Adonis

:For other uses of the name Adonis, see Adonis (disambiguation).

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A Syrian dying-and-reborn annual vegetation god imported into Greek mythology but always retaining aspects of his Semitic Near Eastern origins, Adonis was one of the most complex cult figures in classical times. He had multiple roles and there has been much scholarship over the centuries of his meaning and purpose in the Greek religious beliefs. His Semitic counterpart is Tammuz. His Etruscan counterpart was Atunis. (Some mythologists believe he was later exported to Germania, and his counterpart in Germanic mythology is Baldr.) He is an annually-renewed, ever-youthful vegetation god, a life-death-rebirth deity whose nature is tied to the calendar. His cult belonged to women: the cult of dying Adonis was fully-developed in the circle of young girls around Sappho on Lesbos, about 600 BCE, as a fragment of Sappho reveals.

Related Topics:
Syria - Dying-and-reborn - Vegetation - God - Greek mythology - Semitic - Greek religious beliefs - Tammuz - Etruscan - Germania - Germanic mythology - Baldr - Cult - Sappho - Lesbos

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Adonis was certainly based in large part on Tammuz. His name is Semitic, a variation on the word meaning "lord" that was also used, as "Adonai", to refer to Yahweh in the Old Testament. When the Hebrews first arrived in Canaan, they were opposed by the king of the Jebusites, Adonizedek, whose name means "lord of Zedek" (Jerusalem). Yet there is no trace of a Semitic cult directly connected with Adonis, and no trace in Semitic languages of any specific mythemes connected with his Greek myth; both Greek and Near Eastern scholars have questioned the connection (Burkert, p 177 note 6 bibliography). The connection in cult practice is with Adonis' Mesopotamian counterpart, Tammuz:

Related Topics:
Lord - Adonai - Yahweh - Old Testament - Jebusite - Mytheme - Tammuz

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:"Women sit by the gate weeping for Tammuz, or they offer incense to Baal on roof-tops and plant pleasant plants. These are the very features of the Adonis cult: a cult confined to women which is celebrated on flat roof-tops on which sherds sown with quickly germinating green salading are placed, Adonis gardens... the climax is loud lamentation for the dead god." —Burkert, p. 177).

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Adonis was worshipped in unspoken mystery religions: not until Imperial Roman times (in Lucian of Samosata, De Dea Syria, ch. 6 http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Lofts/2938/deasyria1.html) does any written source mention that the women were consoled by a revived Adonis. Women in Athens would plant "gardens of Adonis" quick-growing herbs that sprang up from seed and died. The Festival of Adonis was celebrated by women at midsummer by sowing fennel and lettuce, and grains of wheat and barley. The plants sprang up soon, and withered quickly, and women mourned for the untimely death of the vegetation god (Detienne 1972).

Related Topics:
Mystery religion - Lucian of Samosata - Gardens of Adonis

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As "Lord" or baal, Adonis was the youthful consort of the ageless Goddess, who might take various identities according to which aspect of annual renewal is being emphasized.

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