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Talmud, The Tammuz-Adonis THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG 284

B. Straseburger, Geachichte der Erziehung and des Unterrichts . . . von dem talmud. Zeit bia auJ die Gepenwart, Strasburg, 1855. On various scientific matters: E. Grunebaum, Die Sittenlehre des Judenthuma, Strasburg, 1878· M. Jacobson, Versuch einer Psycholopie des Talmud, Hamburg. 1878: A. Wiinaehe, Neue Beitrage zur Erlauterunp der Evangelien aus Talmud and Midraach, G5ttingen, 1878; J. Berge], Studien fiber die naturwissenachaftlichen Keuntnisse der Talmudisten, Leipaic, 1880; A. Hahn, The Rabbinical Dialectics, Cincinnati, 1881· F. Weber, Jiidische Theolopie auf Grund des Talmud and verwandter Schriften, Leipsic, 1897; W. Bacher, Die exepetische Terminolopie der jiidischen Traditiouslitteratur, 2 vols., Leipsic, 1899-1905; B. Zuckermann, Materialieu zur Entwicklung der altjiidischen Zeitrechnunp, Breslau, 1862; idem, Das jiidische Maasssystem, ib. 1867; idem, Daa Mathematische im Talmud, ib. 1878; P. Rieger, Technolopie and Termirtolopie der Handwerke in der Masnah, vol. i., Berlin, 1894; H. Vogelstein, Die Landwirtachaft in Palt%stina zur Zeit der MiTnah, vol. i., ib. 1894; J. )3rengel, Das Hauaperat in der Misnah, vol. i., Frankfort, 1899; R. J. Wunderbar, Biblisch-talmudische Mediziu, 2 vole., Leipsic, 1850-80; J. M. Rabbinowicz, Einleitursp in die Gesetzpebung and die Medizin des Thalmuds, Leipsic, 1883; W. Ebstein, Die Medizin im Neuen Testament and im Talmud, Stuttgart, 1903. Illustrative of Christianity: R. T. Herford, Christianity in Talmud and Midrash, London, 1903· G. Aicher, Daa A. T. in der Mischna, Freiburg, 1906; A. Marmoratein, Talmud and Neues Testament, Vincovei, 1908; Miss A. Lucas, Talmudic Legends, Hymns, and Paraphrases, London, 1908; A. Marmorstein, Die Bezeichnungen fur Christen and Gnostiker im Talmud and Midraa, Skatsehau, 1910; W. Knight, The Golden Wisdom of the Apocrypha . . and an Appendix Containing some of the Proverbial Wisdom of the Talmud, London, 1910; S. Rapaport, Tales and Maxims from the Talmud, ib. 1910.

TAMMUZ-ADONIS.

2).

12).

In Ezek. viii. 14, in a chapter in which the prophet

relates the idolatries of the Jews as seen by him in

a vision, it is stated that before the north door of

the Temple women sat weeping for Tammuz. This

statement opens up the history of a

x. Tammuz cult which, in the light of a certain

in the Old identification presently to be estab

Testament. lished, persisted through several mil

lennia, arising among the Sumerian

inhabitants of pre-Semitic Babylonia, passing into

the worship of their Semitic conquerors, and pro

ceeding by way of Cyprus to become the possession

of Aryan peoples-the Greeks and the Romans.

The story of Tammuz-Adonis is thus in more than

one sense one of the romances in the history of re

ligion. Other references to the cult than the one

cited above which this scholar or that has seen in

the Old Testament are, with two exceptions (Dan.

xi. 37 and Isa. xvii. 10-11), not to be allowed, the

explanations which bring them into connection

with Tammuz being forced rather than natural.

Amos viii. 10 can hardly be related with the mourning for this deity; Jer. vi. 26 is no mope germane, while the passage Zech, xii. 10 has already been explained as giving another meaning (see HADA1)RIMMON). It is very likely that the phrase " the desire of women," in Dan. xi. 37 has reference to Tammuz-Adonis, for, the sense requires some deity honored by women, and this cult was especially feminine. The apocryphal Epistle of Jeremiah may possibly have in mind the Adonis cult, though it is noticeable that in this case it is the priests and not the women who mourn and shave their heads and beards. For Isa. xvii. 10-11 see below, § 13.

The name Tammuz represents the Sumerian Dumxtzi (variant forms Tauuzu, Ta'2czu, Da'uzu, Duzu; full form Dumuzi-abzu; the form Tammuz, with doubled m, seems to have originated in the Hebrew, perhaps on account of the

a. Name; short vowel in the first syllable), the

Mention in meaning of which is still under discusEarly In- sion. Zimmern (latest in J. Hastings,

scriptions. Eneyclopcedia of Religion and Ethics, ii. 313, New York, 1910; cf. Schrader, KAT, p. 397) renders the full form "real child of the water depths "; Prof. J. D. Prince (in a private communication) gives as the rendering " young life "; the usual translation has been " son. of life." In Babylonian (Sumerian) literature Tammuz makes his appearance as early as Urukagina, Gudea, and Siniddina (see BABYLONIA, VI., 3, §§ 3, 5), and if the identification of Tammuz and Adonis be re garded as made out (see below, § 8), the final traces of his cult do not disappear till late in the Christian era, indeed, -it seems not to have received its coup de grace until the Mohammedan conquest of the Aramean region. Tammuz appears in the inscrip tions and documents of the pre-Semitic period in a variety of ways. Testimony to his early existence in the pantheon is given by tablets from Telloh which bear names in which his name form one ele ment (H. Zimmern, Abhandlungere of the Saxon Academy, xxvii. 721-722, Leipsic, 1909). Witness to him comes from Shirpurla and Kish in the times of the kings named above and of Eannatum, and from Larsa under Siniddina, when mention is made of " the month of the celebration of the god Tamuz." Consequently, he rightly claims a place among the oldest of the well-attested deities of the Sumerian pantheon, though in those times there seems not to exist any hint of his relations with the Sumerian Ishtar. After the Semites gained control he drops out of sight, except for the name of his month, in official records, and that in the quite numerous hymns and in the epics he still has mention, also that he appears among the very minor deities who seem to have stalls in some Assyrian temples.

He figures in the Babylonian myths named after Adapa and Gilgamesh, and in the " descent of Ishtar " (these are most easily accessible to the English reader in Assyrian and Babylonian Literature, Selected Translations, . . . by R. F. Harper, pp. 314 sqq., New York, 1901; for mention of Tammuz cf. pages 316-317, 338, 413). In all this Babylonian literature the story is by no means complete as judged by the myth as it appears from Greek sources; the references are quite obscure, though