Part 3 — CHAPTER III.—THE ASSUMPTION OF THE VIRGIN MARY.

But what is the real state of the case with regard to the fact of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary? It rests (as we shall soon see) on no authentic history; it is supported by no primitive tradition. I profess my surprise to have been great, when I found the most celebrated defenders of the Roman Catholic cause, instead of citing such evidence as would bear with it even the appearance of probability, appealing to histories written more than a thousand years after the alleged event, to forged documents and vague rumours. I was willing to doubt the sufficiency of my research; till I found its defenders, instead of alleging and establishing by evidence what God was by them said to have done, contenting themselves with asserting his omnipotence, in proof that the doctrine implied no impossibility; dwelling on the fitness and reasonableness of his working such a miracle in the honour of her who was chosen to be the mother of his eternal Son; and whilst they took the fact as granted, substituting for argument glowing and fervent descriptions of what might have been the joy in heaven, and what ought to be the feelings of mortals on earth.

At every step of the inquiry into the merits of this case, the principle recurs to the mind, that, as men really and in earnest looking onward to a life after this, our duty is to ascertain to the utmost of our power, not what God could do, not what we or others might pronounce it fit that God should do, but what He has done; not what would be agreeable to our feelings, were it true, but what, whether agreeably or adversely to our feelings or wishes, is proved to be true. The very moment a Christian writer refers me from evidence to possibilities, I feel that he knows not the nature of Christianity; he throws me back from the sure and certain hope of the Gospel to the "beautiful fable" of Socrates,—"It were better to be there than here, IF THESE THINGS ARE TRUE."

But let us inquire into the facts of the case.

First, I would observe that it is by no means agreed among all who have written upon the subject, what was the place, or what was the time of the Virgin's death. Whilst some have maintained that she breathed her last at Ephesus, the large majority assert that her departure from this world took place at Jerusalem. And as to the time of her death, some have assigned it to the year 48 of the Christian era, about the time at which Paul and Barnabas (as we read in Holy Scripture) returned to Antioch; whilst others refer it to a later date. I am not, however, aware of any supposition which fixes it at a period subsequent to that at which the canon of Scripture closes. Epiphanius indeed, towards the close of the fourth century, reminding us that Scripture is totally and purely silent on the subject as well of Mary's death and burial, as of her having accompanied St. John in his travels or not, without alluding to any tradition as to her assumption, thus sums up his sentiments: "I dare to say nothing; but considering it, I observe silence." [Epiph. vol. i. p. 1043.]

Let us then, with the authorized and enjoined service of the Church of Rome for the 15th of August before us, examine the evidence on which that religious service, the most solemn consummation of all the rest, is founded.

Now, on what authority does this doctrine rest? On what foundation stone is this religious worship built? The holy Scriptures are totally and profoundly silent, as to the time, the place, the manner of Mary's death. Once after the ascension of our Lord, and that within eight days, we find mentioned the name of Mary promiscuously with others; after that, no allusion is made to her in life or in death; and no account, as far as I can find, places her death too late for mention to have been made of it in the Acts of the Apostles. The historian, Nicephorus Callistus, refers it to the 5th year of Claudius, that is about A.D. 47: after which period, events through more than fifteen years are recorded in that book of sacred Scripture.

But closing the holy volume, what light does primitive antiquity enable us to throw on this subject?

The earliest testimony quoted by the defenders of the doctrine, that Mary was at her death taken up bodily into heaven, is a supposed entry in the Chronicon of Eusebius, opposite the year of our Lord 48. This is cited by Coccius without any remark; and even Baronius rests the date of Mary's assumption upon this testimony. [Vol. i. 403.] The words referred to are these,—"Mary the Virgin, the mother of Jesus, was taken up into heaven; as some write that it had been revealed to them."

