Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 18, 1907.djvu/257

 Reviews. 221

primitive custom and the annual sacrifice of a king-priest. By the time that Adonis, Attis, or Osiris had become the gods of communities, and bore these names, and received the ministra- tions of priests, they had long ceased to be mere corn or vege- tation spirits, and it was no longer easy to regard the priest as the temporary incarnation of the corn-spirit.

Now, in fact, the evidence for any such death of the priest- king in these cults is the weakest possible (see pp. 12, 29, 34, 38, 85, 182, 314). In the case of Adonis it consists of the stories of the burning of Sardanapalus, Croesus, Dido, the son of Mesha of Moab, and of Hamilcar, and the walking of the king of Tyre amidst the stones of fire which Ezekiel records, as compared with the burning in effigy of Melcarth at Tyre and Gades, and of Sandan at Tarsus. But whether we regard the burning of an effigy of the god as a sun-spell, as is perhaps most probable, — the connection of the lion with Melcarth and Sandan is signi- ficant (see y. U.S., 1901, pp. 149, 161) — or as merely purificatory (see pp. 100, 151), the mere use of an effigy proves nothing. Mesha burned his son, as did the Carthaginians their children, as the greatest sacrifice he could offer to an offended god. In the case of Sardanapalus, Croesus, and Hamilcar, we have no doubt the same idea, probably combined with the conception that fire purifies the soul and bears it to the gods. The Dido story points to no more than the burning of an effigy, and it is not easy to see how the widespread practice of walking unharmed over cinders can be derived from a practice of burning alive. Further, it should be noted that we have no satisfactory evidence that the kings who worshipped Adonis were his priests, or deemed themselves incarnations of the god, or considered their children as gods. Dr. Frazer's evidence (p. 32) for this rests on accepting as descriptions of the descent of the bearers such names as Abi-baal, but this conjecture is as improbable as it is ingenious. Moreover, a king may claim descent from a god, as did Mesha, without thereby meaning that the godhead is in him incarnate, however much sanctity he may derive from his origin.

In the case ot Attis, the evidence is still less convincing. To find a royalty bearing the name of Attis, utterly unknown