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Let us, first of all examine this religion in its purity. It taught the being of a “supreme God, master of the universe, to whom all things were submissive and obedient[1].” Such, according to Tacitus, was the supreme God of the Germans. The ancient Icelandic mythology calls him "The author of every thing that existeth; the eternal, the ancient, the living and awful Being, the searcher into concealed things, the Being that never changeth.” It attributed to their deity “an infinite power, a boundless knowledge, an incorruptible justice.” It forbade them to represent this divinity under any corporeal form. They were not even to think of confining him within the inclosure of walls[2], but were taught that
- ↑ No doctrine was held in higher reverence among the ancient Germans than this. Regnator omnium Deus, cætera subjecta atque parentia, says Tacitus, speaking of their religion. De Mor. Germ. c. xxxv. The epithets that follow above are expressly given to the Deity in the old treatise of Icelandic mythology, intitled the Edda, which has been mentioned above. See the translation of this in the next volume.
- ↑ Cæterum nec cohibere parietibus Deos, neque in ullam humani oris speciem assimilare ex magnitudine cælestium arbitrantur. Lucos ac nemora consecrant, Deorum qua nominibus
