INANNA AND DUMUZI
Sumerian/Akkadian/Babylonian/etc.
Beginning c. 2500 BCE
Inanna was the Sumerian goddess of love, fertility, and war, known in Akkadian as Ishtar. Her husband was the shepherd-king Dumuzi (Akkadian Tammuz), who became a god at some point, possibly through his marriage to Inanna. The divine lovers, however, had a rocky relationship, culminating in the scorned goddess condemning her husband to the Underworld when he failed to mourn her death. The tale of a young hero or god who marries a powerful but vengeful goddess echoes the story of Jason and Medea, and as my book shows, the trip Jason makes to and from the solar kingdom of Colchis closely parallels Dumuzi's annual voyage across the waters of death to and from the Sun's Underworld kingdom, just as the resurrection of Dumuzi at the hands of Inanna parallels Medea's "rejuvenation" of Jason and Aeson.
This page contains an overview of the myth of Dumuzi/Tammuz/Adonis as described by George W. Gilmore in 1911. Following this, I have reproduced the full text of "Ishtar's Descent into Hades," the key poem for the myth of Inanna and Dumuzi's underworld journeys. More information on worship of the Near Eastern Goddess and her resurrected consort in the Greco-Roman period can be found in Lucan's De Dea Syria, which I have reproduced here.
This page contains an overview of the myth of Dumuzi/Tammuz/Adonis as described by George W. Gilmore in 1911. Following this, I have reproduced the full text of "Ishtar's Descent into Hades," the key poem for the myth of Inanna and Dumuzi's underworld journeys. More information on worship of the Near Eastern Goddess and her resurrected consort in the Greco-Roman period can be found in Lucan's De Dea Syria, which I have reproduced here.
TAMMUZ-ADONIS George W. Gilmore 1911 Gilmore was a religious scholar whose publications included studies of primitive religion, archaeology, and Biblical studies. He was a contributor to the 1911 The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, from which I have reproduced the following entry on the myth of Tammuz (Dumuzi), a young god whose marriage to an alternately besotted and venegeful goddess resembles the history of Jason and Medea. |
1. Tammuz in the Old Testament.
In Ezek. viii. 14, in a chapter in which the prophet relates the idolatries of the Jews as seen by him in a vision, it is stated that before the north door of the Temple women sat weeping for Tammuz. This statement opens up the history of a cult which, in the light of a certain identification presently to be established, persisted through several millennia, arising among the Sumerian inhabitants of pre-Semitic Babylonia, passing into the worship of their Semitic conquerors, and proceeding by way of Cyprus to become the possession of Aryan peoples—the Greeks and the Romans. The story of Tammuz-Adonis is thus in more than one sense one of the romances in the history of religion. Other references to the cult than the one cited above which this scholar or that has seen in the Old Testament are, with two exceptions (Dan. xi. 37 and Isa. xvii. 10-11), not to be allowed, the explanations which bring them into connection with Tammuz being forced rather than natural. Amos viii. 10 can hardly be related with the mourning for this deity; Jer. vi. 26 is no more germane, while the passage Zech. xii. 10 has already been explained as giving another meaning. It is very likely that the phrase "the desire of women," in Dan. xi. 37 has reference to Tammuz-Adonis, for the sense requires some deity honored by women, and this cult was especially feminine. The apocryphal Epistle of Jeremiah may possibly have in mind the Adonis cult, though it is noticeable that in this case it is the priests and not the women who mourn and shave their heads and beards. For Isa. xvii. 10-11 see below, § 13.
2. Name; Mention in Early Inscriptions.
The name Tammuz represents the Sumerian Dumuzi (variant forms Tauuzu, Ta'uzu, Da'uzu, Duzu; full form Dumuzi-abzu; the form Tammuz, with doubled m, seems to have originated in the Hebrew, perhaps on account of the short vowel in the first syllable), the meaning of which is still under discussion. Zimmcrn (latest in J. Hastings, Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, ii. 313, New York, 1910; cf. Schrader, KAT, p. 397) renders the full form "real child of the water depths"; Prof. J. D. Prince (in a private communication) gives as the rendering "young life"; the usual translation has been " son of life." In Babylonian (Sumerian) literature Tammuz makes his appearance as early as Urukagina, Gudea, and Siniddina, and if the identification of Tammuz and Adonis be regarded as made out (see below, § 8), the final traces of his cult do not disappear till late in the Christian era, indeed, it seems not to have received its coup de grace until the Mohammedan conquest of the Aramean region. Tammuz appears in the inscriptions and documents of the pre-Semitic period in a variety of ways. Testimony to his early existence in the pantheon is given by tablets from Telloh which bear names in which his name form one element (H. Zimmem, Abhandlungen of the Saxon Academy, xxvii. 721-722, Leipsic, 1909). Witness to him comes from Shirpurla and Kish in the times of the kings named above and of Eannatum, and from Larsa under Siniddina, when mention is made of "the month of the celebration of the god Tamuz." Consequently, he rightly claims a place among the oldest of the well-attested deities of the Sumerian pantheon, though in those times there seems not to exist any hint of his relations with the Sumerian Ishtar. After the Semites gained control he drops out of sight, except for the name of his month, in official records, and that in the quite numerous hymns and in the epics he still has mention, also that he appears among the very minor deities who seem to have stalls in some Assyrian temples.
3. In Adapa and Gilgamesh Epics.
He figures in the Babylonian myths named after Adapa and Gilgamesh, and in the "descent of Ishtar" (these are most easily accessible to the English reader in Assyrian and Babylonian Literature, Selected Translations, . . . by R. F. Harper, pp. 314 sqq., New York, 1901; for mention of Tammuz cf. pages 316-317, 338, 413). In all this Babylonian literature the story is by no means complete as judged by the myth as it appears from Greek sources; the references are quite obscure, though for the most part the details are in accord with, or at least do not contradict, the fuller story as recovered from Greek and Roman sources; so that it is possible to infer that in these latest records the essential features of the original are preserved. In the Adapa myth Tammuz is associated with the deity Gishzida apparently as guardian of the gate of heaven, and the two become the successful advocates before Anu of Adapa, who has offended Anu by breaking the wings of the south wind. To this story Tammuz, though in a subordinate position with respect to Anu, seems to be independent, is not connected with Ishtar, and with his companion is spoken of as having disappeared, apparently much to the surprise of the two gods themselves. In the Gilgamesh epic there appears a feature which is not easily explained and does not come out in the western form of the story. When Ishtar tempts Gilgamesh with her love the hero answers her:
"Where is thy husband Tammuz, who was to be forever?
