Why No Mention Of Mary's Assumption?

[Kristos]

St Cyril of Jerusalem - a father of the first ecumenical council, clearly and without qualification states that Mary's body disappeared, leaving only a sweet smell:

Now the body of the holy Virgin they could not find, and all that they found was the wooden bier, and they lighted a fire and threw the bier into it. And they went into every place, saying, 'Perhaps her body hath been carried away secretly,' but they could not find it. And a very strong sweet smell emanated from the place whereon the body of the Virgin had been laid, and a mighty voice came from heaven, saying unto them, 'Let no man give himself the trouble of seeking after the body of the Virgin until the great day of the appearing the Saviour.''

 

[Kristos]

St John Damasene,

Just as a rich scent sprinkled upon clothes or places, leaves its fragrance even after it has been withdrawn, so now that holy, undefiled, and divine body, filled with heavenly fragrance, the rich source of grace, is laid in the tomb that it may be translated to a higher and better place. Nor did she leave the grave empty; her body imparted to it a divine fragrance, a source of healing, and of all good for those who approach it with faith.

 

[Fenstermacher]

I dunno.

Cyril live in the fourth century and John Damascene in the eighth. Seems like they could be perpetuating a pious tradition.

 

[Kristos]

I dunno.

Cyril live in the fourth century and John Damascene in the eighth. Seems like they could be perpetuating a pious tradition.

Could be.

 

[Jason Engwer]

Kristos wrote:

"I'm confused, your quotes seem to reinforce my view, not yours. Based on what you have posted, the Dormition/Assumption is recorded in multiple writings date from no later than the 4th century. These writings have been found in multiple languages - Coptic, Ethiopian, Greek - indicate widespread belief that did not happen overnight. Liturgically, the feast was celebrated in Assyria already by the 4th century and in Jerusalem by the 5th century. So the early church emerged from the catacombs after the edict of Milan, and there it is."

You're ignoring what my sources said about the nature of the relevant literature, you're ignoring the evidence against an assumption from other sources, and you're making a claim about feasts in the fourth and fifth centuries without documentation. Your summary of the evidence and of what my sources said is misleading.

You write:

"The spiritual truth of the resurrection of the dead is certainly important enough to be remember every year. I don't understand why anyone would resist this."

The "spiritual truth of the resurrection" doesn't lead us to the conclusion that Mary was bodily assumed to Heaven. Nobody in this thread is arguing against remembering "the spiritual truth of the resurrection" every year.

You write:

"In all churches of the Anglican Communion Anglo-Catholics often observe the feast day under the same name as Roman Catholics. The Anglican-Roman Catholic agreed statement on the Virgin Mary assigns a place for both the Dormition and the Assumption in Anglican devotion."

You've made a series of assertions about Anglicans, accompanied by links to Wikipedia articles. Are you suggesting that one or more of those articles documents what you claimed earlier about the assumption of Mary? If so, then quote the relevant portion of the relevant article, and tell us which article it is. Don't expect us to read a series of articles related to Anglicanism in order to see if they mention anything relevant. Your comments above are too vague. You refer to "all churches", then refer to what's "often" done. What is the "place" of the assumption in Anglicanism?

Again, if belief in the assumption of Mary is optional in systems like Anglicanism and Eastern Orthodoxy, then you shouldn't suggest that all Anglicans and all Eastern Orthodox believe in the concept. Thus, it's misleading to suggest that everybody who professes some sort of apostolic succession believes in the concept of Mary's bodily assumption. Some of those people do, and some don't. And even if all such groups did believe in the assumption of Mary today, that fact would be outweighed by the earlier absence of the doctrine and its rejection by some of the earlier sources.

You write:

"St Cyril of Jerusalem - a father of the first ecumenical council, clearly and without qualification states that Mary's body disappeared, leaving only a sweet smell"

You offer no documentation. What you're quoting is a forgery. I know what document your quote comes from, and Cyril of Jerusalem didn't write it. Do you know who did? Why don't you cite your source for us, and try to document that Cyril of Jerusalem actually said what you're attributing to him?

