Chapter X. The Gardens of Adonis.

(M181) Perhaps the best proof that Adonis was a deity of vegetation, and

especially of the corn, is furnished by the gardens of Adonis, as they

were called. These were baskets or pots filled with earth, in which wheat,

barley, lettuces, fennel, and various kinds of flowers were sown and

tended for eight days, chiefly or exclusively by women. Fostered by the

sun’s heat, the plants shot up rapidly, but having no root they withered

as rapidly away, and at the end of eight days were carried out with the

images of the dead Adonis, and flung with them into the sea or into

springs.(698)

(M182) These gardens of Adonis are most naturally interpreted as

representatives of Adonis or manifestations of his power; they represented

him, true to his original nature, in vegetable form, while the images of

him, with which they were carried out and cast into the water, portrayed

him in his later human shape. All these Adonis ceremonies, if I am right,

were originally intended as charms to promote the growth or revival of

vegetation; and the principle by which they were supposed to produce this

effect was homoeopathic or imitative magic. For ignorant people suppose

that by mimicking the effect which they desire to produce they actually

help to produce it; thus by sprinkling water they make rain, by lighting a

fire they make sunshine, and so on. Similarly, by mimicking the growth of

crops they hope to ensure a good harvest. The rapid growth of the wheat

and barley in the gardens of Adonis was intended to make the corn shoot

up; and the throwing of the gardens and of the images into the water was a

charm to secure a due supply of fertilizing rain.(699) The same, I take

it, was the object of throwing the effigies of Death and the Carnival into

water in the corresponding ceremonies of modern Europe.(700) Certainly the

custom of drenching with water a leaf-clad person, who undoubtedly

personifies vegetation, is still resorted to in Europe for the express

purpose of producing rain.(701) Similarly the custom of throwing water on

the last corn cut at harvest, or on the person who brings it home (a

custom observed in Germany and France, and till quite lately in England

and Scotland), is in some places practised with the avowed intent to

procure rain for the next year’s crops. Thus in Wallachia and amongst the

Roumanians in Transylvania, when a girl is bringing home a crown made of

the last ears of corn cut at harvest, all who meet her hasten to throw

water on her, and two farm-servants are placed at the door for the

purpose; for they believe that if this were not done, the crops next year

would perish from drought.(702) So amongst the Saxons of Transylvania, the

person who wears the wreath made of the last corn cut is drenched with

water to the skin; for the wetter he is, the better will be next year’s

harvest, and the more grain there will be threashed out. Sometimes the

wearer of the wreath is the reaper who cut the last corn.(703) In Northern

Euboea, when the corn-sheaves have been piled in a stack, the farmer’s

wife brings a pitcher of water and offers it to each of the labourers that

he may wash his hands. Every man, after he has washed his hands, sprinkles

water on the corn and on the threshing-floor, expressing at the same time

a wish that the corn may last long. Lastly, the farmer’s wife holds the

pitcher slantingly and runs at full speed round the stack without spilling

a drop, while she utters a wish that the stack may endure as long as the

circle she has just described.(704) At the spring ploughing in Prussia,

when the ploughmen and sowers returned in the evening from their work in

the fields, the farmer’s wife and the servants used to splash water over

them. The ploughmen and sowers retorted by seizing every one, throwing

them into the pond, and ducking them under the water. The farmer’s wife

might claim exemption on payment of a forfeit, but every one else had to

be ducked. By observing this custom they hoped to ensure a due supply of

rain for the seed.(705) Also after harvest in Prussia, the person who wore

a wreath made of the last corn cut was drenched with water, while a prayer

was uttered that “as the corn had sprung up and multiplied through the

water, so it might spring up and multiply in the barn and granary.”(706)

At Schlanow, in Brandenburg, when the sowers return home from the first

sowing they are drenched with water “in order that the corn may

grow.”(707) In Anhalt on the same occasion the farmer is still often

sprinkled with water by his family; and his men and horses, and even the

plough, receive the same treatment. The object of the custom, as people at

Arensdorf explained it, is “to wish fertility to the fields for the whole

year.”(708) So in Hesse, when the ploughmen return with the plough from

the field for the first time, the women and girls lie in wait for them and

slyly drench them with water.(709) Near Naaburg, in Bavaria, the man who

first comes back from sowing or ploughing has a vessel of water thrown

over him by some one in hiding.(710) At Hettingen in Baden the farmer who

is about to begin the sowing of oats is sprinkled with water, in order

that the oats may not shrivel up.(711) Before the Tusayan Indians of North

America go out to plant their fields, the women sometimes pour water on

them; the reason for doing so is that “as the water is poured on the men,

so may water fall on the planted fields.”(712) The Indians of Santiago

Tepehuacan steep the seed of the maize in water before they sow it, in

order that the god of the waters may bestow on the fields the needed

moisture.(713)

(M183) The opinion that the gardens of Adonis are essentially charms to

promote the growth of vegetation, especially of the crops, and that they

belong to the same class of customs as those spring and midsummer

folk-customs of modern Europe which I have described elsewhere,(714) does

not rest for its evidence merely on the intrinsic probability of the case.

Fortunately we are able to show that gardens of Adonis (if we may use the

expression in a general sense) are still planted, first, by a primitive

race at their sowing season, and, second, by European peasants at

midsummer. Amongst the Oraons and Mundas of Bengal, when the time comes

for planting out the rice which has been grown in seed-beds, a party of

young people of both sexes go to the forest and cut a young Karma-tree, or

the branch of one. Bearing it in triumph they return dancing, singing, and

beating drums, and plant it in the middle of the village dancing-ground. A

sacrifice is offered to the tree; and next morning the youth of both

sexes, linked arm-in-arm, dance in a great circle round the Karma-tree,

which is decked with strips of coloured cloth and sham bracelets and

necklets of plaited straw. As a preparation for the festival, the

daughters of the headman of the village cultivate blades of barley in a

peculiar way. The seed is sown in moist, sandy soil, mixed with turmeric,

and the blades sprout and unfold of a pale-yellow or primrose colour. On

the day of the festival the girls take up these blades and carry them in

baskets to the dancing-ground, where, prostrating themselves

reverentially, they place some of the plants before the Karma-tree.

Finally, the Karma-tree is taken away and thrown into a stream or

tank.(715) The meaning of planting these barley blades and then presenting

them to the Karma-tree is hardly open to question. Trees are supposed to

exercise a quickening influence upon the growth of crops, and amongst the

very people in question—the Mundas or Mundaris—“the grove deities are held

responsible for the crops.”(716) Therefore, when at the season for

planting out the rice the Mundas bring in a tree and treat it with so much

respect, their object can only be to foster thereby the growth of the rice

which is about to be planted out; and the custom of causing barley blades

to sprout rapidly and then presenting them to the tree must be intended to

subserve the same purpose, perhaps by reminding the tree-spirit of his

duty towards the crops, and stimulating his activity by this visible

example of rapid vegetable growth. The throwing of the Karma-tree into the

water is to be interpreted as a rain-charm. Whether the barley blades are

also thrown into the water is not said; but if my interpretation of the

custom is right, probably they are so. A distinction between this Bengal

custom and the Greek rites of Adonis is that in the former the tree-spirit

appears in his original form as a tree; whereas in the Adonis worship he

appears in human form, represented as a dead man, though his vegetable

nature is indicated by the gardens of Adonis, which are, so to say, a

secondary manifestation of his original power as a tree-spirit.

(M184) Gardens of Adonis are cultivated also by the Hindoos, with the

intention apparently of ensuring the fertility both of the earth and of

mankind. Thus at Oodeypoor in Rajputana a festival is held “in honour of

Gouri, or Isani, the goddess of abundance, the Isis of Egypt, the Ceres of

Greece. Like the Rajpoot Saturnalia, which it follows, it belongs to the

vernal equinox, when nature in these regions proximate to the tropic is in

the full expanse of her charms, and the matronly Gouri casts her golden

mantle over the verdant Vassanti, personification of spring. Then the

fruits exhibit their promise to the eye; the kohil fills the ear with

melody; the air is impregnated with aroma, and the crimson poppy contrasts

with the spikes of golden grain to form a wreath for the beneficent Gouri.

Gouri is one of the names of Isa or Parvati, wife of the greatest of the

gods, Mahadeva or Iswara, who is conjoined with her in these rites, which

almost exclusively appertain to the women. The meaning of _gouri_ is

‘yellow,’ emblematic of the ripened harvest, when the votaries of the

goddess adore her effigies, which are those of a matron painted the colour

of ripe corn.” The rites begin when the sun enters the sign of the Ram,

the opening of the Hindoo year. An image of the goddess Gouri is made of

earth, and a smaller one of her husband Iswara, and the two are placed

together. A small trench is next dug, barley is sown in it, and the ground

watered and heated artificially till the grain sprouts, when the women

dance round it hand in hand, invoking the blessing of Gouri on their

husbands. After that the young corn is taken up and distributed by the

women to the men, who wear it in their turbans. Every wealthy family, or

at least every subdivision of the city, has its own image. These and other

rites, known only to the initiated, occupy several days, and are performed

within doors. Then the images of the goddess and her husband are decorated

and borne in procession to a beautiful lake, whose deep blue waters mirror

the cloudless Indian sky, marble palaces, and orange groves. Here the

women, their hair decked with roses and jessamine carry the image of Gouri

down a marble staircase to the water’s edge, and dance round it singing

hymns and love-songs. Meantime the goddess is supposed to bathe in the

water. No men take part in the ceremony; even the image of Iswara, the

husband-god, attracts little attention.(717) In these rites the

distribution of the barley shoots to the men, and the invocation of a

blessing on their husbands by the wives, point clearly to the desire of

offspring as one motive for observing the custom. The same motive probably

explains the use of gardens of Adonis at the marriage of Brahmans in the

Madras Presidency. Seeds of five or nine sorts are mixed and sown in

earthen pots, which are made specially for the purpose and are filled with

earth. Bride and bridegroom water the seeds both morning and evening for

four days; and on the fifth day the seedlings are thrown, like the real

gardens of Adonis, into a tank or river.(718)

(M185) In the Himalayan districts of North-Western India the cultivators

sow barley, maize, pulse, or mustard in a basket of earth on the

twenty-fourth day of the fourth month (_Asárh_), which falls about the

middle of July. Then on the last day of the month they place amidst the

new sprouts small clay images of Mahadeo and Parvati and worship them in

remembrance of the marriage of those deities. Next day they cut down the

green stalks and wear them in their head-dress.(719) Similar is the barley

feast known as Jâyî or Jawâra in Upper India and as Bhujariya in the

Central Provinces. On the seventh day of the light half of the month Sâwan

grains of barley are sown in a pot of manure, and spring up so quickly

that by the end of the month the vessel is full of long, yellowish-green

stalks. On the first day of the next month, Bhâdon, the women and girls

take the stalks out, throw the earth and manure into water, and distribute

the plants among their male friends, who bind them in their turbans and

about their dress.(720) At Sargal in the Central Provinces of India this

ceremony is observed about the middle of September. None but women may

take part in it, though crowds of men come to look on. Some little time

before the festival wheat or other grain has been sown in pots ingeniously

constructed of large leaves, which are held together by the thorns of a

species of acacia. Having grown up in the dark, the stalks are of a pale

colour. On the day appointed these gardens of Adonis, as we may call them,

are carried towards a lake which abuts on the native city. The women of

every family or circle of friends bring their own pots, and having laid

them on the ground they dance round them. Then taking the pots of

sprouting corn they descend to the edge of the water, wash the soil away

from the pots, and distribute the young plants among their friends.(721)

At the temple of the goddess Padmavati, near Pandharpur in the Bombay

Presidency, a Nine Nights’ festival is held in the bright half of the

month Ashvin (September-October). At this time a bamboo frame is hung in

front of the image, and from it depend garlands of flowers and strings of

wheaten cakes. Under the frame the floor in front of the pedestal is

strewn with a layer of earth in which wheat is sown and allowed to

sprout.(722) A similar rite is observed in the same month before the

images of two other goddesses, Ambabai and Lakhubai, who also have temples

at Pandharpur.(723)

(M186) In some parts of Bavaria it is customary to sow flax in a pot on

the last three days of the Carnival; from the seed which grows best an

omen is drawn as to whether the early, the middle, or the late sowing will

produce the best crop.(724) In Sardinia the gardens of Adonis are still

planted in connexion with the great Midsummer festival which bears the

name of St. John. At the end of March or on the first of April a young man

of the village presents himself to a girl, and asks her to be his _comare_

(gossip or sweetheart), offering to be her _compare_. The invitation is

considered as an honour by the girl’s family, and is gladly accepted. At

the end of May the girl makes a pot of the bark of the cork-tree, fills it

with earth, and sows a handful of wheat and barley in it. The pot being

placed in the sun and often watered, the corn sprouts rapidly and has a

good head by Midsummer Eve (St. John’s Eve, the twenty-third of June). The

pot is then called _Erme_ or _Nenneri_. On St. John’s Day the young man

and the girl, dressed in their best, accompanied by a long retinue and

preceded by children gambolling and frolicking, move in procession to a

church outside the village. Here they break the pot by throwing it against

the door of the church. Then they sit down in a ring on the grass and eat

eggs and herbs to the music of flutes. Wine is mixed in a cup and passed

round, each one drinking as it passes. Then they join hands and sing

“Sweethearts of St. John” (_Compare e comare di San Giovanni_) over and

over again, the flutes playing the while. When they tire of singing they

stand up and dance gaily in a ring till evening. This is the general

Sardinian custom. As practised at Ozieri it has some special features. In

May the pots are made of cork-bark and planted with corn, as already

described. Then on the Eve of St. John the window-sills are draped with

rich cloths, on which the pots are placed, adorned with crimson and blue

silk and ribbons of various colours. On each of the pots they used

formerly to place a statuette or cloth doll dressed as a woman, or a

Priapus-like figure made of paste; but this custom, rigorously forbidden

by the Church, has fallen into disuse. The village swains go about in a

troop to look at the pots and their decorations and to wait for the girls,

who assemble on the public square to celebrate the festival. Here a great

bonfire is kindled, round which they dance and make merry. Those who wish

to be “Sweethearts of St. John” act as follows. The young man stands on

one side of the bonfire and the girl on the other, and they, in a manner,

join hands by each grasping one end of a long stick, which they pass three

times backwards and forwards across the fire, thus thrusting their hands

thrice rapidly into the flames. This seals their relationship to each

other. Dancing and music go on till late at night.(725) The correspondence

of these Sardinian pots of grain to the gardens of Adonis seems complete,

and the images formerly placed in them answer to the images of Adonis

which accompanied his gardens.

(M187) Customs of the same sort are observed at the same season in Sicily.