What, indeed, has become of the Allallu bird . . .?
Well, I will tell thee plainly the dire result of thy coquetries.
To Tammuz, the husband of thy youth.
Thou didst cause weeping and didst bring grief upon him every year.
The Allallu bird, so bright in colors, thou didst love;
But its wing thou didst break and crush . . ."
In this passage two things are significant: (1) Tammuz and Ishtar are brought into close relationship—he is her "husband" (lover?), and this is one of the enduring features of the myth which accompanies the cult in all its travels; (2) Gilgamesh accuses Ishtar of herself working ill upon those she loves—concerning Tammuz yearly grief and weeping are specified. This second and later feature does not appear in the western and later forms; although the god comes to his death because of Ishtar's love for him, that death is caused by other means than the goddess herself, while here the charge is plainly brought home to her, parallel with the breaking of the wing of the Allallu bird.
4. The "Descent of Ishtar."
For the descent of Ishtar to "the land of No Return," so far as the epic itself relates, the motive has to be supplied. But the object is by most Assyriologists asserted to be the rescue of Tammuz from the world of the dead. During the absence of Ishtar, who was detained by Allatu, her sister and the goddess of the lower world, desire ceased among all on earth, man and beast, and the allurements of love were no more. Hence Ea created a man who entered the lower world and demanded drink from Allatu from her water-skin. The very demand (its full significance is not known) brought about the return of Ishtar (and presumably of Tammuz). Then comes mention of Tammuz "the husband of Ishtar's youth" and of his "day" on which the sad sounds of the flute and the wailing of male and female mourners mingle and incense is burned. There seems to be implied also the washing, anointing, and clothing of the figure of Tammuz (see below, § 13).
There is also a considerable body of hymns to Tammuz in the Sumerian language (cf. Zimmern, Abhandlungen, ut sup., pp. 723-726; F. A. Vandenburgh, Sumerian Hymns, New York, 1908; St. Langdon, Sumerian and Babylonian Psalms, pp. 299-341, Paris, 1909; T. Pinches, Memoirs . . . of the Manchester Literary and Philosophical Society, xlviii., 1904, no. 25), which go very far toward completing the picture of the Babylonian deity. These hymns speak of the " stormy weeping " for the god, who is " lord of the year, ... of the name of life, . . . of the word of judgment, of the eye of precious stones, the artificer, the light of my heaven, . . . the shepherd, . . . him of stormy weeping"; his sister is goddess of the wine of heaven (J. D. Prince, in American Journal of Semitic Languages, xxvii. 1, 1910, pp. 84-89). In another hymn apparently Ishtar sings the lament for " my mighty one, . . . my spouse, . . . great god of the heavenly year, . . . lord of the lower world [I], ... of vegetation, artificer, the shepherd [a very constant element in the activities attributed to him], the lord, the god Tammuz who liveth no more." And from the further mutilated text it seems to be deducible that he was producer of wine and lord of fructification, and he is compared with a mighty bull (a common oriental symbol of strength), and is the " power of the land, . . . the word which overcometh disease,"giver of food and of water, strengthener of the maid and the warrior, in contrast with Ninib, who is the destroyer (Prince, in J AOS, xxx. 1, 1909, pp. 94-100).
5. Unimportance in Babylonia.
Noteworthy is the fact that in Babylonia Tammuz does not appear as the god of any large city.* In the Adapa myth, while his standing is independent, it is subordinate—he is doorkeeper and pleader with Anu. So far as records in hand show, he played no heroic part and achieved no noteworthy deed. He is connected with fertility, productiveness, and strength; but the epic passages have the sound of artistic and forced poetic laudation and lack the tone of sincere attribution of power. Even in the hymns, in spite of the many epithets, his death and the mourning for him are the notable features, together with his relations with Ishtar. And still further, it is not his death that effects decline of fertility, it is the absence of the goddess that causes passion and desire to cease.
[* Zimmern (Abhandlunoen, ut sup., pp. 718-721) cites inscriptions from a very early period, showing apparently a temple to him in a suburb or a subject town of Lagash and in a fortress named Bad-urud-nagar or Dur-gurgurri. Eridu and Erech (ib., p. 720) seem also to have had temples in which he was present.]
Summing up the apparent facts as gathered from Babylonian sources, Tammuz was a deity who, at one time regarded as a gate-keeper of heaven, came to be associated with Ishtar as her beloved. Each year he died and passed to Hades, the realm of Allatu or Ereshkigal. He was mourned (in the month named after him, occurring just before the summer solstice) not only by Ishtar, but by male and female mourners and with the accompaniment of flutes. His mistress journeyed to the lower world, seemingly in quest of him; and since her absence caused the absence of love, Ea sent a messenger and secured her release from "the land of No-Return," and presumably also that of her lover.
