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To: P-Marlowe
You can find it on EWTN. However, if that's not a credible source for you, I give you the following:

http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/a28.htm

And, as with the Immaculate Conception, the earliest evidence that we have for the Assumption comes to us from the Eastern, non-Greek-speaking Church. Around 390 AD, we have the writings of St. Epiphanius of Salamis. Now, St. Epiphanius was a native of Palestine (so he would have been familiar with all the Sacred Traditions of the original Jewish Church in Jerusalem). Yet, in around 390, St. Epiphanius moved to the Greek island of Cyprus, where he was elected to be the Bishop of Salamis. Thus, around this time, we have this Palestinian bishop writing to his Greek flock about the end of Mary's earthly life. And, speaking very diplomatically, he writes:

"Say she died a natural death. In that case she fell asleep in glory, and departed in purity and received the crown of her virginity. Or say she was slain with the sword according to Simeon's prophecy. There her glory is with the martyrs, and she through WHOM THE DIVINE LIGHT SHONE UPON THE WORLD IS IN THE PLACE OF BLISS WITH HER SACRED BODY. Or say she left this world without dying for God can do what He wills. Then she was simply transferred to eternal glory." (Haer. lxxix, 11).

So, St. Ephiphanis is speaking to his Greek, Cypriot flock -- a flock which apparently had no eatablished Tradition about the Assumption. Yet, even so, Epiphanius mentions his own, Palestinian Tradition of the Assumption; and, while he does not force it upon the Greeks since, at this time, it was not a dogma and one did not have to accept it to be in the Church, he does present it to the Greek-speaking world. And he was most certainly not the only one, since the mere fact that he mentions the Assumption in passing shows that it was currently known to be an established belief -- an established theolegoumenon (theological opinion), even if it was not yet widely known to the Greek-speaking Church.

182 posted on 01/25/2007 8:39:24 AM PST by Rutles4Ever (Ubi Petrus, ibi ecclesia, et ubi ecclesia vita eterna)
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To: Rutles4Ever; Joseph DeMaistre; xzins; blue-duncan; Forest Keeper; Blogger; HarleyD; ...
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."

So the assmuption of Mary is based upon the assumption of some Patriach in Jerusalem that the Apostles assumed that because the place where Mary was assumed to have been buried was assumed to be empty, that they therefore assumed that she had been assumed into heaven.

IOW the Emporer Marcian asked the Patriarch of Jerusalem, "Hey where are Mary's bones, that we might bow before them and pray to her through them and build a magnificent shrine to her bones?" and the Patriarch, at a loss for words, told him this fantastic fairy tale, which in 1950 or so was proclaimed by some obsure infallible Pope to have therefore been revealed by God.

OK thanks for your source.

194 posted on 01/25/2007 9:06:51 AM PST by P-Marlowe (LPFOKETT GAHCOEEP-w/o*)
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