Even as late as the year A. D. 386, the resurrection of Adonis was celebrated in Judea. St. Jerome says:
"Over Bethlehem (in the year 386 after Christ) the grove of Tammuz, that is, of Adonis, was casting its shadow! And in the grotto where formerly the infant Anointed (i. e., Christ Jesus) cried, the lover of Venus was being mourned."[220:1]
In the idolatrous worship practiced by the children of Israel was that of the worship of Adonis.
Under the designation of Tammuz, this god was worshiped, and had his altar even in the Temple of the Lord which was at Jerusalem. Several of the Psalms of David were parts of the liturgical service employed in his worship; the 110th, in particular, is an account of a friendly alliance between the two gods, Jehovah and Adonis, in which Jehovah adorns Adonis for his priest, as sitting at his right hand, and promises to fight for him against his enemies. This god was worshiped at Byblis in Phœnicia with precisely the same ceremonies: the same articles of faith as to his mystical incarnation, his precious death and burial, and his glorious resurrection and ascension, and even in the very same words of religious adoration and homage which are now, with the slightest degree of variation that could well be conceived, addressed to the Christ of the Gospel.
The prophet Ezekiel, when an exile, painted once more the scene he had so often witnessed of the Israelitish women in the Temple court bewailing the death of Tammuz.[220:2]
Dr. Parkhurst says, in his "Hebrew Lexicon":
"I find myself obliged to refer Tammuz, as well as the Greek and Roman Hercules, to that class of idols which were originally designed to represent the promised Saviour (Christ Jesus), the desire of all nations. His other name, Adonis, is almost the very Hebrew word 'Our Lord,' a well-known title of Christ."[220:3]
So it seems that the ingenious and most learned orthodox Dr. Parkhurst was obliged to consider Adonis a type of "the promised Saviour (Christ Jesus), the desire of all nations." This is a very favorite way for Christian divines to express themselves, when pushed thereto, by the striking resemblance between the Pagan, virgin-born, crucified, and resurrected gods and Christ Jesus.
If the reader is satisfied that all these things are types or symbols of what the "real Saviour" was to do and suffer, he is welcome to such food. The doctrine of Dr. Parkhurst and others comes with but an ill grace, however, from Roman Catholic priests, who have never ceased to suppress information when possible, and when it was impossible for them to do so, they claimed these things to be the work of the devil, in imitation of their predecessors, the Christian Fathers.