Ridgeway--that the Vegetation deities
were all of them originally men.
[7] From a liturgy employed at Nippur in the period of the Isin
dynasty. Langdon, op. cit. p. 11. Also, Sumerian and Babylonian
Psalms, p. 338.
[8] Cf. Langdon, Tammuz and Ishtar, p. 23.
[9] What we have been able to ascertain of the Sumerian-Babylonian
religion points to it rather as a religion of mourning and
supplication, than of joy and thanksgiving. The people seem to have
been in perpetual dread of their gods, who require to be appeased by
continual acts of humiliation. Thus the 9th, 15th, 19th, 28th, and
29th of the month were all days of sack-cloth and ashes, days of
wailing; the 19th especially was 'the day of the wrath of Gulu.'
[10] Cf. Langdon, op. cit. p. 24.
[11] Cf. Langdon, op. cit. p. 26.
[12] The most complete enquiry into the nature of the god is to
be found in Baudissin, Adonis und Esmun. For the details of the cult
cf. Farnell, Cults of the Greek States, Vol. II.; Vellay, Adonis
(Annales du Musee Guimet). For the Folk-lore evidence cf. Mannhardt,
Wald un Feld-Kulte; Frazer, The Golden Bough, and Adonis, Attis and
Osiris. These remarks apply also to the kindred cult of Attis, which
as we shall see later forms an important link in our chain of evidence.
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