6. Tammuz in other Literature
Outside of Babylonian literature and Ezek. viii. 14, the references to Tammuz under that name are few, but fortunately significant. Thus the Syrian lexicographer Bar Banjul reports that Tammuz, a shepherd and hunter, was beloved by Balthi (Balti), whom he carried off and whose husband he slew, but was in turn killed by a wild boar. Consequently in his, month a season of mourning for him was observed. The reference here is doubtless to the myth current and the practise in vogue in Byblus (see below, §§ 7, 13), and the effect is to give the equation Tammuz = Adonis, while Balthi can be no other than Ishtar (cf. D. Chwolson, Die SsaHer und der Ssabismus, ii. 206-207, St. Petersburg, 1856, and the same author's Ueber Tammuz und die Menschenverehrung bei den alien Babylonier, ib. 1860). Melito (Apol., i., Eng. transl., in ANF, viii. 752) reports that " Balthi, queen of Cyprus . . . fell in love with Tamuz, son of Cuthar, king of the Phenicians, and . . . came and dwelt in Gebal. . . . Also, before Tamuz, she had fallen in love with Ares, and committed adultery with him; and Hephaistos, her husband, caught her, and his jealousy was roused against her, and he came and killed Tamuz in Mt. Lebanon as he was hunting wild boars; * and from that time Balthi remained in Gebal. And she died in the city of Aphiki (Aphaka, see below, § 7) where Tamuz was buried." The data here are sufficient to establish the connection between the Babylonian Tammuz, the beloved of Ishtar, and Adonis, the beloved of Aphrodite. Similarly, the statement that Balthi was the consort of Hephaestus and had a liaison with Ares, identifies her with Aphrodite, while the fact that she loved Tammuz identifies her with Ishtar, giving the equation Balthi = Ishtar-Aphrodite-Venus. It is to be noted, however, that the scene of action is no longer Babylonia, but the Lebanon and Phoenicia, particularly Byblus or Gebal and Aphaka.
[* The connection of Adonis with hunting is so constant as hardly to need citation; but cf. Apollodorous of Athens, Peri them. III., xiii. 4, IX., lxiv. 401; Propertius, III., xiH. 6864; Ovid, Metamorphoses, x. 535 sqq.]
7. Byblus and Nahr Ibrahim
Strabo (XVI., i. 18) and Lucian (De dea Syria, §§6 sqq.) report that at Byblus there was a great sanctuary of Aphrodite where the worship of Adonis was conducted, and the former declares that the city was sacred to him and to Kinyras his reputed father. The Nahr, which had its mouth a short disIbrahim. tance south of the city, in early times bore the name of Adonis (Lucian, ut sup., viii.; E. Renan, Mission de Phoenicie, pp. 282 sqq., Paris, 1864), and the discoloration of its waters at the time of the freshets was attributed to the blood of the deity. For suitability to the rites which were associated with the Aphrodite and Adonis cults, as well as for romance and beauty, the glen of the river is remarkable (Robinson, Researches, iii. 603-609). At the head of the glen in the mountains is Afka, the ancient Aphaka, where was a grove of Astarte and a temple (to "Venus ") at the spot where Adonis and Aphrodite are said to have met, where also he was said to be buried (Melito, ut sup., ANF, viii. 752; Eusebius, "Life of Constantine," iii. 55, Eng. transl. in NPNF, 2 ser., i. 534-535; Sozomen, Hist, eccl., ii. 5, Eng. transl., NPNF, 2 ser., ii. 262). At Ghineh, one point of the glen, there is a recess or tablet carved in the rock on which is the figure of a hunter (identified as Adonis) with a spear awaiting the onset of a bear (not of a boar); and a little distance away is a female figure in a posture of mourning, identified by many as the sorrowing Aphrodite (cf. Macrobius, Saturnalia, I., xxi. 5; Renan, Mission, ut sup., plates xxxiv., xxxviii.; a reproduction from a photograph is in A. Jeremias, Das Alle Testament im Lichte des alien Orients, p. 90, Leipsic, 1904). Other sculptures are known along the glen, as at Mashnaka. To put the matter briefly, Byblus and the course of the Nahr Ibrahim to Aphaka formed the locus of a cult whose objects were Adonis and Aphrodite, and are proved (see below, § 10) to have been the center for diffusion of that cult in a considerable part of the Mediterranean basin.
8. Tammuz and Adonis
The continuation of the combined cult of Tammuz and Ishtar in Greek surroundings depends upon the answer to the question whether the worship of the deities at Byblus and along the Nahr Ibrahim is the same (under changed names as transmitted through non-Semitic sources) as that in Babylonia. It must be premised that (1) no clear indications exist of a path by which such a cult passed from the lower Euphrates to the Mediterranean— traces of Syrian Adonis worship are post-Christian and may well have spread from Byblus eastward; (2) the usual indications in names of places and persons compounded of the divine name Tammuz are altogether lacking in Phenician environment. That Tammuz and the Adonis of Byblus were regarded as the same is asserted in numerous sources. This is the testimony of Origen (commentary on Ezekiel at viii. 14) based on apparently early tradition, of Jerome (Epist., lviii. 3, in NPNF, 2 ser., vi. 120, and in his commentary on Ezekiel at the passage cited), of Cyril of Alexandria (commentary on Isa. xviii. 1, in MPG, xcii. 329), of Aristides (Apol., Eng. transl. in ANF, ix. 272), and of Macrobius (Saturnalia, I., xxi. 1), who asserts the Assyrian origin of the Adonis cult and makes clear the relation of Ishtar and Aphrodite-Venus by mentioning the descent to the lower world for the purpose of rescuing Adonis from " Persephone." Lucian does useful service in connecting the Adonis of Byblus, not indeed by direct identification, but by his account of the celebrations in the great temple of "Aphrodite "—celebrations which included flagellation, mourning, sacred prostitution, shaving of the head, and offerings to one who was regarded as dead. The express identification already cited is confirmed by several facts: in both environments the god occupies a subordinate (in the Phoenician a passive) position; the assumed death of the god is in both regions the occasion of formal mourning, chiefly by women, and this is the principal characteristic of the rites; and in both there is seen in the significance of the deity some reference to death and decay, whether of the sun of the springtime or of vegetation (see below, § 15). In view of this wealth of explicit and authoritative testimony to the identity of Tammuz and Adonis, combined with inferential evidence including the coincidence in the two centers of principal features in myth and ritual, the identification must stand against the doubts of Chwolson (Die Ssabier, ut sup., ii. 510), Renan (Mission de Phoenicie, pp. 216, 235), and Baudissin (Hauck-Herzog, RE, xix. 376). The argument of the last-named that the identification argues separateness falls before the apparent fact that the separateness is no more than difference in name in a different environment. The duality is only apparent.
