Chapter IV: The Sacæa Suddenly Changes Its Date

Meanwhile, even though we have allowed for two Tammuz feasts, are we also to admit a third Tammuz feast at the March festival of the Sacæa? For in vol. iii. 151-153, March has become the date of the Sacæa, rather to our surprise, for the date had been June-July.[32] Now three Tammuz feasts in six months seem one too many, if not two. Consequently the arguments which in ii. 123, 124, 253, 254, show the Sacæan victim, because he died in the month Tammuz, to represent the god Tammuz fail, perhaps, if the victim really died in March, at the Babylonian Zakmuk, or Zagmuku, a feast in honour, not of Tammuz, but of Bau (a goddess), and later of Marduk.[33] Neither Bau nor Marduk is Tammuz; nor does the victim seem likely to represent Tammuz, after his death is shifted from the Tammuz feasts of May-June or June-July, July-August, to March, when the feast was really in honour, not of Tammuz, but of Bau, or later, of Marduk.

All our difficulties, indeed, pale before the fact that the date of the Sacæa, when the possible Tammuz victim was hanged, is fixed twice; once, with much show of reason and 'with unconcealed delight,' in June-July, in the second volume; while, next, it is argued from, in the third volume, as if the date were March-April.

I conjecture, therefore, that the July date was not inconsistent with what is now Mr. Frazer's theory when he revised his second volume. Otherwise he would not have said that Mr. Robertson Smith's decision as to the July date 'supplies so welcome a confirmation of the conjecture in the text,'[34] and then, in iii. 152, 153, have proceeded to argue on the presumption that Mr. Robertson Smith's calculations may be, for the purposes of the theory, disregarded. And they are disregarded, as we shall see. If they were dubious, they should never have been welcomed.