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.).8The names Adonis and Na iman given to the god, known in Mesopotamia as Tammuz ( Son ofLife ),7 have much the same meaning as we saw earlier.Adonis comes probably from a Sumerian phrase*A]>Jl)JTAN, heavenly shade , so that the use of the name in the Bible as a divine epithet andordinary noun meaning simply lord , implies the protective, overshadowing function oflordship.8 Similarly, Na iman, derives from a Sumerian *NA_.A_AN, stretched across theheavens ,9 so that both Adonis and Na iman can have a particular botanical reference to the capof the mushroom.This new tracing of the names of Adonis/Na iman to their source enables us to discover the originof the phrase gardens of Adonis , as used by the ancient writers.It also points to the origin ofthe Garden of Eden story and its mushroom connections.We can even look on much further intime and for the first time uncover the source and nature of the name and associations of thosewarlike patriots of the Jewish world, the first-century Zealots , as they were called.First, the garden motif that is so prevalent in the mushroom culture and mythology.It derivesfrom a misunderstanding (or fanciful interpretation) of a Sumerian word, GAN.This has twogeneral meanings:first, an enclosed area , a field , or a garden , and it is with this significance that it came ondown into the Semitic world as gan.Second,THE GARDEN Oi ADONIS 179GAN meant the canopy top of the mushroom, or anything of similar rounded shape.10 Prefacedto NA-IM-A AN, stretched across the heavens , it would have the latter connotation, archedcanopy, stretched across the heavens , a description of the cap of the mushroom, writ large, as itwere.However, brought down as a name of the sacred fungus into Semitic, as gan-Na iman, itwould have been read as garden of Na iman, Adonis .In other words, what the botanistsunderstood as a grove or garden dedicated to the god, was, in fact, just a name of themushroom itself.Mushroom names came to be used to express generally the idea of good living, luxuriousness .In Semitic, Na iman developed a root meaning be sweet, pleasant, delightful .l Thus the phrase gan-Na iman came to be understood not only as the garden of Adonis/ Na iman but alsoas the garden of delight .Hebrew s equivalent noun for this kind of luxuriating is eden, and sowas born the name of the homeland of our first parents, the Garden of Eden. 2 In the MuslimScriptures, the Qur an, Paradise is given the more original form, gan Na iman , in Arabicgannati nna imi. 3In short, the biblical Garden of Eden, the Qur anic gardens of delight , the Tammuz whom thewomen bewailed at the Temple gate, and the Na iman plants that Isaiah said would flee away ingrief are all probably to be identified with the sacred mushroom.The ZealotsWe may now look to the Zealots who caused such upheaval and disaster in Jewish history.TheSumerian word just referred to, GAN, as well as meaning the cap of the red-topped mushroom,came also to signify the colour red and to be used of the red dye cochineal.14 Among Semiticwords derived from this root was one, qanna , be red in the face , and so implying a pent-upemotion like jealousy, zeal, eager rivalry, and the like.15 It is thus used of God, as jealous of hishonour, and of men as zealous , or, as we might say, as displaying a hot-headed emotion, lettingtheir hearts rule their heads.Josephus speaks of the Maccabean rebels of the second pre-Christiancentury as zealous for their country s laws and the worship of God . 6 In this he speaks withobvious approval.But he uses the same adjective as a proper name or title of another group ofrebels of the first century AD who formed the hard core of the Jewish rebellion against Rome andwhich180 THE SACRED MUSHROOM AND THE CROSSwas to destroy the Temple and drive the Jewish people of Palestine to swell the ranks of theDispersion.Josephus has little love for these Zealots (Greek Zeiötai): for so these miscreants called themselves, as though they were zealous in the cause of virtue and not for vice in its basestand most extravagant form . 7 This may not have been entirely fair, but certainly their actionsbrought death to thousands of innocent people.Believing themselves possessed of some specialpower and knowledge, the Zealots provoked a revolt throughout Palestine which brought downon Jews everywhere the might of Rome.The Romans were ever tolerant of other people s religions or superstitions but they could underno circumstances allow politicalto take hold within the empire, on however cini a religious pretext.This was particularly the casewith Palestine, which always was and still is the world s storm-centre of political and religiousemotions.When the Zealot revolt began in Caesarea in An 66, the Romans moved quickly andruthlessly against the rebels, driving them south and finally besieging them in Jerusalem.In AD70, the Temple itself was destroyed, and three years later the last rebel stronghold at Masada bythe Dead Sea was reduced.In the details of this bloody and quite unnecessary war, Josephus, although he grew to hate theZealots, on whose side he had once fought, cannot refrain from expressing a grudging admirationfor their almost inhuman disregard for their personal safety, and for the way in which they wouldwillingly expose themselves and their families to certain death rather than submit to the enemiesof their god.He tells us in the most moving terms, of the events that led, in May, AD 73, to thefinal collapse of the revolt and the death of the last survivors.Nearly a thousand men, women andchildren, facing almost certain annihilation at the hands of the Romans besieging Masada,decided to commit suicide rather than fall into the power of the enemy.They chose ten men fromthe rest by ballot.These cut the throats of their comrades and their families, and, having chosenone of their number, submitted their own throats to his knife.When the gruesome deeds weredone, and amidst the smoking remains of their last stores and the blood of his fellow Jews, thislast Zealot plunged his sword into his own heart. 8Recent archaeological excavations at the great fortress site haveadded some measure of conformation to the story, ° embroidered thoughit certainly is by the Jewish historian s sense of drama.The long speechTUE GARDEN OP ADONISthat he puts into the mouth of the Zealot leader in Masada, one Eleazar, must certainly befictitious, not least in that he is made to blame his fellow sectarians for the misery the revolt hadbrought upon the Jews:For it was not of their own accord that those flames which were driving against the enemy turnedback upon the wall constructed by us; no, all this hetokens wrath at the many wrongs which wedared to inflict upon our countrymen 20There is one section of the speech, however, which if it is not a verbatim report of what Eleazaractually said, may be assumed to be a summary of Zealot ideas about the nature of the soul and itsloose association with the body:For from of old, from the first dawn of intelligence, we have been continually taught by thoseprecepts, ancestral and divine confirmed by the deeds and noble spirit of our forefathers that life, not death, is man s misfortune.For it is death which gives liberty to the soul and permitsit to depart to its own pure abode, there to be free from all calamity
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