9. The Name Adonis.
The identification, however, raises two questions: (1) the transmission of the cult from Babylonia to Phoenicia (see below, § 16), and (2) the origin of the name Adonis. There can be no doubt that the latter is the common West Semitic Adon, "lord," occurring frequently in the Hebrew in the form Adonai, translated "my lord " or " Lord " in the A. V. (cf., e.g., Gen. xviii. 12; Ezek. vi. 3). The way had already been prepared in Babylonia for the application of such a title of address to Tammuz when he was addressed as Bel (" lord"; see above, § 4); and it requires no imagination to see that this title might become a proper name in a cult, just as Baal did in Canaan. It is curious that, in spite of the wealth of testimony to this worship at Byblus, there is no monumental or inscriptional testimony in Phoenicia to the name as applied to this particular deity. Yet the name was applied to other deities, as is shown by numerous inscriptions—to Baal-Shamem, Melkarth (both of Cyprus and Tyre), Reseph, Hamman, Esmun, Shamash, and others (cf. CIS, vol. i. passim; M. Lidzbarski, Epigraphik, Berlin, 1898, and Ephemeris, Giessen, 1900 sqq.). Zimmern (in Schrader, KAT, p. 398, note 2) remarks on a number of compounds in the Assyrian cuneiform, but of Phenician origin, in which the form Aduni occurs, giving such characteristic combinations as " Aduni has given a son," "Aduni is brother," "Aduni is my rock"; but no certainty exists that Aduni is here more than an appellative. By the Greeks, however, the term was regarded as a proper name and adopted as such, being taken into the scheme of declension of nouns. It seems beyond doubt, therefore, on the basis of the preceding, that the Adonis of the Greeks and the Tammuz (Tamuz) of the Babylonians are one, and that their meeting-place was Byblus (on the Phenician coast about 32 m. n. of Sidon). It was no secret to the Greeks that Adonis came to them from the Semites (Strabo, XVI., ii. 18-19), especially from Byblus, " sacred to Adonis," and the coins of the city contain the epithet "sacred," but do not name the deity.
10. Distribution of the Cult
That the Greeks adopted Adonis very early is evinced by the quotation from Hesiod (8th century B.C.; in Hesiodi qua ferunter omnia, ed. A. Rzach, fragment 41, Leipsic, 1884) and by a fragment of Sappho (c. 600 B.C.; cf. T. Bergk, Poetce lyrici Greed, iii. 897, Leipsic, 1843; Pausanias, IX., xxix. 8). The transfer came about through the Phenicians, and the locations of the temples in which Adonis had a part (with Aphrodite) are in some degree indicated by Phoenician settlements. Before naming these it is proper to remark that the cult was established in Antioch in Syria—Ammianus Marcellinus (XXII., ix. 15, Eng. transl., by C. D. Yonge in Bonn's Classical Library, p. 297, London, 1887) reports that on the occasion of Julian's visit to Antioch the festival of Adonis, the beloved of Venus, was being celebrated. In Cyprus, early settled by the Phenicians, on the south coast was Amathus, where Astarte-Aphrodite had a sanctuary, and Adonis was worshiped (Pausanias, IX., xli. 2; confirmed by Stephen of Byzantium, Ethnika, s.v. "Adonis "). Paphos in the southwest was a notable center, and coins of the Roman period picture the sanctuary with doves (the bird sacred to the goddess) over the facade. There is an interesting model of a shrine of just this pattern recovered at Mycente (Journal of Hellenic Studies, ix., 1888, pp. 210-213), and if there is a connection—which it is tempting to see—the history of the shrine is carried back to c. 1100 B.C. The cone and pillar, so characteristic of the Ishtar-Astarte-Aphrodite cult, were present, and the custom obtained of requiring of the native women submission as a religious duty to strangers once in a lifetime, as at Babylon, Baalbek, and elsewhere. Photius (MPG, ciii. 632) quotes Ptolemy Hephsestion to the effect that Aphrodite found the body of Adonis in "Argos, a city of Cyprus"; and Pausanias (II., xx. 5) remarks upon the wailing for Adonis by the women of the city. It will be remembered that Melito makes Balthi a queen of Cyprus, asserting that she changed her residence to Byblus and Aphaka. Pausanias also quotes Apollodorus (III., xiv. 3-4) as making Adonis son of Kinyras, founder of Paphos in Cyprus. There is similar testimony for Aphrodisias in Cyprus—if the name is not enough. This island seems to have been covered by the cult. At Alexandria the celebration was elaborate, and is described by Theocritus in one of his celebrated Idyls (the fifteenth, named the Idoniazusa), which relates the part taken in the festival by Ptolemy Philadelphus and his queen. The story as current in the West connects closely with Byblus (see below, § 11). Canopus in Egypt was another center. Concerning Athens there can be no mistake, for Plutarch (Alcibiades, xviii.) states that when the ill-fated expedition against Sicily in 415 was departing, the celebration of the Adoneia (the local name for the mourning) was in progress, and the ill omen was noted after the event. Evidence can be adduced for the celebration in Alexandria of Caria, Perga of Pamphylia, Samos (cf. O. Gruppe, Griechische Mythologie und Religions-Geschichte, p. 275, note 6, p. 291, note 1, Munich, 1902), Laconia, and Dion in Macedonia. These names of places are representative, not exhaustive. The earliest explicit witness for the celebration among the Romans is Ovid (43 B.C-18 A.D.; Ars Amatoria, i. 75); but an Etruscan mirror bears the name Alunis, suspected to mean Adonis (A. Falratti, Corpus inscriplionum Italicarum, Turin, 1867), and this suggests a much earlier footing in the Italian peninsula. The cult was favored by Elagabulus (q.v.). Certainly to be attributed to a late period and probably through Greek, not Semitic, agencies, came the establishment of the cult at Bethlehem, where, according to Jerome (Episl., lviii. 3, Eng. transl. in NPNF, 2 ser., vi. 120), there was a grove to Tammuz-Adonis, and in the cave of the nativity " lamentation was made for the paramour of Venus." The extinction of the cult in certain parts of Syria, notably at Aphaka, under Constantine is reported by Sozomen (Hist. eccl., ii. 5, Eng. transl. in NPNF, 2 ser., ii. 262); yet the reports from Arabic sources by Chwolson {Die Ssabier, ut sup.) show its continuance much later.