Pairs of boys and girls become gossips of St. John on St. John’s Day by

drawing each a hair from his or her head and performing various ceremonies

over them. Thus they tie the hairs together and throw them up in the air,

or exchange them over a potsherd, which they afterwards break in two,

preserving each a fragment with pious care. The tie formed in the latter

way is supposed to last for life. In some parts of Sicily the gossips of

St. John present each other with plates of sprouting corn, lentils, and

canary seed, which have been planted forty days before the festival. The

one who receives the plate pulls a stalk of the young plants, binds it

with a ribbon, and preserves it among his or her greatest treasures,

restoring the platter to the giver. At Catania the gossips exchange pots

of basil and great cucumbers; the girls tend the basil, and the thicker it

grows the more it is prized.(726)

(M188) In these midsummer customs of Sardinia and Sicily it is possible

that, as Mr. R. Wünsch supposes,(727) St. John has replaced Adonis. We

have seen that the rites of Tammuz or Adonis were commonly celebrated

about midsummer; according to Jerome, their date was June.(728) And

besides their date and their similarity in respect of the pots of herbs

and corn, there is another point of affinity between the two festivals,

the heathen and the Christian. In both of them water plays a prominent

part. At his midsummer festival in Babylon the image of Tammuz, whose name

is said to mean “true son of the deep water,” was bathed with pure water:

at his summer festival in Alexandria the image of Adonis, with that of his

divine mistress Aphrodite, was committed to the waves; and at the

midsummer celebration in Greece the gardens of Adonis were thrown into the

sea or into springs. Now a great feature of the midsummer festival

associated with the name of St. John is, or used to be, the custom of

bathing in the sea, springs, rivers, or the dew on Midsummer Eve or the

morning of Midsummer Day. Thus, for example, at Naples there is a church

dedicated to St. John the Baptist under the name of St. John of the Sea

(_S. Giovan a mare_); and it was an old practice for men and women to

bathe in the sea on St. John’s Eve, that is, on Midsummer Eve, believing

that thus all their sins were washed away.(729) In the Abruzzi water is

still supposed to acquire certain marvellous and beneficent properties on

St. John’s Night. They say that on that night the sun and moon bathe in

the water. Hence many people take a bath in the sea or in a river at that

season, especially at the moment of sunrise. At Castiglione a Casauria

they go before sunrise to the Pescara River or to springs, wash their

faces and hands, then gird themselves with twigs of bryony (_vitalba_) and

twine the plant round their brows, in order that they may be free from

pains. At Pescina boys and girls wash each other’s faces in a river or a

spring, then exchange kisses, and become gossips. The dew, also, that

falls on St. John’s Night is supposed in the Abruzzi to benefit whatever

it touches, whether it be water, flowers, or the human body. For that

reason people put out vessels of water on the window-sills or the

terraces, and wash themselves with the water in the morning in order to

purify themselves and escape headaches and colds. A still more efficacious

mode of accomplishing the same end is to rise at the peep of dawn, to wet

the hands in the dewy grass, and then to rub the moisture on the eyelids,

the brow, and the temples, because the dew is believed to cure maladies of

the head and eyes. It is also a remedy for diseases of the skin. Persons

who are thus afflicted should roll on the dewy grass. When patients are

prevented by their infirmity or any other cause from quitting the house,

their friends will gather the dew in sheets or tablecloths and so apply it

to the suffering part.(730) At Marsala in Sicily there is a spring of

water in a subterranean grotto called the Grotto of the Sibyl. Beside it

stands a church of St. John, which has been supposed to occupy the site of

a temple of Apollo. On St. John’s Eve, the twenty-third of June, women and

girls visit the grotto, and by drinking of the prophetic water learn

whether their husbands have been faithful to them in the year that is

past, or whether they themselves will wed in the year that is to come.

Sick people, too, imagine that by bathing in the water, drinking of it, or

ducking thrice in it in the name of the Trinity, they will be made

whole.(731) At Chiaramonte in Sicily the following custom is observed on

St. John’s Eve. The men repair to one fountain and the women to another,

and dip their heads thrice in the water, repeating at each ablution

certain verses in honour of St. John. They believe that this is a cure or

preventive of the scald.(732) When Petrarch visited Cologne, he chanced to

arrive in the town on St. John’s Eve. The sun was nearly setting, and his

host at once led him to the Rhine. A strange sight there met his eyes, for

the banks of the river were covered with pretty women. The crowd was great

but good-humoured. From a rising ground on which he stood the poet saw

many of the women, girt with fragrant herbs, kneel down on the water’s

edge, roll their sleeves up above their elbows, and wash their white arms

and hands in the river, murmuring softly some words which the Italian did

not understand. He was told that the custom was a very old one, much

honoured in the observance; for the common folk, especially the women,

believed that to wash in the river on St. John’s Eve would avert every

misfortune in the coming year.(733) On St. John’s Eve the people of

Copenhagen used to go on pilgrimage to a neighbouring spring, there to

heal and strengthen themselves in the water.(734) In Spain people still

bathe in the sea or roll naked in the dew of the meadows on St. John’s

Eve, believing that this is a sovereign preservative against diseases of

the skin.(735) To roll in the dew on the morning of St. John’s Day is also

esteemed a cure for diseases of the skin in Normandy and Perigord. In

Perigord a field of hemp is especially recommended for the purpose, and

the patient should rub himself with the plants on which he has

rolled.(736) At Ciotat in Provence, while the midsummer bonfire blazed,

young people used to plunge into the sea and splash each other vigorously.

At Vitrolles they bathed in a pond in order that they might not suffer

from fever during the year, and at Saint-Maries they watered the horses to

protect them from the itch.(737) A custom of drenching people on this

occasion with water formerly prevailed in Toulon, Marseilles, and other

towns of the south of France. The water was squirted from syringes, poured

on the heads of passers-by from windows, and so forth.(738) From Europe

the practice of bathing in rivers and springs on St. John’s Day appears to

have passed with the Spaniards to the New World.(739)

(M189) It may perhaps be suggested that this wide-spread custom of bathing

in water or dew on Midsummer Eve or Midsummer Day is purely Christian in

origin, having been adopted as an appropriate mode of celebrating the day

dedicated to the Baptist. But in point of fact the custom is older than

Christianity, for it was denounced and forbidden as a heathen practice by

Augustine,(740) and to this day it is practised at midsummer by the

Mohammedan peoples of North Africa.(741) We may conjecture that the

Church, unable to put down this relic of paganism, followed its usual

policy of accommodation by bestowing on the rite of a Christian name and

acquiescing, with a sigh, in its observance. And casting about for a saint

to supplant a heathen patron of bathing, the Christian doctors could

hardly have hit upon a more appropriate successor than St. John the

Baptist.

(M190) But into whose shoes did the Baptist step? Was the displaced deity

really Adonis, as the foregoing evidence seems to suggest? In Sardinia and

Sicily it may have been so, for in these islands Semitic influence was

certainly deep and probably lasting. The midsummer pastimes of Sardinian

and Sicilian children may therefore be a direct continuation of the

Carthaginian rites of Tammuz. Yet the midsummer festival seems too widely

spread and too deeply rooted in Central and Northern Europe to allow us to

trace it everywhere to an Oriental origin in general and to the cult of

Adonis in particular. It has the air of a native of the soil rather than

of an exotic imported from the East. We shall do better, therefore, to

suppose that at a remote period similar modes of thought, based on similar

needs, led men independently in many distant lands, from the North Sea to

the Euphrates, to celebrate the summer solstice with rites which, while

they differed in some things, yet agreed closely in others; that in

historical times a wave of Oriental influence, starting perhaps from

Babylonia, carried the Tammuz or Adonis form of the festival westward till

it met with native forms of a similar festival; and that under pressure of

the Roman civilization these different yet kindred festivals fused with

each other and crystallized into a variety of shapes, which subsisted more

or less separately side by side, till the Church, unable to suppress them

altogether, stripped them so far as it could of their grosser features,

and dexterously changing the names allowed them to pass muster as

Christian. And what has just been said of the midsummer festivals probably

applies, with the necessary modifications, to the spring festivals also.

They, too, seem to have originated independently in Europe and the East,

and after ages of separation to have amalgamated under the sway of the

Roman Empire and the Christian Church. In Syria, as we have seen, there

appears to have been a vernal celebration of Adonis; and we shall

presently meet with an undoubted instance of an Oriental festival of

spring in the rites of Attis. Meantime we must return for a little to the

midsummer festival which goes by the name of St. John.

(M191) The Sardinian practice of making merry round a great bonfire on St.

John’s Eve is an instance of a custom which has been practised at the

midsummer festival from time immemorial in many parts of Europe. That

custom has been more fully dealt with by me elsewhere.(742) The instances

which I have cited in other parts of this work seem to indicate a

connexion of the midsummer bonfire with vegetation. For example, both in

Sweden and Bohemia an essential part of the festival is the raising of a

May-pole or Midsummer-tree, which in Bohemia is burned in the

bonfire.(743) Again, in a Russian midsummer ceremony a straw figure of

Kupalo, the representative of vegetation, is placed beside a May-pole or

Midsummer-tree and then carried to and fro across a bonfire.(744) Kupalo

is here represented in duplicate, in tree-form by the Midsummer-tree, and

in human form by the straw effigy, just as Adonis was represented both by

an image and a garden of Adonis; and the duplicate representatives of

Kupalo, like those of Adonis, are finally cast into water. In the

Sardinian and Sicilian customs the Gossips or Sweethearts of St. John

probably answer, on the one hand to Adonis and Astarte, on the other to

the King and Queen of May. In the Swedish province of Blekinge part of the

midsummer festival is the election of a Midsummer Bride, who chooses her

bridegroom; a collection is made for the pair, who for the time being are

looked upon as man and wife.(745) Such Midsummer pairs may be supposed,

like the May pairs, to stand for the powers of vegetation or of fertility

in general: they represent in flesh and blood what the images of Siva or

Mahadeo and Parvati in the Indian ceremonies, and the images of Adonis and

Aphrodite in the Alexandrian ceremony, set forth in effigy.

(M192) The reason why ceremonies whose aim is to foster the growth of

vegetation should thus be associated with bonfires; why in particular the

representative of vegetation should be burned in the likeness of a tree,

or passed across the fire in effigy or in the form of a living couple, has

been discussed by me elsewhere.(746) Here it is enough to have adduced

evidence of such association, and therefore to have obviated the objection

which might have been raised to my theory of the Sardinian custom, on the

ground that the bonfires have nothing to do with vegetation. One more

piece of evidence may here be given to prove the contrary. In some parts

of Germany and Austria young men and girls leap over midsummer bonfires

for the express purpose of making the hemp or flax grow tall.(747) We may,

therefore, assume that in the Sardinian custom the blades of wheat and

barley which are forced on in pots for the midsummer festival, and which

correspond so closely to the gardens of Adonis, form one of those

widely-spread midsummer ceremonies, the original object of which was to

promote the growth of vegetation, and especially of the crops. But as, by

an easy extension of ideas, the spirit of vegetation was believed to

exercise a beneficent and fertilizing influence on human as well as animal

life, the gardens of Adonis would be supposed, like the May-trees or

May-boughs, to bring good luck, and more particularly perhaps

offspring,(748) to the family or to the person who planted them; and even

after the idea had been abandoned that they operated actively to confer

prosperity, they might still be used to furnish omens of good or evil. It

is thus that magic dwindles into divination. Accordingly we find modes of

divination practised at midsummer which resemble more or less closely the

gardens of Adonis. Thus an anonymous Italian writer of the sixteenth

century has recorded that it was customary to sow barley and wheat a few

days before the festival of St. John (Midsummer Day) and also before that

of St. Vitus; and it was believed that the person for whom they were sown

would be fortunate, and get a good husband or a good wife, if the grain

sprouted well; but if it sprouted ill, he or she would be unlucky.(749) In

various parts of Italy and all over Sicily it is still customary to put

plants in water or in earth on the Eve of St. John, and from the manner in

which they are found to be blooming or fading on St. John’s Day omens are

drawn, especially as to fortune in love. Amongst the plants used for this

purpose are _Ciuri di S. Giuvanni_ (St. John’s wort?) and nettles.(750) In

Prussia two hundred years ago the farmers used to send out their servants,

especially their maids, to gather St. John’s wort on Midsummer Eve or

Midsummer Day (St. John’s Day). When they had fetched it, the farmer took

as many plants as there were persons and stuck them in the wall or between

the beams; and it was thought that he or she whose plant did not bloom

would soon fall sick or die. The rest of the plants were tied in a bundle,

fastened to the end of a pole, and set up at the gate or wherever the corn

would be brought in at the next harvest. The bundle was called _Kupole_:

the ceremony was known as Kupole’s festival; and at it the farmer prayed

for a good crop of hay, and so forth.(751) This Prussian custom is

particularly notable, inasmuch as it strongly confirms the opinion that

Kupalo (doubtless identical with Kupole) was originally a deity of

vegetation.(752) For here Kupalo is represented by a bundle of plants

specially associated with midsummer in folk-custom; and her influence over

vegetation is plainly signified by placing her vegetable emblem over the

place where the harvest is brought in, as well as by the prayers for a

good crop which are uttered on the occasion. This furnishes a fresh

argument in support of the view that the Death, whose analogy to Kupalo,

Yarilo, and the rest I have shown elsewhere, originally personified

vegetation, more especially the dying or dead vegetation of winter.(753)

Further, my interpretation of the gardens of Adonis is confirmed by

finding that in this Prussian custom the very same kind of plants is used

to form the gardens of Adonis (as we may call them) and the image of the

deity. Nothing could set in a stronger light the truth of the theory that

the gardens of Adonis are merely another manifestation of the god himself.

(M193) In Sicily gardens of Adonis are still sown in spring as well as in

summer, from which we may perhaps infer that Sicily as well as Syria

celebrated of old a vernal festival of the dead and risen god. At the

approach of Easter, Sicilian women sow wheat, lentils, and canary-seed in

plates, which they keep in the dark and water every two days. The plants

soon shoot up; the stalks are tied together with red ribbons, and the

plates containing them are placed on the sepulchres which, with the

effigies of the dead Christ, are made up in Catholic and Greek churches on

Good Friday,(754) just as the gardens of Adonis were placed on the grave

of the dead Adonis.(755) The practice is not confined to Sicily, for it is

observed also at Cosenza in Calabria,(756) and perhaps in other places.

The whole custom—sepulchres as well as plates of sprouting grain—may be

nothing but a continuation, under a different name, of the worship of

Adonis.

(M194) Nor are these Sicilian and Calabrian customs the only Easter

ceremonies which resemble the rites of Adonis. “During the whole of Good

Friday a waxen effigy of the dead Christ is exposed to view in the middle

of the Greek churches and is covered with fervent kisses by the thronging

crowd, while the whole church rings with melancholy, monotonous dirges.

