The Assumption of Our Lady

The following article is an excerpt from the recently published Marian anthology, Mariology: A Guide for Priests, Deacons, Seminarians, and Consecrated Persons, Seat of Wisdom Books, A Division of Queenship, 2008. Fifteen international Mariology experts contributed to the text. The book features a foreword by Archbishop Raymond L. Burke and has 17 chapters divided into four parts: 1. Mary in Scripture and the Early Church; 2. Marian Dogma; 3. Marian Doctrine; and 4. Marian Liturgy and Devotion. The book is now available from Queenship Publications. To obtain a copy, visit queenship.org. Visit books.google.com and search on "Mariology: A Guide" to view the book in its entirety, or simply click here.
Asst. Ed.

In the Old Testament, there were some mysterious departures from this life. God granted a special privilege of not dying to Enoch and Elijah. The first case concerns Enoch, referred to in the book of Genesis: "Enoch walked with God, then was no more, because God took him" (Gen 5:24). The letter to the Hebrews furnishes more information: "It was because of his faith that Enoch was taken up and did not experience death: he was no more, because God took him; because before his assumption he was acknowledged to have pleased God" (Heb 11:5). Significantly, the word assumption is adopted (1). Similarly, the passing of Elijah was extraordinary, since he did not die: "Now as they (Elijah and Elisha) walked on, talking as they went, a chariot of fire appeared and horses of fire coming between the two of them; and Elijah went up to heaven in the whirlwind" (2 Kings 2:11; cf. Sir 48:9).

In the New Testament, the fate of the last generation who are present at the time of Christ’s appearing in glory is sometimes considered to involve a kind of assumption. In two passages in the Pauline letters, the apostle points out that "we are not all going to die, but we shall all be changed" (1 Cor 15:51) and he affirms that "those who have died in Christ will be the first to rise and then those of us who are still alive will be taken up in the clouds, together with them to meet the Lord in the air" (1 Thess 4:16-17). The opinion that the last generation upon the face of the earth will not die is supported by Greek Fathers including St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. John Chrysostom and Latin Fathers including Tertullian and St. Jerome. The Creed follows the Scriptures by indicating that those who are alive at the Second Coming will not die, for it affirms that Christ will come to judge the living and the dead. However, this assumption of a last generation of believers is to be carefully distinguished from the notion of the "Rapture," current in some Protestant and Pentecostal thought (2).

Where Mary passed the last years of her life on earth is a matter for conjecture, although various traditions propose Ephesus or near Jerusalem as possibilities. Some apocryphal works dating from the second to the fourth centuries are all favorable to the Jerusalem tradition. The letter of Dionysius the Areopagite to the Bishop Titus (363), as well as the Joannis liber de Dormitione Mariae (third to fourth century), locate her tomb at Gethsemane. Historically these works have some value despite being apocryphal, since they echo a belief from earlier centuries. The indication of a tomb of the Virgin in the valley of Josaphat dated from about the fifth century, and this tomb became the object of pilgrimage and devotion (3). St. John Damascene bears witness to a tradition that Our Lady passed from this world from Jerusalem: "Zion is the mother of churches in the whole world, who offered a resting-place to the Mother of God after her Son’s Resurrection from the dead. In it, lastly, the Blessed Virgin was stretched on a small bed" (4). He indicated Gethsemane as the place of her Assumption: "Then they reached the most sacred Gethsemane, and once more there were embraces and prayers and panegyrics, hymns and tears, poured forth by sorrowful and loving hearts. They mingled a flood of weeping and sweating. And thus the immaculate body was laid in the tomb. Then it was assumed after three days to the heavenly mansions" (5). Within this tradition, then, there are various opinions as to whether Mary’s tomb was in the Garden of Olives or in the Valley of Josaphat. A pointer towards placing the tomb of Mary in Gethsemane is the basilica erected above the sacred spot, about the end of the fourth or the beginning of the fifth century. The present church was built in the same place in which the old edifice had stood (6).

Another tradition posits the place of Mary’s transition as being in Ephesus. There is no mention made in the Acts of the Council of Ephesus (431) of that city being the one chosen by God for Mary’s last days. Only after that Council was there any firm indication placing her tomb in that city. Since St. John had lived in Ephesus and had been buried there (7), it has been inferred that since he took Our Lady into his care after the death of the Lord, she could have lived there after Christ’s Ascension, and then passed from this life in that town. Benedict XIV states that Mary followed St. John to Ephesus and died there. He intended also to remove from the Breviary those lessons which mention Mary’s death in Jerusalem, but died before carrying out his intention (8). Various private revelations indicate Ephesus as the place of Mary’s passage from this life (9).

The question then arises concerning the nature of her passing, and concretely whether she died or not. This issue examines whether she experienced the separation of the soul from the body. The dogma of the Assumption of the Mother of God leaves open the question of whether or not she died. A minority of theologians hold that she did not in fact suffer death. In the late fourth century, we find the earliest known, non-apocryphal mention of the close of Mary’s life, in the writings of St. Epiphanius (315-403), bishop of Constantia, on the island of Cyprus:

St. Epiphanius genuinely may have not known, or else he was being careful not to play into the hands of certain contemporary heretics, the Antidicomarianites and the Collyridians. The former group denied the perpetual virginity of Mary; the latter, erring in the opposite direction, maintained that divine worship should be given to her. To claim that Our Lady died was to give possible fuel to the former heresy (for it was to suggest that the body of Mary was subject to the corruption of the tomb, and thus minimize her prerogatives); to assert that she did not die was to encourage the latter (11). Around the same time, Timothy of Jerusalem affirmed that Mary did not die: "Wherefore the Virgin is immortal up to now, because he who dwelt in her, assumed her to the heavenly regions" (12).

