The Christ: A Critical Review and Analysis of the Evidences of His Existence

by John E. Remsburg

Adonis.

From Babylonia, including Accadia, Chaldea, and Assyria, much of Christianity has come. Christ himself was descended from the Babylonian pantheon; his father, Jehovah, being originally a Babylonian god. Adonis, Tammouz, Tam-zi, or Du-zi, as he was variously called, was a Babylonian deity whose worship gradually spread over Syria, Phoenicia and Greece. He was one of the most ancient of the sons of gods. His origin may be traced to that fertile, and perhaps earliest, source of gods and religions, Accadia. His worship was a combination of sun worship and sex worship. He was the god of light, and life, and love. Associated with his worship in Babylonia and Syria was the worship of Istar; and in Phoenicia and Greece the worship of Venus.

Under the name of Tammouz, Adonis was worshiped by the Jews. At the very gates of the temple, Ezekiel tells us, “There sat women weeping for Tammouz” (“Adonis” in Catholic ver.) ([viii, 14]). In the Bible he is frequently referred to as “the only son.” One of the months of the Hebrew calendar was named in honor of him. The abstaining from the use of pork by the Jews had its origin in the legend of the slaying of Adonis by the wild boar. And the eating of fish on Friday by Christians is doubtless due to the fact that Friday was consecrated to Venus by her Asiatic worshipers and fish was eaten in her honor.

In a citation of Babylonian and Biblical analogies, the “Encyclopedia Britannica” says: “The resemblance is still more striking when we examine the Babylonian mythology. The sacred tree of Babylonia, with its guardian cherubs—a word, by the way, which seems of Accadian origin—as well as the flaming sword or thunderbolt of fifty points and seven heads, recall Biblical analogies, while the Noachian deluge differs but slightly from the Chaldean one. Indeed, the Jehovistic version of the flood story in Genesis agrees not only in details, but even in phraseology with that which forms the eleventh lay of the great Babylonian epic. The hero of the latter is Tam-zi or Tammuz, ‘the sun of life,’ the son of Ubaratutu, ‘the glow of sunset,’ and denotes the revivifying luminary of day, who sails upon his ‘ark’ behind the clouds of winter to reappear when the rainy season is past. He is called Sisuthrus by Berosus, that is, Susru ‘the founder,’ a synonym of Na ‘the sky.’ The mountain on which his ark rested was placed in Nisir, southwest of Lake Urumiyeh. Its peak, whereon the first altar was built after the deluge, was the legendary model after which the zigurats or towers of the Babylonian temples were erected. Besides the account of the flood, fragments have been met with of stories resembling those of the tower of Babel or Babylon, of the creation, of the fall, and of the sacrifice of Isaac—the latter, by the way, forming the first lay of the great epic. The sixth lay we possess in full. It describes the descent of Istar into Hades in pursuit of her dead husband Du-zi, ‘the off-spring,’ the Babylonian Adonis. Du-zi is but another form of Tam-zi and denotes the sun when obscured by night and winter.”

Concerning the two lays of this Babylonian or Assyrian epic which pertain to Adonis, Dr. Soury says: “The two important episodes of this epic hitherto discovered, ‘The Deluge,’ and ‘The Descent of Istar into Hell,’ yield the best commentary on the Biblical stories of the deluge and hell (sheol). We have henceforth the epigraphic proof, confirming the valuable testimony of Berosus, that these legends—like those of the creation, of the Tower of Babel, etc.—did not originate in Palestine, but were carried thither by the Hebrews with the civilization and worship of the people of the valley of the Tigris and Euphrates, amid whom they had sojourned for centuries.... The Babylonian deluge is also a chastisement from the deity; it is the consequence of man’s corruption (Assyrian poem, line 22). The details of the building of the Babylonian ark (line 24), into which are introduced the various pairs of male and female animals (line 80), of the shutting of the doors of the ark (line 89), of the duration, increase and decrease of the flood (lines 123–129), of the sending out of a dove, a swallow and a raven (lines 140–144), etc., leave no doubt as to the origin of the legend of Genesis” (Religion of Israel, p. 10).

The noted Assyriologist, George Smith, of the British Museum, who discovered the tablets containing these fragments of the Babylonian epic, says that the original text of these legends cannot be later than the 17th century B. C., and may be much earlier, thus antedating the oldest books of the Bible nearly 1,000 years. From these and other Babylonian and Persian legends the most of the Old Testament legends were borrowed. This fact disproves the existence of the orthodox Christ. If the accounts of the creation, the fall of man, and the Noachian deluge, as given in the Bible, are not authentic, but merely borrowed fables, then there remains no foundation for an atoning Savior.

Describing the worship of Adonis, “Chambers’s Encyclopedia” says: “His festivals were partly the expressions of joy, partly of mourning. In the latter the women gave themselves up to the most unmitigated grief over the ‘lost Adonis.’... This period was followed by a succession of festive and joyful days, in honor of the resurrection of Adonis.” These festivals correspond to the Good Friday and Easter of Christians, commemorating the death and resurrection of Christ.

The most ardent worshipers of Adonis were women. No other character, real or imaginary, has so stirred the passions and the emotions of woman as this beautiful young lover of Venus. His tragic death bathed with immortal sadness the hearts of his devotees, and from the remotest ages down to a very late period moved to tears the daughters of men who adored him. Writing of Bethlehem at the close of the fourth century, St. Jerome says: “The lover of Venus is mourned in the grotto where Christ wailed as an infant.” Along with the “Holy Sepulchre” of Christ, there still exists the “Tomb of Adonis,” where “the women of the ancient mysteries, in the intoxication of a voluptuous grief, came to cover with tears and kisses the cenotaph of the beautiful youth.” “Even at the present time,” says Renan, “the Syrian hymns sung in honor of the Virgin are a kind of tearful sigh, a strange sob.”

Moved by the same passions and the same emotions that thrilled the hearts of the female worshipers of Adonis, it is the women of Christendom, who, more than any other cause, keep alive the memory and the religion of Christ. Thus writes a Carmelite nun describing the passionate adoration of her Christian sisters:

“One day they have raised their eyes to an adorable face. A horrible diadem of interlaced branches binds the august forehead; rubies of blood roll slowly upon the livid pallor of the cheeks; the mouth has forgotten how to smile. It is a man of sorrows. They have looked upon him and found him more beautiful, more noble, more loyal than any spouse. They have felt a stronger heart-beat in his divine breast; they have understood that death no more dare touch his emaciated figure, and that his conjugal fidelity is eternal.