Late in the evening, when it has grown quite dark, this waxen image is

carried by the priests into the street on a bier adorned with lemons,

roses, jessamine, and other flowers, and there begins a grand procession

of the multitude, who move in serried ranks, with slow and solemn step,

through the whole town. Every man carries his taper and breaks out into

doleful lamentation. At all the houses which the procession passes there

are seated women with censers to fumigate the marching host. Thus the

community solemnly buries its Christ as if he had just died. At last the

waxen image is again deposited in the church, and the same lugubrious

chants echo anew. These lamentations, accompanied by a strict fast,

continue till midnight on Saturday. As the clock strikes twelve, the

bishop appears and announces the glad tidings that ‘Christ is risen,’ to

which the crowd replies, ‘He is risen indeed,’ and at once the whole city

bursts into an uproar of joy, which finds vent in shrieks and shouts, in

the endless discharge of carronades and muskets, and the explosion of

fire-works of every sort. In the very same hour people plunge from the

extremity of the fast into the enjoyment of the Easter lamb and neat

wine.”(757)

(M195) In like manner the Catholic Church has been accustomed to bring

before its followers in a visible form the death and resurrection of the

Redeemer. Such sacred dramas are well fitted to impress the lively

imagination and to stir the warm feelings of a susceptible southern race,

to whom the pomp and pageantry of Catholicism are more congenial than to

the colder temperament of the Teutonic peoples. The solemnities observed

in Sicily on Good Friday, the official anniversary of the Crucifixion, are

thus described by a native Sicilian writer. “A truly moving ceremony is

the procession which always takes place in the evening in every commune of

Sicily, and further the Deposition from the Cross. The brotherhoods took

part in the procession, and the rear was brought up by a great many boys

and girls representing saints, both male and female, and carrying the

emblems of Christ’s Passion. The Deposition from the Cross was managed by

the priests. The coffin with the dead Christ in it was flanked by Jews

armed with swords, an object of horror and aversion in the midst of the

profound pity excited by the sight not only of Christ but of the Mater

Dolorosa, who followed behind him. Now and then the ‘mysteries’ or symbols

of the Crucifixion went in front. Sometimes the procession followed the

‘three hours of agony’ and the ‘Deposition from the Cross.’ The ‘three

hours’ commemorated those which Jesus Christ passed upon the Cross.

Beginning at the eighteenth and ending at the twenty-first hour of Italian

time two priests preached alternately on the Passion. Anciently the

sermons were delivered in the open air on the place called the Calvary: at

last, when the third hour was about to strike, at the words _emisit

spiritum_ Christ died, bowing his head amid the sobs and tears of the

bystanders. Immediately afterwards in some places, three hours afterwards

in others, the sacred body was unnailed and deposited in the coffin. In

Castronuovo, at the Ave Maria, two priests clad as Jews, representing

Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, with their servants in costume,

repaired to the Calvary, preceded by the Company of the Whites. There,

with doleful verses and chants appropriate to the occasion, they performed

the various operations of the Deposition, after which the procession took

its way to the larger church.... In Salaparuta the Calvary is erected in

the church. At the preaching of the death, the Crucified is made to bow

his head by means of machinery, while guns are fired, trumpets sound, and

amid the silence of the people, impressed by the death of the Redeemer,

the strains of a melancholy funeral march are heard. Christ is removed

from the Cross and deposited in the coffin by three priests. After the

procession of the dead Christ the burial is performed, that is, two

priests lay Christ in a fictitious sepulchre, from which at the mass of

Easter Saturday the image of the risen Christ issues and is elevated upon

the altar by means of machinery.”(758) Scenic representations of the same

sort, with variations of detail, are exhibited at Easter in the

Abruzzi,(759) and probably in many other parts of the Catholic world.(760)

(M196) When we reflect how often the Church has skilfully contrived to

plant the seeds of the new faith on the old stock of paganism, we may

surmise that the Easter celebration of the dead and risen Christ was

grafted upon a similar celebration of the dead and risen Adonis, which, as

we have seen reason to believe, was celebrated in Syria at the same

season. The type, created by Greek artists, of the sorrowful goddess with

her dying lover in her arms, resembles and may have been the model of the

_Pietà_ of Christian art, the Virgin with the dead body of her divine Son

in her lap, of which the most celebrated example is the one by Michael

Angelo in St. Peter’s. That noble group, in which the living sorrow of the

mother contrasts so wonderfully with the languor of death in the son, is

one of the finest compositions in marble. Ancient Greek art has bequeathed

to us few works so beautiful, and none so pathetic.(761)

(M197) In this connexion a well-known statement of Jerome may not be

without significance. He tells us that Bethlehem, the traditionary

birthplace of the Lord, was shaded by a grove of that still older Syrian

Lord, Adonis, and that where the infant Jesus had wept, the lover of Venus

was bewailed.(762) Though he does not expressly say so, Jerome seems to

have thought that the grove of Adonis had been planted by the heathen

after the birth of Christ for the purpose of defiling the sacred spot. In

this he may have been mistaken. If Adonis was indeed, as I have argued,

the spirit of the corn, a more suitable name for his dwelling-place could

hardly be found than Bethlehem, “the House of Bread,”(763) and he may well

have been worshipped there at his House of Bread long ages before the

birth of Him who said, “I am the bread of life.”(764) Even on the

hypothesis that Adonis followed rather than preceded Christ at Bethlehem,

the choice of his sad figure to divert the allegiance of Christians from

their Lord cannot but strike us as eminently appropriate when we remember

the similarity of the rites which commemorated the death and resurrection

of the two. One of the earliest seats of the worship of the new god was

Antioch, and at Antioch, as we have seen,(765) the death of the old god

was annually celebrated with great solemnity. A circumstance which

attended the entrance of Julian into the city at the time of the Adonis

festival may perhaps throw some light on the date of its celebration. When

the emperor drew near to the city he was received with public prayers as

if he had been a god, and he marvelled at the voices of a great multitude

who cried that the Star of Salvation had dawned upon them in the

East.(766) This may doubtless have been no more than a fulsome compliment

paid by an obsequious Oriental crowd to the Roman emperor. But it is also

possible that the rising of a bright star regularly gave the signal for

the festival, and that as chance would have it the star emerged above the

rim of the eastern horizon at the very moment of the emperor’s approach.

The coincidence, if it happened, could hardly fail to strike the

imagination of a superstitious and excited multitude, who might thereupon

hail the great man as the deity whose coming was announced by the sign in

the heavens. Or the emperor may have mistaken for a greeting to himself

the shouts which were addressed to the star. Now Astarte, the divine

mistress of Adonis, was identified with the planet Venus, and her changes

from a morning to an evening star were carefully noted by the Babylonian

astronomers, who drew omens from her alternate appearance and

disappearance.(767) Hence we may conjecture that the festival of Adonis

was regularly timed to coincide with the appearance of Venus as the

Morning or Evening Star. But the star which the people of Antioch saluted

at the festival was seen in the East; therefore, if it was indeed Venus,

it can only have been the Morning Star. At Aphaca in Syria, where there

was a famous temple of Astarte, the signal for the celebration of the

rites was apparently given by the flashing of a meteor, which on a certain

day fell like a star from the top of Mount Lebanon into the river Adonis.

The meteor was thought to be Astarte herself,(768) and its flight through

the air might naturally be interpreted as the descent of the amorous

goddess to the arms of her lover. At Antioch and elsewhere the appearance

of the Morning Star on the day of the festival may in like manner have

been hailed as the coming of the goddess of love to wake her dead leman

from his earthy bed. If that were so, we may surmise that it was the

Morning Star which guided the wise men of the East to Bethlehem,(769) the

hallowed spot which heard, in the language of Jerome, the weeping of the

infant Christ and the lament for Adonis.

BOOK SECOND. ATTIS.

Chapter I. The Myth and Ritual of Attis.

(M198) Another of those gods whose supposed death and resurrection struck

such deep roots into the faith and ritual of Western Asia is Attis. He was

to Phrygia what Adonis was to Syria. Like Adonis, he appears to have been

a god of vegetation, and his death and resurrection were annually mourned

and rejoiced over at a festival in spring.(770) The legends and rites of

the two gods were so much alike that the ancients themselves sometimes

identified them.(771) Attis was said to have been a fair young shepherd or

herdsman beloved by Cybele, the Mother of the Gods, a great Asiatic

goddess of fertility, who had her chief home in Phrygia.(772) Some held

that Attis was her son.(773) His birth, like that of many other heroes, is

said to have been miraculous. His mother, Nana, was a virgin, who

conceived by putting a ripe almond or a pomegranate in her bosom. Indeed

in the Phrygian cosmogony an almond figured as the father of all

things,(774) perhaps because its delicate lilac blossom is one of the

first heralds of the spring, appearing on the bare boughs before the

leaves have opened. Such tales of virgin mothers are relics of an age of

childish ignorance when men had not yet recognized the intercourse of the

sexes as the true cause of offspring. That ignorance, still shared by the

lowest of existing savages, the aboriginal tribes of central

Australia,(775) was doubtless at one time universal among mankind. Even in

later times, when people are better acquainted with the laws of nature,

they sometimes imagine that these laws may be subject to exceptions, and

that miraculous beings may be born in miraculous ways by women who have

never known a man. In Palestine to this day it is believed that a woman

may conceive by a jinnee or by the spirit of her dead husband. There is,

or was lately, a man at Nebk who is currently supposed to be the offspring

of such a union, and the simple folk have never suspected his mother’s

virtue.(776) Two different accounts of the death of Attis were current.

According to the one he was killed by a boar, like Adonis. According to

the other he unmanned himself under a pine-tree, and bled to death on the

spot. The latter is said to have been the local story told by the people

of Pessinus, a great seat of the worship of Cybele, and the whole legend

of which the story forms a part is stamped with a character of rudeness

and savagery that speaks strongly for its antiquity.(777) Both tales might

claim the support of custom, or rather both were probably invented to

explain certain customs observed by the worshippers. The story of the

self-mutilation of Attis is clearly an attempt to account for the

self-mutilation of his priests, who regularly castrated themselves on

entering the service of the goddess. The story of his death by the boar

may have been told to explain why his worshippers, especially the people

of Pessinus, abstained from eating swine.(778) In like manner the

worshippers of Adonis abstained from pork, because a boar had killed their

god.(779) After his death Attis is said to have been changed into a

pine-tree.(780)

(M199) The worship of the Phrygian Mother of the Gods was adopted by the

Romans in 204 B.C. towards the close of their long struggle with Hannibal.

For their drooping spirits had been opportunely cheered by a prophecy,

alleged to be drawn from that convenient farrago of nonsense, the

Sibylline Books, that the foreign invader would be driven from Italy if

the great Oriental goddess were brought to Rome. Accordingly ambassadors

were despatched to her sacred city Pessinus in Phrygia. The small black

stone which embodied the mighty divinity was entrusted to them and

conveyed to Rome, where it was received with great respect and installed

in the temple of Victory on the Palatine Hill. It was the middle of April

when the goddess arrived,(781) and she went to work at once. For the

harvest that year was such as had not been seen for many a long day,(782)

and in the very next year Hannibal and his veterans embarked for Africa.

As he looked his last on the coast of Italy, fading behind him in the

distance, he could not foresee that Europe, which had repelled the arms,

would yet yield to the gods, of the Orient. The vanguard of the conquerors

had already encamped in the heart of Italy before the rearguard of the

beaten army fell sullenly back from its shores.

(M200) We may conjecture, though we are not told, that the Mother of the

Gods brought with her the worship of her youthful lover or son to her new

home in the West. Certainly the Romans were familiar with the Galli, the

emasculated priests of Attis, before the close of the Republic. These

unsexed beings, in their Oriental costume, with little images suspended on

their breasts, appear to have been a familiar sight in the streets of

Rome, which they traversed in procession, carrying the image of the

goddess and chanting their hymns to the music of cymbals and tambourines,

flutes and horns, while the people, impressed by the fantastic show and

moved by the wild strains, flung alms to them in abundance, and buried the

image and its bearers under showers of roses.(783) A further step was

taken by the Emperor Claudius when he incorporated the Phrygian worship of

the sacred tree, and with it probably the orgiastic rites of Attis, in the

established religion of Rome.(784) The great spring festival of Cybele and

Attis is best known to us in the form in which it was celebrated at Rome;

but as we are informed that the Roman ceremonies were also Phrygian,(785)

we may assume that they differed hardly, if at all, from their Asiatic

original. The order of the festival seems to have been as follows.(786)

(M201) On the twenty-second day of March, a pine-tree was cut in the woods

and brought into the sanctuary of Cybele, where it was treated as a great,

divinity. The duty of carrying the sacred tree was entrusted to a guild of

Tree-bearers. The trunk was swathed like a corpse with woollen bands and

decked with wreaths, of violets, for violets were said to have sprung from

the blood of Attis, as roses and anemones from the blood of Adonis; and

the effigy of a young man, doubtless Attis himself, was tied to the middle

of the stem.(787) On the second day of the festival, the twenty-third of

March, the chief ceremony seems to have been a blowing of trumpets.(788)

The third day, the twenty-fourth of March, was known as the Day of Blood:

the Archigallus or high-priest drew blood from his arms and presented it

as an offering.(789) Nor was he alone in making this bloody sacrifice.

Stirred by the wild barbaric music of clashing cymbals, rumbling drums,

droning horns, and screaming flutes, the inferior clergy whirled about in

the dance with waggling heads and streaming hair, until, rapt into a

frenzy of excitement and insensible to pain, they gashed their bodies with

potsherds or slashed them with knives in order to bespatter the altar and

the sacred tree with their flowing blood.(790) The ghastly rite probably

formed part of the mourning for Attis and may have been intended to

strengthen him for the resurrection. The Australian aborigines cut

themselves in like manner over the graves of their friends for the

purpose, perhaps, of enabling them to be born again.(791) Further, we may

conjecture, though we are not expressly told, that it was on the same Day

of Blood and for the same purpose that the novices sacrificed their

virility. Wrought up to the highest pitch of religious excitement they

dashed the severed portions of themselves against the image of the cruel

goddess. These broken instruments of fertility were afterwards reverently

wrapt up and buried in the earth or in subterranean chambers sacred to

Cybele,(792) where, like the offering of blood, they may have been deemed

instrumental in recalling Attis to life and hastening the general

resurrection of nature, which was then bursting into leaf and blossom in

the vernal sunshine. Some confirmation of this conjecture is furnished by

the savage story that the mother of Attis conceived by putting in her

bosom a pomegranate sprung from the severed genitals of a man-monster

named Agdestis, a sort of double of Attis.(793)

(M202) If there is any truth in this conjectural explanation of the

custom, we can readily understand why other Asiatic goddesses of fertility

were served in like manner by eunuch priests. These feminine deities

required to receive from their male ministers, who personated the divine

lovers, the means of discharging their beneficent functions: they had

themselves to be impregnated by the life-giving energy before they could

transmit it to the world. Goddesses thus ministered to by eunuch priests

were the great Artemis of Ephesus(794) and the great Syrian Astarte of

Hierapolis,(795) whose sanctuary, frequented by swarms of pilgrims and

enriched by the offerings of Assyria and Babylonia, of Arabia and

Phoenicia, was perhaps in the days of its glory the most popular in the

East.(796) Now the unsexed priests of this Syrian goddess resembled those

of Cybele so closely that some people took them to be the same.(797) And

the mode in which they dedicated themselves to the religious life was

similar. The greatest festival of the year at Hierapolis fell at the

beginning of spring, when multitudes thronged to the sanctuary from Syria

and the regions round about. While the flutes played, the drums beat, and

the eunuch priests slashed themselves with knives, the religious

excitement gradually spread like a wave among the crowd of onlookers, and

many a one did that which he little thought to do when he came as a

holiday spectator to the festival. For man after man, his veins throbbing

with the music, his eyes fascinated by the sight of the streaming blood,

flung his garments from him, leaped forth with a shout, and seizing one of

the swords which stood ready for the purpose, castrated himself on the

spot. Then he ran through the city, holding the bloody pieces in his hand,

till he threw them into one of the houses which he passed in his mad

career. The household thus honoured had to furnish him with a suit of

female attire and female ornaments, which he wore for the rest of his

life.(798) When the tumult of emotion had subsided, and the man had come

to himself again, the irrevocable sacrifice must often have been followed

by passionate sorrow and lifelong regret. This revulsion of natural human

feeling after the frenzies of a fanatical religion is powerfully depicted

by Catullus in a celebrated poem.(799)

