599 Descent into the Netherworld/Hell
be able to put forward, through the prophets, what
is literally a lie (verbale mendacium; ibid., Adam/Tan-
nery: 7.143–44; van Mastricht: 176), which led a
contemporary critic to conclude that “the writings
of the prophets do not set Descartes free from
doubt” (Revius: 47). With respect to “all the passa-
ges of Scripture that are against the movement of
the earth,” Descartes claimed space for Copernican-
ism by denying these passages’ actual physical
meaning and relegating them to the realm of meta-
phorical language: these passages “do not in any
way concern the world system, but only the manner
of speaking” (Adam/Tannery: 5.550).
Descartes’ hermeneutics of accommodation was
adopted and expanded by 17th–century Cartesians,
while others considered the Cartesian approach a
step toward the marginalization of Scripture (e.g.,
van Mastricht). Opponents of later Cartesianism,
however, still cited Descartes’s public submission to
the Bible (Principia philosophiae 1.76; cf. van Mas-
tricht: 34) and his reference to the gift of a super-
natural light, “more certain than all natural light,”
by which faith in God’s revelation is brought about
(Secundae responsiones, Adam/Tannery: 7.147–48; cf.
Huber: 78).
Bibliography: ■ Adam, C./P. Tannery (eds.), Œuvres de Des-
cartes, 11 vols. (Paris 1996). ■ Carraud, V., “Les références
scripturaires du corpus cartésien,” Bulletin cartésien 18/Ar-
chives de philosophie 53 (1990) 11–21. ■ Carraud, V., “Des-
cartes et l’Écriture Sainte,” in L’Écriture Sainte au temps de
Spinoza et dans le système spinoziste (Paris 1992) 41–70; ex-
panded version of id., “Descartes et la Bible,” in Le Grand
Siècle et la Bible (ed. J.-R. Armogathe; Paris 1989) 277–91.
■ Carraud, V., “Descartes: Le droit de la charité,” in L’inter-
pretazione nei secoli XVI e XVII (eds. G. Canziani/Y. C. Zarka;
Milan 1993) 515–36. ■ Huber, U., De concursu rationis et sa-
crae scripturae (Franeker 1687). ■ van Mastricht, P., Novita-
tum cartesianarum gangraena (Amsterdam 1677). ■ Revius, J.,
Statera philosophiae cartesianae (Leiden 1650).
Aza Goudriaan
Descent into the Netherworld/Hell
I. Ancient Near East
II. Hebrew Bible/Old Testament
III. New Testament
IV. Greco-Roman Antiquity
V. Christianity
VI. Islam
VII. Literature
VIII. Visual Arts
IX. Music
X. Film
I. Ancient Near East
In ancient Near Eastern literature, several myths
survive, which describe the phenomenon of a de-
ity’s descent to the Netherworld and his/her subse-
quent ascent, the most prominent being the myth
of Sumerian origin, Inanna’s Descent to the Nether-
world. One of the words for Netherworld in Sume-
600
rian is kur, which can also be translated as “moun-
tains,” often designating the enemy of gods in
combat myths. Overcoming the kur could mean
both the defeat of a cosmic monster and ascending
from the Netherworld; the two myths referred to
the same spiritual reality. Like the distant moun-
tains, the Netherworld was inhabited by demons
and malicious beings, capable of holding divine
personae in captivity. As the verb used for both de-
scending and ascending is identical in Sumerian
(ed 3), the concept of “descending into the nether-
world” was closely related to “ascending the moun-
tain,” the acts of which usually form the two com-
plementary parts of the same myth. The descent
myth is not complete without an ascent motif. The
clearest example of such belief is the daily journey
of the sun-god Šamaš, who was thought to descend
to the Netherworld for every night, in order to as-
cend to the mount of sunrise in the morning
(Heimpel). The end of the myth of Inanna’s descent
relates the story of her ascent and how her lover
Dumuzi was taken down to the Netherworld as a
substitute for the goddess, and how the arrange-
ment was established that thereafter each would
spend half the year down below. Close parallels to
this myth in other mythologies from the Aegean to
India, such as the rape of Persephone in Greek
myth, demonstrate that similarities are due to a
common intellectual heritage going back to prehis-
toric times (Lambert).
