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Eze_8:14
This Tammuz, or rather Thammuz, was no other than the Adon or Adonis of the Phoenicians; and what the prophet describes in this passage, is the annual mourning commemoration for his death, which the women of Israel celebrated after the example, and doubtless at the same time, as the Phoenician females, who kept themselves seated in the night-time before their houses, shedding abundant tears, with their looks steadfastly directed towards a certain point in the north. The solemnity was solstitial, and fell towards the end of June, in the month called Thammuz, whence, perhaps, the idol derived the name he bore among the Hebrews; for it is not credible that they would, as some suppose, distinguish one of their months by the name of an idol.
The feast—for, as a whole, it was such, the morning being soon turned into joy—was essentially the same as that of Osiris in Egypt, with only some unimportant variation in accessories; and the essential identity of the gods and of the ceremonials was acknowledged both by the Egyptians and the Phoenicians. It was a very popular celebration, and extended not only into Israel, but to all Syria and to Greece; but its chief seats were Byblus in Phoenicia first, and in later times Antioch in Syria, Alexandria and Athens; but in the last-named place, the feast instead of being solstitial, as in the East, was equinoctial, falling in April or May, at the new moon.
The myth or legend of Adonis comes to us through the Greeks and Romans in different versions, which it is not easy to reconcile; and therefore those who treat of the matter commonly take from the number that one which they like best or think most intelligible. The same leading idea and signification intended to be conveyed, may easily be traced in all the forms of this myth—in the most recent no less than the most ancient. The earliest and simplest of its forms relates that Aphrodite, who is the Ashtoreth of the Bible, the Astarte of the Greeks, and the Venus of the Romans—being charmed with the beauty of the infant Adonis, concealed him in a chest, and consigned him to the care of Persephone, Note: The same known as Proserpina among the Romans. who, on discovering the nature of the treasure in her keeping, refused to give it up. The case was brought before Jupiter, who decided the dispute by decreeing that he should spend one third of the year with Aphrodite, another third with Persephone, and that the other third should be at his own disposal—and his choice was to give his four months to Aphrodite, thus remaining eight months in the year with her, and spending the other four in the gloomy abode of his other patroness.
The additions which we derive from other accounts amount to this: Adonis, growing up into a fine young man, was greatly loved by his patroness Aphrodite, who dreaded the danger from wild beasts to which his passionate attachment to the pleasures of the chase exposed him. Nor without reason; for one day he was mortally wounded by a wild boar from the forests of Lebanon—sent as some accounts add, by the vindictive jealousy of Ares (Mars) to destroy him. When she heard of this disaster, Aphrodite flew to the spot, and sprinkled nectar upon his blood, from which immediately flowers sprung up. Note: The Flos Adonis, common in our gardens; connects itself with this tradition. On his death, Adonis was obliged to descend into the lower world; but it was, at the earnest solicitation of Aphrodite, granted to him that he should spend six months in every year with her in the upper world.
The great feast of Adonis commemorated these circumstances. It consisted of two parts—the one consecrated to grief, and the other to joy. In the days of grief, the votaries mourned the disappearance of Adonis; in the days of gladness, they celebrated his discovery and return. The two feasts were consecutive, but did not everywhere succeed each other in the same order. At Byblus, which was the head-quarters of this worship, the feast of lamentation came first; but at Alexandria, and probably at Athens, the feast of joy had the precedence. It was composed of all kinds of funeral ceremonials in honor of the dead. The women in particular gave way to the most vehement transports of grief for the lost god. The only observance like this in modern times, is the annual mourning of the Persians for Hossein; and whoever has witnessed that, or read of it, will understand how frantically real the grief excited by such solemnities may become. At Byblus, the women often cut off their hair on this occasion; and it was deemed an acceptable and appropriate act, to offer up this god in his temple that more costly and shocking sacrifice, which, with other enormities, rendered this a “greater abomination” in the Divine view, than even the debasing worship carried on in the Egyptian chambers of imagery.
Besides the lamentations customary in the East, doleful songs were chanted to the accompaniment of pipes. The image of Adonis was placed on a funeral bed, or upon a catafalque, sometimes colossal, as at Alexandria, where the feast was celebrated with a pomp and grandeur truly regal. The Idyll in which Theocritus gives a graphic account of the festival of Adonis, as celebrated at Alexandria under the auspices of Arsinoe, wife of Ptolemy Philadelphus, enables us to realize a strong impression of the great magnificence of this solemnity. In this we may especially remark, the description of the bed on which the image of the demigod reposed, around which were crowded a multitude of emblems, the greater part of them designed to express the influence of the sun upon vegetation, and upon physical life in general. Among the most significant symbols of this kind were “the gardens of Adonis.” Earthen vases or silver baskets were filled with mold, in which, as the time of the feast approached, were sown wheat, fennel, lettuce, and some other seeds, which, by the effects of concentrated heat, covered the mold with green sprouts in about eight days. This quick germination of the seeds, and rapid development of the seedlings, as well as the equally rapid decay of this factitious herbage when left to itself, was a most significant emblem of the whole mystery, which was set forth in the fable and the rites of Adonis, to obvious explanations of which we are now led.
Adon means “Lord,” a title usually applied to the sun. Adonis was the sun. The upper hemisphere of the earth, or that which was regarded as such, was anciently called Aphrodite, and the lower hemisphere Persephone. Therefore, when the sun was in the six inferior signs of the zodiac, he was said to be with Persephone; and when he was in the six superior, with Aphrodite. By the boar that slew Adonis, winter was understood; for that rough and fierce animal was not inaptly made the emblem of that rigid season. Some, however, think that Adonis rather denoted the fruits of the earth, which are for a season buried in darkness, but at length appear flourishing above the ground. When, therefore, the seed was cast into the ground, it was said that Adonis had gone to Persephone; but when it sprouted up, that he had revisited the light and Aphrodite. Both interpretations may be combined, for most of the ancient fables of this sort bore comprehensive meanings; but there can be no doubt that the general reference of the whole is to the death of nature in winter, and its revival in spring.
There flows down from Lebanon a river, the waters of which, at a certain season, acquire a reddish tinge. As this occurred about the feast of Adonis, it suggested to the ready fancy of the heathen, that this discoloration of the water arose from the sympathy of nature with the death of Adonis. Hence the river was called after him, and its stream was supposed to be tinged by his blood. The phenomenon is still observed, the water of the river giving its redness to the sea for a considerable distance at its mouth. This circumstance, caused doubtless by the red earths washed into the river by heavy rains, or by its stream being there so raised in its beds, as to wash some ochreous cliffs, may very possibly have given rise to the whole fable—Milton’s allusion to which will occur to many readers—
“Thammuz came next behind,
Whose annual wound in Lebanon allured
The Syrian damsels to lament his fate,
In amorous ditties all a summer’s day;
While smooth Adonis from his native rock
Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood
Of Thammuz, yearly wounded.”