"It has been above said, that the holy Pulcheria built many churches to Christ at Constantinople. Of these, however, there is one which was built in Blachernæ, in the beginning of Marcian I's reign of divine memory. These, therefore, namely, Marcian and Pulcheria, when they had built a venerable temple to the greatly to be celebrated and most holy mother of God and ever Virgin Mary, and had decked it with all ornaments, sought her most holy body, which had conceived God. And having sent for Juvenal, Archbishop of Jerusalem, and the bishops of Palestine, who were living in the royal city on account of the synod then held at Chalcedon, they say to them, 'We hear that there is in Jerusalem the first and famous Church of Mary, mother of God and ever Virgin, in the garden called Gethsemane, where her body which bore the Life was deposited in a coffin. We wish, therefore, her relics to be brought here for the protection of this royal city. But Juvenal answered, 'In the holy and divinely inspired Scripture, indeed, nothing is recorded of the departure of holy Mary, mother of God. But from an ancient and most true tradition we have received, that at the time of her glorious falling asleep, all the holy Apostles who were going through the world for the salvation of the nations, in a moment of time borne aloft, came together at Jerusalem. And when they were near her, they had a vision of angels, and divine melody of the highest powers was heard: and thus with divine and more than heavenly glory, she delivered her holy soul into the hands of God in an unspeakable manner. But that which had conceived God being borne with angelic and apostolic psalmody, with funeral rites, was deposited in a coffin in Gethsemane. In this place the chorus and singing of the angels continued for three whole days. But after three days, on the angelic music ceasing, since one of the Apostles had been absent, and came after the third day, and wished to adore the body which had conceived God, the Apostles, who were present, opened the coffin; but the body, pure and every way to be praised, they could not at all find. And when they found only those things in which it had been laid out and placed there, and were filled with an ineffable fragrancy proceeding from those things, they shut the coffin. Being astounded at the miraculous mystery, they could form no other thought, but that He, who in his own person had vouchsafed to be clothed with flesh, and to be made man of the most holy Virgin, and to be born in the flesh, God the Word, and Lord of Glory, and who after birth had preserved her virginity immaculate, had seen it good after she had departed from among the living, to honour her uncontaminated and unpolluted body by a translation before the common and universal resurrection."

Such is the passage offered to us in its insulated form, as an extract from Euthymius. To be enabled, however, to estimate its worth, the inquirer must submit to the labour of considerable research. He will not have pursued his investigation far, before he will find, that a thick cloud of uncertainty and doubt hangs over this page of ecclesiastical history. Not that the evidence alleged in support of the reputed miracle can leave us in doubt as to the credibility of the tradition; for that tradition can scarcely be now countenanced by the most zealous and uncompromising maintainers of the assumption of the Virgin. What I would say is, that the question as to the genuineness and authenticity of the works by which the tradition is said to have been preserved, is far more difficult and complicated, than those writers must have believed, who appeal to such testimony without any doubt or qualification. The result of my own inquiries I submit to your candid acceptance.

The following are among the expressions in which the preacher, in the passage under consideration, addresses the Virgin's tomb: "Thou, O Tomb, of holy things most holy (for I will address thee as a living being), where is the much desired and much beloved body of the mother of God?" [Vol. ii. p. 875.] The answer of the tomb begins thus, "Why seek ye her in a tomb, who has been taken up on high to the heavenly tabernacles?" In reply to this, the preacher first deliberating with his hearers what answer he should make, thus addresses the tomb: "Thy grace indeed is never-failing and eternal," &c. [P. 881.] By the maintainers of the invocation of saints, many a passage far less unequivocal and less cogent than this has been adduced to show, that saints and martyrs were invoked by primitive worshippers.

We find John Damascenus thus introducing the passage of Euthymius, "Ye see, beloved fathers and brethren, what answer the all-glorious tomb makes to us; and that these things are so, in the EUTHYMIAC HISTORY, the third book and fortieth chapter, is thus written word for word." [P. 877.]

