The other contention involves two extreme improbabilities—the one, that St. Jerome, having in his second revision of the Bible translated the passage as “in testimonium in petris sculpantur,” should in the Vulgate have given the inaccurate rendering “certe sculpantur in silice;” the other and the more extreme of the two, that the well-known word certe should have been ousted by a word like celte had it been utterly new-fangled.
Under any view of the case there are considerable difficulties, but as the word celt has now obtained a firm hold in our language, it will be convenient to retain it, whatever its origin or derivation.
It has been the fashion among some who are fond of novelties to call these instruments “kelts,” possibly from some mental association of the instruments with a Celtic or Keltic population. From some such cause also some of the French antiquaries must have coined the new plural to the word, Celtœ. Even in this country it has been said[108] with regard to “the ancient weapon denominated the celt,” “Our antiquarians have commonly ascribed them to the ancient Celtæ, and hence have given them this unmeaning appellation.” If any one prefers pronouncing celt as “kelt,” or celestial as “kelestial,” let him do so; but at all events let us adhere to the old spelling. How the Romans of the time of St. Jerome would have pronounced the word cœlum or celtis may be inferred from the punning line of Ausonius with regard to Venus.[109]
“Orta salo, suscepta solo, patre edita cœlo.”
The first author of modern times whose use of the word in connection with Celts I can trace is Beger, who, in his “Thesaurus Brandenburgicus”[110] (1696), gives an engraving of a celt of the palstave form, under the title Celtes, together with the following dialogue:—
“Et nomen et instrumentum mihi obscurum est, infit Archæophilus; Instrumentum Statuariorum est, respondit Dulodorus, qui simulacra ex Cera, Alabastro, aliisque lapidum generibus cædunt et poliunt. Græcis dicitur Ἐγκοπεὺς, quâ voce Lucianus usus est in Somnio, ubi cum lusum non insuavem dixisset, Deos sculpere, et parva quædam simulacra adornare, addit ἐγκοπέα γὰρ τινά μοι δοὺς, scilicet avunculus, id quod Joh. Benedictus vertit, Celte datâ. Celte? excepit Archæophilus; at nisi fallor hæc vox Latinis incognita est? Habetur, inquit Dulodorus, in versione vulgatâ Libri Hiob c. 19 quamvis alii non Celte, sed Certe ibi legant, quod tamen minus quadrat. Quicquid sit, instrumentum Statuariorum hoc esse, ex formâ patet, figuris incidendis aptissima; neque enim opinio Molineti videtur admittenda, qui Securim appellat, cum nullus aptandi manubrii locus huic faveat. Metallum reposuit Archæophilus, minus videtur convenire. Instrumentum hoc ex ære est, quod duritiem lapidum nescio an superare potuerit? Uti lapides diversi sunt, regessit Dulodorus, ita diversa fuisse etiam metalla instrumentorum iis cædendis destinatorum, facilè cesserim. Vet. Gloss. Celtem instrumentum ferreum dicit proculdubio quòd durioribus lapidibus ferreum chalybe munitum servierit. Hoc autem non obstat, ut æreum vel ceris, vel terris, vel lapidibus mollioribus fuerit adhibitum. Si tamen res Tibi minus probetur, me non contradicente, molliori vocabulo γλυφεῖον cœlum poteris et appellare et credere. Γλυφεῖα etiam Statuariorum instrumenta fuisse, ex allegato modò Luciano planum est, ubi Humanitas, si me relinquis, inquit, σχῆμα δουλοπρεπὲς ἀναλήψη, καὶ μολία, καὶ γλυφεῖα, καὶ κοπέας, καὶ κολαπτῆρας ἐν ταῖν χεροῖν ἕξεις, habitum servilem assumes, Vectes, COELA, CELTES, Scalpra præ manibus habebis.”
The idea of a bronze celt being a statuary’s chisel for carving in wax, alabaster, and the softer kinds of stone will seem the less absurd if we remember that, at the time when Beger wrote, the manner in which such instruments were hafted was unknown, and that all antiquities of bronze were generally regarded as being of Roman or Greek origin.
Dr. Olaf Worm, a Danish antiquary of the seventeenth century, was more enlightened than Beger, for in his “Museum Wormianum,”[111] published in 1655, he states his belief that bronze weapons had formerly been in use in Denmark, and cites two flat or flanged celts, or cunei, as he calls them, found in Jutland, which he regards as hand weapons for close encounters. He also was, nevertheless, at a loss to know how they were hafted, for he adds that had they but been provided with shaft-holes he should have considered them to have been axes.
In a work treating of the bronze antiquities of Britain we must, however, first consider the opinion of British antiquaries, by whom the word celt had been completely adopted as the name for bronze hatchets and axes by the middle of the last century. Borlase,[112] in his “Antiquities of Cornwall,” 1754, speaking of some “spear-heads” of copper mentioned by Leland, says that by the spear-heads he certainly meant those which we (from Begerus) now call Celts. Leland’s words are as follows:[113]—“There was found of late Yeres syns Spere Heddes, Axis for Warre, and Swerdes of coper wrapped up in lynid scant perished nere the Mount in S. Hilaries Paroch in Tynne Works;” so that it by no means follows but that he was right in speaking of spear-heads, for if there were any celts among the objects discovered they were probably termed battle-axes by Leland.