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, 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, the
hallowed spot which heard, in the language of Jerome, the weeping of
the infant Christ and the lament for Adonis.
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