Our Lady Saint Mary

by J. G. H. Barry

What is implied in the word assumption is that the body of the Mother of our Lord was after her death and burial raised to heaven by the power of God. It differed therefore essentially from the ascension of our Lord which was accomplished by His Own inherent power. When this assumption took place we have no means of knowing. We do not certainly know where S. Mary lived, nor where and when she died. Jerusalem and Ephesus contend in tradition for the privilege of having sheltered her last days and reverently carried her body to its burial. There is no way of deciding between these two claims, although the fact that our Lord confided His Mother to S. John throws some little weight into the scale of Ephesus. And yet S. Mary may have died before S. John settled in Ephesus. We can only say that history gives us no reliable information on the matter.

In the silence of Scripture we naturally turn to the other writings of the early Church for light and guidance on the matter; but there, too, there is little help. There is, to be sure, a group of Apocryphal writings which have a good deal to say about the life of S. Mary, where the Scriptures and tradition are silent. Among other things these Apocryphal writings have a good deal to say, and some very beautiful stories to tell, of S. Mary's last days, of her burial and assumption. Are we to think of these stories as containing any grain of truth? If they do, it is now impossible to sift it from the chaff. These stories are generally rejected as a basis of knowledge. And there has been, and still is in some quarters, a conviction that the belief of the Church in the assumption rests on nothing better or more stable than these Apocryphal stories; that the authors of these Apocrypha were inventing their stories out of nothing, and that in an uncritical age their legends came to be taken as history. Thus was a belief in the assumption foisted upon the Church, having no slightest ground in fact. The human tendency to fill in the silences of Scripture has resulted in many legends, that of the assumption among them.

There is a good deal to be said for this position, yet I do not feel that it is convincing. That the incidents of the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary as narrated in the Apocrypha are historical, of course cannot be maintained. But neither is it at all probable that such stories grew up out of nothing: indeed, their existence implies that there were certain facts widely accepted in the Christian community that served as their starting point. While the Apocryphal stories of the life of our Lady cannot be accepted as history, they do presuppose certain beliefs as universally, or at least widely, held. Thus one may reject all the details of the story of the death and burial and assumption of our Lady, and yet feel that the story is evidence of a belief in the assumption among those for whom the story was written. What was new to them was not the fact of the assumption but the detailed incidents with which the Apocrypha embroidered it. I feel no doubt that these Apocryphal stories are not the source of belief in the assumption, but are our earliest witness to the existence of the belief. They actually presuppose its existence in the Church as the necessary condition of their own existence.

Another fact that tells in the same direction is the absence of any physical relics of our Lady. At a time when great stress was laid upon relics, and there was little scruple in inventing them, if the authentic ones were not forthcoming, there were no relics produced which were alleged to be the physical relics of S. Mary. Why was this? Surely, unless there were some inhibiting circumstances, relics, real or forged, would have been produced. The only probable explanation is that the inhibiting circumstance was the established belief in the assumption. If the assumption were a fact, there would be no physical relics; if it were an established belief, there would be no fraud possible. Add to this that various relics of our Lady were alleged to exist; but they were not relics of her body.

Again: by the seventh century the celebration of the feast of the assumption had spread throughout the whole church. This universal establishment of the feast implies a preceding history of considerable length, going well back into the past. The feast was kept in many places, and under a variety of names which seem to imply, not mere copying, but independent development. It is alleged, to be sure, that the names by which the feast was called do not imply belief in the assumption. The feast is called "the Sleeping," "the Repose," "the Passage" of the Virgin, as well as by the Western title, the assumption. But a study of the liturgies and of the sermons preached in honour of the feast will convince any one that the underlying tradition was that of our Lady's assumption.

These quite separate and yet converging lines of evidence seem to me to show convincingly what was the wide-spread belief of the early Christian community as to the destiny of Blessed Mary. They imply a tradition going well back into the past, so far back, that in view of the theological expression of the mind of the Church they may well be regarded as apostolic. Our personal belief in the assumption will still rest primarily upon its theological expression in the mind of the Church, but having attained certainty as to the doctrine, which is of course at the same time certainty as to the fact, we shall have no difficulty in finding in the above sketched lines of historical development the evidence of the primitive character of the belief.

It may not be amiss to give a few characteristic quotations as indicating the mind of the Church in this matter.

S. Modestus, patriarch of Jerusalem (d. 614), preaching on the Falling Asleep of the Mother of God, said:--

"The Lord of heaven and earth has to-day consecrated the human tabernacle in which He Himself, according to the flesh, was received, that it may enjoy with Him forever the gift of incorruptibility. O blessed sleep of the glorious, ever-virgin Mother of God, who has not known the corruption of the grave; for Christ, our all-powerful Saviour, has kept intact that flesh which gave Him His flesh.... Hail, most holy Mother of God: Jesus has willed to have you in His Kingdom with your body clothed in incorruptibility.... The most glorious Mother of Christ our Lord and Saviour, Who gave life and immortality, is raised by her Son, and forever possesses incorruptibility with Him Who called her from the tomb."

S. Andrew, Archbishop of Crete (d. 676), also preaching on the Falling Asleep of the Mother of God, says:--"It is a wholly new sight, and one that surpasses the reason, that of a woman purer than the heavens entering heaven with her body. As she was born without corruption, so after death her flesh is restored to life."