ADONIS, ATTIS, OSIRIS. T HERE is nothing in which the modern
mind differs more widely from the ancient than in the view which it 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 ceaselessly 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 " to 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 living agents, they began to imagine beings like to themselves but mightier, in whose activity the processes of what we call Nature had their source, so that earth, from whose womb all things spring, becomes everywhere " Mother-Earth," and heaven, with its generative heat and fertilising showers, is personified as the creative and almighty " Father." But conceptions of such cosmic grandeur 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 De'meter, "the Corn-mother," and of her lost daughter, "the Corn-maiden," 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 vigour, which has furnished Milton with perhaps the finest simile in English. Nor are such tales merely idle inventions, but rather the work 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 from, or rather as a part of, the life of divine beings, in whose welfare they, therefore, 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 common prayer which a 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 a 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 worshippers as the central mystery of their religion," or when the Egyptians laid beside 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.
But the reflections which in Greece and Egypt evoked images of tender beauty or sublime hope acted differently in the passionate 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 divine bride. Beside Astarte, the goddess of fertility, stands the lovely youth
" Whose annual wound in Lebanon alined The Syrian damsels to lament his fate In amorous ditties all a summer's day";
and at the side of Cybele, the Great Mother, is Attis, the beautiful shepherd, who made sacrifice even of his manhood in order that the goddess might be more fully " impregnated with the life-giving energy" which she was "to transmit to the world." Of the original meaning which lurks beneath these strange tales no reader. of " The Golden Bough" or of the present expansion of certain sections in it (" Adonis, Attis, Osiris," Macmillan and Co., 10s. net) can entertain any doubt. The evidence which Dr. Frazer accumulates, though at times questionable, is in its cumulative weight irresistible. The ancients, and even Christian writers, such as Jeroine, recognised that Adonis was an image of the sown wheat ; and the honours paid at the vernal equinox to the pine-tree wherein Attis dwells lead in clear and historic sequence to the rites with which in spring the maypole was once brought into English villages ; nor do we doubt that a Christmas-tree, with its lights and dolls, might be shown to be the survival of a dozen superstitions. Everywhere, indeed, Dr. Frazer throivs new light on many strange customs or old observances, and it is pure delight to read his discursive essays on, say, the "burning of gods" with a view to "refreshing and recreating their creative energy," or on that theory of the divine right of Kings which entitled them to the same purificatory treat- ment whenever the "spirit of the corn," resident in their sacred persons, seemed to droop and flag. But the ordinary reader, who is not a devotee of the " spirit of vegetation," will probably feel that he obtains only an imperfect idea of the strange forme of worship 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 "Attie" of Catullus, though a work of almost supreme art, still repels every honest mind by the sheer horror of its subject. And with Adonis it is the same. Dr. Frazer paints with a master hand the beauty of that Syrian valley where he was chiefly worshipped. "A fairer scene," he tells us, "could hardly be imagined for a story of tragic love and death" than this spot where every spring "the red anemone," sprung from Adonis's blood, " bloomed among the cedars of Lebanon," and " the river ran red to the sea, fringing the winding shores of the blue Mediterranean, when- ever the wind set inshore, with a sinuous band of crimson." Doubtless it 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 loveliness will understand why Ezekiel was shown "women weeping for Tammuz "—the Syrian name of the god—as one of the great " abominations " 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 "gardens of Adonis," and of how similar pots are still planted by gossips and sweet- hearts in Sicily and Sardinia, they will realise why Isaiah saw in these "pleasant plants" or "plantings 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 shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow."
