ASSUMPSIT (“he has undertaken,” from Lat. assumere), a word applied to an action for the recovery of damages by reason of the breach or non-performance of a simple contract, either express or implied, and whether made orally or in writing. Assumpsit was the word always used in pleadings by the plaintiff to set forth the defendant’s undertaking or promise, hence the name of the action. Claims in actions of assumpsit were ordinarily divided into (a) common or indebitatus assumpsit, brought usually on an implied promise, and (b) special assumpsit, founded on an express promise. Assumpsit as a form of action became obsolete after the passing of the Judicature Acts 1873 and 1875. (See further [Contract]; [Pleading] and [Tort].)
ASSUMPTION, FEAST OF. The feast of the “Assumption of the blessed Virgin Mary” (Lat. festum assumptionis, dormitionis, depositionis, pausationis B. V. M.; Gr. κοίμησις or ἀνάληψις τῆς θεοτόκου) is a festival of the Christian Church celebrated on the 15th of August, in commemoration of the miraculous ascent into heaven of the mother of Christ. The belief on which this festival rests has its origin in apocryphal sources, such as the εἰς τἡν κοίμησιν τῆς ὑπεραγίας δεσποίνης ascribed to the Apostle John, and the de transitu Mariae, assigned to Melito, bishop of Sardis, but actually written about A.D. 400. Pope Gelasius I. (492-496) included them in the list of apocryphal books condemned by the Decretum de libris recipiendis et non recipiendis; but they were accepted as authentic by the pseudo-Dionysius (de nominbus divinis c. 3), whose writings date probably from the 5th century, and by Gregory of Tours (d. 593 or 594). The latter in his De gloria martyrum (i. 4) gives the following account of the miracle: As all the Apostles were watching round the dying Mary, Jesus appeared with His angels and committed the soul of His Mother to the Archangel Michael. Next day, as they were carrying the body to the grave, Christ again appeared and carried it with Him in a cloud to heaven, where it was reunited with the soul. This story is much amplified in the account given by St John of Damascus in the homilies In dormitionem Mariae, which are still read in the Roman Church as the lesson during the octave of the feast. According to this the patriarchs and Adam and Eve also appear at the death-bed, to praise their daughter, through whom they had been rescued from the curse of God; a Jew who touches the body loses both his hands, which are restored to him by the Apostles; and the body lies three days in the grave without corruption before it is taken up into heaven.
The festival is first mentioned by St Andrew of Crete (c. 650), and, according to the Byzantine historian Nicephorus Callistus (Hist. Eccles. xvii. 28), was first instituted by the Emperor Maurice in A.D. 582. From the East it was borrowed by Rome, where there is evidence of its existence so early as the 7th century. In the Gallican Church it was only adopted at the same time as the Roman liturgy. But though the festival thus became incorporated in the regular usage of the Western Church, the belief in the resurrection and bodily assumption of the Virgin has never been defined as a dogma and remains a “pious opinion,” which the faithful may reject without imperilling their immortal souls, though not apparently—to quote Melchior Cano (De Locis Theolog. xii. 10)—without “insolent temerity,” since such rejection would be contrary to the common agreement of the Church. By the reformed Churches, including the Church of England, the festival is not observed, having been rejected at the Reformation as being neither primitive nor founded upon any “certain warrant of Holy Scripture.”
See Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie (ed. 3), s. “Maria”; Mgr. L. Duchesne, Christian Worship (Eng. trans., London, 1904); Wetzer and Welte, Kirchenlexikon, s. “Marienfeste”; The Catholic Encyclopaedia (London and New York, 1907, &c.), s. “Apocrypha,” “Assumption.”
ASSUR (Auth. Vers. Asshur), a Hebrew name, occurring in many passages of the Old Testament, for the land and dominion of Assyria.[1] The country of Assyria, which in the Assyro-Babylonian literature is known as mat Aššur (ki), “land of Assur,” took its name from the ancient city of Aššur, situated at the southern extremity of Assyria proper, whose territory, soon after the first Assyrian settlement, was bounded on the N. by the Zagros mountain range in what is now Kurdistan and on the S. by the lower Zab river. The kingdom of Assyria, which was the outgrowth of the primitive settlement on the site of the city of Assur, was developed by a probably gradual process of colonization in the rich vales of the middle Tigris region, a district watered by the Tigris itself and also by several tributary streams, the chief of which was the lower Zab.[2]
It seems quite evident that the city of Assur was originally founded by Semites from Babylonia at quite an early, but as yet undetermined date. In the prologue to the law-code of the great Babylonian monarch Khammurabi (c. 2250 B.C.), the cities of Nineveh and Assur are both mentioned as coming under that king’s beneficent influence. Assur is there called A-usar (ki),[3] in which combination the ending -ki (“land territory”) proves that even at that early period there was a province of Assur more extensive than the city proper. It is probable that this non-Semitic form A-usar means “well watered region,”[4] a most appropriate designation for the river settlements of Assyria. The problem as to the meaning of the name Assur is rendered all the more confusing by the fact that the city and land are also called Aššur (as well as A-usar), both by the Khammurabi records[5] and generally in the later Assyrian literature. Furthermore, the god- and country-name Assur also occurs at a late date in Assyrian literature in the forms An-šar, An-šar (ki), which form[6] was presumably read Assur. In the Creation tablet, the heavens personified collectively were indicated by this term An-šar, “host of heaven,” in contradistinction to the earth = Ki-šar, “host of earth.” In view of this fact, it seems highly probable that the late writing An-sar for Assur was a more or less conscious attempt on the part of the Assyrian scribes to identify the peculiarly Assyrian deity Asur (see [Assur], the god, below) with the Creation deity An-sar. On the other hand, there is an epithet Ašir or Ashir (“overseer”) applied to several gods and particularly to the deity Ašur, a fact which introduced a third element of confusion into the discussion of the name Assur. It is probable then that there is a triple popular etymology in the various forms of writing the name Aššur; viz. A-usar,[7] An-šar and the stem ašāru, all of which is quite in harmony with the methods followed by the ancient Assyro-Babylonian philologists.[8]
See also A.H. Layard, Discoveries in the Ruins of Nineveh and Babylon (1853); G. Smith, Assyrian Discoveries (1875); R.W. Rogers, History of Babylonia and Assyria, i. 297; ii. 13; ii. 30, 76, 102; J.F. M‘Curdy, History, Prophecy and the Monuments, §§ 74, 171 f., 247, 258, 283; 57, 59 f. (on the god).
(J. D. Pr.)