11. Forms of the Myth.
It was not to be expected that a myth and a cult which wandered so widely as these of Tammuz-Adonis would retain everywhere their original forms. It is a law of the diffusion of religions that observances of a religious character in trans plantation to a new locus take on naturally, and, so to speak, unconsciously, something of the local character in order to domicile themselves and to become acceptable to the new clientele.* The scholia to classical authors make mention, too frequently for citation here, of the details of the cult. So the story and the rites of this deity, while faithful in the main to the Semitic originals so far as these can be made out and also often preserving the consciousness of this origin, yet in different localities differed in the minutiae. This has already been illustrated by the story of the finding in the Cypriote Argos of the body of the god, while the Phenician form locates the event in the Lebanon near Aphaka. The many epithets applied to Adonis illustrate the same fact —Kiris or Kirris (in Laconia), Memnon, Serach, Koare or Koros, Itaios, Abobas (in Pamphylia, from the Semitic abub, "flute "), Gingras, Hoies or Aoos or Ao (among the Dorians), Gauas, Pygmaion (in Cyprus; cf. Hesychius, s.v. "Pygmaion "), Luchnos, Pherektes (cf. for many of these O. Gruppe, ut sup., s.v. "Adonis "). Each of these applied to Adonis probably has reference to or suggestion of local peculiarity of observance or conception. The genius of Greek mythology required that a father be found for the deity, the Babylonian conception being lost in the distance both of space and time. The principal story in the West was that Aphrodite, in revenge for a slight upon her beauty by the queen of Kinyras, king of Cyprus, in declaring her daughter more fair than the goddess, inspired the unfortunate girl with an illicit passion for her own father, which for twelve nights she contrived to indulge. When the father discovered the identity of his companion, in horror he pursued her with drawn sword, and the girl was saved from him only by being metamorphosed into a myrtle-tree (Apollodorus, III., xiv. 4). The story of the birth then assumes various forms—the father cleaves the tree, and Adonis is born; or in ten months the tree parts of itself to give birth to the beautiful young god; or a boar (one of the constant elements of the myth) rips the bark with his tusk and so brings the boy to birth (Apollodorus, Bibliotheca, iii. 182, ed. R. Wagner, Leipsic, 1894; Ovid, Metamorphoses, x. 298-502; Vergil, Eclogties, x. 18; and the glossator on the same author's Aeneid, v. 71). Both the father and the mother are variously connected with both Cyprus and Phoenicia. The father is Agenor, or Phoinix (an evident recollection of the derivation of the cult from Phoenicia), or Theias (Panyasis, fifth century B.C., cited in Apollodorus, III., xiv. 4; Athenaeus, X., lxxxiii. 456, ed. W. Dindorf, 3 vols., Leipsic, 1827); the mother is Aoa or Metharme (in Cyprus) in place of Myrrha, or Alphesiboia (so Hesiod, ut sup.); and Adonis has as children Amymone, Golgos, Melos, Priapos, and Zariadres (Theocritus, Idyl, xv.; glossator on Vergil's Eclogues, viii. 37; cf. SBE, xxiii. 80). The accounts of the death vary also—Ares (or Hephaistus) caused it by means of the boar, or one or the other transformed himself into that animal, or Apollo did it in revenge for the blinding of his son Erymanthos by Aphrodite when by him she was seen bathing. The place of the death was variously located in the Lebanon, at Argos in Cyprus, and at Idalim. Once more the duration of the stay of Adonis in Hades is differently given. The principal thread of the Greek myth records that on his birth Aphrodite received him and hid him in a chest which she gave to Proserpine to guard. But his beauty won the love of the latter, and she refused to give him up to Aphrodite. Appeal was then made to Zeus, who adjudged possession of him for a third of the year to Proserpine, another third to Aphrodite, while the rest of the year was at his own disposal, and he gave it to Aphrodite. Other accounts divide the year equally between the two goddesses, or give the larger part to Proserpine.
[* Of course it is not to be forgotten that the story and cult of Adonis were bound up with that of the goddess with whom he was associated, and that the accounts of him underwent variations more or less concordant with those of Aphrodite in different environments.]