The death of Dumuzi was mourned in summer,
in the 4th month of the standard Mesopotamian
calendar, named after him. An important calendar
text, the so-called Astrolabe B, describes the month
Dumuzi as follows: “the month of heaping up of
seed, of sprouting of the early sowing … the month
the shepherd Dumuzi was bound.” The Nippur Com-
pendium, a cultic text, also refers in the description
of the month to “captivity of the shepherd” and to
“descent to the grave” (Cohen: 315–16). Dumuzi, as
the symbol for power of grain and herds was
mourned at the time when the fields were har-
vested. His period below was from midsummer to
midwinter, when the vegetation languishes and
dies. The six-month sentence of the goddess was
from the midwinter to midsummer, when animals
do not copulate. Presumably, the 10th month ṭebētu
marked the time when the goddess was thought to
enter the Netherworld. The Astrolabe B refers to “the
high festival of Anu, the month of the splendour of
Ištar” as the most important calendar events of the
month (Cohen: 335). The cuneiform sources do not
mention the mourning for the goddess in this
month, which is only attested in a much later Syriac
source. T. bar Konai’s Liber Scholiorum 1.312 tells the
tragic love story between the shepherd Tammuz
and Balti, or Astarte, and among other things he
says about the goddess that “her father mourned
over her for seven days in the month of Tabit.”
601 Descent into the Netherworld/Hell
The existence of a belief in “dying and rising
deities” in ancient Near Eastern and classical reli-
gions has been debated since The Golden Bough by
J. G. Frazer, and most recently discussed in a careful
study by T. Mettinger. The most difficult problem,
however, is to find adequate terms for describing
the meaning of the belief in “death and resurrec-
tion.” Is it a myth about vegetation only, under-
stood to reveal the seasonal cycles of natural repro-
duction, or had it some other aspects of
interpretation as well, perhaps connected to the
ideas of salvation and divine incarnation? As the an-
cient myths must have contained more than just
one layer of possible interpretations, it is not far-
fetched to assume that the descent myth also con-
veyed the message of incarnation, defilement, and
salvation of the cosmic soul. The redemption of the
fallen soul takes place through her reunion with
Dumuzi, which was enacted in the ritual of sacred
marriage, in which the earthly king incarnated Du-
muzi as the redeemer for his fallen soul-bride, who
was striving to return to her father in heaven (Lap-
inkivi). Also, Origen was aware of deeper layers of
the descent myth when he wrote about the wailing
of Adonis and Tammuz (Sel. Ezech. 8.12): “Those
who are knowledgeable about the deeper interpre-
tation of the Greek myths and what is called mythic
theology say that Adonis is the symbol of the fruits
of the earth, which are mourned when they are
sown, but which rise, thereby causing joy among
the farmers when the seeds grow up” (Mettinger:
129). In some Babylonian mystical texts, various de-
ities, who in the mythological texts were conceived
of as defeated and sent to the Netherworld, were
equated with specific types of grain. Both Tammuz
and Christ are symbolically identified with a grain,
which is sowed and descends to the earth, and sub-
sequently rises up like a plant, after overcoming the
forces of death in the Netherworld (Annus: 8). The
seasonal myth of vegetation becomes a salvation
myth by a deeper application.
Descent to the Netherworld was often thought
to take place through the water, as well. According
to various Mesopotamian texts, the waters at the
edge of the world, which one may ride down or
cross to get down to the lower world, are the same
waters that the baby travels on its way to be born.