(M203) The parallel of these Syrian devotees confirms the view that in the

similar worship of Cybele the sacrifice of virility took place on the Day

of Blood at the vernal rites of the goddess, when the violets, supposed to

spring from the red drops of her wounded lover, were in bloom among the

pines. Indeed the story that Attis unmanned himself under a pine-tree(800)

was clearly devised to explain why his priests did the same beside the

sacred violet-wreathed tree at his festival. At all events, we can hardly

doubt that the Day of Blood witnessed the mourning for Attis over an

effigy of him which was afterwards buried.(801) The image thus laid in the

sepulchre was probably the same which had hung upon the tree.(802)

Throughout the period of mourning the worshippers fasted from bread,

nominally because Cybele had done so in her grief for the death of

Attis,(803) but really perhaps for the same reason which induced the women

of Harran to abstain from eating anything ground in a mill while they wept

for Tammuz.(804) To partake of bread or flour at such a season might have

been deemed a wanton profanation of the bruised and broken body of the

god. Or the fast may possibly have been a preparation for a sacramental

meal.(805)

(M204) But when night had fallen, the sorrow of the worshippers was turned

to joy. For suddenly a light shone in the darkness: the tomb was opened:

the god had risen from the dead; and as the priest touched the lips of the

weeping mourners with balm, he softly whispered in their ears the glad

tidings of salvation. The resurrection of the god was hailed by his

disciples as a promise that they too would issue triumphant from the

corruption of the grave.(806) On the morrow, the twenty-fifth day of

March, which was reckoned the vernal equinox, the divine resurrection was

celebrated with a wild outburst of glee. At Rome, and probably elsewhere,

the celebration took the form of a carnival. It was the Festival of Joy

(_Hilaria_). A universal licence prevailed. Every man might say and do

what he pleased. People went about the streets in disguise. No dignity was

too high or too sacred for the humblest citizen to assume with impunity.

In the reign of Commodus a band of conspirators thought to take advantage

of the masquerade by dressing in the uniform of the Imperial Guard, and

so, mingling with the crowd of merrymakers, to get within stabbing

distance of the emperor. But the plot miscarried.(807) Even the stern

Alexander Severus used to relax so far on the joyous day as to admit a

pheasant to his frugal board.(808) The next day, the twenty-sixth of

March, was given to repose, which must have been much needed after the

varied excitements and fatigues of the preceding days.(809) Finally, the

Roman festival closed on the twenty-seventh of March with a procession to

the brook Almo. The silver image of the goddess, with its face of jagged

black stone, sat in a wagon drawn by oxen. Preceded by the nobles walking

barefoot, it moved slowly, to the loud music of pipes and tambourines, out

by the Porta Capena, and so down to the banks of the Almo, which flows

into the Tiber just below the walls of Rome. There the high-priest, robed

in purple, washed the wagon, the image, and the other sacred objects in

the water of the stream. On returning from their bath, the wain and the

oxen were strewn with fresh spring flowers. All was mirth and gaiety. No

one thought of the blood that had flowed so lately. Even the eunuch

priests forgot their wounds.(810)

(M205) Such, then, appears to have been the annual solemnization of the

death and resurrection of Attis in spring. But besides these public rites,

his worship is known to have comprised certain secret or mystic

ceremonies, which probably aimed at bringing the worshipper, and

especially the novice, into closer communication with his god. Our

information as to the nature of these mysteries and the date of their

celebration is unfortunately very scanty, but they seem to have included a

sacramental meal and a baptism of blood. In the sacrament the novice

became a partaker of the mysteries by eating out of a drum and drinking

out of a cymbal, two instruments of music which figured prominently in the

thrilling orchestra of Attis.(811) The fast which accompanied the mourning

for the dead god(812) may perhaps have been designed to prepare the body

of the communicant for the reception of the blessed sacrament by purging

it of all that could defile by contact the sacred elements.(813) In the

baptism the devotee, crowned with gold and wreathed with fillets,

descended into a pit, the mouth of which was covered with a wooden

grating. A bull, adorned with garlands of flowers, its forehead glittering

with gold leaf, was then driven on to the grating and there stabbed to

death with a consecrated spear. Its hot reeking blood poured in torrents

through the apertures, and was received with devout eagerness by the

worshipper on every part of his person and garments, till he emerged from

the pit, drenched, dripping, and scarlet from head to foot, to receive the

homage, nay the adoration, of his fellows as one who had been born again

to eternal life and had washed away his sins in the blood of the

bull.(814) For some time afterwards the fiction of a new birth was kept up

by dieting him on milk like a new-born babe.(815) The regeneration of the

worshipper took place at the same time as the regeneration of his god,

namely at the vernal equinox.(816) At Rome the new birth and the remission

of sins by the shedding of bull’s blood appear to have been carried out

above all at the sanctuary of the Phrygian goddess on the Vatican Hill, at

or near the spot where the great basilica of St. Peter’s now stands; for

many inscriptions relating to the rites were found when the church was

being enlarged in 1608 or 1609.(817) From the Vatican as a centre this

barbarous system of superstition seems to have spread to other parts of

the Roman empire. Inscriptions found in Gaul and Germany prove that

provincial sanctuaries modelled their ritual on that of the Vatican.(818)

From the same source we learn that the testicles as well as the blood of

the bull played an important part in the ceremonies.(819) Probably they

were regarded as a powerful charm to promote fertility and hasten the new

birth.

Chapter II. Attis As a God of Vegetation.

(M206) The original character of Attis as a tree-spirit is brought out

plainly by the part which the pine-tree plays in his legend, his ritual,

and his monuments.(820) The story that he was a human being transformed

into a pine-tree is only one of those transparent attempts at

rationalizing old beliefs which meet us so frequently in mythology. The

bringing in of the pine-tree from the woods, decked with violets and

woollen bands, is like bringing in the May-tree or Summer-tree in modern

folk-custom; and the effigy which was attached to the pine-tree was only a

duplicate representative of the tree-spirit Attis. After being fastened to

the tree, the effigy was kept for a year and then burned.(821) The same

thing appears to have been sometimes done with the May-pole; and in like

manner the effigy of the corn-spirit, made at harvest, is often preserved

till it is replaced by a new effigy at next year’s harvest.(822) The

original intention of such customs was no doubt to maintain the spirit of

vegetation in life throughout the year. Why the Phrygians should have

worshipped the pine above other trees we can only guess. Perhaps the sight

of its changeless, though sombre, green cresting the ridges of the high

hills above the fading splendour of the autumn woods in the valleys may

have seemed to their eyes to mark it out as the seat of a diviner life, of

something exempt from the sad vicissitudes of the seasons, constant and

eternal as the sky which stooped to meet it. For the same reason, perhaps,

ivy was sacred to Attis; at all events, we read that his eunuch priests

were tattooed with a pattern of ivy leaves.(823) Another reason for the

sanctity of the pine may have been its usefulness. The cones of the

stone-pine contain edible nut-like seeds, which have been used as food

since antiquity, and are still eaten, for example, by the poorer classes

in Rome.(824) Moreover, a wine was brewed from these seeds,(825) and this

may partly account for the orgiastic nature of the rites of Cybele, which

the ancients compared to those of Dionysus.(826) Further, pine-cones were

regarded as symbols or rather instruments of fertility. Hence at the

festival of the Thesmophoria they were thrown, along with pigs and other

agents or emblems of fecundity, into the sacred vaults of Demeter for the

purpose of quickening the ground and the wombs of women.(827)

(M207) Like tree-spirits in general, Attis was apparently thought to wield

power over the fruits of the earth or even to be identical with the corn.

One of his epithets was “very fruitful”: he was addressed as the “reaped

green (or yellow) ear of corn”; and the story of his sufferings, death,

and resurrection was interpreted as the ripe grain wounded by the reaper,

buried in the granary, and coming to life again when it is sown in the

ground.(828) A statue of him in the Lateran Museum at Rome clearly

indicates his relation to the fruits of the earth, and particularly to the

corn; for it represents him with a bunch of ears of corn and fruit in his

hand, and a wreath of pine-cones, pomegranates, and other fruits on his

head, while from the top of his Phrygian cap ears of corn are

sprouting.(829) On a stone urn, which contained the ashes of an

Archigallus or high-priest of Attis, the same idea is expressed in a

slightly different way. The top of the urn is adorned with ears of corn

carved in relief, and it is surmounted by the figure of a cock, whose tail

consists of ears of corn.(830) Cybele in like manner was conceived as a

goddess of fertility who could make or mar the fruits of the earth; for

the people of Augustodunum (Autun) in Gaul used to cart her image about in

a wagon for the good of the fields and vineyards, while they danced and

sang before it,(831) and we have seen that in Italy an unusually fine

harvest was attributed to the recent arrival of the Great Mother.(832) The

bathing of the image of the goddess in a river may well have been a

rain-charm to ensure an abundant supply of moisture for the crops. Or

perhaps, as Mr. Hepding has suggested, the union of Cybele and Attis, like

that of Aphrodite and Adonis, was dramatically represented at the

festival, and the subsequent bath of the goddess was a ceremonial

purification of the bride, such as is often observed at human

marriages.(833) In like manner Aphrodite is said to have bathed after her

union with Adonis,(834) and so did Demeter after her intercourse with

Poseidon.(835) Hera washed in the springs of the river Burrha after her

marriage with Zeus;(836) and every year she recovered her virginity by

bathing in the spring of Canathus.(837) However that may be, the rules of

diet observed by the worshippers of Cybele and Attis at their solemn fasts

are clearly dictated by a belief that the divine life of these deities

manifested itself in the fruits of the earth, and especially in such of

them as are actually hidden by the soil. For while the devotees were

allowed to partake of flesh, though not of pork or fish, they were

forbidden to eat seeds and the roots of vegetables, but they might eat the

stalks and upper parts of the plants.(838)

Chapter III. Attis As The Father God.

(M208) The name Attis appears to mean simply “father.”(839) This

explanation, suggested by etymology, is confirmed by the observation that

another name for Attis was Papas;(840) for Papas has all the appearance of

being a common form of that word for “father” which occurs independently

in many distinct families of speech all the world over. Similarly the

mother of Attis was named Nana,(841) which is itself a form of the

world-wide word for “mother.” “The immense list of such words collected by

Buschmann shows that the types _pa_ and _ta_, with the similar forms _ap_

and _at_, preponderate in the world as names for ‘father,’ while _ma_ and

_na_, _am_ and _an_, preponderate as names for ‘mother.’ ”(842)

(M209) Thus the mother of Attis is only another form of his divine

mistress the great Mother Goddess,(843) and we are brought back to the

myth that the lovers were mother and son. The story that Nana conceived

miraculously without commerce with the other sex shows that the Mother

Goddess of Phrygia herself was viewed, like other goddesses of the same

primitive type, as a Virgin Mother.(844) That view of her character does

not rest on a perverse and mischievous theory that virginity is more

honourable than matrimony. It is derived, as I have already indicated,

from a state of savagery in which the mere fact of paternity was unknown.

That explains why in later times, long after the true nature of paternity

had been ascertained, the Father God was often a much less important

personage in mythology than his divine partner the Mother Goddess. With

regard to Attis in his paternal character it deserves to be noticed that

the Bithynians used to ascend to the tops of the mountains and there call

upon him under the name of Papas. The custom is attested by Arrian,(845)

who as a native of Bithynia must have had good opportunities of observing

it. We may perhaps infer from it that the Bithynians conceived Attis as a

sky-god or heavenly father, like Zeus, with whom indeed Arrian identifies

him. If that were so, the story of the loves of Attis and Cybele, the

Father God and the Mother Goddess, might be in one of its aspects a

particular version of the widespread myth which represents Mother Earth

fertilized by Father Sky;(846) and, further, the story of the emasculation

of Attis would be parallel to the Greek legend that Cronus castrated his

father, the old sky-god Uranus,(847) and was himself in turn castrated by

his own son, the younger sky-god Zeus.(848) The tale of the mutilation of

the sky-god by his son has been plausibly explained as a myth of the

violent separation of the earth and sky, which some races, for example the

Polynesians, suppose to have originally clasped each other in a close

embrace.(849) Yet it seems unlikely that an order of eunuch priests like

the Galli should have been based on a purely cosmogonic myth: why should

they continue for all time to be mutilated because the sky-god was so in

the beginning? The custom of castration must surely have been designed to

meet a constantly recurring need, not merely to reflect a mythical event

which happened at the creation of the world. Such a need is the

maintenance of the fruitfulness of the earth, annually imperilled by the

changes of the seasons. Yet the theory that the mutilation of the priests

of Attis and the burial of the severed parts were designed to fertilize

the ground may perhaps be reconciled with the cosmogonic myth if we

remember the old opinion, held apparently by many peoples, that the

creation of the world is year by year repeated in that great

transformation which depends ultimately on the annual increase of the

sun’s heat.(850) However, the evidence for the celestial aspect of Attis

is too slight to allow us to speak with any confidence on this subject. A

trace of that aspect appears to survive in the star-spangled cap which he

is said to have received from Cybele,(851) and which is figured on some

monuments supposed to represent him.(852) His identification with the

Phrygian moon-god Men Tyrannus(853) points in the same direction, but is

probably due rather to the religious speculation of a later age than to

genuine popular tradition.(854)

Chapter IV. Human Representatives of Attis.