 

[Kristos]

unsub

 

[CaliforniaJosiah]

Much can be said about the absence of evidence for the concept of Mary's bodily assumption to Heaven and the dubious history of the doctrine. See "The Historical Roots Of The Reformation And Evangelicalism" in my sig below. But there's a particular line of evidence related to the assumption of Mary that's been neglected by the sources I've read on the subject. An assumption of Mary isn't mentioned in a large number of early patristic passages in which it would have been relevant to discuss such an event.

The church fathers of the earliest centuries repeatedly cite Enoch and Elijah as examples of people who didn’t die, were translated to Heaven, etc. (Clement of Rome, First Clement, 9; Tertullian, A Treatise On The Soul, 50; Tertullian, On The Resurrection Of The Flesh, 58; Tertullian, Against Marcion, 5:12; Methodius, From The Discourse On The Resurrection, 14), yet they never say any such thing about Mary or include her as an example. Irenaeus, for instance, writes about the power of God to deliver people from death, and he cites Enoch, Elijah, and Paul (2 Corinthians 12:2) as illustrations of people who were "assumed" and "translated", but he says nothing of Mary (Against Heresies, 5:5).

Like the ante-Nicene sources, writers in later centuries often discuss subjects such as bodily assumptions and what happened to men like Enoch and Elijah without mentioning a bodily assumption of Mary (Apostolic Constitutions, 5:7; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lectures, 3:6; John Chrysostom, Homilies On John, 75; Jerome, To Pammachius Against John Of Jerusalem, 29, 32; etc.). An opponent of Augustine summarized Augustine’s beliefs on this subject:

"Besides that, it is not only Elias, but Moses and Enoch you believe to be immortal, and to have been taken up with their bodies to heaven." (cited in Augustine, Reply To Faustus The Manichaean, 26:1)

Why no mention of Mary? On another occasion, Augustine mentions that people sometimes ask where humans who have been bodily removed from earth would go (On The Grace Of Christ, And On Original Sin, 2:27). He mentions that people ask about Enoch, Elijah, and Paul, but, once again, Mary isn’t mentioned. The same is true of John Chrysostom when he discusses the same issue Augustine addressed (Homilies On Hebrews, 22).

It's a reasonable possibility that people would believe in an assumption of Mary, yet sometimes not mention it in such contexts. But the pattern described above, involving such a diversity of sources over so much time, seems to me to be significant evidence against the notion that the bodily assumption of Mary was an apostolic tradition that was understood by the church and was handed down since the time of the apostles.

The response I've gotten to the question from Catholics is this: It's true because there's no evidence for it. The only time anyone ever said anything to confirm a teaching is that someone denied it - then someone had to say, "Oh, but it's true." Silence is proof of dogma.

Of course, Catholics insist on the opposite rubric, too.

Here's what you need to know: the RCC is right (infallible, actually) in matters of faith and morals because it cannot be otherwise. There you are. This is DOGMA, the highest level of certainty and necessity. So, it's dogma. Now, if YOU try to insist that something is dogma because there's nothing to substantiate it - only silence, see what reaction you get from the same Catholics.




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[Trento]

I dunno.

Cyril live in the fourth century and John Damascene in the eighth. Seems like they could be perpetuating a pious tradition.

There was no complete Canon of scripture till the late 4th Century. Is it a pious tradition?

From the words of a holy man of God who was born in 310AD and who dedicated his life in preserving the original scriptures and Triditions.
------ "If the Holy Virgin had died and was buried, her falling asleep would have been surrounded with honour, death would have found her pure, and her crown would have been a virginal one...Had she been martyred according to what is written: 'Thine own soul a sword shall pierce', then she would shine gloriously among the martyrs, and her holy body would have been declared blessed; for by her, did light come to the world."
Epiphanius,Panarion,78:23(A.D. 377),in PG 42:737

St. Denis the Areopagite in his first century book entitled the "Books of Divine Names" records a funeral panegyric pronounced by Hierotheus, who purported that the Apostles had been divinely warned of the impending death of the Virgin Mary. All, except St. Thomas, managed to return in time for Her death and funeral. For three days the Apostles and other faithful kept up a vigil at the Virgin’s tomb, where they heard at times the distinct sound of heavenly music. When St. Thomas finally arrived, he requested to see the body of the Virgin Mary. To everyone’s surprise, when the tomb was opened Her body was not there, only flowers and Her burial shroud being left in the sepulchre.30

 

[MrPolo]

One correction to what you have implied - Orthodoxy teaches that Mary died, so comparing to Elijah & Enoch would not make sense.

