Image of Esus on the Pillar of the Boatmen.

In Gaulish religion, Esus, Hesus or Ho ("lord", "master" or "defender") was possibly a god of agriculture, defensive war and commerce. He was associated with the bull. In art, he was portrayed cutting branches from trees with his axe; see for example the Pillar of the Boatmen among the Parisii and the pillar from Trier among the Treveri. Worship of Esus was depicted in the Bern Commentaries as very gory, with the main rite used for redemption or for honoring him involving a sacrifice being chosen by a tribal chief, and once chosen, is taken to the altar-stones, bent backwards over the center stone, and disemboweled. The sacrificed man is then strung up on the altar stone which faces sunrise, and his entrails are tied onto the other altar stones. These Commentaries come from the 9th Century AD, though, and the source of them is much in doubt. Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1260x1719, 1923 KB) Description Le pilier des Nautes Esus Musée National du Moyen Age, Thermes de Cluny Source : Clio20 Licensing File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed... Image File history File links Download high resolution version (1260x1719, 1923 KB) Description Le pilier des Nautes Esus Musée National du Moyen Age, Thermes de Cluny Source : Clio20 Licensing File links The following pages on the English Wikipedia link to this file (pages on other projects are not listed... Cerunnos image on the pillar The Pillar of the Boatmen (Pilier des nautes) is monument now displayed in the Musée national du Moyen Age in Paris, believed to have been erected by Gallic sailors in the early 1st century AD and was found in 1711 in the foundations of... Celtic Religion Celtic religion refers the pre-Christian religious beliefs and practices of the Celtic speaking peoples. ... Just war is the name of a tradition that believes that war is permissible but only if it satisfies a set of moral or legal rules. ... Commerce is the trading of something of value between two entities. ... Binomial name Bos taurus Linnaeus, 1758 Cattle (called cows in vernacular usage, kine archaic, or kye as the Scots plural of cou) are domesticated ungulates, a member of the subfamily Bovinae of the family Bovidae. ... Venus de Milo exhibited in the Louvre museum, France. ... The coniferous Coast Redwood, the tallest tree species on earth. ... The axe or ax is an ancient and ubiquitous tool that has been used for millennia to shape, split and cut wood, harvest timber, as a weapon and a ceremonial or heraldic symbol. ... Cerunnos image on the pillar The Pillar of the Boatmen (Pilier des nautes) is monument now displayed in the Musée national du Moyen Age in Paris, believed to have been erected by Gallic sailors in the early 1st century AD and was found in 1711 in the foundations of... The Parisii (or Quarisii) were a Celtic Iron Age people that lived on the banks of the river Seine (in Latin, Sequana) in Gaul from the middle of the third century B.C. until the Roman era. ... Trier (French: Trèves, Spanish: Treveris, Italian: Treviri) is Germanys oldest city. ... The Treveri tribe of Gaul inhabited the lower valley of the Moselle, within the southern fringes of the vast Arduenna Silva (Ardennes Forest). ...

It is possible that the Essuvi of Gaul took their name from this deity. Map of Gaul circa 58 BC Gaul (Latin Gallia, Greek Galatia) was the region of Western Europe occupied by present day northern Italy, France, Belgium, western Switzerland and the parts of the Netherlands and Germany on the west bank of the Rhine river. ...

Was this god the Celtic Mars?

The difficulty of working out to which deity inhabitants of Roman Britain are referring when they mention Mars is profound. A well-known section in Lucan's Bellum civile talks about the gory sacrificial offerings proffered to a triad of Celtic deities: Teutates, Esus, and Taranis. Among a pair of later reviewers on Lucan's work, one identifies Teutates with Mercury and Esus with Mars. The continental Celtic deity “Mars” plainly exemplifies the problem with finding syncretism between Roman and Celtic gods. The likely reason for this ostensible muddle in equating Roman with Celtic gods, occurring in other instances, is that Celtic deities are not constrained to specific functions. The Celtic peoples seem to have believed in immanence, seeing a single divine spirit, character or power as typical of many different aspects of reality, a belief emblematic of animism. So “Mercury” as a spirit of interaction may be a characteristic of the warrior, while “Mars” as the spirit of martial character may serve to shield the tribe from invasion. This is one explanation of how a spirit of transit such as Mercury may have come to be equated with such a spirit of tribal unity as Teutates. A miniature early 2nd-century Roman bronze figurine of Mars. ... Principal sites in Roman Britain Roman Britain refers to those parts of the island of Great Britain controlled by the Roman Empire between 43 and 410. ... A miniature early 2nd-century Roman bronze figurine of Mars. ... Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (November 3, AD 39-April 30, 65), better known in English as Lucan, was a Roman poet, and is one of the outstanding figures of the Silver Latin period. ... Toutatis or Teutates, ancient god of Celts and Gauls, whose name means father of the tribe. ... In Celtic mythology Taranis was a god of thunder worshipped in Gaul and Britain and mentioned, along with Esus and Toutatis, by the Roman poet Lucan in his epic poem Pharsalia. ... Toutatis or Teutates, ancient god of Celts and Gauls, whose name means father of the tribe. ... This article treats Mercury in cult practice and in archaic Rome. ... A Celtic cross. ... Syncretism is the attempt to reconcile disparate, even opposing, beliefs and to meld practices of various schools of thought. ... Roman mythology, the mythological beliefs of the people of Ancient Rome, can be considered as having two parts. ... Immanence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia /**/ @import /skins-1. ... In religion, the term Animism is used in a number of ways. ... A miniature early 2nd-century Roman bronze figurine of Mars. ... Toutatis or Teutates, ancient god of Celts and Gauls, whose name means father of the tribe. ...

Was this god a Celtic Jesus?

It has been pointed out that the name "Esus" seems to match the name "Jesus" in spelling and pronunciation. This is a linguistic coincidence and very little should be made of the apparent connections. "Esus" is mentioned as being encountered in southern Gaul by Caesar's troops in the above-mentioned Pharsalia, and the Pillar of the Boatmen is put up between 14 and 37 AD (exact date determined by the inscription). It must reasonably be concluded that the two names are not related, nor do they depict the same deity. Jesus (8-2 BC/BCE — 29-36 AD/CE),[1] also known as Jesus of Nazareth, is the central figure of Christianity. ... In Roman literature, the Pharsalia (also known as the Bellum civile) is an epic poem by the poet Lucan. ... Cerunnos image on the pillar The Pillar of the Boatmen (Pilier des nautes) is monument now displayed in the Musée national du Moyen Age in Paris, believed to have been erected by Gallic sailors in the early 1st century AD and was found in 1711 in the foundations of...