THE ASSUMPTION OF MARY: Condemned as Heretical by 2 Popes in the 5th and 6th Centuries

christiantruth.com ^ | William Webster

[Steelfish]

Pure hogwash. The Petrine authority of infallibility has undergone the scrutiny of scores of the most eminent scholars and theologians of our times over several centuries including some of the most respected authors and theologians of the Protestant world who have converted to Catholicism. THE ASSUMPTION OF MARY: A BELIEF SINCE APOSTOLIC TIMES Father Clifford Stevens The Assumption is the oldest feast day of Our Lady, but we don't know how it first came to be celebrated. Its origin is lost in those days when Jerusalem was restored as a sacred city, at the time of the Roman Emperor Constantine (c. 285-337). By then it had been a pagan city for two centuries, ever since Emperor Hadrian (76-138) had leveled it around the year 135 and rebuilt it as in honor of Jupiter. For 200 years, every memory of Jesus was obliterated from the city, and the sites made holy by His life, death and Resurrection became pagan temples. After the building of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 336, the sacred sites began to be restored and memories of the life of Our Lord began to be celebrated by the people of Jerusalem. One of the memories about his mother centered around the "Tomb of Mary," close to Mount Zion, where the early Christian community had lived. On the hill itself was the "Place of Dormition," the spot of Mary's "falling asleep," where she had died. The "Tomb of Mary" was where she was buried. At this time, the "Memory of Mary" was being celebrated. Later it was to become our feast of the Assumption. For a time, the "Memory of Mary" was marked only in Palestine, but then it was extended by the emperor to all the churches of the East. In the seventh century, it began to be celebrated in Rome under the title of the "Falling Asleep" ("Dormitio") of the Mother of God. Soon the name was changed to the "Assumption of Mary," since there was more to the feast than her dying. It also proclaimed that she had been taken up, body and soul, into heaven. That belief was ancient, dating back to the apostles themselves. What was clear from the beginning was that there were no relics of Mary to be venerated, and that an empty tomb stood on the edge of Jerusalem near the site of her death. That location also soon became a place of pilgrimage. (Today, the Benedictine Abbey of the Dormition of Mary stands on the spot.) At the Council of Chalcedon in 451, when bishops from throughout the Mediterranean world gathered in Constantinople, Emperor Marcian asked the Patriarch of Jerusalem to bring the relics of Mary to Constantinople to be enshrined in the capitol. The patriarch explained to the emperor that there were no relics of Mary in Jerusalem, that "Mary had died in the presence of the apostles; but her tomb, when opened later . . . was found empty and so the apostles concluded that the body was taken up into heaven." In the eighth century, St. John Damascene was known for giving sermons at the holy places in Jerusalem. At the Tomb of Mary, he expressed the belief of the Church on the meaning of the feast: "Although the body was duly buried, it did not remain in the state of death, neither was it dissolved by decay. . . . You were transferred to your heavenly home, O Lady, Queen and Mother of God in truth." All the feast days of Mary mark the great mysteries of her life and her part in the work of redemption. The central mystery of her life and person is her divine motherhood, celebrated both at Christmas and a week later (Jan. 1) on the feast of the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. The Immaculate Conception (Dec. 8) marks the preparation for that motherhood, so that she had the fullness of grace from the first moment of her existence, completely untouched by sin. Her whole being throbbed with divine life from the very beginning, readying her for the exalted role of mother of the Savior. The Assumption completes God's work in her since it was not fitting that the flesh that had given life to God himself should ever undergo corruption. The Assumption is God's crowning of His work as Mary ends her earthly life and enters eternity. The feast turns our eyes in that direction, where we will follow when our earthly life is over. The feast days of the Church are not just the commemoration of historical events; they do not look only to the past. They look to the present and to the future and give us an insight into our own relationship with God. The Assumption looks to eternity and gives us hope that we, too, will follow Our Lady when our life is ended. The prayer for the feast reads: "All-powerful and ever-living God: You raised the sinless Virgin Mary, mother of your Son, body and soul, to the glory of heaven. May we see heaven as our final goal and come to share her glory." In 1950, in the Apostolic Constitution , Pope Pius XII proclaimed the Assumption of Mary a dogma of the Catholic Church in these words: "The Immaculate Mother of God, the ever-virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heaven." With that, an ancient belief became Catholic doctrine and the Assumption was declared a truth revealed by God.

[metmom]

Of course it’s all assumed.

There’s not a mention of Mary anywhere in Scripture after the beginning of Acts.

The Bible is totally silent on what happened to her.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Paragraphs are our friends

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[metmom]

Of course it’s all assumed.

There’s not a mention of Mary anywhere in Scripture after the beginning of Acts.