Good point. Incidentally, the language of the Catholic definition of the Assumption (MUNIFICENTISSIMUS DEUS) also suggests she died. The defining, infallible statement is left unspecific:

we pronounce, declare, and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.​

But in the rest of the document, it is certainly alluded to that she died. Example from the document, which quotes Pope Adrian in the 8th century:

Venerable to us, O Lord, is the festivity of this day on which the holy Mother of God suffered temporal death, but still could not be kept down by the bonds of death, who has begotten your Son our Lord incarnate from herself.​

I think the Orthodox and Catholics are very close on this issue.

 

[Fenstermacher]

There was no complete Canon of scripture till the late 4th Century. Is it a pious tradition?

Actually the Canon was not promulgated as bindingly complete until the 16th century in the West and even then it seems to have been the unfortunate by-product of polemics rather than scholarship and fraternal consensus.

There is a difference here, the development of the biblical canon is a process.

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a single theological locus.

The latter needs some biblical basis in order to be binding on Christian consciences, the former, having been a process is something by its very nature immune to primary or even secondary proof.

 

[MrPolo]

AThere is a difference here, the development of the biblical canon is a process.

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a single theological locus.

Where do Lutherans classify the consubstantiality of the Trinity defined in the 4th century at Nicea? Process or locus?

 

[Fenstermacher]

Where do Lutherans classify the consubstantiality of the Trinity defined in the 4th century at Nicea? Process or locus?

Locus.

And this is a better example if the question is why accept this but not that, though it still falls short.

The problem is that it assumes that the biblical foundations for each doctrine are similarly substantiable or unsubstantiable as the case may be.

The Biblical support for the Trinity is firm and profound if not explicit, it is clearly implied and I am sure we would agree that the only way to understand the God of the Bible is as a Trinity and that Nicea did an excellent job of framing the locus. The best that can be said from Scripture for the Assumption is that there is a precedent.

But WRT the Trinity and Nicea. I think we misunderstand if we understand the Nicene "definition" as anything more than a delimiting of conversation; i.e. we say this, but not this; i.e. this is where the truth lies. The language is precise but the point is to set a hedge around Orthodoxy, not to "define God".

 

[MrPolo]

Locus.

And this is a better example if the question is why accept this but not that, though it still falls short.

The problem is that it assumes that the biblical foundations for each doctrine are similarly substantiable or unsubstantiable as the case may be.

The Biblical support for the Trinity is firm and profound if not explicit, it is clearly implied and I am sure we would agree that the only way to understand the God of the Bible is as a Trinity and that Nicea did an excellent job of framing the locus. The best that can be said from Scripture for the Assumption is that there is a precedent.

Well, what can be said...demanding the criteria for the Assumption (or Dormition) you demand is your own.

 

[Jason Engwer]

Trento said:

"There was no complete Canon of scripture till the late 4th Century. Is it a pious tradition?"

You offer no justification for that dating. While scholars often date a general consensus on the New Testament canon to the timeframe of the fourth and fifth centuries, the timing of a general consensus doesn't tell us when a belief first arose. And even the time when a belief first arose isn't the only factor we take into account when evaluating that belief. We take all of the relevant evidence into account. In the case of the New Testament canon, that evidence includes widespread internal and external data coming from a large number and variety of sources going back to the earliest generations of Christianity. Each of the twenty-seven documents can reasonably be dated to the apostolic era, and the evidence for the apostolic authority of each of those documents is good. See my series of articles on the New Testament canon linked here.

There is no comparable or better evidence for the assumption of Mary. Unlike the canon, which can be justified by arguing for one book at a time, with good early evidence for every book in the canon, we can't make such a piece-by-piece case for a bodily assumption of Mary. Rather, the concept first appears in some apocryphal literature usually dated to the fourth century, and the concept doesn't become popular until much later. Even today, it's not nearly as widely accepted as the New Testament canon. The fact that the New Testament was popularized in the fourth century, and the assumption of Mary made its first appearance in apocryphal literature in the fourth century, doesn't suggest that the two are comparable. What happened with those two concepts in the fourth century is significantly different. It's not as though being popularized is comparable to making a first appearance in apocryphal literature. The evidence for the canon is good, whereas the evidence for the assumption isn't.

