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What is taught in the book, De Transitu Virginia Mariae Liber?

Fact: The De Transitu Virginia Mariae Liber, written in the 3rd or 4th century, is the ORIGIN of the teaching of the assumption of Mary.

Fact: No one within the church taught this doctrine for six centuries, and those who did first teach it within the church borrowed it directly from the book condemned by Pope Gelasius as heretical. As a fact of history, the Transitus writings are THE SOURCE of the teaching of the assumption of Mary.

Fact: AT THE TIME this Transitus teaching originated, the Church regarded it as heresy. Liber qui apellatur Transitus, id est Assumptio Sanctae Mariae, Apocryphus (the Transitus writing of the Assumption of Mary) and its author (in addition to the other writings listed and their authors, AND THEIR TEACHINGS, and THE ADHERENTS TO THOSE TEACHINGS) were condemned by Pope Gelasius as heretical. And lest you doubt the attribution of the decree to Pope Gelasius, the entire decree and its condemnation was reaffirmed by Pope Hormisdas.

A DICTIONARY OF CHRISTIAN ANTIQUITIES. ,
Author: Smith, William, Sir, 1813-1893
Volume: 2
Subject: Christian antiquities -- Dictionaries; Ecclesiastical history -- Dictionaries
Publisher: Boston, Little
Possible copyright status: NOT_IN_COPYRIGHT
Language: English
Call number: AFA-0217
Digitizing sponsor: MSN
Book contributor: Robarts - University of Toronto
Collection: toronto

pp 1142, 1143:

In the 3rd or 4th century there was composed a book, embodying the Gnostic and Collyridian traditions as to the death of St. Mary, called De Transitu Virginia Mariae Liber. The book exists still, and may be found in the Dibliotheca Patrum Maxima (torn. ii. pt. ii. p. 212). The legend contained in it relates how St. Mary, after her Son's death, went and lived at Bethlehem for twenty-one years, after which time an angel appeared to her, and told her that her soul should be taken from her body. So she was wafted on a cloud to Jerusalem, and the apostles, who had been miraculously gathered together, carried her to Gethsemane, and there her soul was taken up into Paradise by Gabriel. Then the apostles bore her body to the Valley of Jehosha- phat, and laid it in a new tomb ; and suddenly by the side of the tomb appeared her son Christ, who raised up her body lest it should see cor- ruption, and reuniting it with her soul, which Michael brought back from Paradise, had her conveyed by angels to heaven.
It will be seen that the L&er de Transitu Mariae contains already the whole of the story of the Assumption. But down to the end of the 5th century this story was regarded by the church as a Gnostic or Collyridian fable, and the Liber de Transitu was condemned as heretical by the Decretum de Libris Canonicis Ecclesias- ticis et Apocryphis, attributed to pope Gelasius, A.D. 494. How then did it pass across the borders and establish itself within the church, so as to have a festival appointed to commemo- rate it ? In the following manner :
In the sixth century a great change passed over the sentiments and the theology of the church in reference to the 0eoT(taos an unin- tended but very noticeable result of the Nes- torian controversies, which in maintaining the true doctrine of the Incarnation incidentally gave a strong impulse to what became the Wor- ship of St. Mary. In consequence of this change of sentiment, during the 6th and 7th centuries (or later), (1) the Liber de Transitu, though classed by Gelasius with the known productions
d Charles the Great's Cupitulare, after recounting the festivals, says : "l)e Assumptions Sanctae Mariae intei- rogandum relinquimus." The treatise De Assumptitrne II. )/. Virginis, attributed to St. Augustine and bound up with his works (torn. vi. p. 1142, ed. Migne) has been thought to have been a reply by one of Charles's bishops to his inquiry on the subject, as it begins, " Ad interro- gata de Virginis et. Matris Domini resolution temporal! et assumptione ptrenni quid intelligam responsurus."
MARY
of heretics came to be attributed by one (" otio- sus quispiam," says Baroiiius) to Melito, an orthodox bishop of Sardis, in the 2nd century, and by another to St. John the Apostle ; (2) a letter suggesting the possibility of the Assump- tion was written and attributed to St. Jerome (ad Paulam et Eustochium de Assumptions B. Virginis, Op. torn. v. p. 82, Paris, 1706); (3) a treatise to prove it not impossible was composed and attributed to St. Augustine (Op. torn. vi. p. 1142, ed. Migne) ; (4) two sermons supporting the belief were written and attributed to St. Athanasius (Op. torn. ii. pp. 393, 416, ed. Ben. Paris, 1698) ; (5) an insertion was made in Eusebius's Chronicle that " in the year 48 Mary the Virgin was taken up into heaven, as some wrote that they had had it revealed to them." Thus the authority of the names of St. John, of Melito, of Athanasius, of Eusebius, of Augus- tine, of Jerome, was obtained for the belief by a series of forgeries readily accepted because in accordance with the sentiment of the day, and the Gnostic legend was attributed to orthodox writers who did not entertain it. But this was not all, for there is the clearest evidence (1) that no one within the church taught it for six centuries, and (2) that those who did first teach it within the church borrowed it directly from the book condemned by pope Gelasius as here- tical. For the first person within the church who held and taught it was Juvenal, bishop of Jerusalem (if a homily attributed to John Damascene containing a quotation from " the Euthymiac history" (Op. torn. ii. p. 880, Venice, 1748) be for the moment considered genuine), who (according to this statement) on Marcian and Pulcheria's sending to him for information as to St. Mary's sepulchre, replied to them by narrating a shortened version of the De Transitu legend as " a most ancient and true tradition." The second person within the church who taught it (or the first, if the homily attributed to John Damascene relating the above tale of Juvenal be spurious, as it almost certainly is) was Gre- gory of Tours, A.D. 590, who in his De Gloria Martyrum (lib. i. c. 4) writes as follows : " When Blessed Mary had finished the course of this life, and was now called away from the world, all the apostles were gathered together at her house from all parts of the world; and when they heard that she was to be taken away they watched with her, and behold ! the Lord Jesus came with his angels, and taking her soul, gave it to Michael the Archangel, and went away. In the morning the apostles took up her body with the bed, and placed it in a monument, and watched it, waiting for the coming of the Lord. And behold ! a second time the Lord appeared, and commanded her to be taken up and carried in a cloud to Paradise, where now, having re- sumed her soul, she enjoys the never-ending blessings of eternity, rejoicing with her elect." The Abbe' Migne points out in a note that " what Gregory here relates of the death of the Blessed Virgin and its attendant circumstances he un- doubtedly drew (procul dxbio hausit) from the Pseudo-Melito's Liber de Transitu B. Mariae, which is classed among apocryphal books bj pope Gelasius." He adds that this account, with the circumstances related by Gregory, were soon after introduced into the Gallican Liturgy. It is very seldom that we are able to
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trace a tale from its birth onwards so clearly and unmistakably as this. It is demonstrable that the Gnostic legend passed into the church through Gregory or Juvenal, and so became an ac- cepted tradition within it. The next writers on the subject are Andrew of Crete, who is sup- posed to have lived about A.D. 635 ; Hildephonsus of Toledo, A.D. 657 ; and John of Damascus, who lived about A.D. 730, if writings attributed to any of them are genuine, which is quite doubt- ful. Pope Benedict XIV. says naively that " the most ancient Fathers of the Primitive Church are silent as to the bodily assumption of the Blessed Virgin, but the fathers of the middle and latest ages, both Greeks and Latins, relate it in the distinctest terms " (De Fest. Assumpt. apud Migne, Thcol. Curs. Compl. torn. xxvi. p. 144, Paris, 1842). It was under the shadow of the names of Gregory of Tours and of these " fathers of the middle and latest ages, Greek and Latin," that the De Transitu legend became accepted as a catholic tradition (see Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints, Aug. 15).
The history, therefore, of the belief which this festival was instituted to commemorate is as follows : It was first taught in the 3rd or 4th century as part of the Gnostic legend of St. Mary's death, and it was regarded by the church as a Gnostic and Collyridian fable down to the end of the 5th century. It was brought into the church in the 6th, 7th, and 8th centuries, partly by a series of successful forgeries, partly by the adoption of the Gnostic legend on the part of accredited teachers, writers, and liturgists. And a festival in commemoration of the event, thus come to be believed, was instituted in the East at the beginning of the 7th, in the West at the beginning of the 9th century."
[emphasis mine]