(M210) From inscriptions it appears that both at Pessinus and Rome the

high-priest of Cybele regularly bore the name of Attis.(855) It is

therefore a reasonable conjecture that he played the part of his namesake,

the legendary Attis, at the annual festival.(856) We have seen that on the

Day of Blood he drew blood from his arms, and this may have been an

imitation of the self-inflicted death of Attis under the pine-tree. It is

not inconsistent with this supposition that Attis was also represented at

these ceremonies by an effigy; for instances can be shown in which the

divine being is first represented by a living person and afterwards by an

effigy, which is then burned or otherwise destroyed.(857) Perhaps we may

go a step farther and conjecture that this mimic killing of the priest,

accompanied by a real effusion of his blood, was in Phrygia, as it has

been elsewhere, a substitute for a human sacrifice which in earlier times

was actually offered. Sir W. M. Ramsay, whose authority on all questions

relating to Phrygia no one will dispute, is of opinion that at these

Phrygian ceremonies “the representative of the god was probably slain each

year by a cruel death, just as the god himself died.”(858) We know from

Strabo(859) that the priests of Pessinus were at one time potentates as

well as priests; they may, therefore, have belonged to that class of

divine kings or popes whose duty it was to die each year for their people

and the world. The name of Attis, it is true, does not occur among the

names of the old kings of Phrygia, who seem to have borne the names of

Midas and Gordias in alternate generations; but a very ancient inscription

carved in the rock above a famous Phrygian monument, which is known as the

Tomb of Midas, records that the monument was made for, or dedicated to,

King Midas by a certain Ates, whose name is doubtless identical with

Attis, and who, if not a king himself, may have been one of the royal

family.(860) It is worthy of note also that the name Atys, which, again,

appears to be only another form of Attis, is recorded as that of an early

king of Lydia;(861) and that a son of Croesus, king of Lydia, not only

bore the name Atys but was said to have been killed, while he was hunting

a boar, by a member of the royal Phrygian family, who traced his lineage

to King Midas and had fled to the court of Croesus because he had

unwittingly slain his own brother.(862) Scholars have recognized in this

story of the death of Atys, son of Croesus, a mere double of the myth of

Attis;(863) and in view of the facts which have come before us in the

present inquiry(864) it is a remarkable circumstance that the myth of a

slain god should be told of a king’s son. May we conjecture that the

Phrygian priests who bore the name of Attis and represented the god of

that name were themselves members, perhaps the eldest sons, of the royal

house, to whom their fathers, uncles, brothers, or other kinsmen deputed

the honour of dying a violent death in the character of gods, while they

reserved to themselves the duty of living, as long as nature allowed them,

in the humbler character of kings? If this were so, the Phrygian dynasty

of Midas may have presented a close parallel to the Greek dynasty of

Athamas, in which the eldest sons seem to have been regularly destined to

the altar.(865) But it is also possible that the divine priests who bore

the name of Attis may have belonged to that indigenous race which the

Phrygians, on their irruption into Asia from Europe, appear to have found

and conquered in the land afterwards known as Phrygia.(866) On the latter

hypothesis the priests may have represented an older and higher

civilization than that of their barbarous conquerors. Be that as it may,

the god they personated was a deity of vegetation whose divine life

manifested itself especially in the pine-tree and the violets of spring;

and if they died in the character of that divinity, they corresponded to

the mummers who are still slain in mimicry by European peasants in spring,

and to the priest who was slain long ago in grim earnest on the wooded

shore of the Lake of Nemi.

Chapter V. The Hanged God.

(M211) A reminiscence of the manner in which these old representatives of

the deity were put to death is perhaps preserved in the famous story of

Marsyas. He was said to be a Phrygian satyr or Silenus, according to

others a shepherd or herdsman, who played sweetly on the flute. A friend

of Cybele, he roamed the country with the disconsolate goddess to soothe

her grief for the death of Attis.(867) The composition of the Mother’s

Air, a tune played on the flute in honour of the Great Mother Goddess, was

attributed to him by the people of Celaenae in Phrygia.(868) Vain of his

skill, he challenged Apollo to a musical contest, he to play on the flute

and Apollo on the lyre. Being vanquished, Marsyas was tied up to a

pine-tree and flayed or cut limb from limb either by the victorious Apollo

or by a Scythian slave.(869) His skin was shown at Celaenae in historical

times. It hung at the foot of the citadel in a cave from which the river

Marsyas rushed with an impetuous and noisy tide to join the Maeander.(870)

So the Adonis bursts full-born from the precipices of the Lebanon; so the

blue river of Ibreez leaps in a crystal jet from the red rocks of the

Taurus; so the stream, which now rumbles deep underground, used to gleam

for a moment on its passage from darkness to darkness in the dim light of

the Corycian cave. In all these copious fountains, with their glad promise

of fertility and life, men of old saw the hand of God and worshipped him

beside the rushing river with the music of its tumbling waters in their

ears. At Celaenae, if we can trust tradition, the piper Marsyas, hanging

in his cave, had a soul for harmony even in death; for it is said that at

the sound of his native Phrygian melodies the skin of the dead satyr used

to thrill, but that if the musician struck up an air in praise of Apollo

it remained deaf and motionless.(871)

(M212) In this Phrygian satyr, shepherd, or herdsman who enjoyed the

friendship of Cybele, practised the music so characteristic of her

rites,(872) and died a violent death on her sacred tree, the pine, may we

not detect a close resemblance to Attis, the favourite shepherd or

herdsman of the goddess, who is himself described as a piper,(873) is said

to have perished under a pine-tree, and was annually represented by an

effigy hung, like Marsyas, upon a pine? We may conjecture that in old days

the priest who bore the name and played the part of Attis at the spring

festival of Cybele was regularly hanged or otherwise slain upon the sacred

tree, and that this barbarous custom was afterwards mitigated into the

form in which it is known to us in later times, when the priest merely

drew blood from his body under the tree and attached an effigy instead of

himself to its trunk. In the holy grove at Upsala men and animals were

sacrificed by being hanged upon the sacred trees.(874) The human victims

dedicated to Odin were regularly put to death by hanging or by a

combination of hanging and stabbing, the man being strung up to a tree or

a gallows and then wounded with a spear. Hence Odin was called the Lord of

the Gallows or the God of the Hanged, and he is represented sitting under

a gallows tree.(875) Indeed he is said to have been sacrificed to himself

in the ordinary way, as we learn from the weird verses of the _Havamal_,

in which the god describes how he acquired his divine power by learning

the magic runes:

“_I know that I hung on the windy tree_

_For nine whole nights,_

_Wounded with the spear, dedicated to Odin,_

_Myself to myself._”(876)

The Bagobos of Mindanao, one of the Philippine Islands, used annually to

sacrifice human victims for the good of the crops in a similar way. Early

in December, when the constellation Orion appeared at seven o’clock in the

evening, the people knew that the time had come to clear their fields for

sowing and to sacrifice a slave. The sacrifice was presented to certain

powerful spirits as payment for the good year which the people had

enjoyed, and to ensure the favour of the spirits for the coming season.

The victim was led to a great tree in the forest; there he was tied with

his back to the tree and his arms stretched high above his head, in the

attitude in which ancient artists portrayed Marsyas hanging on the fatal

tree. While he thus hung by the arms, he was slain by a spear thrust

through his body at the level of the armpits. Afterwards the body was cut

clean through the middle at the waist, and the upper part was apparently

allowed to dangle for a little from the tree, while the under part

wallowed in blood on the ground. The two portions were finally cast into a

shallow trench beside the tree. Before this was done, anybody who wished

might cut off a piece of flesh or a lock of hair from the corpse and carry

it to the grave of some relation whose body was being consumed by a ghoul.

Attracted by the fresh corpse, the ghoul would leave the mouldering old

body in peace. These sacrifices have been offered by men now living.(877)

(M213) In Greece the great goddess Artemis herself appears to have been

annually hanged in effigy in her sacred grove of Condylea among the

Arcadian hills, and there accordingly she went by the name of the Hanged

One.(878) Indeed a trace of a similar rite may perhaps be detected even at

Ephesus, the most famous of her sanctuaries, in the legend of a woman who

hanged herself and was thereupon dressed by the compassionate goddess in

her own divine garb and called by the name of Hecate.(879) Similarly, at

Melite in Phthia, a story was told of a girl named Aspalis who hanged

herself, but who appears to have been merely a form of Artemis. For after

her death her body could not be found, but an image of her was discovered

standing beside the image of Artemis, and the people bestowed on it the

title of Hecaerge or Far-shooter, one of the regular epithets of the

goddess. Every year the virgins sacrificed a young goat to the image by

hanging it, because Astypalis was said to have hanged herself.(880) The

sacrifice may have been a substitute for hanging an image or a human

representative of Artemis. Again, in Rhodes the fair Helen was worshipped

under the title of Helen of the Tree, because the queen of the island had

caused her handmaids, disguised as Furies, to string her up to a

bough.(881) That the Asiatic Greeks sacrificed animals in this fashion is

proved by coins of Ilium, which represent an ox or cow hanging on a tree

and stabbed with a knife by a man, who sits among the branches or on the

animal’s back.(882) At Hierapolis also the victims were hung on trees

before they were burnt.(883) With these Greek and Scandinavian parallels

before us we can hardly dismiss as wholly improbable the conjecture that

in Phrygia a man-god may have hung year by year on the sacred but fatal

tree.

(M214) The tradition that Marsyas was flayed and that his skin was

exhibited at Celaenae down to historical times may well reflect a ritual

practice of flaying the dead god and hanging his skin upon the pine as a

means of effecting his resurrection, and with it the revival of vegetation

in spring. Similarly, in ancient Mexico the human victims who personated

gods were often flayed and their bloody skins worn by men who appear to

have represented the dead deities come to life again.(884) When a Scythian

king died, he was buried in a grave along with one of his concubines, his

cup-bearer, cook, groom, lacquey, and messenger, who were all killed for

the purpose, and a great barrow was heaped up over the grave. A year

afterwards fifty of his servants and fifty of his best horses were

strangled; and their bodies, having been disembowelled and cleaned out,

were stuffed with chaff, sewn up, and set on scaffolds round about the

barrow, every dead man bestriding a dead horse, which was bitted and

bridled as in life.(885) These strange horsemen were no doubt supposed to

mount guard over the king. The setting up of their stuffed skins might be

thought to ensure their ghostly resurrection.

(M215) That some such notion was entertained by the Scythians is made

probable by the account which the mediaeval traveller de Plano Carpini

gives of the funeral customs of the Mongols. The traveller tells us that

when a noble Mongol died, the custom was to bury him seated in the middle

of a tent, along with a horse saddled and bridled, and a mare and her

foal. Also they used to eat another horse, stuff the carcase with straw,

and set it up on poles. All this they did in order that in the other world

the dead man might have a tent to live in, a mare to yield milk, and a

steed to ride, and that he might be able to breed horses. Moreover, the

bones of the horse which they ate were burned for the good of his

soul.(886) When the Arab traveller Ibn Batuta visited Peking in the

fourteenth century, he witnessed the funeral of an emperor of China who

had been killed in battle. The dead sovereign was buried along with four

young female slaves and six guards in a vault, and an immense mound like a

hill was piled over him. Four horses were then made to run round the

hillock till they could run no longer, after which they were killed,

impaled, and set up beside the tomb.(887) When an Indian of Patagonia

dies, he is buried in a pit along with some of his property. Afterwards

his favourite horse, having been killed, skinned, and stuffed, is propped

up on sticks with its head turned towards the grave. At the funeral of a

chief four horses are sacrificed, and one is set up at each corner of the

burial-place. The clothes and other effects of the deceased are burned;

and to conclude all, a feast is made of the horses’ flesh.(888) The

Scythians certainly believed in the existence of the soul after death and

in the possibility of turning it to account. This is proved by the

practice of one of their tribes, the Taurians of the Crimea, who used to

cut off the heads of their prisoners and set them on poles over their

houses, especially over the chimneys, in order that the spirits of the

slain men might guard the dwellings.(889) Some of the savages of Borneo

allege a similar reason for their favourite custom of taking human heads.

“The custom,” said a Kayan chief, “is not horrible. It is an ancient

custom, a good, beneficent custom, bequeathed to us by our fathers and our

fathers’ fathers; it brings us blessings, plentiful harvests, and keeps

off sickness and pains. Those who were once our enemies, hereby become our

guardians, our friends, our benefactors.”(890) Thus to convert dead foes

into friends and allies all that is necessary is to feed and otherwise

propitiate their skulls at a festival when they are brought into the

village. “An offering of food is made to the heads, and their spirits,

being thus appeased, cease to entertain malice against, or to seek to

inflict injury upon, those who have got possession of the skull which

formerly adorned the now forsaken body.”(891) When the Sea Dyaks of

Sarawak return home successful from a head-hunting expedition, they bring

the head ashore with much ceremony, wrapt in palm leaves. “On shore and in

the village, the head, for months after its arrival, is treated with the

greatest consideration, and all the names and terms of endearment of which

their language is capable are abundantly lavished on it; the most dainty

morsels, culled from their abundant though inelegant repast, are thrust

into its mouth, and it is instructed to hate its former friends, and that,

having been now adopted into the tribe of its captors, its spirit must be

always with them; sirih leaves and betel-nut are given to it, and finally

a cigar is frequently placed between its ghastly and pallid lips. None of

this disgusting mockery is performed with the intention of ridicule, but

all to propitiate the spirit by kindness, and to procure its good wishes

for the tribe, of whom it is now supposed to have become a member.”(892)

Amongst these Dyaks the “Head-Feast,” which has been just described, is

supposed to be the most beneficial in its influence of all their feasts

and ceremonies. “The object of them all is to make their rice grow well,

to cause the forest to abound with wild animals, to enable their dogs and

snares to be successful in securing game, to have the streams swarm with

fish, to give health and activity to the people themselves, and to ensure

fertility to their women. All these blessings, the possessing and feasting

of a fresh head are supposed to be the most efficient means of securing.

The very ground itself is believed to be benefited and rendered fertile,

more fertile even than when the water in which fragments of gold presented

by the Rajah have been washed, has been sprinkled over it.”(893)

(M216) In like manner, if my conjecture is right, the man who represented

the father-god of Phrygia used to be slain and his stuffed skin hung on

the sacred pine in order that his spirit might work for the growth of the

crops, the multiplication of animals, and the fertility of women. So at

Athens an ox, which appears to have embodied the corn-spirit, was killed

at an annual sacrifice, and its hide, stuffed with straw and sewn up, was

afterwards set on its feet and yoked to a plough as if it were ploughing,

apparently in order to represent, or rather to promote, the resurrection

of the slain corn-spirit at the end of the threshing.(894) This employment

of the skins of divine animals for the purpose of ensuring the revival of

the slaughtered divinity might be illustrated by other examples.(895)

Perhaps the hide of the bull which was killed to furnish the regenerating

bath of blood in the rites of Attis may have been put to a similar use.

Chapter VI. Oriental Religions in the West.

(M217) The worship of the Great Mother of the Gods and her lover or son

was very popular under the Roman Empire. Inscriptions prove that the two

received divine honours, separately or conjointly, not only in Italy, and

especially at Rome, but also in the provinces, particularly in Africa,

Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, and Bulgaria.(896) Their worship

survived the establishment of Christianity by Constantine; for Symmachus

records the recurrence of the festival of the Great Mother,(897) and in

the days of Augustine her effeminate priests still paraded the streets and

squares of Carthage with whitened faces, scented hair, and mincing gait,

while, like the mendicant friars of the Middle Ages, they begged alms from

the passers-by.(898) In Greece, on the other hand, the bloody orgies of

the Asiatic goddess and her consort appear to have found little

favour.(899) The barbarous and cruel character of the worship, with its

frantic excesses, was doubtless repugnant to the good taste and humanity

of the Greeks, who seem to have preferred the kindred but gentler rites of

Adonis. Yet the same features which shocked and repelled the Greeks may

have positively attracted the less refined Romans and barbarians of the

West. The ecstatic frenzies, which were mistaken for divine

inspiration,(900) the mangling of the body, the theory of a new birth and

the remission of sins through the shedding of blood, have all their origin

in savagery,(901) and they naturally appealed to peoples in whom the

savage instincts were still strong. Their true character was indeed often

disguised under a decent veil of allegorical or philosophical

interpretation,(902) which probably sufficed to impose upon the rapt and

enthusiastic worshippers, reconciling even the more cultivated of them to

things which otherwise must have filled them with horror and disgust.

