[495:1] At the end of his career, the Sun enters the lowest regions, the bowels of the earth, therefore nearly all Sun-gods are made to "descend into hell," and remain there for three days and three nights, for the reason that from the 22d to the 25th of December, the Sun apparently remains in the same place. Thus Jonah, a personification of the Sun (see [Chap. IX.]), who remains three days and three nights in the bowels of the earth—typified by a fish—is made to pay: "Out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardst my voice."
[495:2] See [Chapter XXII].
[495:3] Baring-Gould: Curious Myths, p. 260.
"The mighty Lord appeared in the form of a man, and enlightened those places which had ever before been in darkness; and broke asunder the fetters which before could not be broken; and with his invincible power visited those who sat in the deep darkness by iniquity, and the shadow of death by sin. Then the King of Glory trampled upon Death, seized the Prince of Hell, and deprived him of all his power." (Description of Christ's Descent into Hell. Nicodemus: Apoc.)
[495:4] "The women weeping for Tammuz was no more than expressive of the Sun's loss of power in the winter quarter." (King's Gnostics, p. 102. See also, Cox: Aryan Mytho., vol. ii. p. 113.)
After remaining for three days and three nights in the lowest regions, the Sun begins to ascend, thus he "rises from the dead," as it were, and "ascends into heaven."
[496:1] Bonwick: Egyptian Belief, p. 174.
[496:2] Anacalypsis, vol. ii. p. 100.
[496:3] Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. p. 125.
[496:4] Egyptian Belief, p. 182.