ng_, this ceremony in honor of _the
resurrection of Adonis_. After lamentations, his restoration was
commemorated with joy and festivity.[217:4]

Mons. Dupuis says:

"The obsequies of _Adonis_ were celebrated at _Alexandria_ (in
Egypt) with the utmost display. His image was carried with
great solemnity to a tomb, which served the purpose of
rendering him the last honors. Before singing his return to
life, there were mournful rites celebrated in honor of his
suffering and his death. The large wound he had received was
shown, just as the wound was shown which was made to Christ by
the thrust of the spear. _The feast of his resurrection was
fixed at the 25th of March._"[218:1]

In Calmet's "Fragments," the resurrection of _Adonis_ is referred to as
follows:

"In these _mysteries_, after the attendants had for a long
time bewailed the death of this _just person_, he was at
length understood to be _restored to life_, to have
experienced a _resurrection_; signified by the re-admission of
light. On this the priest addressed the company, saying,
'Comfort yourselves, all ye who have been partakers of the
mysteries of the deity, thus preserved: for we shall now enjoy
some respite from our labors:' to which were added these
words: 'I have scaped a sad calamity, and my lot is greatly
mended.' The people answered by the invocation: 'Hail to the
Dove! the Restorer of Light!'"[218:2]

Alexander Murray tells us that the ancient Greeks also celebrated this
festival in honor of the resurrection of Adonis, in the course of which
a figure of him was produced, and the ceremony of burial, with weeping
and songs of wailing, gone through. After these a joyful shout was
raised: "_Adonis lives and is risen again._"[218:3]

Plutarch, in his life of Alcibiades and of Nicias, tells us that it was
at the time of the celebration of the death of _Adonis_ that the
Athenian fleet set sail for its unlucky expedition to Sicily; that
nothing but images of dead Adonises were to be met with in the streets,
and that they were carried to the sepulchre in the midst of an immense
train of women, crying and beating their breasts, and imitating in every
particular the lugubrious pomp of interments. Sinister omens were drawn
from it, which were only too much realized by subsequent events.[218:4]

It was in an oration or address delivered to the Emperors Cons