C., while it persisted among the Sabeans at Harran into the Middle
Ages.[4]
While much relating to the god and his precise position in the
Sumerian-Babylonian Pantheon still remains obscure, fragmentary
cuneiform texts connected with the religious services of the period
have been discovered, and to a considerable extent deciphered, and we
are thus in a position to judge, from the prayers and invocations
addressed to the deity, what were the powers attributed to, and the
benefits besought from, him. These texts are of a uniform character;
they are all 'Lamentations,' or 'Wailings,' having for their exciting
cause the disappearance of Tammuz from this upper earth, and the
disastrous effects produced upon animal and vegetable life by his
absence. The woes of the land and the folk are set forth in poignant
detail, and Tammuz is passionately invoked to have pity upon his
worshippers, and to end their sufferings by a speedy return. This
return, we find from other texts, was effected by the action of a
goddess, the mother, sister, or paramour, of Tammuz, who, descending
into the nether world, induced the youthful deity to return with her
to earth. It is perfectly clear from the texts which have been
deciphered that Tammuz is not to be regarded merely as representing
the Spirit of Vegetation; his influence is operative, not only in the
vernal processes of Nature, as a Spring god, but in all its
reproductive energies, without distinction or limitation, he may be
considered as an embodiment of the Life principle, and his cult as a
Life Cult.
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