SAGA-BOOK - Viking Society Web Publications

Celtic and Germanic Religion IIS
we have no certainty whatever that this suppressed
people, thrown back on their own way of life and their
own traditions, had abandoned their beliefs and religious
customs. On the contrary we may expect that in the
villages and hamlets of Gaul life went on as it had done
for thousands of years. The monstrous gods depicted
in the monuments have no connection with Celtic religious
thinking; they belong to quite another and much more
primitive layer.
Hence, we have no need to strive to harmonize deities
belonging to quite different religious spheres. This,
however, leads to far-reaching consequences. Since it
is our concern to understand the character of the real
Celtic religion, we have to focus our attention on the
creed of the upper classes. But for this the slight essay
of Caesar tends to become the chief document for our
information.
The only question is, how shall we read it? As a
matter of fact, Caesar muffles the Gaulish gods by giving
Roman names to them. When he says Mercury, he does
not mean the Roman god, but a Gaulish deity who in
some respects could be compared with him. At any rate
these gods were not at all identical, for Caesar says that
Mercury was the god whom the Gauls revered most,
which is incompatible with the function of the Roman
god. Can we be satisfied to consider him as a god of
commerce, who for the Roman merchants must have been
of prime importance? We may surmise that the Gaulish
Mercury had in some way extended his sphere of action
into the activities of traffic and trade, but we are not at
all sure that he did not have a much wider and even very
different sphere.
When the town of Lyons was made into the centre of
Roman Gaul, it was the god Mercury to whom the chief
temple was dedicated. His cult was fused with the
imperial cult of Augustus and therefore the first of the
month of August was chosen as the highest festival. So