The decree of Pope Gelasius Decretum de Libris Canonicis Ecclesiasticis et Apocryphis lists Liber qui apellatur Transitus, id est Assumptio Sanctae Mariae, Apocryphus (the Transitus writing of the assumption of Mary) along with other listed apocryphal writings as heretical and that their authors and teachings and all who adhere to them are condemned and placed under eternal anathema which is indissoluble

Haec et omnia his similia, quae Simon Magus, Nicolaus, Cerinthus, Marcion, Basilides, Ebion, Paulus etiam Samosatenus, Photinus, et Bonosus, et qui simili errore defecerunt; Montanus quoque cum suis obscenissimis sequacibus, Apollinaris, Valentinus, sive Manichaeus, Faustus, Africanus, Sabellius, Arius, Macedonius, Eunomius, Novatus, Sabbatius, Callistus, Donatus, Eustathius, Jovinianus, Pelagius, Julianus Eclanensis, Coelestinus [al. Coelestius], Maximinus [al. Maximianus], Priscillianus ab Hispania, Nestorius Constantinopolitanus, Maximus Unicus, Lampetius [al. Lapicius], Dioscorus, Eutyches, Petrus, et alius Petrus, e quibus unus Alexandriam, alius Antiochiam maculavit; Acacius Constantinopolitanus cum consortibus [al. sociis] suis; nec non et omnes haeresiarchae, eorumque discipuli, sive schismatici, docuerunt vel conscripserunt quorum nomina minime retinentur; non solum repudiata, verum etiam ab omni Romana catholica et apostolica Ecclesia eliminata, atque cum suis auctoribus auctorumque sequacibus sub anathematis indissolubili vinculo in aeternum confitemur esse damnata.

This entire decree and its condemnation was reaffirmed by Pope Hormisdas around A.D. 520.

Cordially,