St. Isidore of Seville (+636) appears to be the first to cast some doubt upon the fact of Mary’s death: "Nowhere does one read of her death. Although, as some say, her sepulcher may be found in the valley of Josaphat" (13). Tusaredo, a bishop in the Asturias province of Spain in the eighth century, wrote: "Of the glorious Mary, no history teaches that she suffered martyrdom or any other kind of death" (14). In the early ninth century, Theodore Abou-Kurra likened the death of Mary to the sleep of Adam in the Garden, when God formed Eve from one of his ribs (15). This, obviously, was not a true death.

Most of the Fathers, however, reflecting on Mary’s destiny and on her relationship with her divine Son, proposed that since Christ died, it would be difficult to maintain the contrary for his Mother. St. Augustine (354-430), who was not clear concerning the absence of original sin in Our Lady, stated baldly: "Mary, as a daughter of Adam died as a consequence of sin; Adam died because of sin, and the flesh of the Lord, born of Mary, died to destroy sin" (16). The Syriac Father, St. Jacob of Sarug (+521), wrote that when the time came for Mary "to walk the way of all generations," that is the way of death, "the group of the twelve apostles" gathered to bury "the virginal body of the blessed one" (17). St. Modestus of Jerusalem (+634), after a lengthy discussion of "the most blessed dormition of the most glorious Mother of God," ends his eulogy by exalting the miraculous intervention of Christ who "raised her from the tomb," to take her up with him in glory (18). St John Damascene (+749) asks the basic question: "For how could she, who brought life to all, be under the dominion of death? But she obeys the law of her own Son, and inherits this chastisement as a daughter of the first Adam, since her Son, who is the life, did not refuse it. As the Mother of the living God, she goes through death to him" (19). St. Andrew of Crete (+740) also followed the line of those who affirmed, with very little argumentation, that Mary died because her Son died (20).

Many Fathers attest to the pious tradition that at least some of the apostles were present at Our Lady’s passing from this world. In the East, St. John Damascene wrote:

In the West, St. Gregory of Tours (+593) wrote:

Many of the great scholastics taught that Mary died, because they were unable to see how she remained free from original sin. St. Thomas, since he could not see how Our Lady was conceived without original sin, maintained the she suffered the consequences, and in particular, death (23). St. Bonaventure wrote:

Most interestingly, this passage also connects the question of Mary’s death with the role which she played in the redemption. Even those authors who accepted the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception did not always deduce that Mary would have remained without death. Even Bl. John Duns Scotus, who was clear on the Immaculate Conception, did not hold that Mary would have been exempted from death. For Scotus, the sentence of death is so general, that neither Christ nor Mary is an exception. The resurrection of the body is, for him, a victory over death, like that of Christ and his Mother (25).

St. Alphonsus Liguori (1696-1787) held a nuanced position on Mary’s death, pointing out that in one sense she should not have died, but in fact did die in order to be like her Son:

In the seventeenth century, there was renewed interest in the question of Mary’s death. An Italian theologian, Beverini, proposed that Mary did not die (27). After 1854, once Pope Bl. Pius IX had defined the Immaculate Conception, the question of whether Our Blessed Lady died gradually became a subject of wide theological discussion. The impetus for further research, out of which arose the present state of dispute, was given by the writings of Dominic Arnaldi (+1895) of Genoa, who proposed that Our Blessed Lady’s complete freedom from sin demanded her immunity from the penalty of death (28). Later in the twentieth century, the clearest proponents of the thesis that Mary did not die were Roschini and Gallus (29). Others like Bonnefoy were clear proponents of Mary’s death: "the death of the Most Holy Virgin may be considered as historically proved and explicitly revealed: as such (explicitly revealed) it may be the subject of a dogmatic definition: there is no reason why it should not be" (30). John Henry Newman also held that Our Lady died, but it was a special kind of death:

Pope John Paul II has come closest to addressing the issue, and he inclined in favor of Mary’s participation in death: "The fact that the Church proclaims Mary free from original sin by a unique divine privilege does not lead to the conclusion that she also received physical immortality. The Mother is not superior to the Son who underwent death, giving it a new meaning and changing it into a means of salvation" (32). The Pope went on to ask: "Could Mary of Nazareth have experienced the drama of death in her own flesh?" His response is that reflecting on Mary’s destiny and her relationship with her divine Son, "it seems legitimate to answer in the affirmative: since Christ died, it would be difficult to maintain the contrary for his Mother. … Involved in Christ’s redemptive work and associated in his saving sacrifice, Mary was able to share in his suffering and death for the sake of humanity’s redemption" (33). Clearly the Pope did not wish to close the question, but indicated the theological weight in favor of the position that Mary participated somehow in death’s mystery.