Tammuz in Babylon was the young love of Ishtar. Each year he died and
passed below the earth to the place of dust and death, "the land from
which there is no returning, the house of darkness, where dust lies on
door and bolt." And the goddess went after him, and while she was below,
life ceased in the earth, no flower blossomed and no child of animal or
man was born.

We know Tammuz, "the true son," best by one of his titles, Adonis, the
Lord or King. The Rites of Adonis were celebrated at midsummer. That is
certain and memorable; for, just as the Athenian fleet was setting sail
on its ill-omened voyage to Syracuse, the streets of Athens were
thronged with funeral processions, everywhere was seen the image of the
dead god, and the air was full of the lamentations of weeping women.
Thucydides does not so much as mention the coincidence, but Plutarch[2]
tells us those who took account of omens were full of concern for the
fate of their countrymen. To start an expedition on the day of the
funeral rites of Adonis, the Canaanitish "Lord," was no luckier than to
set sail on a Friday, the death-day of the "Lord" of Christendom.

The rites of Tammuz and of Adonis, celebrated in the summer, were rites
of death rather than of resurrection. The emphasis is on the fading and
dying down of vegetation rather than on its upspringing. The reason of
this is simple and will soon become manifest. For the moment we have
only to note that while in Egypt the rites of Osiris are represented as
much by art as by ritual, in Babylon and Palestine in the feasts of
Tammuz and Adonis it is ritual rather than art that obtains.

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