Was Adonis a god?
He was incorporated from pre-hellenistic beliefs into the Greek pantheon as a god of rebirth. Specifically, because of his spending equal portions of time between the goddess of love, the goddess of death, and under his own charge, he is a ‘life-death-rebirth’ god, like Jesus, Osiris, Tammuz. There were several mystery cults who worshipped Adonis (‘cult’ in this sense means a sect or part of a greater religion that focuses on a single deity). Because the myth seems to be adapted from several stories into its Greek form, there are several different stories about the birth life of Adonis. Quite a few parallel the Egyptian Osiris, suggesting that his was one of the many Egyptian beliefs transported east along the Mediterranean.
