In primitive Christianity
Christ, as the bringer of light, was worshipped under the symbol of the
sun. Thus we naturally find in the old and new Indo-Germanic languages
the designation of the sun--or the sun-god--of the masculine gender. In
the following words our word _sun_ is easily recognisable:
Savar and svari (the oldest Indo-Germanic tongue).
svar and surya (Sanscrit; savitar--the sungod).
saval (the oldest European language).
savel (Gracco-Italian).
sol (Latin and related languages).
In the Germanic languages and in the Prussian-Lithuanian both genders
occur. (Gothic sunnan and Old High-German sunno). _Sol_ in the Norse
Edda is a female deity, and the Anglo-Saxon _sol_ is also feminine. The
transition from the male to the female gender was achieved in the
Middle-High-German language of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and
the German language is the only one in which the word _sun_ is
feminine. As the old Teutonic deities of light were male (Baldur and
Sigurd), this change of gender must seem strange.
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