12. Identification with Other Deities
It is not at all improbable that at many places where the Adonis cult became domesticated there was already a worship not alien in character. This would prove the solution of a number of problems which arise. It is not merely probable but certain that other cults of a kind not antagonistic in idea came in upon the Adonis worship and fused with it or modified it. Thus confusion came to exist as to the particular deity in whose honor the rites were performed, or the deities were identified. Among those with whom Adonis was either confused or identified were Apollo, Apsyrtos (O. Gruppe, ut sup., p. 576 note), Epaphos (Apollodorus, II., ix.; Mnaseas, in II. and T. Midler's Fragmenta, iii. 155, no. 37), Phaethon (Timon, in Miiller, ut sup., iv. 522, no. 3). But of especial note were Attis and Osiris. The closeness of relationship of these may be seen in a somewhat overemphasized form in J. G. Frazer's Adonis, Attis, and Osiris, passim (London, 1906). The connection with Osiris comes out particularly in the story of the body of Osiris, or his head, later rationalized into a letter, which was yearly committed to the sea at Alexandria and made its way to Byblus (M. H. Ohnefalsch-Richter, Kypros, die Bibel und Homer, pp. 219-220, Berlin, 1893). The mourning of Isis for Osiris, to say nothing of that of the farmers who called on Isis as they cut the first sheaf of grain (Diodorus Siculus, I., xiv. 2), as well as the search for the body of Osiris and the burial, suggested a relationship between the two deities who caused their loves so great sorrow, and the identification was indeed made. The emphasis upon the cult of Adonis at Alexandria (see below, § 13) and Byblus and the similarity of ideas for which the two deities stood, whatever that may be, made the identification easy (Damascius, in Vita Isidori, cited by Photius, Bibliotheca, ccxlii., in MPG, ciii. 1276; Hippolytus, Har., v. 4, in ANF, v. 4, but cf. v. 56, where the "thrice desired Adonis" is the Assyrian, i.e., Syrian, name for Attis; Stephen of Byzantium, Ethnika, s.v. "Adonis ")• So the myths of the two overflowed and mingled at the meeting-places of Byblus and Alexandria, just as those of Attis and Adonis did in Cyprus, so near to Phrygia. Attis was a Phrygian deity whose myth relates that he was either killed by a boar or bled to death from self-castration, and orgiastic rites and mourning marked his cult; in this case also a goddess, Cybele the "Great Mother," was the objective of the worship (J. G. Frazer, ut sup., and Golden Bough, i. 296301, London, 1900). Rather less obvious is the relationship of Adonis and Dionysus, yet Plutarch testifies explicitly (Symposiaca problemata, IV., v. 3) that " they regard Adonis not as another (deity) but as Dionysus " (cf. also " Orphic Hymn," xlii.). This identification of Adonis with other gods was not confined to the Greeks. In Babylonia Tammuz was the same as an early god Shulgur (M. Jastrow, Religion of Assyria and Babylonia, p. 58, New York, 1898), and Zimmern (Abhandlungen, ut sup., pp. 705-709) gives a list of names applied to Tammuz several of which involve identification of him with others. It is indisputable that in Babylonia, Syria, Egypt, Asia Minor, and Greece there were conceptions of deities so alike in their main features, having to do with the decay of power—whether solar or vegetational (see below, § 13)—that confusion and merging were to be expected. Whether in the writings of Sanchuniathon (q.v.) in Eusebius, Prwparatio evangelica, i. 4 (Eng. transl. by E. H. Gifford, i. 41, Oxford, 1903) the "Elioun " and "Beruth," the former of whom died in an encounter with wild beasts, are Adonis and Aphrodite is not certain.
13. The Rites
Just as the myth and conceptions concerning the deity varied in different localities, so the details of the celebration differed in accordance with the genius of place and people. The salient feature was the mourning, principally by women, and generally accompanied by the mournful strains of the flute. In the Adapa epic but nowhere else the mourning seems to have included Gishzida. The mourners beat their breasts and in some cases shaved their heads, the hair going to the temples as a part of the perquisites of the shrine. From notices as cited above respecting the observances at Byblus, Alexandria, and Athens it is gathered that an effigy or image of Adonis was made, washed, dressed, incensed, and laid on a couch or bier (at Alexandria an image of Aphrodite was made and laid on a couch by that of Adonis, and the observance celebrated the wedding of the two deities). Where classic influences prevailed, the image represented a beautiful youth. The image was surrounded by fresh flowers and plants, and at Alexandria also with the early fruits, the "gardens of Adonis," myrrh, and cakes of honey, meal, and oil, and after this was done the wailing and singing of dirges began (Sappho, fragment 6). After the wailing and on the second day, the image was carried away and cast into the river or the sea, or was given burial, the women accompanying the procession with bared breasts and singing an ode which besought prosperity for the coming year. At Harran the story went that the " lord of Adonis " slew him and ground his bones in a mill, and then scattered the fragments; hence the women of that region during the celebration ate nothing that had passed through the mill (Frazer, Adonis, etc., p. 131, citing Chwolson). At Byblus, after the wailing a sacrifice was offered to Adonis " as to one who was dead," therefore it was a holocaust and piacular (Lucian, De dea Syria, § vi.; Smith, Rel. of Sent., p. 411). In Cyprus it was customary to build a pyre for Adonis and to cast therein live doves (the bird of Aphrodite). Apparently with the mourning for Tammuz there was combined lamentation for departed friends and relations, so that the occasion was a sort of "All Souls' Day" (Jastrow, ut. sup, pp. 575, 599, 682). A unique institution was the "gardens of Adonis" (Plato, Phaedrus, 276B; Theophrastus, De historia et causis plantarum, VI., vii. 3; Hesychius, s.v. "Adonidos kepoi "). These were shallow receptacles much like fern dishes, filled with earth, sowed with various kinds of seeds, and for a few days before the festival carefully tended by the women. Under the warm eastern sun the seeds germinated quickly, but when left unwatered, the same sun quickly dried the shallow earth and the growth withered. The '' gardens '' were then carried to a spring, river, or the sea and thrown in. That this was an old charm intended to promote the growth of vegetation is practically certain (Frazer, Adonis, etc., pp. 137-159, where early authorities are cited, to which add the Emperor Julian, "The Cresars," xxv., in E. Talbot's Fr. transl., p. 285, Paris, 1863; and R. Rochette, Revue archiologigue, viii. 1, 1851, pp. 97-123; a picture of these "gardens" is given in A. Jeremias, Das Alte Testament, etc., ut sup., p. 88).* It is concordant with this interpretation that the mourning was followed on the next day by a festival which typified the return of the god from the dead (Origen and Jerome on Ezek. viii. 14, and Cyril of Alexandria, on Isa. xviii. 1-2; MPG, lxx. 440-441). This feature, perhaps not a part of the original rites in Babylonia, has always mystified the narrators and students, some of them assuming strangely that the incensing of the effigy was supposed to effect revivification. But on that hypothesis why should burial or the casting of the effigy in river or sea follow? In accordance with the naive magic of early times, persisting after its original meaning had been forgotten, the revival to life can be understood as expected after the ceremonial of casting "garden" or effigy into the supposed sources of fertilization.
[* There are several good reasons for thinking that in Isa. xvii. 10-11 the prophet had these " gardens of Adonis" in mind. The surface meaning gives just the usual order of procedure and the results of making these "gardens," while "the day of grief and desperate sorrow" certainly looks like the mourning. The word rendered "pleasant " (na'amanim) —probably containing a double reference to the anemone (sacred to Adonis) and to the meaning " darling," an epithet often applied to him—seems to make the reference to Adonis (or Tammuz) quite certain.]