(M218) The religion of the Great Mother, with its curious blending of

crude savagery with spiritual aspirations, was only one of a multitude of

similar Oriental faiths which in the later days of paganism spread over

the Roman Empire, and by saturating the European peoples with alien ideals

of life gradually undermined the whole fabric of ancient

civilization.(903) Greek and Roman society was built on the conception of

the subordination of the individual to the community, of the citizen to

the state; it set the safety of the commonwealth, as the supreme aim of

conduct, above the safety of the individual whether in this world or in a

world to come. Trained from infancy in this unselfish ideal, the citizens

devoted their lives to the public service and were ready to lay them down

for the common good; or if they shrank from the supreme sacrifice, it

never occurred to them that they acted otherwise than basely in preferring

their personal existence to the interests of their country. All this was

changed by the spread of Oriental religions which inculcated the communion

of the soul with God and its eternal salvation as the only objects worth

living for, objects in comparison with which the prosperity and even the

existence of the state sank into insignificance. The inevitable result of

this selfish and immoral doctrine was to withdraw the devotee more and

more from the public service, to concentrate his thoughts on his own

spiritual emotions, and to breed in him a contempt for the present life

which he regarded merely as a probation for a better and an eternal. The

saint and the recluse, disdainful of earth and rapt in ecstatic

contemplation of heaven, became in popular opinion the highest ideal of

humanity, displacing the old ideal of the patriot and hero who, forgetful

of self, lives and is ready to die for the good of his country. The

earthly city seemed poor and contemptible to men whose eyes beheld the

City of God coming in the clouds of heaven. Thus the centre of gravity, so

to say, was shifted from the present to a future life, and however much

the other world may have gained, there can be little doubt that this one

lost heavily by the change. A general disintegration of the body politic

set in. The ties of the state and the family were loosened: the structure

of society tended to resolve itself into its individual elements and

thereby to relapse into barbarism; for civilization is only possible

through the active co-operation of the citizens and their willingness to

subordinate their private interests to the common good. Men refused to

defend their country and even to continue their kind.(904) In their

anxiety to save their own souls and the souls of others, they were content

to leave the material world, which they identified with the principle of

evil, to perish around them. This obsession lasted for a thousand years.

The revival of Roman law, of the Aristotelian philosophy, of ancient art

and literature at the close of the Middle Ages, marked the return of

Europe to native ideals of life and conduct, to saner, manlier views of

the world. The long halt in the march of civilization was over. The tide

of Oriental invasion had turned at last. It is ebbing still.(905)

(M219) Among the gods of eastern origin who in the decline of the ancient

world competed against each other for the allegiance of the West was the

old Persian deity Mithra. The immense popularity of his worship is

attested by the monuments illustrative of it which have been found

scattered in profusion all over the Roman Empire.(906) In respect both of

doctrines and of rites the cult of Mithra appears to have presented many

points of resemblance not only to the religion of the Mother of the

Gods(907) but also to Christianity.(908) The similarity struck the

Christian doctors themselves and was explained by them as a work of the

devil, who sought to seduce the souls of men from the true faith by a

false and insidious imitation of it.(909) So to the Spanish conquerors of

Mexico and Peru many of the native heathen rites appeared to be diabolical

counterfeits of the Christian sacraments.(910) With more probability the

modern student of comparative religion traces such resemblances to the

similar and independent workings of the mind of man in his sincere, if

crude, attempts to fathom the secret of the universe, and to adjust his

little life to its awful mysteries. However that may be, there can be no

doubt that the Mithraic religion proved a formidable rival to

Christianity, combining as it did a solemn ritual with aspirations after

moral purity and a hope of immortality.(911) Indeed the issue of the

conflict between the two faiths appears for a time to have hung in the

balance.(912) An instructive relic of the long struggle is preserved in

our festival of Christmas, which the Church seems to have borrowed

directly from its heathen rival. In the Julian calendar the twenty-fifth

of December was reckoned the winter solstice,(913) and it was regarded as

the Nativity of the Sun, because the day begins to lengthen and the power

of the sun to increase from that turning-point of the year.(914) The

ritual of the nativity, as it appears to have been celebrated in Syria and

Egypt, was remarkable. The celebrants retired into certain inner shrines,

from which at midnight they issued with a loud cry, “The Virgin has

brought forth! The light is waxing!”(915) The Egyptians even represented

the new-born sun by the image of an infant which on his birthday, the

winter solstice, they brought forth and exhibited to his worshippers.(916)

No doubt the Virgin who thus conceived and bore a son on the twenty-fifth

of December was the great Oriental goddess whom the Semites called the

Heavenly Virgin or simply the Heavenly Goddess; in Semitic lands she was a

form of Astarte.(917) Now Mithra was regularly identified by his

worshippers with the Sun, the Unconquered Sun, as they called him;(918)

hence his nativity also fell on the twenty-fifth of December.(919) The

Gospels say nothing as to the day of Christ’s birth, and accordingly the

early Church did not celebrate it. In time, however, the Christians of

Egypt came to regard the sixth of January as the date of the Nativity, and

the custom of commemorating the birth of the Saviour on that day gradually

spread until by the fourth century it was universally established in the

East. But at the end of the third or the beginning of the fourth century

the Western Church, which had never recognized the sixth of January as the

day of the Nativity, adopted the twenty-fifth of December as the true

date, and in time its decision was accepted also by the Eastern Church. At

Antioch the change was not introduced till about the year 375 A.D.(920)

(M220) What considerations led the ecclesiastical authorities to institute

the festival of Christmas? The motives for the innovation are stated with

great frankness by a Syrian writer, himself a Christian. “The reason,” he

tells us, “why the fathers transferred the celebration of the sixth of

January to the twenty-fifth of December was this. It was a custom of the

heathen to celebrate on the same twenty-fifth of December the birthday of

the Sun, at which they kindled lights in token of festivity. In these

solemnities and festivities the Christians also took part. Accordingly

when the doctors of the Church perceived that the Christians had a leaning

to this festival, they took counsel and resolved that the true Nativity

should be solemnized on that day and the festival of the Epiphany on the

sixth of January. Accordingly, along with this custom, the practice has

prevailed of kindling fires till the sixth.”(921) The heathen origin of

Christmas is plainly hinted at, if not tacitly admitted, by Augustine when

he exhorts his Christian brethren not to celebrate that solemn day like

the heathen on account of the sun, but on account of him who made the

sun.(922) In like manner Leo the Great rebuked the pestilent belief that

Christmas was solemnized because of the birth of the new sun, as it was

called, and not because of the nativity of Christ.(923)

(M221) Thus it appears that the Christian Church chose to celebrate the

birthday of its Founder on the twenty-fifth of December in order to

transfer the devotion of the heathen from the Sun to him who was called

the Sun of Righteousness.(924) If that was so, there can be no intrinsic

improbability in the conjecture that motives of the same sort may have led

the ecclesiastical authorities to assimilate the Easter festival of the

death and resurrection of their Lord to the festival of the death and

resurrection of another Asiatic god which fell at the same season. Now the

Easter rites still observed in Greece, Sicily, and Southern Italy bear in

some respects a striking resemblance to the rites of Adonis, and I have

suggested that the Church may have consciously adapted the new festival to

its heathen predecessor for the sake of winning souls to Christ.(925) But

this adaptation probably took place in the Greek-speaking rather than in

the Latin-speaking parts of the ancient world; for the worship of Adonis,

while it flourished among the Greeks, appears to have made little

impression on Rome and the West.(926) Certainly it never formed part of

the official Roman religion. The place which it might have taken in the

affections of the vulgar was already occupied by the similar but more

barbarous worship of Attis and the Great Mother. Now the death and

resurrection of Attis were officially celebrated at Rome on the

twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth of March,(927) the latter being regarded as

the spring equinox,(928) and therefore as the most appropriate day for the

revival of a god of vegetation who had been dead or sleeping throughout

the winter. But according to an ancient and widespread tradition Christ

suffered on the twenty-fifth of March, and accordingly some Christians

regularly celebrated the Crucifixion on that day without any regard to the

state of the moon. This custom was certainly observed in Phrygia,

Cappadocia, and Gaul, and there seem to be grounds for thinking that at

one time it was followed also in Rome.(929) Thus the tradition which

placed the death of Christ on the twenty-fifth of March was ancient and

deeply rooted. It is all the more remarkable because astronomical

considerations prove that it can have had no historical foundation.(930)

The inference appears to be inevitable that the passion of Christ must

have been arbitrarily referred to that date in order to harmonize with an

older festival of the spring equinox. This is the view of the learned

ecclesiastical historian Mgr. Duchesne, who points out that the death of

the Saviour was thus made to fall upon the very day on which, according to

a widespread belief, the world had been created.(931) But the resurrection

of Attis, who combined in himself the characters of the divine Father and

the divine Son,(932) was officially celebrated at Rome on the same day.

When we remember that the festival of St. George in April has replaced the

ancient pagan festival of the Parilia;(933) that the festival of St. John

the Baptist in June has succeeded to a heathen Midsummer festival of

water;(934) that the festival of the Assumption of the Virgin in August

has ousted the festival of Diana;(935) that the feast of All Souls in

November is a continuation of an old heathen feast of the dead;(936) and

that the Nativity of Christ himself was assigned to the winter solstice in

December because that day was deemed the Nativity of the Sun;(937) we can

hardly be thought rash or unreasonable in conjecturing that the other

cardinal festival of the Christian church—the solemnization of Easter—may

have been in like manner, and from like motives of edification, adapted to

a similar celebration of the Phrygian god Attis at the vernal

equinox.(938)

(M222) At least it is a remarkable coincidence, if it is nothing more,

that the Christian and the heathen festivals of the divine death and

resurrection should have been solemnized at the same season and in the

same places. For the places which celebrated the death of Christ at the

spring equinox were Phrygia, Gaul, and apparently Rome, that is, the very

regions in which the worship of Attis either originated or struck deepest

root. It is difficult to regard the coincidence as purely accidental. If

the vernal equinox, the season at which in the temperate regions the whole

face of nature testifies to a fresh outburst of vital energy, had been

viewed from of old as the time when the world was annually created afresh

in the resurrection of a god, nothing could be more natural than to place

the resurrection of the new deity at the same cardinal point of the year.

Only it is to be observed that if the death of Christ was dated on the

twenty-fifth of March, his resurrection, according to Christian tradition,

must have happened on the twenty-seventh of March, which is just two days

later than the vernal equinox of the Julian calendar and the resurrection

of Attis. A similar displacement of two days in the adjustment of

Christian to heathen celebrations occurs in the festivals of St. George

and the Assumption of the Virgin. However, another Christian tradition,

followed by Lactantius and perhaps by the practice of the Church in Gaul,

placed the death of Christ on the twenty-third and his resurrection on the

twenty-fifth of March.(939) If that was so, his resurrection coincided

exactly with the resurrection of Attis.

(M223) In point of fact it appears from the testimony of an anonymous

Christian, who wrote in the fourth century of our era, that Christians and

pagans alike were struck by the remarkable coincidence between the death

and resurrection of their respective deities, and that the coincidence

formed a theme of bitter controversy between the adherents of the rival

religions, the pagans contending that the resurrection of Christ was a

spurious imitation of the resurrection of Attis, and the Christians

asserting with equal warmth that the resurrection of Attis was a

diabolical counterfeit of the resurrection of Christ. In these unseemly

bickerings the heathen took what to a superficial observer might seem

strong ground by arguing that their god was the older and therefore

presumably the original, not the counterfeit, since as a general rule an

original is older than its copy. This feeble argument the Christians

easily rebutted. They admitted, indeed, that in point of time Christ was

the junior deity, but they triumphantly demonstrated his real seniority by

falling back on the subtlety of Satan, who on so important an occasion had

surpassed himself by inverting the usual order of nature.(940)

(M224) Taken altogether, the coincidences of the Christian with the

heathen festivals are too close and too numerous to be accidental. They

mark the compromise which the Church in the hour of its triumph was

compelled to make with its vanquished yet still dangerous rivals. The

inflexible Protestantism of the primitive missionaries, with their fiery

denunciations of heathendom, had been exchanged for the supple policy, the

easy tolerance, the comprehensive charity of shrewd ecclesiastics, who

clearly perceived that if Christianity was to conquer the world it could

do so only by relaxing the too rigid principles of its Founder, by

widening a little the narrow gate which leads to salvation. In this

respect an instructive parallel might be drawn between the history of

Christianity and the history of Buddhism.(941) Both systems were in their

origin essentially ethical reforms born of the generous ardour, the lofty

aspirations, the tender compassion of their noble Founders, two of those

beautiful spirits who appear at rare intervals on earth like beings come

from a better world to support and guide our weak and erring nature.(942)

Both preached moral virtue as the means of accomplishing what they

regarded as the supreme object of life, the eternal salvation of the

individual soul, though by a curious antithesis the one sought that

salvation in a blissful eternity, the other in a final release from

suffering, in annihilation. But the austere ideals of sanctity which they

inculcated were too deeply opposed not only to the frailties but to the

natural instincts of humanity ever to be carried out in practice by more

than a small number of disciples, who consistently renounced the ties of

the family and the state in order to work out their own salvation in the

still seclusion of the cloister. If such faiths were to be nominally

accepted by whole nations or even by the world, it was essential that they

should first be modified or transformed so as to accord in some measure

with the prejudices, the passions, the superstitions of the vulgar. This

process of accommodation was carried out in after ages by followers who,

made of less ethereal stuff than their masters, were for that reason the

better fitted to mediate between them and the common herd. Thus as time

went on, the two religions, in exact proportion to their growing

popularity, absorbed more and more of those baser elements which they had

been instituted for the very purpose of suppressing. Such spiritual

decadences are inevitable. The world cannot live at the level of its great

men. Yet it would be unfair to the generality of our kind to ascribe

wholly to their intellectual and moral weakness the gradual divergence of

Buddhism and Christianity from their primitive patterns. For it should

never be forgotten that by their glorification of poverty and celibacy

both these religions struck straight at the root not merely of civil

society but of human existence. The blow was parried by the wisdom or the

folly of the vast majority of mankind, who refused to purchase a chance of

saving their souls with the certainty of extinguishing the species.

Chapter VII. Hyacinth.

(M225) Another mythical being who has been supposed to belong to the class

of gods here discussed is Hyacinth. He too has been interpreted as the

vegetation which blooms in spring and withers under the scorching heat of

the summer sun.(943) Though he belongs to Greek, not to Oriental

mythology, some account of him may not be out of place in the present

discussion. According to the legend, Hyacinth was the youngest and

handsomest son of the ancient king Amyclas, who had his capital at Amyclae

in the beautiful vale of Sparta. One day playing at quoits with Apollo, he

was accidentally killed by a blow of the god’s quoit. Bitterly the god

lamented the death of his friend. The hyacinth—“that sanguine flower

inscribed with woe”—sprang from the blood of the hapless youth, as

anemones and roses from the blood of Adonis, and violets from the blood of

Attis:(944) like these vernal flowers it heralded the advent of another

spring and gladdened the hearts of men with the promise of a joyful

resurrection. The flower is usually supposed to be not what we call a

hyacinth, but a little purple iris with the letters of lamentation (AI,

which in Greek means “alas”) clearly inscribed in black on its petals. In

Greece it blooms in spring after the early violets but before the

roses.(945) One spring, when the hyacinths were in bloom, it happened that

the red-coated Spartan regiments lay encamped under the walls of Corinth.

