whom the boar was consecrated; and in the like sense are to be taken the ferarum imagines on trees and at certain sacrifices (see Suppl.). The vehiculum veste contectum of the goddess Earth will be discussed further on.

The absence of statues and temples, considering the impotence of all artistic skill at the period, is a favourable feature of the German cultus, and pleasing to contemplate. But it by no means follows that in the people's fancy the gods were destitute of a form like the human; without this, gods invested with all human attributes, and brought into daily contact with man, would be simply inconceivable. If there was any German poetry then in existence, which I would sooner assert than deny, how should the poets have depicted their god but with a human aspect?

Attempts to fashion images of gods, and if not to carve them out of wood or stone, at least to draw and paint them, or quite roughly to bake them of dought (p. 63), might nevertheless be made at any period, even the earliest; it is possible too, that the interior parts of Germany, less accessible to the Romans, concealed here and there temples, statues and pictures. In the succeeding centuries, however, when temples were multiplied, images also, to fill their spaces, may with the greatest probability be assumed.

The terminology, except where the words simulacra, imagines, which leave no room for doubt, are employed, makes use of several terms whose meaning varies, passing from that of temple to that of image, just as we saw the meaning of grove mixed up with that of numen. If, as is possible, that word alah originally meant rock or stone (p. 67), it might easily, like haruc and wih, melt into the sense of altar and statue, of ara, fanum, idolum. In this way the OHG. abcut, abcuti (Abgott, false god) does signify both fana and idola or statuae, Diut. 1, 497 513 515 533, just as our götze is at once the false god and his image and his temple (see above, p. 15. Gramm. 3, 694). Idolum must have had a similar ambiguity, where it is not expressly distinguished from delubrum, fanum and templum. In general phrases such as idola colere, odola adorare, idola destruere, we cannot be sure that images are meant, for just as often and with the same meaning we have adorare fana, destruere fana. Look at the following phrases taken from OHG. glosses: abcuti wîhero stetio [[[false gods of sanctified places]]], fana excelsorum, Diut. 1, 515. abcut in heilagêm stetim [[[false god in a holy place]]], fana in excelsis, Diut. 1, 213. steinînu zeihan inti abcuti [[[stone images and false gods]]], titulos et statuas et lucos, Diut. 1, 513. afgoda begangana [[[caring for (worshipping?) false gods]]], Lacombl. arch. 1, 11. ----Saxo Gram. often uses simulacra for idols, pp. 249, 320-1-5-7. The statement in Aribonis vita S. Emmerammi (Acta sanct. Sept. 6, 483): 'tradidero te genti Saxonum, quae tot idolorum cultor existit' is undeniable evidence that the heathen Saxons in the 8th century served many false gods (Aribo, bishop of Freisingen in the years 764-783). The vita Lebuini, written by Hucbald between 918-976, says of the ancient numinibus suis vota solvens ac sacrificia............simulacra quae deos esse putatis, quosque venerando colitis. Here, no doubt, statues must be meant (see Suppl.).

In a few instancs we find the nobler designation deus still employed, as it had been by Tacitus: Cumque idem rex (Eadwine in 625) gratias ageret diis suis pro nata sibi filia, Beda. 2, 9.

The following passages testify to visible representations of gods; they do not condescend to describe them, and we are content to pick up hints by the way.

The very earliest evidence takes us already into the latter half of the 4th century, but it is one of the most remarkable. Sozomen, Hist. eccl. 6, 37, mentions the manifold dangers that beset Ulphilas among the heathen Goths: While the barbarians were yet heathens (eti twn barbarwn ellhnikwj qrhskeuontwn)---ellhnikwj here means in heathen fashion, and qrhskeuein (to worship) is presently described more minutely, when the persecution of the Christians by Athanaric is related---Athanaric, having set the statue (evidently of the Gothic deity) on a waggon (xoanon ef armamaxhj estwj), ordered it to be carried round to the dwellings of those suspected of christianity; if they refused to fall down and sacrifice (proskunein kai quein), their houses were to be fired over their heads. By armamaxa is understood a covered carriage; is not this exactly the vehiculum veste contectum, in which the goddess, herself unseen, was carried about (Tac. Germ. 40)? Is it not the vagn in which Freyr and his priestess sat, when in holy days he journeyed round among the Swedish people (Fornm. sög. 2, 74-5)? The people used to carry about covered images of gods over the fields, by which fertility was bestowed upon them. (4) Even the karrâschen [[[wagon, carriage]]] in our poems of the Mid. Ages, with Saracen gods in them, and the carroccio of the Lombard cities (RA. 263-5) seem to be nothing but a late reminiscence of these primitive gods'-waggons of heathenism. The Roman, Greek and Indian gods too were not without such carriages.  
 



ENDNOTES:

3. Grk. agalma, signum, statue; Goth. manleika [[[image]]], OHG. manalîhho [[[image]]], ON. lîkneski [[shape, form or idol]] (see Suppl.); can the Sloven. malik, idol, have sprung from manleika? Bohem. malik, the little finger, also Thumbkin, Tom Thumb? which may have to do with idol. [In the Slavic languages, mâl = little, s-mall]. Other OHG. terms are avarâ [[[mark, statue]]]; piladi, pilidi (bild) [[[image]]] effigies or imago in general; in the Mid. Ages they said, for making or forming (p. 23), ein bilde giezen [[[to mould, cast an image]]], eine schæne juncfrouwen ergiezen [[[to mould (into the shape of) a pretty maiden]]], Cod. Vindob. 428, num. 211, without any reference to metal-casting; ein bilde mezzen [[[to measure an image]]], Troj. 19626, mezzen [[[to measure]]], Misc. 2, 186. On the Lith. balwonas, idolum, statua, conf. Pott de ling. Litth. 2, 51. Ruiss. bolvâny; Russ. kumîr, idol, both lit. and fig. (object of affection).  (back)

4. De simulacro quod per campos portant (Indic. superstit. cap. 28); one vita S. Martini cap. 9 (Surius 6, 252): Quia esset haec Gallorum rusticis consuetudo, simulacra daemonum, candido tecta velamine, misera per agros suos circumferre dementia.  (back)