Chapter Thammuz to Thebaid of T by Brewer's Readers Handbook

Thammuz to Thebaid

Thammuz, God of the Syrians, and fifth in order of the hierarchy of hell: (1) Satan, (2) Beëlzebub, (3) M oloch, (4) Chemos, (5) Thammuz (the same as Adonis). Thammuz was slain by a wild boar in mount Lebanon, from whence the river Adonis descends, the water of which, at a certain season of the year, becomes reddened. Addison saw it, and ascribes the redness to a minium washed into the river by the violence of the rain.

Thammuz came next behind,
Whose annual wound in Lebanon allure!
The Syrian damsels to lament his fate
In amorous ditties all a summer’s day;
While smooth Adonis from his native rock
Ran purple to the sea, supposed with blood
Of Thammuz yearly wounded.
   —Milton: Paradise Lost, i. 446, etc. (1665).

Thamudites , people of the tribe of Thamûd. They refused to believe in Mahomet without seeing a miracle. On a grand festival, Jonda, prince of the Thamûdites, told Sâleh, the prophet, that the god which answered by miracle should be acknowledged God by both. Jonda and the Thamûdites first called upon their idols, but received no answer. “Now,” said the prince to Sâleh, “if your God will bring a camel big with young from that rock, we will believe.” Scarcely had he spoken, when the rock groaned and shook and opened; and forthwith there came out a camel, which there and then cast its young one. Jonda became at once a convert, but the Thamûdites held back. To add to the miracle, the camel went up and down among the people, crying, “Ho! every one that thirsteth, let him come, and I will give him milk!” (Compare Isa. lv. 1.)

Unto the tribe of Thamûd we sent their brother Sáleh. He said, “O my people, worship God; ye have no god besides him. Now hath a manifest proof come unto you from the Lord. This she-camel of God is a sign unto you; therefore dismiss her freely … and do her no hurt, lest a painful punishment seize upon you.”—Al Korân, vii.

(Without doubt, the reader will at once call to mind the contest between Elijah and the priests of Baal, so graphically described in 1 Kings xviii.)

Thamyris (Blind), a Thracian poet, who challenged the Muses to a contest of song, and was deprived of sight, voice, and musical skill for his presumption (Pliny: Natural History, iii. 33, and vii. 57). Plutarch says he had the finest voice of any one, and that he wrote a poem on the War of the Titans with the Gods. Suidas tells us that he composed a poem on creation. And Plato, in his Republic (last book), feigns that the spirit of the blind old bard passed into a nightingale at death. Milton spoke of—

Blind Thamyris and blind Mæonidês [Homer].
   —Paradise Lost, iii. 35 (1665).

Thancmar, chatelain of Bourbourg, the great enemy of Bertulphe the provost of Bruges. (See Provost of Bruges, p. 879.)

Thaumast, an E nglish pundit, who went to Paris, attracted by the rumour of the great wisdom of Pantagruel. He arranged a disputation with that prince, to be carried on solely by pantomime, without the utterance of a single word. Panurge undertook the disputation for the prince, and Pantagruel was appointed arbiter. Many a knotty point in magic, alchemy, the cabala, geomancy, astrology, and philosophy was argued out by signs alone, and the Englishman freely confessed himself fully satisfied, for “Panurge had told him even more than he had asked.”—Rabelais: Pantagruel, ii. 19, 20 (1553). (See John and the Abbot, p. 551.)

Thaumaturga. Filumena is called La Thaumaturge du Dixneuvième Siecle. (See St. Filumena, p. 949.)

Thaumaturgus. (1) Gregorybishop of Neo-Cæsarea, in Cappadocia, was so called on account of his numerous miracles (212–270).

(2) Alexander of Hohenlohe was a worker of miracles.