The Mesopotamian literature possessed a clear im-
age of a netherworldly river, which carries away the
souls, usually called the Ikurra in Sumerian and Ḫu-
bur in Akkadian (Frymer-Kensky: 598–603). Its wa-
ters separated the world of the dead from the world
of the living and had its depths in the subterranean
ocean Apsu, which was occasionally considered as a
form of Netherworld. This river is a part of the
world view that sees human life and the universe as
surrounded by water. In the judicial river ordeal,
which was technically termed with the word ḫur-
šānu– “mountain”, the accused descends to the
602
river as the access to the Netherworld. The river
then indicates the guilt or the innocence of the ac-
cused by beginning to carry or not to carry the per-
son down to the Netherworld (Frymer-Kensky:
595–96). The term “mountain” for this procedure
refers to Netherworld, whose synonymous appella-
tion kur is used for adversaries of the gods in the
conflict myths. The phenomenon of a cosmic enemy
also filling the role of judge at river ordeals is well
reflected in the epithet of Yam as “the Judge River”
in the Ugaritic mythology. By the way of a compari-
son, as the first stage in the process of divine incar-
nation according to early Syrian fathers, the Christ
descends into the Jordan river, and his baptism in
it was seen as an analogue of his death and descent
to Netherworld (Annus: 21).
The outline of conflict between Baal and Mot in
the Ugaritic Baal cycle comprises the mythemes of
Baal’s decent to death and his return to life (Met-
tinger: 55–81). The descent of Baal into the Nether-
world takes place through the mouth of voracious
Mot, the personified Death (KTU 1.6 II:13–23).
Baal’s absence badly affects furrows of the plough-
land, at his revival and return “skies rain oil, the
wadis run with honey” as a sign (KTU 1.6 III:12–
13). Both in ancient Mesopotamian and Syrian
texts, the conflict myth and the descent myth are
related to each other, both reveal the mysteries of
life, death, and redemption, often using the sym-
bolism connected to vegetation and seasonal cycles.
Bibliography: ■ Annus, A., “The Survivals of the Ancient
Syrian and Mesopotamian Intellectual Traditions in the
Writings of Ephrem Syrus,” UF 38 (2006) 1–26. ■ Cohen,
M. E., The Cultic Calendars of the Ancient Near East (Bethesda,
Md. 1993). ■ Dietrich, M. et al. (eds.), KTU (AOAT 24/1;
Neukirchen-Vluyn 1976). ■ Frazer, J. G., The Golden Bough:
A Study in Magic and Religion, 12 vols. (London 31911–15).
■ Frymer-Kensky, T. S., The Judicial Ordeal in the Ancient Near
East (Ann Arbor, Mich. 1977). ■ Heimpel, W., “The Sun at
Night and the Doors of Heaven in Babylonian Texts,” JCS
38 (1986) 127–51. ■ Lambert, W. G., “A New Babylonian
Decent to the Netherworld,” in Lingering over Words: Studies
in Ancient Near Eastern Literature in Honor of W. L. Moran (eds.
T. Abusch et al.; Atlanta, Ga. 1990) 289–300. ■ Lapinkivi,
P., The Sumerian Sacred Marriage in the Light of Comparative Evi-
dence (Helsinki 2004). ■ Mettinger, T. N. D., The Riddle of
Resurrection: “Dying and Rising Gods” in the Ancient Near East
(Stockholm 2001).
Amar Annus
II. Hebrew Bible/Old Testament
Echoes of the ancient Near Eastern myth of the de-
scent of a deity into the netherworld are discernible
in the HB/OT. To be sure, there is no direct refer-
ence to a dying God in the HB/OT, yet the divine
epithet “living God” (©ēl ḥay in Josh 3 : 10; Hos 2 : 1;
Pss 42 : 3; 84 : 3; ©ĕlōhîm ḥay in 2 Kgs 19 : 4, 16 = Isa
37 : 4, 17); ©ĕlōhîm ḥayyîm in Deut 5 : 26; Jer 10 : 10;
23 : 36; ©ĕlāhā© ḥayyā© in Dan 6 : 21–27) implies its
opposite, if never conceded, notion of a God who is
not living, that is, a God who is dead.