BOOK IV. to have been sought by his brother Egyptus.' In each of these instances we have but a repetition of the murder of Osiris by Typhon or of Dacsha by Siva, as is plain by every one of the agents being immediately connected with the deluge: for the Cabiri were eminently diluvian gods, Dardanus escaped in a ship at the time of a flood, and Danaus was the navigator of the Argo or Argha no less than Osiris or Siva. The Hindoo legend, in which the double manifestation of Siva as a member both of the family of the first and of the seventh Menu is distinctly set forth, will best serve as an explanation of those other fables, which have so clearly sprung from the same source. II. The ark, within which Typhon inclosed Osiris, was thought to have drifted on shore in Phenicia : and the Egyptians, as we are informed by Lucian, had a custom of yearly commemorating this supposed event by committing to the winds and waves a papyrine vessel; which in form represented the head of the deity, and which was feigned to be wafted in seven days to Byblos by a supernatural impulse. This ceremony Procopius immediately connects with the Mysteries of Adonis or Thammuz. He tells us, that, the same day on which the Byblians began to weep for Adonis, the Alexandrians inclosed a sealed letter in an earthen vessel; the purport of which was, that the god was found again. Then, after the due performance of certain mystic rites, they cast it into the sea. It was reported to drift spontaneously to Byblos: and its arrival put an end to the lamentations for the lost Adonis, and changed them into the most frantic expressions of joy on account of his reinvention. Nor was Adonis only supposed to have been lost, and then recovered: he was also annually bewailed with funereal rites, as a person that had been slain; and he was afterwards welcomed with loud acclamations, on his fictitious return to life.* Now the rites, celebrated in honour of Osiris, were of an exactly similar ' Jul. Firm. de error. prof. rel. p. 23. Serv. in Æneid. lib. iii. ver. 163-170. Schol. in Apoll. Argon. lib. i. ver. 4. Clem. Alex. Cohort. p. 12. See plate I. Fig. 12. apud Selden. Luc. de dea Syra. § 7. 3 Procop. in Esai. c. xviii. Luc. de dea Syra. § 6. Phurn, de nat. deor. c. xxviii. nature the god was for a time bewailed, as one lost or murdered; after- CHAP. IV. wards he was thought to be found or to be reanimated, and the wild sorrow of his votaries was exchanged for yet wilder joy.' Thus it appears then, that the Mysteries of the two deities were in all points substantially the same: and it further appears, that they were avowedly connected with each other, both by the imaginary drifting of the ark of Osiris to the Phenician coast, and by the annual voyage of the papyrine or earthen vessel to Byblos. Hence we may be sure, that, as Osiris and Adonis are equally the Sun, so they are equally one character likewise in their human capacity. Accordingly Lucian tells us, that some of the Byblians maintained, that Osiris was buried in their country, and that their Orgies were instituted not in honour of Adonis but of the Egyptian divinity. Their opinion was so far right, that Osiris was undoubtedly the hero of their Mysteries: yet it was nugatory to assert, that Adonis was therefore not the hero of them. Adonis and Osiris were in fact one person: or rather Adonis and Osiris were but different names of one deity, venerated alike in Egypt and Phenicia with rites first gloomily funereal and afterwards tumultuously joyful. Such being the case, as the Mysteries of Osiris were the same as those of Seth or Typhon or Baal-Peor, the Mysteries of Adonis must also be identified with the Orgies of that god. The sacrifices therefore of the dead, which the Israelites partook of in the worship of Baal-Peor, must have been those that were offered up to him during the time of his supposed death or disappearance. To this species of idolatry, which prevailed alike in Egypt and Phenicia, they continued to be pertinaciously attached long after the days of Moses: for Ezekiel speaks of women weeping for Thammuz, as one of the many abominations of his degenerate countrymen.' The mournful rites of Adonis were well known likewise at Argos, so famous for its many memorials of the deluge; in which place, as elsewhere, his loss was statedly bewailed by the females. He was equally venerated in the island of Cyprus, where, if I mistake not, he was known by his scriptural name of Jul. Firm. de error. prof. rel. p. 4, 5, 6. Ovid. Metam. lib. ix. ver. 692. lib. x. ver, 725-727, Paus. Corinth. p. 121. 2 K Luc. de dea Syra. § 7. 3 Ezek. viii. 14. VOL, II, BOOK IV. Thammuz: for the sacred peculium of the temple, which was dedicated in that country to his paramour Venus, was denominated Tamasèum. 1. Adonis being the same as Osiris, and his Mysteries perfectly corre→ sponding with those of the Egyptian deity, we shall find that their respective legends have a considerable degree of resemblance to each other. Adonis was thought to have been the lover of Venus, and to have been slain by a wild boar or (according to Nonnus) by Mars in the shape of a boar. Typhon was said to have been in pursuit of a boar at the time of the full Moon, when he found and rent asunder the wooden ark which contained the body of Osiris. When Adonis was slain by the boar, he at the same time disappeared in consequence of which he was sought for by Venus in various countries, and at length found in Argos a city of Cyprus. In a similar manner, the lost Osiris was sought for by Isis, and his mangled body at last discovered by her in Phenicia. Venus here performs the part of Isis: and mythologists accordingly inform us, that they were one and the same goddess. Each was equally the receptacle of the hero-gods, or the ship of the deluge. Hence Adonis is worshipped with the seaborn Venus, just as Osiris is with the navicular Isis: and, as the Moon was the astronomical symbol of the Ark, we find them peculiarly venerated on the summit of Lebanon, which was one of the many transcripts of the true lunar mountain Ararat or Luban.