ADONNAI. - A mythical hero, lover of Aphrodite, whose legend, despite various discrepancies, is summarized in the following cycle: 1) his death during a hunt at the hands of a boar; 2) the dispute between Aphrodite and Proserpina, who contend for him on account of his beauty, and who, by the arbitration of Calliope, decreed by Zeus, obtain him for half a year each; 3) his return to earth. Thus the poet Paniassi (5th century BC) and the Pseudo-Apollodorus, III, 14, 4; cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses X, 299 ff.
The myth of Adonai represents the agricultural cycle. This is evident from his birth from a plant (myrrh?) into which his mother Smyrna had been transformed, and more so from the Adonia festivals celebrated annually at the summer solstice (Greeks) or at the end of the agricultural year (Semitic peoples), symbolizing the death of vegetation under the scorching heat in anticipation of the spring revival. Like the lamentations for Tammuz, the Adonia are essentially funerary in nature. The most precise description of the cult of Adonai among the Alexandrians (under Ptolemy Philadelphus) is that of Theocritus (Idyll XV); of the cult among the Syro-Greco-Romans of the Empire, that of Lucian (Dea Syria, 6. V. Syria dea).
Theocritus describes the festival celebrated in Alexandria around 273 BC. Around the statues of Adonai and Astarte, ripe fruits, cakes, Syrian perfumes in alabaster vessels, and then, in silver baskets, sods of flowering earth are arranged in good order. These are the gardens of Adonai (cf. Is. 17, 10), generally earthenware pots sown with fast-growing and short-lived plants (wheat, fennel, lettuce) which were then thrown into the water of the nearest sea or river. To this first day of joy, a second followed, more characteristic, of mourning in which the women mourned the swift departure of the god who, in alternating succession, passes from earth to the Underworld, and ended by praying him to be favorable and return with the new year, bringing new joy.
Adonai was an eastern demigod of Syrian origin, as evidenced by: his being the son of Cinyras, king of Paphos on the island of Cyprus, or of Thias, a Syrian king; the correspondence of Tammuz (v.) the Syro-Mesopotamian (cf. Ezek. 8, 14, where the Vulgate translates “plangentes Adonide”), a god of vegetation who died young, spouse or son of Ishtar; and his very name, which is the Phoenician invocation Adonit (“my lord” and “my husband”), often repeated in the lamentations in his honor, and adopted by the Greeks as a proper name (“Adōnis”). The identification of Adonai with Tammuz is not yet proven, though it is found among the Fathers in the exegesis of Ezek. 8, 14 (from Origen, Selecta in Ez.: PG 13, 797; St. Jerome, In Ez., 8: PL 25, 82), but it is highly probable. The Dumuzi (v. Tammuz) number is the well-known god of vegetation who descended into the underworld, and from whom the month of June took its name.
The cult of Adonai, which spread from Cyprus to Phoenicia and thence to all Mediterranean shores, was especially celebrated at Byblos (v.), where the god, according to some called Eshmun, a relative of Astarte (Damascio, Vita Isidori, 302), corresponded to the Hay-Tau of the theologians, and perhaps also to Osiris. Near Byblos, the waters of the river Adonis (now Nahr Ibrahim), which periodically turn red for chemical reasons, were believed by the faithful to be the blood of the young god slain.
The Syrian Baal of Byblos, Adon-Eshmun, is not named in the Bible, but allusions to his cult, which must have attracted the Israelites, are perhaps found in Dan. 11, 36, and almost certainly in Is. 17, 10. For Zach. 12, 11, V. Adad-Remmon.