Under the names of Osiris, Tammuz, Adonis, and Attis, the peoples of
Egypt and Western Asia represented the yearly decay and revival of
life, especially of vegetable life, which they personified as a god
who annually died and rose again from the dead. In name and detail
the rites varied from place to place: in substance they were the
same. The supposed death and resurrection of this oriental deity, a
god of many names but of essentially one nature, is now to be
examined. We begin with Tammuz or Adonis.
The worship of Adonis was practised by the Semitic peoples of
Babylonia and Syria, and the Greeks borrowed it from them as early
as the seventh century before Christ. The true name of the deity was
Tammuz: the appellation of Adonis is merely the Semitic _Adon,_
"lord," a title of honour by which his worshippers addressed him.
But the Greeks through a misunderstanding converted the title of
honour into a proper name. In the religious literature of Babylonia
Tammuz appears as the youthful spouse or lover of Ishtar, the great
mother goddess, the embodiment of the reproductive energies of
nature.
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