Note 1756 — Chapter IX
Reading edition
On the ceremony of mourning for Tammuz (Ezek. viii, 14) see Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 574 ff.; Pseudo-Lucian, De Syria Dea. In Babylonia the ceremony appears to have been an official lament for the loss of vegetation (the women mourners being attached to the temple); in Syria (Hierapolis) it took on orgiastic elements (perhaps an importation from Asia Minor). The women of Ezek. viii were attached, probably, to the service of the temple.