14. Date of the Festival.
The date of the festival has caused no little discussion. For Babylonia the month Tammuz (June-July) is indubitably indicated, and about July 15 is implied by Maimonides and Makrizi as cited by Chwolson (Die Ssabier, ut sup., ii. 202 sqq.) for a late period in the Christian era; for Harran the date is also July (ib., ii. 27, and Ueber Tammuz, ut sup., p. 38). Jerome (ut sup.) seems to imply June as the date for the death of Tammuz. The feature of the "gardens " as just related suggests surely the heat of summer. According to Frazer (Adonis, etc., p. 7), relying upon W. R. Smith, the month Tammuz does not absolutely fix the time of year, inasmuch as the Syrian calendars varied considerably. Jastrow (ut sup., pp. 547, 682), speaking for Babylonia and adjacent regions, sets the time at just before the summer solstice. For Antioch the data afforded by Ammianus Marcellinus (XXII., ix. 15) in connection with Julian's visit to the city necessitates a time before Aug. 1. The description in Theocritus, Idyl, xv., implies a date sufficiently late in the summer for certain fruits to have ripened (cf. W. Mannhardt, Antike Wold und Feldkulte, p. 277, Berlin, 1875-77). The data from Byblus are confusing. Lucian (De dea Syria, vi. sqq.) gives the time as when the Nahr Ibrahim runs red, which seems to imply the season of spring freshets, the color being locally attributed to the blood of the god who is slain annually; but this is against most other indications, which imply midsummer, though an alternative supposition is that sandstorms caused the discoloration. There was a spring festival at Byblus, which, however, had no connection with Adonis, and Lucian may have confused his references. On the other hand, the scarlet anemone blooms at this time of the year, and the legend derived its color from the blood of the god either as springing from it or being stained by it. The Arabs still call the flower "the wounds of Na'aman " (na'aman being an epithet of Adonis; W. R. Smith, in Historical Review, ii., 1887, p. 307). Yet somewhat inconsistent with this in the same region the color of the red rose, blooming in June, is attributed to the blood from Aphrodite's feet wounded by a thorn as she went to meet her lover. In Attica the date is fixed for midsummer by the departure of the expedition to Sicily (ut sup.; cf. Thucydides, vi. 30). At Hierapolis in Syria there was an annual festival at the beginning of spring at which trees were cut down and planted in the temple court, animals and birds were hung on them as sacrifices, and then fire was set and the whole consumed. This may have been wrongly brought into connection with the Cypriote festival described above and have influenced the conception of the date. General indications from many incidental allusions suggest the beginning of the harvest season, which for Syria, Greece, and Egypt varies from the end of March to the end of June. The dating in spring may be due to confusion of the Adonis celebration with one to Aphrodite. The final conclusion will in some degree rest upon the solution of the question of the significance of Tammuz-Adonis.
15. Significance of the Deity
What Tammuz-Adonis stood for in the popular mind was as variously answered in antiquity as now. Macrobius (Saturnalia, I., xxi. 1 sqq.) says that he was considered to be a sun-god; and Marti anus Capella (De nuptiis, ii. 192) gives "Byblius Adon " as one of the names of Sol. Ammianus Marcellinus (XIX., i. 11; Eng. transl. ut sup., p. 186) speaks of "the solemn festival of Adonis, which the mystical doctrines of religion show to be some sort of image of the ripened fruits of the earth . . . cut down in their prime." Porphyry (cited in Eusebius, Praeparatio evangelica, III., xi., Eng. transl., i. 120) also asserts that " Adonis was the symbol of the cutting of the perfect fruits," Attis representing the early blossoms which drop off unfertilized. Origen (ut sup.) makes him represent the seed corn placed in the earth and fructifying; Jerome on the same passage reports that the common idea related the celebration to the death and resurrection of the seeds; and Smith (Rd. of Sent., p. 318) connects it with the harvest. Jastrow (ut sup., pp. 547-548) lends his weighty authority to the idea that Tammuz was a local solar deity— a god of spring approaching the summer solstice. Zimmern (Schrader, KAT, p. 397) calls him the "god of spring vegetation." Frazer (Adonis, etc., passim) also makes him a deity of vegetation. His position is strong, though allowance has to be made for the thesis which underlies his volume. A. Jeremias (Das Alte Testament, etc., pp. 114 sqq.) shows that Tammuz is a form which admits identification with sun, moon, or star, since he represents dying and reviving life. The Babylonian relations do little to clear up the question, since Tammuz appears now in the circle of Ea, now in that of Anu, again in that of Shamash (cf. Zimmern, Abhandlungen, ut sup., p. 715), as well as with such deities of vegetation as Gishzida and Ningirsu. The "gardens" might turn the scale in favor of the vegetational theory did they not seem a late intrusion. Baudissin's contention (Hauck-Herzog, RE, xix. 336337) that the midsummer date best attested for the festival is against a solar significance falls with the consideration of specialized " seasonal suns " which ruled a part of the year, and these existed in Babylonian as well as in Egyptian thought. Were Tammuz the god of the spring sun, the summer solstice would be the time of his death. To be sure, the roles of solar and vegetational deity are not exclusive; and where great deities like Shamash emerge with definite solar functions, it is not uncommon to find lesser and local deities having originally the same relations relegated to subordinate functions. This may be the solution of the question. That later philosophical conceptions should advance beyond these was to be expected. So Hippolytus seems to regard Adonis as typifying the soul (hoer., v. 7, Eng. transl., ANF, v. 56-58). The triple conception Adonis-Osiris-Dionysus was regarded as giving a hope for a future life. The life substance of Adonis was connected with myrrh, which was supposed to arrest decay and so was used in embalming (cf. John xix. 39). The Orphic hymn cited above makes Adonis hermaphrodite, and this recalls the fact that some Sumerian data raise the question whether Tammuz was not feminine.
