languages call Thamuz . . . and they call the month June by that name.” He informs us also of a very important fact, that the solstice was the time when Tammūz was believed to have died, though the wailing for him took place in June. Consequently Tammūz’s martyrdom took place at the end of December. Cyril of Alexandria also tells us of the identity existing between Adonis and Tammūz (in Isaiah, chap. xviii.).
The name Adonis is purely Semitic, and signifies the Lord. His worship was introduced to the Greeks by the Phœnicians through Crete.
Adonis is identified with the Sun in one of the Orphic hymns: “Thou shining and vanishing in the beauteous circle of the Horæ, dwelling at one time in gloomy Tartarus, at another elevating thyself to Olympus, giving ripeness to the fruits[1]!” According to Theocritus, this rising and setting, this continual coursing, is accomplished in twelve months: “In twelve months the silent pacing Horæ follow him from the nether-world to that above, the dwelling of the Cyprian goddess, and then he declines again to Acheron[2].” The cause of these wanderings, according to the fable,
