and St Paul (PL 41, 320 ff.), who instead speak of the profanations of Hadrian. T. K. Cheyne (Biblical Problems and their New Solution, Italian trans. Piacenza 1909, pp. 107-109) sees in the descent of Jesus into hell the myth of the descent of T. and of the descent of Ishtar, who goes there to seek her dead spouse T. According to R. Dussaud (1921), the custom of annually weeping for the daughter of Jephthah in Gilead (Judg. 11, 40) would be a survival of an Amorite cult of T. T. Meek maintained that the songs of the cult of T. gave rise to the Song of Songs and various psalms; this is well refuted by H. H. Rowley.
BIBL.: V. ADONIS; S. H. Langdon, T. and Ishtar, Oxford 1914; R. Dussaud, Les origines cananéennes du sacrifice israélite, Paris 1921, pp. 261-64; T. Meek, Canticles of the T. cult, in Amer. journ. of sem. lang., 39 (1922), pp. 1-14; G. Furlani, La religione babilonese e assira, I, Bologna 1928, pp. 279-85 and 295-99; A. Médebielle, Expiation, in DBs, fasc. XII (1934), cols. 11-13; M. Witzel, L'Hérodiade und Verwandtes (Anal. Orient., 10), Rome 1935; H. Rowley, The Interpretation of the Song of Songs, in Jour. of theol. stud. dies., 38 (1937), pp. 360-62; F. E. Brown, in The excavations at Dura-Europos... Preliminary reports of the 7th and 8th seasons of work (1933-35), New Haven 1939, pp. 135-74; G. Frank, Kultlieder aus dem Ischtar-Tammuz-Kreis, Leipzig 1939; T. H. Gaster, Ezekiel and the mysteries, in Jour. of bibl. liter., 60 (1941), pp. 289-310; C. Autran, Des origines du christianisme, in Nouv. rev. franc., 29 (1941), pp. 800-13, well refuted by L.-H. Vincent, in Vivre et penser, 1 (1941), pp. 266-69; H. Otten, Die Überlieferung des Tammuz-lipinu-Mythus, Leipzig 1942; E. Dhorme, Les religions de Babylonie et d'Assyrie (Mana, 1, 11), Paris 1945, pp. 16-20, 115-21, 134-37; A. Moortgat, Tammuz. Der Unsterblichkeitsglaube in der altorientalischen Bildung, Berlin 1949. Texts in Ancient Near Eastern Texts relating to the Old Test., Princeton 1950, p. 41 ff. Antonino Romeo