(M11) In like manner the kings of Byblus may have assumed the style of Adonis; for Adonis was simply the divine Adon or “lord” of the city, a title which hardly differs in sense from Baal (“master”) and Melech (“king”). This conjecture would be confirmed if one of the kings of Byblus actually bore, as Renan believed, the name of Adom-melech, that is, Adonis Melech, the Lord King. But, unfortunately, the reading of the inscription in which the name occurs is doubtful.(40) Some of the old Canaanite kings of Jerusalem appear to have played the part of Adonis in their lifetime, if we may judge from their names, Adoni-bezek and Adoni-zedek,(41) which are divine rather than human titles. Adoni-zedek means “lord of righteousness,” and is therefore equivalent to Melchizedek, that is, “king of righteousness,” the title of that mysterious king of Salem and priest of God Most High, who seems to have been neither more nor less than one of these same Canaanitish kings of Jerusalem.(42) Thus if the old priestly kings of Jerusalem regularly played the part of Adonis, we need not wonder that in later times the women of Jerusalem used to weep for Tammuz, that is, for Adonis, at the north gate of the temple.(43) In doing so they may only have been continuing a custom which had been observed in the same place by the Canaanites long before the Hebrews invaded the land. Perhaps the “sacred men,” as they were called, who lodged within the walls of the temple at Jerusalem down almost to the end of the Jewish kingdom,(44) may have acted the part of the living Adonis to the living Astarte of the women. At all events we know that in the cells of these strange clergy women wove garments for the _asherim_,(45) the sacred poles which stood beside the altar and which appear to have been by some regarded as embodiments of Astarte.(46) Certainly these “sacred men” must have discharged some function which was deemed religious in the temple at Jerusalem; and we can hardly doubt that the prohibition to bring the wages of prostitution into the house of God, which was published at the very same time that the men were expelled from the temple,(47) was directed against an existing practice. In Palestine as in other Semitic lands the hire of sacred prostitutes was probably dedicated to the deity as one of his regular dues: he took tribute of men and women as of flocks and herds, of fields and vineyards and oliveyards.