You go on to misleadingly cite Epiphanius. The Roman Catholic Marian scholar Michael O'Carroll explains:

"In a later passage, he [Epiphanius] says that she [Mary] may have died and been buried, or been killed - as a martyr. 'Or she remained alive, since nothing is impossible with God and he can do whatever he desires; for her end no one knows.'...A Palestinian with opportunity for some research, E. does not speak of a bodily resurrection and remains noncommittal on the way Mary's life ended. He nowhere denies the Assumption, or admits the possibility of Assumption without death, for he has found no sign of death or burial. He suggests several different hypotheses and draws no firm conclusion." (Theotokos [Wilmington, Delaware: Michael Glazier, Inc., 1988], p. 135)

Thus:

"It is now generally agreed that the belief [Assumption of Mary] was unknown in the earliest ages of the Church. St Ambrose (Exposit. Evan. sec. Luc. 2. 35; PL 15. 1574) and St Epiphanius (Haer. 79. 11; PG 42. 716) were apparently still ignorant of it. It is first met with in certain NT apocrypha dating from the later 4th cent. onwards, some of them Gnostic in sympathy....It appears that one such work was condemned in the Decretum Gelasianum, though the condemnation may have been directed against its Gnostic teachings rather than specifically against the doctrine of the corporal assumption. A homily attributed in most MSS to Timothy of Jerusalem (prob. 4th-5th cent.) may imply the alternative belief that the BVM was assumed in body and soul during her natural life. The doctrine of the corporal assumption was first formulated in orthodox circles in the W. by St Gregory of Tours (d. 594), who accepted as historical the account attributed [falsely] in MSS to Melito." (F.L. Cross and E.A. Livingstone, editors, The Oxford Dictionary Of The Christian Church [New York: Oxford University Press, 1997], p. 117)

You write:

"St. Denis the Areopagite in his first century book entitled the 'Books of Divine Names' records a funeral panegyric pronounced by Hierotheus, who purported that the Apostles had been divinely warned of the impending death of the Virgin Mary."

The document you're citing is a forgery (Everett Ferguson, ed., Encyclopedia Of Early Christianity [New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1999], p. 335). Why is it that some of the defenders of the assumption in this thread have resorted to the citation of forged documents?

 

[Fenstermacher]

Well, what can be said...demanding the criteria for the Assumption (or Dormition) you demand is your own.

Again, apples and oranges.

The Bible plainly describes God as Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Nicea simply framed the orthodox understanding of this.

The closest we can come to an assumption for Mary is the precedent of Elijah. No one assumes a typological correspondence between Mary and Elijah, so there isn't even that, there is just the example.

You would have a point if Mary's assumption were implied somewhere in the Bible and the Church fleshed it out but it isn't, so these are not like categories.

 

[bbbbbbb]

Again, apples and oranges.

The Bible plainly describes God as Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Nicea simply framed the orthodox understanding of this.

The closest we can come to an assumption for Mary is the precedent of Elijah. No one assumes a typological correspondence between Mary and Elijah, so there isn't even that, there is just the example.

You would have a point if Mary's assumption were implied somewhere in the Bible and the Church fleshed it out but it isn't, so these are not like categories.

There is one other possibility - Enoch. However, this possibility is even more remote than Elijah and, as you have pointed out, there is not a shred of evidence either in the Bible or in the ECF's of any connection between the Assumption of Mary and that of Enoch.

 

[CaliforniaJosiah]

The closest we can come to an assumption for Mary is the precedent of Elijah. No one assumes a typological correspondence between Mary and Elijah, so there isn't even that, there is just the example.