Their commander gave the Amyclean battalion leave to go home and celebrate

as usual the festival of Hyacinth in their native town. But the sad flower

was to be to these men an omen of death; for they had not gone far before

they were enveloped by clouds of light-armed foes and cut to pieces.(946)

(M226) The tomb of Hyacinth was at Amyclae under a massive altar-like

pedestal, which supported an archaic bronze image of Apollo. In the left

side of the pedestal was a bronze door, and through it offerings were

passed to Hyacinth, as to a hero or a dead man, not as to a god, before

sacrifices were offered to Apollo at the annual Hyacinthian festival.

Bas-reliefs carved on the pedestal represented Hyacinth and his maiden

sister Polyboea caught up to heaven by a company of goddesses.(947) The

annual festival of the Hyacinthia was held in the month of Hecatombeus,

which seems to have corresponded to May.(948) The ceremonies occupied

three days. On the first the people mourned for Hyacinth, wearing no

wreaths, singing no paeans, eating no bread, and behaving with great

gravity. It was on this day probably that the offerings were made at

Hyacinth’s tomb. Next day the scene was changed. All was joy and bustle.

The capital was emptied of its inhabitants, who poured out in their

thousands to witness and share the festivities at Amyclae. Boys in

high-girt tunics sang hymns in honour of the god to the accompaniment of

flutes and lyres. Others, splendidly attired, paraded on horseback in the

theatre: choirs of youths chanted their native ditties: dancers danced:

maidens rode in wicker carriages or went in procession to witness the

chariot races: sacrifices were offered in profusion: the citizens feasted

their friends and even their slaves.(949) This outburst of gaiety may be

supposed to have celebrated the resurrection of Hyacinth and perhaps also

his ascension to heaven, which, as we have seen, was represented on his

tomb. However, it may be that the ascension took place on the third day of

the festival; but as to that we know nothing. The sister who went to

heaven with him was by some identified with Artemis or Persephone.(950)

(M227) It is highly probable, as Erwin Rohde perceived,(951) that Hyacinth

was an old aboriginal deity of the underworld who had been worshipped at

Amyclae long before the Dorians invaded and conquered the country. If that

was so, the story of his relation to Apollo must have been a comparatively

late invention, an attempt of the newcomers to fit the ancient god of the

land into their own mythical system, in order that he might extend his

protection to them. On this theory it may not be without significance that

sacrifices at the festival were offered to Hyacinth, as to a hero, before

they were offered to Apollo.(952) Further, on the analogy of similar

deities elsewhere, we should expect to find Hyacinth coupled, not with a

male friend, but with a female consort. That consort may perhaps be

detected in his sister Polyboea, who ascended to heaven with him. The new

myth, if new it was, of the love of Apollo for Hyacinth would involve a

changed conception of the aboriginal god, which in its turn must have

affected that of his spouse. For when Hyacinth came to be thought of as

young and unmarried there was no longer room in his story for a wife, and

she would have to be disposed of in some other way. What was easier for

the myth-maker than to turn her into his unmarried sister? However we may

explain it, a change seems certainly to have come over the popular idea of

Hyacinth; for whereas on his tomb he was portrayed as a bearded man, later

art represented him as the pink of youthful beauty.(953) But it is perhaps

needless to suppose that the sisterly relation of Polyboea to him was a

late modification of the myth. The stories of Cronus and Rhea, of Zeus and

Hera, of Osiris and Isis, remind us that in old days gods, like kings,

often married their sisters, and probably for the same reason, namely, to

ensure their own title to the throne under a rule of female kinship which

treated women and not men as the channel in which the blood royal

flowed.(954) It is not impossible that Hyacinth may have been a divine

king who actually reigned in his lifetime at Amyclae and was afterwards

worshipped at his tomb. The representation of his triumphal ascent to

heaven in company with his sister suggests that, like Adonis and

Persephone, he may have been supposed to spend one part of the year in the

under-world of darkness and death, and another part in the upper-world of

light and life. And as the anemones and the sprouting corn marked the

return of Adonis and Persephone, so the flowers to which he gave his name

may have heralded the ascension of Hyacinth.

End Of Vol. 1.

FOOTNOTES

M1 The changes of the seasons explained by the life and death of gods.

M2 Magical ceremonies to revive the failing energies of the gods.

1 As in the present volume I am concerned with the beliefs and

practices of Orientals I may quote the following passage from one

who has lived long in the East and knows it well: “The Oriental mind

is free from the trammels of logic. It is a literal fact that the

Oriental mind can accept and believe two opposite things at the same

time. We find fully qualified and even learned Indian doctors

practising Greek medicine, as well as English medicine, and

enforcing sanitary restrictions to which their own houses and

families are entirely strangers. We find astronomers who can predict

eclipses, and yet who believe that eclipses are caused by a dragon

swallowing the sun. We find holy men who are credited with

miraculous powers and with close communion with the Deity, who live

in drunkenness and immorality, and who are capable of elaborate

frauds on others. To the Oriental mind, a thing must be incredible

to command a ready belief” (“Riots and Unrest in the Punjab, from a

correspondent,” _The Times Weekly Edition_, May 24, 1907, p. 326).

Again, speaking of the people of the Lower Congo, an experienced

missionary describes their religious ideas as “chaotic in the

extreme and impossible to reduce to any systematic order. The same

person will tell you at different times that the departed spirit

goes to the nether regions, or to a dark forest, or to the moon, or

to the sun. There is no coherence in their beliefs, and their ideas

about cosmogony and the future are very nebulous. Although they

believe in punishment after death their faith is so hazy that it has

lost all its deterrent force. If in the following pages a lack of

logical unity is observed, it must be put to the debit of the native

mind, as that lack of logical unity really represents the mistiness

of their views.” See Rev. John H. Weeks, “Notes on some Customs of

the Lower Congo People,” _Folk-lore_, xx. (1909) pp. 54 _sq._ Unless

we allow for this innate capacity of the human mind to entertain

contradictory beliefs at the same time, we shall in vain attempt to

understand the history of thought in general and of religion in

particular.

M3 The principles of animal and of vegetable life confused in these

ceremonies.

M4 Prevalence of these rites in Western Asia and Egypt.

2 The equivalence of Tammuz and Adonis has been doubted or denied by

some scholars, as by Renan (_Mission de Phénicie_, Paris, 1864, pp.

216, 235) and by Chwolsohn (_Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus_, St.

Petersburg, 1856, ii. 510). But the two gods are identified by

Origen (_Selecta in Ezechielem_, Migne’s _Patrologia Graeca_, xiii.

797), Jerome (_Epist._ lviii. 3 and _Commentar. in Ezechielem_,

viii. 13, 14, Migne’s _Patrologia Latina_, xxii. 581, xxv. 82),

Cyril of Alexandria (_In Isaiam_, lib. ii. tomus. iii., and

_Comment. on Hosea_, iv. 15, Migne’s _Patrologia Graeca_, lxx. 441,

lxxi. 136), Theodoretus (_In Ezechielis cap._ viii., Migne’s

_Patrologia Graeca_, lxxxi. 885), the author of the Paschal

Chronicle (Migne’s _Patrologia Graeca_, xcii. 329) and Melito (in W.

Cureton’s _Spicilegium Syriacum_, London, 1855, p. 44); and

accordingly we may fairly conclude that, whatever their remote

origin may have been, Tammuz and Adonis were in the later period of

antiquity practically equivalent to each other. Compare W. W. Graf

Baudissin, _Studien zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte_ (Leipsic,

1876-1878), i. 299; _id._, in _Realencyclopädie für protestantische

Theologie und Kirchengeschichte_,3 _s.v._ “Tammuz”; _id._, _Adonis

und Esmun_ (Leipsic, 1911), pp. 94 _sqq._; W. Mannhardt, _Antike

Wald- und Feldkulte_ (Berlin, 1877), pp. 273 _sqq._; Ch. Vellay, “Le

dieu Thammuz,” _Revue de l’Histoire des Religions_, xlix. (1904) pp.

154-162. Baudissin holds that Tammuz and Adonis were two different

gods sprung from a common root (_Adonis und Esmun_, p. 368). An

Assyrian origin of the cult of Adonis was long ago affirmed by

Macrobius (_Sat._ i. 21. 1). On Adonis and his worship in general

see also F. C. Movers, _Die Phoenizier_, i. (Bonn, 1841) pp. 191

_sqq._; W. H. Engel, _Kypros_ (Berlin, 1841), ii. 536 _sqq._; Ch.

Vellay, _Le culte et les fêtes d’ Adonis-Thammouz dans l’Orient

antique_ (Paris, 1904).

M5 Tammuz or Adonis in Babylonia. His worship seems to have originated

with the Sumerians.

3 The mourning for Adonis is mentioned by Sappho, who flourished about

600 B.C. See Th. Bergk’s _Poetae Lyrici Graeci_,3 iii. (Leipsic,

1867) p. 897; Pausanias, ix. 29. 8.

4 Ed. Meyer, _Geschichte des Altertums_,2 i. 2 (Berlin, 1909), pp. 394

_sq._; W. W. Graf Baudissin, _Adonis und Esmun_, pp. 65 _sqq._

_ 5 Encyclopaedia Biblica_, ed. T. K. Cheyne and J. S. Black, iii.

3327. In the Old Testament the title _Adoni_, “my lord,” is

frequently given to men. See, for example, Genesis xxxiii. 8, 13,

14, 15, xlii. 10, xliii. 20, xliv. 5, 7, 9, 16, 18, 19, 20, 22, 24.

6 C. P. Tiele, _Geschichte der Religion im Altertum_ (Gotha,

1896-1903), i. 134 _sqq._; G. Maspero, _Histoire Ancienne des

Peuples de l’Orient Classique, les Origines_ (Paris, 1895), pp. 550

_sq._; L. W. King, _Babylonian Religion and Mythology_ (London,

1899), pp. 1 _sqq._; _id._, _A History of Sumer and Akkad_ (London,

1910), pp. 1 _sqq._, 40 _sqq._; H. Winckler, in E. Schrader’s _Die

Keilinschriften und das alte Testament_3 (Berlin, 1902), pp. 10

_sq._, 349; Fr. Hommel, _Grundriss der Geographie und Geschichte des

alten Orients_ (Munich, 1904), pp. 18 _sqq._; Ed. Meyer, _Geschichte

des Altertums_,2 i. 2 (Berlin, 1909), pp. 401 _sqq._ As to the

hypothesis that the Sumerians were immigrants from Central Asia, see

L. W. King, _History of Sumer and Akkad_, pp. 351 _sqq._ The gradual

desiccation of Central Asia, which is conjectured to have caused the

Sumerian migration, has been similarly invoked to explain the

downfall of the Roman empire; for by rendering great regions

uninhabitable it is supposed to have driven hordes of fierce

barbarians to find new homes in Europe. See Professor J. W.

Gregory’s lecture “Is the earth drying up?” delivered before the

Royal Geographical Society and reported in _The Times_, December

9th, 1913. It is held by Prof. Hommel (_op. cit._ pp. 19 _sqq._)

that the Sumerian language belongs to the Ural-altaic family, but

the better opinion seems to be that its linguistic affinities are

unknown. The view, once ardently advocated, that Sumerian was not a

language but merely a cabalistic mode of writing Semitic, is now

generally exploded.

7 H. Zimmern, “Der babylonische Gott Tamüz,” _Abhandlungen der

philologisch-historischen Klasse der Königl. Sächsischen

Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften_, xxvii. No. xx. (Leipsic, 1909) pp.

701, 722.

_ 8 Dumu-zi_, or in fuller form _Dumuzi-abzu_. See P. Jensen,

_Assyrisch-Babylonische Mythen und Epen_ (Berlin, 1900), p. 560; H.

Zimmern, _op. cit._ pp. 703 _sqq._; _id._, in E. Schrader’s _Die

Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_3 (Berlin, 1902), p. 397; P.

Dhorme, _La Religion Assyro-Babylonienne_ (Paris, 1910), p. 105; W.

W. Graf Baudissin, _Adonis und Esmun_ (Leipsic, 1911), p. 104.

9 H. Zimmern, “Der babylonische Gott Tamüz,” _Abhandl. d. Kön. Sächs.

Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften_, xxvii. No. xx. (Leipsic, 1909) p,

723. For the text and translation of the hymns, see H. Zimmern,

“Sumerisch-babylonische Tamüzlieder,” _Berichte über die

Verhandlungen der Königlich Sächsischen Gesellschaft der

Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, Philologisch-historische Klasse_, lix.

(1907) pp. 201-252. Compare H. Gressmann, _Altorientalische Texte

und Bilder_ (Tübingen, 1909), i. 93 _sqq._; W. W. Graf Baudissin,

_Adonis und Esmun_ (Leipsic, 1911), pp. 99 _sq._; R. W. Rogers,

_Cuneiform Parallels to the Old Testament_ (Oxford, N.D.), pp.

179-185.

M6 Tammuz the lover of Ishtar. Descent of Ishtar to the nether world to

recover Tammuz.

M7 Laments for Tammuz.

10 A. Jeremias, _Die babylonisch-assyrischen Vorstellungen vom Leben

nach dem Tode_ (Leipsic, 1887), pp. 4 _sqq._; _id._, in W. H.

Roscher’s _Lexikon der griech. und röm. Mythologie_, ii. 808, iii.

258 _sqq._; M. Jastrow, _The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria_

(Boston, 1898), pp. 565-576, 584, 682 _sq._; W. L. King, _Babylonian

Religion and Mythology_, pp. 178-183; P. Jensen,

_Assyrisch-babylonische Mythen und Epen_, pp. 81 _sqq._, 95 _sqq._,

169; R. F. Harper, _Assyrian and Babylonian Literature_ (New York,

1901), pp. 316 _sq._, 338, 408 _sqq._; H. Zimmern, in E. Schrader’s

_Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament_,3 pp. 397 _sqq._, 561

_sqq._; _id._, “Sumerisch-babylonische Tamūzlieder,” _Berichte über

die Verhandlungen der Königlich Sächsischen Gesellschaft der

Wissenschaften zu Leipzig, Philologisch-historische Klasse_, lix.

(1907) pp. 220, 232, 236 _sq._; _id._, “Der babylonische Gott

Tamūz,” _Abhandlungen der philologisch-historischen Klasse der

Königl. Sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften_, xxvii. No. xx.

