Note 29.2 — The Evolution of Religion

Finally, it is not improbable that the strange legend preserved in various late Greek MSS., of the Virgin Mary’s descent into hell,29.2 where she is shown the torments of the damned, is derived ultimately from the Babylonian myth of the descent of Ischtar, which in the Greek world transformed itself into the story of the descent of Aphrodite. This suggestion is in harmony with the evidence which will be noticed below for the belief that the development of the worship and the divine character of the Virgin owed much, directly or indirectly, to the great Anatolian cult of the mother-goddess.