Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-11-12
ADoNIs, ATTIs, OSIRIS
ATTITUDE OF ANcIENTs TOWARD
NATURAL PHENOMENA.
The Change Of Seasons Filled Them
With Wonder-Fear Of Famine
How Dieties Were Created.

mind differs more widely from the an
Gent than in the view which 1t takes OF
nature To US the miracle which every
spring quickens the dead earth into new
life appears only a necessary effect of
fixed and universal law; but with men
in earlier days it was far otherwise. The
annual growth and decay of vegetation
filled them with perpetual wonder and an
ever-recurring dread. Knowing often by
hard experience what famine meant, they
were csaselessly haunted by the fear that
one day the earth would no longer yield
her increase, and accordingly sought by
charms and child-like devices of magic Ito
make the rain to fall, the sun to shine, and
the crops to grow Then as they grew
more conscious Of their own powers as liv-
ing agents. they began to imagine beings
like to themselves but mightier, In whose
activity the processes of what we call ma
ture had their source, SO that earth, from
whose womb all things spring. becomes
everywhere ''mother-earth'' and heaven,
with its generative heat and fertilizing
showers is personified as the creative and
almighty father But conceptions of such
cosmic gradeur were too large for common
minds, and men loved rather to embody
the powers which ruled the vintage or the
harvest in simpler and more human shapes.
Thus sprang up that legend of Demeter,
THE Corn-mother," and of her lost daugh-
ter, "The Commander" to which the
genius of Greece has given an imperishable
charm, or that story of Osiris rent in pieces
and buried in order that he might rise again
with new vigor, which has furnished Milton
with perhaps the finest smile In English.
Nor are such tales merely idle inventions,
but rather the wofk of men who did really
seek to understand and picture to others
the mysteries of nature. They conceived
the vital energy of the crops as derived
fro thar nf th0 fa Of
divine beings, in whose welfare they, there
fore, took the keenest interest," so that the
mourning of Demeter for Persephone, or
the weary search of Isis for the mangled
body of her brother, moved them not only
with the tenderness of human sympathy,
but with the reality of human need. The
cry, indeed for daily bread" is the COM
mon prayer which common want wrings
everywhere from the lips; and though the
deities to whom men once appealed may
seem to us strange creations, they do yet
represent living faith in the unseen, while
the belief in beings who could give life
to the dead wheat might lead also to a
still higher hope. For when at Eleusis "a
reaped ear of corn was exhibited to the
worshipers as the central mystery of. their
religion or when the Egyptians laid be-
side their dead little Osiris figures filled
with grain, assuredly the symbolism and the
thought are not very different from those
of the consecrated words with which We,
too, commit our departed to the earth.
Grecian Images.
But the reflections which in Greece and
Egypt evoked images of tender beauty or
sublime hope acted differently in the pas
sionate and sensuous east. The idea of
fruitfulness finds its symbol for the oriental
mind in that union of the sexes without
which the race Of men and animals must
perish. Instead of mother and daughter
there appear the divine lover and the d.
vine bride. Beside Astarte, the goddess of
fertility. stands the lovely youth
Whose annual wound In Lebanon allur'd
So. In amorous ditties ali a summers day.
and at the side of ,cybele the great
mother, is Attis. the beautiful shepherd,
IN order that the goddess might be more
fully ''mpregnated with the hfe-givfng
energy which she was ito transmit to the
world OF the original meaning which
turks beneath these strange tales no reader
of THE Golden Bough' or of the present
expansion of certain sections in it C"Adonis,
Attis, Osiris" Macmillan & Co., los. metz
can entertain any doubt. The evidence
which DIR, Frazer accumulates, though at
times questionable, is In its cumulative
weight Irresistible. The ancients. and
even Christian writer's. such as Jerome,
recognized that Adonis was an image of
the sown wheat; and the honors paid at
the vernal equinox to the pine tree, wherein
Attis dwelis, lead in clear and historic
sequence to the rites with which in spring
tN0 ldy pore was ONCE Drought TITO EIQSllSn
villages; nor do we doubt that a Christmas
tree, with its lights and dolls, might be
shown to be the survival of a dozen super
stitions. Everywhere, indeed, DR.. Frazer
throws new light on many strange customs
or old observances, and it Is pure delight
to read his discursfve essays ON, say, the
burning of gods with a view to refresh
ing and recreating their creative energy"
kings which entitled them to the same puri-
ficatory treatment whenever the spirit Of
the corn, resident in their sacred persons,
seemed to droop and flag
Spirit Of Vegetation.
But the ordinary reader, who Is not q
devotee of the spirit of vegetation" will
probably feel that he obtains only an i'm
perfect idea Of the strange forms of wor-
ship about which he hears SO much. For the
cults of Attis and Adonis as they appear
in history have nothing simple, natural,
or attractive about them. Their symbolism
was fatal to them. and whatever interest
students of sympathetic magic may take
in unsexed priests and sacred harlots,"
the existence of such beings is incom-
patible with anything that can be called
religion. The "Attis'' of Catullus, though
work of almost supreme art. still repels
every honest mind by the sheer horror of
its subject. And with Adonis 1t is the same.
DR.. Frazer paints with a master hand the
beauty of that Syrian valley where he was
chiefly worshiped. "A fairer scene' he
tells US, could hardly be imagined for
story of tragic love and death than this
spot. where every spring 1.-The red anemone,"
sprung from Adonis' blood, "bloomed
among the cedars of Lebanon" and the
river ran red to the sea, fringing the wind
ing shores of the blue Mediterranean
whenever the wind set inshore, with a
sinuous band of crimson" Doubtless 1t
was very beautiful, and an aptly chosen
scene for nature-worship; but those who
know Lucian's description of the temple
that was set amid this loneliness will under
stand why Ezekiel was shown women
weeping for Tamanuz'-the Syrian name
OF the god-as one of the great "abomina-
tons" of Jerusalem Or when they read
in this volume of those little pots, planted
with herbs which SHOT up rapidly and as
rapidly withered, which were called gar
dens of Adonis, and of how similar pots
are still planted by gossips and sweet
hearts in Sicily and Sardinia, they will
realize why Isaiah saw in these pleasant
plants paintings of Adonis'' (xvii:10)
not the symbol of resurrection to life, but
the symbol of corruption unto death In
the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow
and in the morning shalt thou make thy
seed to flourish but the harvest shah be
heap in the day of grief and of desperate