TETHYS, in the Greek mythology a daughter of Uranus and Gaia, wife of OCEANUS (q. v.), and mother of the river-gods.
TETRAGRAMMATON, the mystic number “four,” symbolical of deity, whose name in different languages is composed of four letters.
TETUAN (22), a port and walled town of Morocco, on the Martil, 4 m. above its entrance into the Mediterranean and 22 m. S. of Ceuta; has a fortified castle and wall-towers; exports provisions to Ceuta, and has a good trade in fruit, wool, silk, cotton, &c.
TETZEL, JOHN, a Dominican monk, born at Leipzig; was employed in the sale of indulgences to all who subscribed to the fund for building St. Peter’s at Rome, in opposition to whom and his doings Luther published his celebrated theses in 1517, and whose extravagances involved him in the censure of the Church (1455-1519).
TEUFELSDROeCK, the hero of “Sartor” and prototype of the author as a thinker and a man in relation to the spirit of the time, which is such that it rejects him as its servant, and he rejects it as his master; the word means “outcast of the devil,” and the devil is the spirit of the time, which the author and his prototype here has, God-compelled, risen up in defiance of and refused to serve under; for a time the one or the other tried to serve it, till they discovered the slavery the attempt more and more involved them in, when they with one bold effort tore asunder the bands that bound them, and with an “Everlasting No” achieved at one stroke their emancipation; a man this born to look through the show of things into things themselves.
TEUTONIC KNIGHTS, like the TEMPLARS (q. v.) and Hospitallers, a religious order of knighthood which arose during the period of the Crusades, originally for the purpose of tending wounded crusaders; subsequently became military in character, and besides the care of the sick and wounded included among its objects aggressive warfare upon the heathen; was organised much in the same way as the Templars, and like them acquired extensive territorial possessions; during the 14th and 15th centuries were constantly at war with the heathen Wends and Lithuanians, but the conversion of these to Christianity and several defeats destroyed both the prestige and usefulness of the knights, and the order thenceforth began to decline. As a secularised, land-owning order the knighthood lasted till 1809, when it was entirely suppressed in Germany by Napoleon; but branches still exist in the Netherlands and in Austria, where care for the wounded in war has been resumed.
TEUTONS, the most energetic and progressive section of the Aryan group of nations, embracing the following races speaking languages traceable to a common stock: (1) Germanic, including Germans, Dutch, Flemings, and English; (2) Scandinavian, embracing Danes, Swedes, Norwegians, Icelanders. But naturally Celts and other race-elements have in the course of centuries entered into the composition of these peoples.