The other day, we were watching a video on St. Paul, and at one point they showed a temple for pagan gods. Briefly, the camera caught a glimpse of the words “SIMVLACRA CASTORVM.” I thought it was funny because the word castor means “beaver,” so the phrase could mean “idols of beavers.”

Of course, it does not really mean this. The ambiguity (in a grammatical sense, not a logical one) comes because of the coincidence of the ending “orum” (Genitive, 2nd Decl. Masculine/Neuter Plural) and the ending “um” (Genitive, 3rd. Decl. Plural). Many third declension nouns that refer to people, especially as agents, end in “-or” such that the genitive plural ends with the letters “orum.”

For example, “peccatorum” on the face of it means either “of sins” or “of sinners.”

So, the phrase really means “the idols of the pure/holy/chaste.” Now … why does the word for “chaste,” castus, seem so similar to the word for “beaver,” castor? The answer the ancients gave is that the beaver makes himself chaste.

Thus, there is the ancient folklore surrounding the beaver, that is, that the beaver is hunted for its testicles, the oil of which can be used to make medicine. When it sees that it is being hunted and cannot escape, therefore, the beaver bites off its testicles and throws them to the hunter so that it preserves its life.

In this way, the beaver became a symbol of the Christian who casts off his attachment to sin so that the devil, seeing nothing he wants, does not pursue.

All this makes me wonder whether we get “castor oil” from this legend?

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 13th, 2007 at 11:40 AM and is filed under humor, latin, religious practice. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.