Myth Theorized - Robert A. Segal
Frazer on Adonis
Myth Theorized - Robert A. Segal
Robert A. Segal [+]
University of Aberdeen
Description
In chapter three I present Frazer’s theory of Adonis, who for Frazer is not a human being but either the god of vegetation or vegetation itself. Frazer sees Adonis as one of the key Mediterranean gods of vegetation. The others are Attis, Osiris, and Dionysus. Frazer applies his theory to all three of his pre-scientific stages of culture: magic, religion, and above all magic and religion combined. In the first stage, that of magic, there are no gods, only impersonal laws of nature. In the second stage, that of religion, gods are hypothesized to explain all physical events, not just the growth of crops. Through sacrifice and obedience gods are beseeched to provide necessities, above all food. There is no magic, which has been abandoned as an erroneous explanation of events. But eventually religion, while easily explained away as simply the refusal of the gods to grant requests for food, is itself abandoned, at least as the whole of a stage. It is replaced by a third stage, which brings back magic and combines it with religion to constitute “myth ritualism.” In one version of myth ritualism the king, who is merely human, plays the role of the god of vegetation in a formal ritual. In the other version the king is himself divine and likewise participates in a formal ritual. In this chapter I apply Frazer’s theory of all three pre-scientific stages of culture to the case of Adonis. In a footnote I refer to an essay of mine in which I compare Frazer on Adonis with Marcel Detienne and C. G. Jung on Adonis.