~ 113 ~
of the Empire it must have been as a religious institution of some kind. For the argument used above about the changes of the names applies here also. If the week had been accepted as a form of time-measurement current among their more civilized neighbours and therefore worthy of imitation, or for commercial purposes, the names would have been taken over as they stood and not converted into those of Teutonic deities. At the same time it is difficult to suppose that this religious motive had the astrological character which belonged to week-observance when it first spread within the Empire. There does not seem to be the slightest trace of these astrological ideas in what we know of Teutonic mythology, or any hint that the deities had any connexion with the planets. Furthermore, we have to account for the fact that the system with its non-Latin names was not only introduced but preserved during the considerable and obscure gap between the latest time at which it can have been introduced and the date at which it re-appears, when it comes into contact with Christianity. For that it was so preserved is clear. Augustine's Kentish converts when they were bidden to hear Mass on the Lord's day already knew it as the Sun's day. What were the ideas that preserved it? To those who think that a seven-day continuous cycle is so natural and valuable a way of time-measurement that it will preserve itself automatically the question will seem superfluous.
