Who was this ancient "Queen of Heaven" that had enticed Israel of old to "make her cakes to worship her?" (Jeremiah 44:19)

Historian Alexander Hislop explored the phenomena of "goddess worship" in his well worn book, The Two Babylons: In those countries of Europe where the Papal system is most completely developed...all appearances of worshipping the King Eternal and Invisible is almost extinct, while the Mother and Child are the grand objects of worship. Exactly so, in this latter respect, also was it in ancient Babylon. The Babylonians, in their popular religion, supremely worshipped a Goddess Mother and a Son, who was represented in pictures and images as an infant or child in his mother's arms. From Babylon, this worship of the Mother and the Child spread to the ends of the earth. In Egypt, the Mother and the Child were worshipped under the names Isis and Osiris [called most frequently Horus]...in Pagan Rome, as Fortuna and Jupiter...the boy; in Greece, as Ceres the Great Mother, with the babe at her breast...and even in Tibet, China, and Japan, the Jesuit missionaries were astonished to find the counterpart of Madonna and her child as devoutly worshipped as in Papal Rome itself.

...That son, though represented as a child in his mother's arms, was a person of great stature and immense bodily powers, as well as most fascinating manners. In Scripture he is referred to (Ezekial 8:14) under the name of Tammuz... "The Lamented One." The Two Babylons, pp. 14, 20. 21.