Idol

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Biblical idol of the golden calf in Hartmann Schedel's World Chronicle (Nuremberg 1493)

Götze is a derogatory term for a god that is alien to one's own religion , especially an idol , i.e. the depiction of a deity in a worshiped image. Such “idols” violate the biblical ban on images ( Dtn 5.8  EU ) and were therefore long considered pagan by the Abrahamic religions .

Meaning and origin of the term

The German term Götze goes back to Martin Luther and corresponds especially in the meaning “idol” to the Greek εἴδωλον ( eidolon ) and the Latin idolum (cf. Idol ); the term “idolatry” thus translates that of idolatry. In today's common sense of "idol, false god", Luther used the term as early as 1520, it found widespread use through its use in Luther's translation of the Bible (1534), where "Götze" translates the Hebrew word "אֱלִיל" ("elil"), the actually has the basic meaning "nothing", "void". In the biblical polemic of idols ( 1 Chr 16,26  LUT ): "כָּל-אֱלֹהֵי הָעַמִּים, אֱלִילִים" ("kol elohei haamim elilim") he translated as "For all pagan gods are idols;" literally translated would also be: "All gods of Nations are nothing ”. According to Luther, an idol is, in a broader sense, everything “on which a person's heart hangs” such as a mammon or, in the sense of “a woman to be worshiped”, a beautiful woman.

The derivation of the term with and before Luther is not clearly clarified. Since Middle High German, götze can be identified as meaning “image, statue”, especially “ holy image”, whereby the word here represents a diminutive form of God , meaning something like “little god, little god”, but by no means had a disparaging connotation seems to be. It can be doubted, however, that Luther had this word in mind or even knew it. According to Friedrich Kluge , due to considerations of content, it is more likely that he appropriated a swear word with the meaning “idiot, weakling” with “Götze”, which has been documented especially in Upper Germany since the 15th century. This is a new coinage independent of the older word usage, originally a short or call form of the first name Gottfried , with the suffix -ze in this case having a pejorative connotation (see the idiom “ Hinz and Kunz ”, actually “Heinrich and Konrad ").

See also

literature

Web links

Wiktionary: Götze  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Martin Luther: The Great Catechism . 1st Commandment, 1529.
  2. ↑ Jürgen Ehlers (ed. And transl .): Abū'l-Qāsem Ferdausi: Rostam - The legends from the "Šāhnāme". Philipp Reclam jun., Stuttgart, 2002, ISBN 3-15-050039-7 , p. 364.