These two cults were, in fact, not " religions " in any just sense, but gross and degrading superstitions, and are con- nected only by a single and almost accidental link with the worship of Osiris, who, as Ruler of the Dead, weighing each soul in .the balance and requiring that men should " have given bread to the hungry and water to the thirsty and clothes to the naked," was assuredly a power that made for righteous- ness. Dr. Frazer, however, may urge that he is only concerned with religions as a student of anthropology, and has no concern with their real worth. Nor would the plea be unreasonable, did he not himself indicate that the real aim of his work extends far beyond its formal one. In his preface to " The Golden Bough " be expresses the hope that it will "expedite progress ..... .. if it shows that much which we are wont to regard as solid rests on the sands of superstition," and adds that "it is a melancholy and in some respects thankless task to strike at the founda- tions of beliefs in which, as in a strong tower, the hopes and aspirations of humanity through long ages have sought a refuge from the strain and stress of life," while through- out that work he continually connects points of Christian ritual or doctrine with a number of non-Christian practices and beliefs, apparently in order to indicate the purely human origin of both. And the same purpose appears equally in the present volume. He dwells with emphasis on the coincidence of the date of Christmas with that of the nativity of Mithra, and on the fact that it was chosen by the " Christian Church" in order to " transfer the devotion of the heathen from the Sun to him who was called the Sun of Righteousness." He brings March 25th, the traditional date of the Passion, into connexion with the " official celebra- tion at Rome of the death and resurrection of Attis " on that and the preceding day. The feast of All Souls is "nothing but an old pagan festival of the dead." The death and rising again of gods are often referred to, while Osiris " gives his body," or " his broken body," to feed the people, and " dies that they may live." "The spread of Oriental religions which inculcated the commune of the soul with God and its eternal salvation as the only things worth living for" checked, we are told, the " march of civilization for a thousand years," until with the revival of learning " the tide of Oriental invasion turned at last," and " is ebbing still" And, finally, Dr. Frazer draws a parallel between Buddhism and Christianity as systems which were "in their origin essentially ethical reforms," due to "two of those beautiful spirits who appear at intervals like beings from another world," but which have been "transformed so as to accord in some measure with the prejudices, the passions, the superstitions of the vulgar," though even at their best " both these religions by their glorification of poverty and celibacy struck straight at the root not merely of civil society but of human existence." The general bearing of such language is unmistakable, but Dr. Frazer's distinction as a scholar seems to require that, in the new edition of his great work which he is now preparing, he should tell his readers explicitly what he means, what he seeks to prove, and what is the exact evidence on which be relies. That Christian festivals have been grafted on heathen ones, and that many rites and ceremonies of the Church may be traced to a like source, has been long known to students. That the symbolism and language of Christianity often present striking resemblances to those of other faiths is certain, and perhaps necessary, since all human beings live in the same world, see with the same eyes, and experience for the most part the same sensa- tions. Although pagan and Christian art represent the Mater Deily-4 and the Madonna in almost identical form, the fact proves nothing except that the idea of motherhood suggests everywhere the same images ; and, while the world lasts, the phenomena of the changing seasons, the recurring tasks of seedtime and harvest, must continue to supply men with the metaphors in which to clothe their spiritual thoughts. But this outer drapery is, after all, a poor thing which has little connexion with the inner substance and quality of belief. Between the ritual even of Attie or Adonis and some forms of Christian worship there may, or perhaps must, be some points of outward similarity. But to bring the pure and inspiring teaching of Christ into any real connexion with these licentious cults seems not only to shock the moral sense, but to be repugnant to the strict laws of scientific inquiry.
We have, we trust, written temperately and fairly of the work of a great scholar, but we feel bound to protest against a view of Christianity which is unreal and in- sufficient. Dr. Frazer may be an intrepid investigator, but clearly he has not discovered true Christianity, either as it is to be found in the Gospels, and before it was smirched with the superstitions that so soon gathered round it, or after it had been purified and cleansed at the Reformation. His defects of vision are fundamental, his powers of appreciation but superficial. Of the religion of Christ it may indeed be said that " you must love it, e'er to you it will seem worthy of your love." Dr. Frazer has not even the sympathy of com- prehension in the case of Christianity. The Romanist who feels bound to defend the complicated and sensual super- stitions and ritual observances that have overlain his version of Christianity may feel perplexed how to answer Dr. Frazer's book, and may dread the consequences of his comparisons and analogies. No adherent of the reformed faith, no man whose Christianity is founded on the words of Christ rather than on traditions corrupt and ignorant, need fear the fullest debate and inquiry on the lines of the book before us. Dr. Frazer need not apologise for the terrible effects of his batteries. They may shoot away the useless and dangerous top-hamper, but the citadel itself remains untouched. The Puritans realised this long before Dr. Frazer's criticism. Their faith in the fundamentals of Christianity was not shaken because they condemned the surplice as the garb of the priests of Isis. Possibly they were too pedantic in their anti-ritualism, and in their condemnation of ceremonies and holy days because of a bidden paganism ; but they at any rate saw the absurdity of the suggestion that the religion of Christ must stand condemned because its early votaries too often failed to keep it free from the contaminations of the older worship.
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