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for the body of Osiris and the burial, suggested a relationship between the two deities who caused their loves so great sorrow, and the identification was indeed made. The emphasis upon the cult of Adonis at Alexandria (see below, § 13) and Byblus and the similarity of ideas for which the two deities stood, whatever that may be, made the identification easy (Damascius, in Vita Isidori, cited by Photius, Bibliotheca, ccxlii., in MPG, ciii. 1276; Hippolytus, Hcer., v. 4, in ANF, v. 4, but cf. v. 56, where the " thrice desired Adonis " is the Assyrian, i.e., Syrian, name for Attic; Stephen of Byzantium, Ethnika, s.v. " Adonis "). So the myths of the two overflowed and mingled at the meetingplaces of Byblus and Alexandria, just as those of Attic and Adonis did in Cyprus, so near to Phrygia. Attic was a Phrygian deity whose myth relates that he was either killed by a boar or bled to death from self-castration, and orgiastic rites and mourning marked his cult; in this case also a goddess, Cybele the " Great Mother," was the objective of the worship (J. G. Frazer, ut sup., and Golden Bough., i. 296301, London, 1900). Rather less obvious is the relationship of Adonis and Dionysus, yet Plutarch testifies explicitly (Symposiaca problemata, IV., v. 3) that " they regard Adonis r;ot as another (deity) but as Dionysus " (cf. also " Orphic Hymn," xlii.). This identification of Adonis with other gods was not confined to the Greeks. In Babylonia Tammuz was the same as an early god Shulgur (M. Jastrow, Religion of Assyria and Babylonia, p. 58, New York, 1898), and Zimmern (Abharcdluregen,, ut sup., pp. 705-709) gives a list of names applied to Tammuz several of which involve identification of him with others. It is indisputable that in Babylonia, Syria, Egypt, Asia Minor, and Greece there were conceptions of deities so alike in their main features, having to do with the decay of power-whether solar or vegetational (see below, § 13)-that confusion and merging were to be expected. Whether in the writings of Sanchuniathon (q.v.) in Eusebius, Prceparatio evangeliea, i. 4 (Eng. transl. by E. H. Gifford, i. 41, Oxford, 1903) the " Elioun " and " Beruth," the former of whom died in an encounter with wild beasts, are Adonis and Aphrodite is not certain.

Just as the myth and conceptions concerning the deity varied in different localities, so the details of the celebration differed in accordance

ful youth. The image was surrounded by fresh flowers and plants, and at Alexandria also with the early fruits, the " gardens of Adonis," myrrh, and cakes of honey, meal, and oil, and after this was done the wailing and singing of dirges began (Sappho, fragment 6). After the wailing and on the second day, the image was carried away and cast into the river or the sea, or was given burial, the women accompanying the procession with bared breasts and singing an ode which besought prosperity for the coming year. At Harran the story went that the " lord of Adonis " slew him and ground his bones in a mill, and then scattered the fragments; hence the women of that region during the celebration ate nothing that had passed through the mill (Frazer, Adonis, etc., p. 131, citing Chwolson). At Byblus, after the wailing a sacrifice was offered to Adonis " as to one who was dead," therefore it was a holocaust and piacular (Lucian, De dea Syria, § vi.; Smith, Rel. of Sem., p. 411). In Cyprus it was customary to build a pyre for Adonis and to cast therein live doves (the bird of Aphrodite). Apparently with the mourning for Tammuz there was combined lamentation for departed friends and relations, so that the occasion was a sort of " All Souls' Day " (Jastrow, ut. sup, pp. 575, 599, 682j. A unique institution was the " gardens of Adonis " (Plato, Phcedrus, 276B; Theophrastus, De historic et causis plantarum, VI., vii. 3; Hesychius, s.v. " Adonidos kepoi "). These were shallow receptacles much like fern dishes, filled with earth, sowed with various kinds of seeds, and for a few days before the festival carefully tended by the women. Under the warm eastern sun the seeds germinated quickly, but when left unwatered, the same sun quickly dried the shallow earth and the growth withered. The " gardens " were then carried to a spring, river, or the sea and thrown in. That this was an old charm intended do promote the growth of vegetation is practically certain (Frazer, Adonis, etc., pp. 137-159, where early authorities are cited, to which add the Emperor Julian, " The Cxsars," xxv., in E. Talbot's Fr. transl., p. 285, Paris, 1863; and R. Rochette, Revue archeologique, viii. 1, 1851, pp. 97-123; a picture of these " gardens " is given in A. Jeremias, Das Alte Testament, etc., ut sup., p. 88).*. It is concordant with this interpretation that the mourning was followed on the next day by a festival which typified the return of the god from the dead (Origen and Jerome on Ezek. viii. 14, and Cyril of Alexandria, on Isa. xviii. 1-2; MPG, Ixx. 440-441). This feature, perhaps not a part of the original rites in Babylonia, has always mystified the narrators and students, some of them assuming strangely that the incensing of the effigy was supposed to effect revivification. But on that hypothesis why should burial or the casting of the effigy in river or sea

* There are several good reasons for thinking that in Isa. xvii. 1f1-11 the prophet had these " gardens of Adonis " in mind. The surface meaning gives just the usual order of procedure and the results of making these " gardens," while " the day of grief and desperate sorrow "certainly looks like the mourning. The word rendered " pleasant " (na'omonim) -probably containing a double reference to the anemone (sacred to Adonis) and to the meaning " darling," an epithet often applied to him-seems to make the reference to Adonis (or Tammuz) quite certain.