The Bible is totally silent on what happened to her.

Which means that we don’t need to know.

[MamaB]

That was hard to read but Mary’s assumption never happened. It is not mentioned anywhere in God’ Word.

[chajin]

Luther’s “take” on this:

Today the festival of our dear lady, the mother of God, is observed to celebrate her death and departure above. But how little this Gospel corresponds with this is plain. For this Gospel tells us nothing about Mary being in heaven. And even if one could draw from this text every detail about what it is like for a saint to be in heaven, it would be of little use. It is enough that we know that departed saints live in God, as Christ concludes in Matthew [Matthew 22] based on the passage in Exodus [Exodus 4] where God says to Moses, “I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob,” that God is not the God of the dead, but the God of the living.

These passages sufficiently prove that they live. But we should not try to figure out what their life is like up there for it is not necessary for us to know. It is also not necessary to discover it. Reason is incapable of it. Some great masters have understanding about some things and yet not about this. For there are three states of life. First, as a child lays in his crib he lives in God but hardly perceives it Second, when we sleep we also are alive and are scarcely aware of it. Thirdly, when we definitely are aware and experience that we are living, even then we don’t know how.

Now since here on earth God deals with us in this meager prison (that is barely half a life), in such a way that we barely perceive how we live here, how much more can He give life in heaven where it is spacious and where is true life. So we cannot set up any definite limits or establish a rule as to how the saints live there since even here dreaming and crazy people live, but we can’t imagine how. It is enough to know that they live. But it is not necessary for us to know what that life is like. That is why I have always said that our faith always must rest upon what is known. We do not make articles of faith out of what doesn’t rest squarely on Scriptures, else we would daily make up new articles of faith. For this reason, those things that are necessary to believe which you must always preserve, which Scripture clearly reveals, are to be markedly distinguished from everything else. For faith must not build itself upon what Scripture does not clearly prove. So since the Scripture clearly says here that Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and all believers live, then it is necessary for you to believe that the mother of God lives. You can leave it in our gracious God’s hands what that life is like. Enough said about this festival. [Festival Sermons of Martin Luther (Michigan: Mark V Publications, 2005) pp. 145-14].

[Steelfish]

There are lots of things that occurred that Scripture itself says was never recorded.

Apologies for the textual format.

[Salvation]

Then where is her tomb?

You are mistaken.

[Salvation]

Another anti-Catholic thread?

[Steelfish]

Here’s something more comprehensive. It takes a serious and diligent read.

http://www.catholic.com/blog/tim-staples/the-assumption-of-mary

[metmom]

Pure hogwash.

Of course it's pure hogwash. The whole teaching that Mary was assumed is

[metmom]

Another anti-Catholic thread?

Tell us then.....

What in the article is incorrect?

[Salvation]

Then where is her tomb? Why, as a former Catholic, do you believe this is untrue?

[metmom]

Then where is her tomb?

Where is anybody's tomb?

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Even if someone claims to know where Mary's tomb was, or even the tomb in which Jesus was laid, there's simply no way of knowing for sure.

Any evidence is based on hearsay and could have been fabricated at any point in the last couple THOUSAND years.

[Salvation]

Do you believe that Elijah was taken into heaven in a whirlwind?

That Enoch “walked with God”?

Then why don’t you believe that the Blessed Virgin Mary could have been assumed into heaven?

[MamaB]

Many tombs have not been found. Read, watch shows on the History channel and others. They are still looking for the Ark and other things mentioned in the Bible. one show was about the walls falling down. Discovered it could have happened just like the Bible says. Do not add things that are not in God’s word. I learned to search for the truth instead of believing what human beings say. I have spent hours doing research on things I am nterested in plus reading the Bible.

[metmom]

Do you believe that Elijah was taken into heaven in a whirlwind? That Enoch “walked with God”?

Absolutely. Scripture tells us that.

Then why don’t you believe that the Blessed Virgin Mary could have been assumed into heaven?

Not *could have been*. *Was* Because Scripture DOESN'T tell us that.

Technically anything is possible. That doesn't mean cause someone didn't say it didn't happen that we can assume that it did.

That's folly.

[MamaB]

How is it anti anything if it is the truth? Where in the Bible did that supposedly happen?

[Campion]

What in the article is incorrect?

Sure, since you asked. The article conflates the condemnation of de transitu with condemnation of the doctrine of the Assumption. That's not the same thing; a book can contain some truth and still contain a great deal of error and be worthy of condemnation.

It's really a pretty straightforward error of fallacy of composition.

Besides, do you really think -- honestly, now -- that Catholics are so ignorant and stupid that they would dogmatize something in the 19th century that had been condemned as heresy in the sixth?