I agree: The MOST the RCC has for this unque DOGMA is that since Elijah was "assumed" so Mary COULD HAVE BEEN - it's at least within the realm of what is POSSIBLE for God to have done. But then see Luke 1:37, I don't think ANYONE denies that's it's POSSIBLE - but that hardly substantiates that it's true. Apples and oranges; it's POSSIBLE that there are 6 billion creatures on the Moon of Endor and that Joseph Smith found those Scriptures - but I doubt our Catholic friends will therefore shout: "THEREFORE, it's a dogmatic fact of highest certainty that it's true!!!" Well, that's my hunch anyway.





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[MrPolo]

The Bible plainly describes God as Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Nicea simply framed the orthodox understanding of this.

My point is that it is your rule to what degree the Bible must be specific about a revealed truth. There is no rule that typology and theological understandings are ways of understanding God's truth. Even a look at the Church from the earliest times in the OT through the end of Scripture shows that man understood more and more about what varying prophecies meant. We should not impose man-made rules upon God in how He is permitted to reveal Himself to the Church.

 

[Fenstermacher]

My point is that it is your rule to what degree the Bible must be specific about a revealed truth. There is no rule that typology and theological understandings are ways of understanding God's truth. Even a look at the Church from the earliest times in the OT through the end of Scripture shows that man understood more and more about what varying prophecies meant. We should not impose man-made rules upon God in how He is permitted to reveal Himself to the Church.

This isn't about a rule.

It's a simple matter of reading the text and with regard to our question, determining which one has better biblical support and is therefore worthy of dogmatic acceptance.

And the Trinity is light years ahead of the Assumption of the BVM in this regard, so much so that I contend that one cannot properly understand the Bible without understanding that its Author is a Trinity and that the Trinity is therefore incontrovertible while the matter of whether Mary was taken up into heaven at the end of her earthly life is completely unmentioned, unimplied and purely conjectural.

 

[Jason Engwer]

MrPolo wrote:

"There is no rule that typology and theological understandings are ways of understanding God's truth. Even a look at the Church from the earliest times in the OT through the end of Scripture shows that man understood more and more about what varying prophecies meant. We should not impose man-made rules upon God in how He is permitted to reveal Himself to the Church."

Are you appealing to church authority to justify an interpretation of scripture that we wouldn't be able to justify by the normal means of interpreting a document? If so, then you would have to make an argument for that alleged church authority. Since Protestants don't believe that your denomination has the authority you think it has, it makes sense for Protestants to point out that concepts like the assumption of Mary can't be derived from reading scripture as we would normally read a document. The ball is then in your court. You have to make a case for your concept of church authority.

You don't read papal decrees, council rulings, or catechisms allegorically. You and your fellow Catholics don't go through Pope Boniface VIII's Unam Sanctam or the Council of Trent looking for possible, but unverifiable, allusions to the sinlessness of Joseph or a bodily assumption of the apostle John. Rather, you read papal decrees, council rulings, and catechisms the same way Protestants read the Bible. The burden of proof is on the shoulders of those who want us to read a document in some unusual way.

And when Protestants and Catholics discuss church authority, the discussion frequently arrives at the same place. Catholics can't make a historical case for the papacy, for example, so they appeal to development of doctrine and unverifiable interpretations of scripture. But if church authority is what tells us which "typology and theological understandings" to accept, then how can you appeal to "typology and theological understandings" in order to make a case for church authority? We can accept apostolic appeals to "typology and theological understandings" on the basis of apostolic authority, which is verifiable by means of the historical evidence for Jesus' resurrection, His fulfillment of prophecy, etc. But we have no such reason for accepting Roman Catholic appeals to "typology and theological understandings".

Furthermore, where has Roman Catholicism infallibly declared how to derive the assumption of Mary (or the sinlessness of Mary, Purgatory, etc.) through "typology and theological understandings"? Catholicism has exercised its alleged infallibility in teaching those doctrines, but where has Catholicism infallibly declared how to derive the doctrines from scripture? If your reading of the alleged typology of the ark of the covenant, for example, isn't backed up by the authority of the church, then why are we supposed to believe that your reading is correct? As I've argued in a recent thread here on the sinlessness of Mary, we wouldn't arrive at your conclusions by interpreting scripture as we normally interpret a document. So, if your denomination hasn't infallibly told you how to derive the sinlessness of Mary from scripture, then you can't appeal to church authority in that sense. What are you appealing to, then?