TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

CHAPTEE IV.
TEMPLES.
In our inquiries on the sacred dwelling-places of the gods, it
will be safest to begin, as before, with expressions which preceded the
Christian terms temple and church, and were supplanted by them.
The Gothic allis fern, translates the Jewish- Christian notions of
vabs (Matt. 27, 5. 51. Mk. 14, 58. 15, 29. Lu. 1, 9. 21. 2 Cor. 6,
16) and Upov (Mk. 11, 11. 16. 27. 12, 35. 14, 49. Lu. 2, 27. 46. 4, 9.
18, 10. 19, 45. John 7, 14. 28. 8, 20. 59. 10, 23). To the Goth
it would be a time-hallowed word, for it shares the anomaly of
several such nouns, forming its gen. alhs, dat. alii, instead of alhais,
alhai. Once only, John 18, 20, gudhus stands for iepov ; the simple
hus never has the sense of domus, which is rendered razn. Why
should Ulphilas disdain to apply the heathen name to the Christian
thing, when the equally heathen templum
quite
inoffensive for Christian use ?
and i/ao? were found
Possibly the same word appears even earlier ; namely in Tacitus,
Germ. 43 : apud Naharvaloe antiquae religionis lucus ostenditur ;
praesidet sacerdos muliebri ornatu, sed deos interpretatione romana
Castorem Pollucemque memorant. Ea vis numini, nomen Aids ;
nulla simulacra, nullum peregrinae superstitionis vestigium. Ut
fratres tamen, ut juvenes venerantur. This alcis is either itself the
nom., or a gen. of alx (as falcis of falx), which perfectly corresponds
to the Gothic alhs. A pair of heroic brothers was worshipped,
without any statues, in a sacred grove ; the name can hardly be
1 ascribed to them, it is the abode of the divinity that is called alx.
2
Numen is here the sacred wood, or even some notable tree in it.
1 Unless it were dat. pi. of alcus [or alca aX^]. A Wendicholz, Bohem.
holec, which has been adduced, is not to the point, for it means strictly a bald
naked wretch, a beggar boy, Pol. golec, Russ. gholiak. Besides, the Naharvali
and the other Lygian nations can scarcely have been Slavs.
2
1 am not convinced that numen can refer to the place. The plain sense
seems to be : the divinity has that virtue (which the Gemini have), and the
name Alcis, or of Alx, or if dat. pi., the Alcae, Alci . May not Alcis be conn.
*
with a\Kr) strength, safeguard, and the dat. aA/a pointing to a nom. aX aXxa)
;
I defend or even ; Caesar s alces and Pausanias s aX/cat elks ? TRANS.