We have seen that Purim is either an old Jewish Tammuz feast, existing
before the exile, or a post-exilian adaptation of a Persian rite, in
which a condemned criminal died to save the king's life; or both.[42]
The victim next 'personates not merely a king but a god, whether that
god was the Elamite Humman, the Babylonian Marduk, or some other deity
not yet identified.'[43] But[44] the victim represented the king:
no other god was mentioned. Again Mr. Frazer says: 'At the Sacæan
festival, if I am right, a man who personated a god or hero of the
type of Tammuz or Adonis enjoyed the favours of a woman, probably a
sacred harlot, who represented the great Semitic goddess Ishtar or
Astarte....'[45] But did the king also stand for I a god or hero of
the type of Tammuz or Adonis'? Did he associate with sacred harlots?
And did he, and the victim also 'personate a god, whether that god
was the Elamite Humman, the Babylonian Marduk, or some other deity
not yet identified'?[46] Were the 'Elamite Humman and the Babylonian
Marduk' (or Merodach) gods of vegetation? Marduk, or Merodach, to be
sure, was the chief god of Babylon, a solar deity, says Dr. Jastrow.
But as Mr. Frazer suggests that the supreme Aryan god, Zeus, may have
derived his name, 'the Bright or Shining One,' from the oak tree (he
being 'actually represented by an oak,' and oakwood producing _bright_
sparks when used in fire-making),[47] why then another supreme god,
Marduk, may also be a god of vegetable life. But, like the horses of
Virbius, the Sacæan victim has been plausibly identified with Tammuz
or Adonis.[48] 'It seems worth suggesting that the mock-king who
was annually killed at the Babylonian festival of the Sacæa on the
sixteenth day of the month Lous may have represented Tammuz himself.'
He also takes that _rôle_, with his sacred harlot, in iii. 178. It is,
therefore, a little bewildering to find him appearing as Humman or
Marduk, or some other god unknown, in iii. 159, 160. How many single
gods are rolled into one, scourged, and hanged in this most unhappy
condemned criminal?
We have been told that Marduk presided over a council of the gods
at the Zakmuk, which is the Sacæa.[49] But the hanged man[50] very
probably personates Marduk. Mr. Frazer may think that, when the
supreme god is presiding over the Olympian assembly in his Temple, it is
a natural and pious compliment to whip and hang him in the person of
his human representative. This, at least, is the result of his theory
in iii. 159, 160. I do not feel sure that the supreme god, whether
Marduk or Humman, would have taken the same favourable view of the
tactless rite.