(Leipsic, 1909) pp. 725 _sq._, 729-735; H. Gressmann,

_Altorientalische Texte und Bilder zum Alten Testamente_ (Tübingen,

1909), i. 65-69; R. W. Rogers, _Cuneiform Parallels to the Old

Testament_ (Oxford, N.D.), pp. 121-131; W. W. Graf Baudissin,

_Adonis und Esmun_ (Leipsic, 1911), pp. 99 _sqq._, 353 _sqq._

According to Jerome (on Ezekiel viii. 14) the month of Tammuz was

June; but according to modern scholars it corresponded rather to

July, or to part of June and part of July. See F. C. Movers, _Die

Phoenizier_, i. 210; F. Lenormant, “Il mito di Adone-Tammuz nei

documenti cuneiformi,” _Atti del IV. Congresso Internazionale degli

Orientalisti_ (Florence, 1880), i. 144 _sq._; W. Mannhardt, _Antike

Wald- und Feldkulte, p. 275; Encyclopaedia Biblica_, _s.v._

“Months,” iii. 3194. My friend W. Robertson Smith informed me that

owing to the variations of the local Syrian calendars the month of

Tammuz fell in different places at different times, from midsummer

to autumn, or from June to September. According to Prof. M. Jastrow,

the festival of Tammuz was celebrated just before the summer

solstice (_The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria_, pp. 547, 682). He

observes that “the calendar of the Jewish Church still marks the

17th day of Tammuz as a fast, and Houtsma has shown that the

association of the day with the capture of Jerusalem by the Romans

represents merely the attempt to give an ancient festival a worthier

interpretation.”

M8 Adonis in Greek mythology merely a reflection of the Oriental

Tammuz.

11 Ezekiel viii. 14.

12 Apollodorus, _Bibliotheca_, iii. 14. 4; Bion, _Idyl_, i., J.

Tzetzes. _Schol. on Lycophron_, 831; Ovid, _Metam._ x. 503 _sqq._;

Aristides, _Apology_, edited by J. Rendel Harris (Cambridge, 1891),

pp. 44, 106 _sq._ In Babylonian texts relating to Tammuz no

reference has yet been found to death by a boar. See H. Zimmern,

“Sumerisch-babylonische Tamūzlieder,” p. 451; _id._, “Der

babylonische Gott Tamūz,” p. 731. Baudissin inclines to think that

the incident of the boar is a late importation into the myth of

Adonis. See his _Adonis und Esmun_, pp. 142 _sqq._ As to the

relation of the boar to the kindred gods Adonis, Attis, and Osiris

see _Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild_, ii. 22 _sqq._, where I

have suggested that the idea of the boar as the foe of the god may

be based on the terrible ravages which wild pigs notoriously commit

in fields of corn.

13 W. W. Graf Baudissin, _Adonis und Esmun_ (Leipsic, 1911), pp. 152

_sq._, with plate iv. As to the representation of the myth of Adonis

on Etruscan mirrors and late works of Roman art, especially

sarcophaguses and wall-paintings, see Otto Jahn, _Archäologische

Beiträge_ (Berlin, 1847), pp. 45-51.

M9 Worship of Adonis and Astarte at Byblus, the kingdom of Cinyras. The

kings of Byblus.

14 The ancients were aware that the Syrian and Cyprian Aphrodite, the

mistress of Adonis, was no other than Astarte. See Cicero, _De

natura deorum_, iii. 23. 59; Joannes Lydus, _De mensibus_, iv. 44.

On Adonis in Phoenicia see W. W. Graf Baudissin, _Adonis und Esmun_

(Leipsic, 1911), pp. 71 _sqq._

15 As to Cinyras, see F. C. Movers, _Die Phoenizier_, i. 238 _sqq._,

ii. 2. 226-231; W. H. Engel, _Kypros_ (Berlin, 1841), i. 168-173,

ii. 94-136; Stoll, _s.v._ “Kinyras,” in W. H. Roscher’s _Lexikon der

griech. und röm. Mythologie_, ii. 1189 _sqq._ Melito calls the

father of Adonis by the name of Cuthar, and represents him as king

of the Phoenicians with his capital at Gebal (Byblus). See Melito,

“Oration to Antoninus Caesar,” in W. Cureton’s _Spicilegium

Syriacum_ (London, 1855), p. 44.

16 Philo of Byblus, quoted by Eusebius, _Praeparatio Evangelii_, i. 10;

_Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum_, ed. C. Müller, iii. 568;

Stephanus Byzantius, _s.v._ Βύβλος. Byblus is a Greek corruption of

the Semitic Gebal (גבל), the name which the place still retains. See

E. Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_ (Paris, 1864), p. 155.

17 R. Pietschmann, _Geschichte der Phoenizier_ (Berlin, 1889), p. 139.

On the coins it is designated “Holy Byblus.”

18 Strabo, xvi. 1. 18, p. 755.

19 Lucian, _De dea Syria_, 6.

20 The sanctuary and image are figured on coins of Byblus. See T. L.

Donaldson, _Architectura Numismatica_ (London, 1859), pp. 105 _sq._;

E. Renan, _Mission de Phénicie_, p. 177; G. Perrot et Ch. Chipiez,

_Histoire de l’Art dans l’Antiquité_, iii. (Paris, 1885) p. 60; R.

Pietschmann, _Geschichte der Phoenizier_, p. 202; G. Maspero,

_Histoire Ancienne des Peuples de l’Orient Classique_, ii. (Paris,

1897) p. 173. Renan excavated a massive square pedestal built of

colossal stones, which he thought may have supported the sacred

obelisk (_op. cit._ pp. 174-178).

21 Lucian, _De dea Syria_, 6.

22 Strabo, xvi. 1. 18, p. 755.

23 Lucian, _De dea Syria_, 8; Pliny, _Nat. Hist._ v. 78; E. Renan,

_Mission de Phénicie_, pp. 282 _sqq._

24 Eustathius, _Commentary on Dionysius Periegetes_, 912 (_Geographi

Graeci Minores_, ed. C. Müller, ii. 376); Melito, in W. Cureton’s

_Spicilegium Syriacum_, p. 44.

25 Ezekiel xxvii. 9. As to the name Gebal see above, p. 13, note 1.

26 L. B. Paton, _The Early History of Syria and Palestine_ (London,

1902), pp. 169-171. See below, pp. 75 _sq._

27 L. B. Paton, _op. cit._ p. 235; R. F. Harper, _Assyrian and

Babylonian Literature_, p. 57 (the Nimrud inscription of

Tiglath-pileser III.).

28 The inscription was discovered by Renan. See Ch. Vellay, _Le culte

et les fêtes d’Adonis-Thammouz dans l’Orient antique_ (Paris, 1904),

pp. 38 _sq._; G. A. Cooke, _Text-book of North-Semitic Inscriptions_

(Oxford 1903), No. 3, pp. 18 _sq._ In the time of Alexander the

Great the king of Byblus was a certain Enylus (Arrian, _Anabasis_,

ii. 20), whose name appears on a coin of the city (F. C. Movers,

_Die Phoenizier_, ii. 1, p. 103, note 81).

M10 Divinity of Semitic kings.

29 On the divinity of Semitic kings and the kingship of Semitic gods

see W. R. Smith, _Religion of the Semites_2 (London, 1894), pp. 44

_sq._, 66 _sqq._

30 H. Radau, _Early Babylonian History_ (New York and London, 1900),

pp. 307-317; P. Dhorme, _La Religion Assyro-Babylonienne_ (Paris,

1910), pp. 168 _sqq._

31 The evidence for this is the Moabite stone, but the reading of the

inscription is doubtful. See S. R. Driver, in _Encyclopaedia

Biblica_, _s.v._ “Mesha,” vol. iii. 3041 _sqq._; _id._, _Notes on

the Hebrew Text and the Topography of the Books of Samuel_, Second

Edition (Oxford, 1913), pp. lxxxv., lxxxvi., lxxxviii. _sq._; G. A.

Cooke, _Text-book of North-Semitic Inscriptions_, No. 1, pp. 1

_sq._, 6.

32 2 Kings viii. 7, 9, xiii. 24 _sq._; Jeremiah xlix. 27. As to the god

Hadad see Macrobius, _Saturn_, i. 23. 17-19 (where, as so often in

late writers, the Syrians are called Assyrians); Philo of Byblus, in

_Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum_, ed. C. Müller, iii. 569; F.

Baethgen, _Beiträge zur semitischen Religionsgeschichte_ (Berlin,

1888), pp. 66-68; G. A. Cooke, _Text-book of North-Semitic

Inscriptions_, Nos. 61, 62, pp. 161 _sq._, 164, 173, 175; M. J.

Lagrange, _Études sur les Religions Sémitiques_2 (Paris, 1905), pp.

93, 493, 496 _sq._ The prophet Zechariah speaks (xii. 11) of a great

mourning of or for Hadadrimmon in the plain of Megiddon. This has

been taken to refer to a lament for Hadad-Rimmon, the Syrian god of

rain, storm, and thunder, like the lament for Adonis. See S. R.

Driver’s note on the passage (_The Minor Prophets_, pp. 266 _sq._,

_Century Bible_); W. W. Graf Baudissin, _Adonis und Esmun_, p. 92.

33 Josephus, _Antiquit. Jud._ ix. 4. 6.

34 Genesis xxxvi. 35 _sq._; 1 Kings xi. 14-22; 1 Chronicles i. 50 _sq._

Of the eight kings of Edom mentioned in Genesis (xxxvi. 31-39) and

in 1 Chronicles (i. 43-50) not one was the son of his predecessor.

This seems to indicate that in Edom, as elsewhere, the blood royal

was traced in the female line, and that the kings were men of other

families, or even foreigners, who succeeded to the throne by

marrying the hereditary princesses. See _The Magic Art and the

Evolution of Kings_, ii. 268 _sqq._ The Israelites were forbidden to

have a foreigner for a king (Deuteronomy xvii. 15 with S. R.

Driver’s note), which seems to imply that the custom was known among

their neighbours. It is significant that some of the names of the

kings of Edom seem to be those of divinities, as Prof. A. H. Sayce

observed long ago (_Lectures on the Religion of the Ancient

Babylonians_, London and Edinburgh, 1887, p. 54).

35 G. A. Cooke, _op. cit._ Nos. 62, 63, pp. 163, 165, 173 _sqq._, 181

_sqq._; M. J. Lagrange, _op. cit._ pp. 496 _sqq._ The god Rekub-el

is mentioned along with the gods Hadad, El, Reshef, and Shamash in

an inscription of King Bar-rekub’s mortal father, King Panammu (G.

A. Cooke, _op. cit._ No. 61, p. 161).

36 Virgil, _Aen._ i. 729 _sq._, with Servius’s note; Silius Italicus,

_Punica_, i. 86 _sqq._

37 Ezekiel xxviii. 2, 9.

38 Menander of Ephesus, quoted by Josephus, _Contra Apionem_, i. 18 and

21; _Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum_, ed. C. Müller, iv. 446 _sq._

According to the text of Josephus, as edited by B. Niese, the names

of the kings in question were Abibal, Balbazer, Abdastart,

Methusastart, son of Leastart, Ithobal, Balezor, Baal, Balator,

Merbal. The passage of Menander is quoted also by Eusebius,

_Chronic._ i. pp. 118, 120, ed. A. Schoene.

39 G. A. Cooke, _Text-book of North-Semitic Inscriptions_, No. 36, p.

102. As to Melcarth, the Tyrian Hercules, see Ed. Meyer, _s.v._

“Melqart,” in W. H. Roscher’s _Lexikon d. griech. u. röm.

Mythologie_, ii. 2650 _sqq._ One of the Tyrian kings seems to have

been called Abi-milk (Abi-melech), that is, “father of a king” or

“father of Moloch,” that is, of Melcarth. A letter of his to the

king of Egypt is preserved in the Tel-el-Amarna correspondence. See

R. F. Harper, _Assyrian and Babylonian Literature_, p. 237. As to a

title which implies that the bearer of it was the father of a god,

see below, pp. 51 _sq._

M11 Divinity of the Phoenician kings of Byblus and the Canaanite kings

of Jerusalem. The “sacred men” at Jerusalem.

40 E. Renan, quoted by Ch. Vellay, _Le culte et les fêtes

d’Adonis-Thammouz_, p. 39. Mr. Cooke reads ארםלך (Uri-milk) instead

of אדםלך (Adon-milk) (G. A. Cooke, _Text-book of North-Semitic

Inscriptions_, No. 3, p. 18).

41 Judges i. 4-7; Joshua x. 1 _sqq._

42 Genesis xiv. 18-20, with Prof. S. R. Driver’s commentary;

_Encyclopaedia Biblica_, _s.vv._ “Adoni-bezek,” “Adoni-zedek,”

“Melchizedek.” It is to be observed that names compounded with

Adoni- were occasionally borne by private persons. Such names are

Adoni-kam (Ezra ii. 13) and Adoni-ram (1 Kings iv. 6), not to

mention Adoni-jah (1 Kings i. 5 _sqq._), who was a prince and

aspired to the throne of his father David. These names are commonly

interpreted as sentences expressive of the nature of the god whom

the bearer of the name worshipped. See Prof. Th. Nöldeke, in

_Encyclopaedia Biblica_, _s.v._ “Names,” iii. 3286. It is quite

possible that names which once implied divinity were afterwards

degraded by application to common men.

43 Ezekiel viii. 14.

44 They were banished from the temple by King Josiah, who came to the

throne in 637 B.C. Jerusalem fell just fifty-one years later. See 2

Kings xxiii. 7. As to these “sacred men” (_ḳedēshīm_), see below,

pp. 72 _sqq._

45 2 Kings xxiii. 7, where, following the Septuagint, we must

apparently read כתנים for the בתים of the Massoretic Text. So R.

Kittel and J. Skinner.

46 The _ashērah_ (singular of _ashērīm_) was certainly of wood (Judges

vi. 26): it seems to have been a tree stripped of its branches and

planted in the ground beside an altar, whether of Jehovah or of

other gods (Deuteronomy xvi. 21; Jeremiah xvii. 2). That the

_asherah_ was regarded as a goddess, the female partner of Baal,

appears from 1 Kings xviii. 19; 2 Kings xxi. 3, xxiii. 4; and that

this goddess was identified with Ashtoreth (Astarte) may be inferred

from a comparison of Judges ii. 13 with Judges iii. 7. Yet on the

other hand the pole or tree seems by others to have been viewed as a

male power (Jeremiah ii. 27; see below, pp. 107 _sqq._), and the

identification of the _asherah_ with Astarte has been doubted or

disputed by some eminent modern scholars. See on this subject W.

Robertson Smith, _Religion of the Semites_,2 pp. 187 _sqq._; S. R.

Driver, on Deuteronomy xvi. 21; J. Skinner, on 1 Kings xiv. 23; M.

J. Lagrange, _Études sur les religions Sémitiques_,2 pp. 173 _sqq._;

G. F. Moore, in _Encyclopaedia Biblica_, vol. i. 330 _sqq._, _s.v._

“Asherah.”

47 Deuteronomy xxiii. 17 _sq._ (in Hebrew 18 _sq._). The code of

Deuteronomy was published in 621 B.C. in the reign of King Josiah,

whose reforms, including the ejection of the _ḳedeshim_ from the

temple, were based upon it. See W. Robertson Smith, _The Old

Testament in the Jewish Church_2 (London and Edinburgh, 1892), pp.

256 _sqq._, 353 _sqq._; S. R. Driver, _Critical and Exegetical

Commentary on Deuteronomy_3 (Edinburgh, 1902), pp. xliv. _sqq._; K.

Budde, _Geschichte der althebräischen Litteratur_ (Leipsic, 1906),

pp. 105 _sqq._