16. Origin of Tammuz
The question of the origin of Tammuz-Adonis may be regarded as settled. It is no longer possible to regard him as Cypriote in derivation (W. H. Engel, Kypros, ii. 643, Berlin, 1841), a theory revived in part in Pauly, Realencyklo16. Su- padie (ed. G. Wissowa, vol. i., Stuttmerian gart, 1893), which conceives him as coming under Phoenician influence and then traveling eastward; nor even as Semitic (Baudissin, in Hauck-Herzog, RE, xix. 378-377). Had he been Semitic, a more general popularity among that people would have been expected. The deity is clearly pre-Semitic Sumerian, attested by the early mention in the Sumerian texts, especially in the Sumerian hymns, as well as by the fact that the later hymns clearly imitate the earlier. Under the Sumerians Tammuz had some importance; with the Semites that disappeared, he became one of the popular as contrasted with the official gods; and but for the popular celebration and the epics he almost drops out of sight. Among the Assyrians he had no position of note in the national worship. His festival may have been celebrated among the Assyrians, but in that case all traces have been obliterated. As Adonis he reappeared at Byblus and along the Nahr Ibrahim to Aphaka. The explanation of this curious leap across the desert is difficult, possibly reached only by the help of two hypotheses. If the Phoenicians came from the Persian Gulf, they might have brought the cult with them. Still the difficulty arises, why was not the cult more general among the Phoenicians? The second hypothesis is what has already received notice—a pre-Phoenician local cult in some features akin to that of Tammuz. For the first of these suppositions there is evidence; the second has only indirect support in the facts of similar cases in Egypt and Cyprus.
17. Influence of the Myth
The influence of the myth of Tammuz was widely felt. In Boeotia in the cults of Artemis and Dionysus the mourning and mock burial were repeated. The wailing reappears in the story of Laodameia and Protesilaos, and in that of Artemis for Hippolytus and for Tammuz Endymion. The relation of Adonis to myrrh passed over into the stories of the later Dionysus in the epithets applied to him, such as myrrha, smyrni, myrini, myrto; and the plant was sacred both to Aphrodite and to Artemis, whose relations with their lovers were so alike. The element of the boar comes out strongly in Greek and Roman literature from Bion (Ode i. of the "Idyls," cf. lines 7-8) to Augustine (" City of God," vi. 7, Eng. transl. in NPNF, 2 ser., ii. 116); and Macrobius (Saturnalia, I., xxi. 4) interprets this element as typifying winter. It is well known that in Syria the swine was a tabooed or " sacred " animal (Lucian, De dea Syria, liv.), and in Greece was sacred to Aphrodite. Its part in the stories about Attis has already been noticed, and in the Dionysus cycle it also appears. But one may discard the interpretations of Jeremias (Das Alte Testament, etc., passim) regarding the influence of the myth on the Old Testament, especially when he sees " Tammuzmotives " in the history of Abraham, Joseph, David, and other Hebrew heroes. Still less basis of fact can be found for the astral interpretations of E. Stucken, Astralmythen der Hebrder, Babylonier und Aegypter (Leipsic, 1896 sqq.).
Bibliography: The principal literature is cited in the text; the older literature among that which follows is of value chiefly for its citation of the passages in the classics and elsewhere from which the data ore collected J. Selden, De dis Syris. pp. 254-264, Amsterdam, 1080; C. Moinichen, Hortulus Adonidis, Copenhagen, 1702; Bayle, Dictionary, s.v. Adonis, i. 113-116; C. F. Dupuis, Origine de tout lee cultee, pp. 156-163, Paris, 1795; F. C. Movers, Die Phonizicr, i. 191-253, 2 vols., Bonn, 1841-56; H. Brugsch, Adonisklage und Linetlied, Berlin, 1852; Greve, De Adonide, Leipsic, 1877; A. Jeremias, Die babylonisch-assyriechen Vorstellungen vom Leben nach dem Tode, ib. 1877; P. Scholz, Gotzendienet und Zauberweeen bei den Hebraern, pp. 217-238, Regensburg, 1877; W. W. von Baudissin, Studien eur semitischen Religionsgeschichte, i. 298-304, Leipsic, 1878; W. H. Roscher, Lexihon der griechiechen und romischen Mythologie, i. 69-77, ib. 1884; A. H. Sayce, Religion of Ancient Babylonia, pp. 221-250, London, 1887; Journal of Hellenic Studio, ix (1888), 210-213; F. Baethgen. Beitrttge tur eemitischen Religionegeechichte, pp. 41-44, Berlin, 1889; P. Jensen, Die Coemologie der Babylonier, passim, Strasburg, 1890; idem, Assyrisch-babylonische Mythen und Epen, pp. 81 sqq., 95 sqq., 169, 560, Berlin, 1900; Ball, in PSBA, xvi (1894), 195-200; W. L. King, Babylonian Religion and Mythology, pp. 178-183, London, 1899; T. K. Cheyne, Bible Problems, pp. 71-95, London, 1904 (cf. A. Jeremias, Babyloniechee im Neuen Testament, p. 34, Leipsic, 1905; Cheyne finds a North Arabian form of the myth of Adonis in the tale of Dusares—see NabaT«ans, II.,5 3); C. Vellay, he Culteet lee fUeed' AdonisThammouz dans Vorient antique. Paris, 1904 (the student can not afford to pass this book); idem in RHR, xlix (1904), 154-162; R. Dussaud, Notes de mythologie tyrienne, ii. 148-155, ib. 1905 (also important); M. J. Lagrange, fttudes tur lee religions semitiquee, pp. 40, 295, 309, 348— 349, ib. 1905; O. Gruppe, Oriechische Mythologie und Religionsgeschichte, Index "Adonis" and "Tammus," Munich,'1906; and especially the works of Zimmero noted in the text and his Sumerisch-babylonische Tamuzlieder, in the Berichte of the Saxon Academy, lix (1907), 201-252.
Source: George W. Gilmore, "Tammuz-Adonis," in The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, eds. Samuel Macauley Jackson et al., Vol. XI (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1911), 264-271.