519th OEDIXAEY GENEKAL MEETING. 



MONDAY, MAY 22^^D, 1911, 4.30 p.m. 

 Professor Edward Hull, LL.D., E.E.S., ix the Chair. 



The Minutes of the previous Meeting were read and confirmed, and 

 the election as an Associate of the Rev. Claude C. Thornton, M.A., was 

 announced. 



The following paper was then read by the author : — 



THE DESCENT INTO HADES: A STUDY IN 

 COMPARATIVE RELIGION. By Eev. Canon Mac- 

 Cqlloch, D.D. 



THE belief in our Lord's descent into Hades occurs for the 

 first time in a formal creed in a.d. 359, when it appears 

 in the creed of the 4th Synod at Sirmium. Why it should not 

 have appeared until then is not very obvious, unless, as seems 

 likely, it is included comprehensively in the reference to the 

 burial which occurs in many earlier creeds and summaries of 

 doctrine. For there is scarcely any document of the first three 

 centuries in which some reference to the descent does not occur, 

 and it is known to all the Fathers, who usually write of it as an 

 important doctrine. 



A belief in the possibility of descent to Hades and return 

 thence is well-nigh universal, though in nearly all the myths or 

 legends which tell of it there is one important difference 

 between the descent there recounted and that of our Lord — the 

 person who descends and returns is a living person, God or man.* 

 The purpose of this paper is to study the belief in our Lord's 

 descent in relation to these myths, and to enquire into its 

 sources and into the question of its indebtedness to pagan' 

 beliefs. 



* The exceptions are mainly Hindu and Buddhist. 