* The most prominent and definite circumstance however in the history of Osiris is certainly his inclosure in an ark: this, accordingly, could not be omitted in the legend of Adonis. But here he sustains the additional character of the infant Horus. Venus, we are told, being struck with his beauty while he was yet a child, concealed him from the other gods in an ark, which she committed to the care of Proserpine. That goddess became equally enamoured, and refused to restore him. The matter being referred to Jupiter, he decreed, that Adonis should spend four months with him, 2 1 Ovid. Metam. lib. x. ver. 644. Macrob. Saturn. lib. i. c. 21. Nonni Dionys. lib. xli. Plut. de Isid. p. 354. • Macrob. Saturn. lib. c. 21. four with Proserpine, and four with Venus.' This inclosure in the ark, as CHAP. IV. as appears from the parallel fable of Osiris, was really the time of his allegorical death and, as the arkite divinity under whatever name was generally feigned to have experienced such a death, we usually find him reputed to have also visited the infernal regions and to have returned in safety from them. In all these cases the inclosure within the Ark was meant, which itself was therefore consistently esteemed a coffin. Noah remained shut up somewhat more than a year: hence Adonis, as we learn from Theocritus, was supposed to have continued a year in Hades before he emerged to light and liberty.* 2. Hesiod represents Adonis as being the son of Phenix and Alphesibèa : but the more common opinion is, that he was born from the incestuous intercourse of Cinyras with his own daughter Myrrha. Cinyras was said to be a king of Assyria or Babylonia, who in a state of intoxication had intercourse with his daughter. The consequence of. it was the birth of Adonis. But, according to Antoninus Liberalis, this Cinyras, whom he calls Theias or Thoth, was the son of Belus; and he tells us, that Myrrha was born in mount Lebanon.3 The whole legend curiously connects itself both with the preceding history of Adonis, and with other parts of ancient mythology which I have already had occasion to notice. Alphesibèa and Myrrha are both, I believe, equally the Ark or the great mother: and, as the name of the latter denotes the Moon of the water; so that of the former, which is a compound of two synonymous words, Phenician and Greek, the one apparently added to explain the other, signifies the heifer, an animal, which, from its being a symbol of the Ark, the Syrians were wont also to call Theba. She was the same as the horned Astartè or bovine Venus of the Phenicians: whence arose the notion of her being peculiarly born on the summit of Le 1 Apoll. Bibl. lib. iii. c. 13. § 4. 2 Theoc. Idyll. xv. ver. 101-103. 3 Hesiod. apud Apoll. Bibl. lib. iii. c. 13. § 4. Fulgent. Mythol. lib. iii. c. 8. Hyg. Fab. 164, 242. Anton. Liber. Metam. c. xxxiii. + Murrha seems to be Mou-Rha. The word Rha or Ira equally signifies the Moon in the Chaldee and the old Celto-Scythic: and such an etymology perfectly accords with her supposed birth on Lebanon or the mountain of the Moon. Alphesibèa is compounded of Aleph and Bous. BOOK IV. banon, which was their local mountain of the Moon, and in which VenusArchitis the paramour of Adonis was specially venerated.' Her consort or lover Phenix bears a name common to all the Phenicians, but which they themselves seem to have assumed from a title of the principal arkite divinity. Phanac or Phenix was an appellation of Osiris, Adonis, or Bacchus for Adonis was the very same character as his mythological father; and the whole fable of his incestuous birth originated from the complex relationship of father and son, which the intoxicated Noah was thought to bear to the Ark. But the legend carries us also into Assyria or Babylonia, and that in a manner not a little curious: for the reputed father of Adonis is said to have been the son of the Assyrian Belus; and a notion prevailed, that his fabulous mother was changed into a tree, in which condition she brought him into the world. Now it is a remarkable circumstance, that Semiramis, who by many was esteemed the same as Rhea, Venus, Atargatis, or the Syrian goddess, was variously feigned to have been metamorphosed into a tree and a dove. The tree alluded to was an excavated tree or canoe, such as was used in the Mysteries of Cybelè: and the birth of Adonis from it, like the revival of Attis from the hollowed trunk, means only the birth of Noah from the Ark. In the Hindoo mythology, Parvati, during the period of the deluge, similarly assumes the forms of a dove and of the ship Argha which answers to the excavated tree. III. Throughout Phrygia, Osiris or Adonis was worshipped under the name of Attis or Atys: and he was there supposed to be the favourite of Cybele; who, like Venus or Isis, was the great universal mother. The rites of Attis were of the same alternately melancholy and joyful description as those of Adonis and Osiris: and he was supposed to have been bewailed by Cybele, just as his two kindred deities were by Venus and Isis.' According to Diodorus, Attis was slain by Meon or Menes the father of Cybelè: upon which the goddess wandered over the whole world, with dishevelled hair like one insane, on account of the murder of her lover. This 3 Macrob. Saturn. lib. i.c. 21. Jul. Firm. de error. prof. rel. p. 20. Diod. Bibl. lib. iii. p. 191, 192. |