Lambecius maintains, that the history here quoted by John Damascenus was not an ecclesiastical history, written by Euthymius, who died in A.D. 472, but a biographical history concerning Euthymius himself, written by an ecclesiastic, whom he supposes to be Cyril, the monk, who died in A.D. 531. This opinion of Lambecius is combated by Cotelerius; the discussion only adding to the denseness of the cloud which involves the whole tradition. But whether the work quoted had Euthymius for its author or its subject, the work itself is lost; and an epitome only of such a work has come down to our time. In that abridgment the passage quoted by Damascenus is not found.

The editor of John Damascenus, Le Quien, in his annotations on this portion of his work, offers to us some very interesting remarks, which bear immediately on the agitated question as to the first observance of the feast of the Assumption, as well as on the tradition itself. Le Quien infers, from the words of Modestus, patriarch of Jerusalem, that scarcely any preachers before him had addressed their congregations on the departure of the Virgin out of this life; he thinks, moreover, that the Feast of the Assumption was at the commencement of the seventh century only recently instituted. Though all later writers affirm that the Virgin was buried in the valley of Jehoshaphat, in the garden of Gethsemane, the same editor says, that this could not have been known to Jerome, who passed a great part of his life in Bethlehem, and yet observes a total silence on the subject; though in his "Epitaph on Paula," [Jerome, Paris, 1706. Vol. iv. p. 670-688, ep. 86.] he enumerates all the places in Palestine consecrated by any remarkable event. Neither, he adds, could it have been known to Epiphanius, who, though he lived long in Palestine, yet declares that nothing was known as to the death or burial of the Virgin. [Vol. ii, p. 858.]

Again, in his remarks upon the writings falsely attributed to Melito, the same editor says, that since this Pseudo-Melito speaks many jejune things of the Virgin Mary, (such for example as at the approach of death her exceeding fear of being exposed to the wiles of Satan,) he concludes, from that circumstance, that the work was written before the Council of Ephesus; alleging this very remarkable reason, that "after that time there BEGAN TO BE ENTERTAINED, as was right, not only in the East, but also in the West, a far better estimate of the parent of God." [P. 880.]

Many of the remarks of this editor would appear to savour of prejudice had they come from the pen of one who denied the reality of the assumption, or oppugned the honour and worship now paid by members of the Church of Rome to the Virgin. Nor could the suspicion of such prejudice be otherwise than increased by the insinuation which the same editor throws out against the honesty of Archbishop Juvenal, and on the possibility of his having invented the whole story, and so for sinister purposes deceived Marcian and Pulcheria; just as he fabricated the writings which he forged for the purpose of securing the primacy of Palestine; a crime laid to the charge of Juvenal by Leo the Great, in his letter to Maximus, Bishop of Antioch. [P. 879. See Leo. vol. i. p. 1215. Epist. cxix.]

It is moreover much to be regretted that in making the extract from John Damascenus those who employ it as evidence of primitive belief, have not presented it to their readers whole and entire. In the present case the system of quoting garbled extracts is particularly to be lamented, because the paragraphs omitted in the quotation carry in themselves clear proof that Juvenal's answer, as it now appears in John Damascenus, could not have been made by Juvenal to Marcian and Pulcheria. For in it is quoted from Dionysius the Areopagite by name, a passage still found in the works ascribed to him; whereas by the judgment of the most learned Roman Catholic writers, those spurious works did not make their appearance in Christendom till the beginning of the sixth century, fifty years after the Council of Chalcedon, to assist at which Juvenal is said to have been present in Constantinople when the emperor and empress held the alleged conversation with him.

Another authority to which the writers on the assumption of the Virgin appeal, is that of Nicephorus Callistus, who, at the end of the thirteenth or the beginning of the fourteenth century, dedicated his work to Andronicus Palæologus. The account given by Nicephorus is this:

Nicephorus then refers to Juvenal, Archbishop of Jerusalem, as the authority on which the tradition was received, that the Apostles opened the coffin to enable St. Thomas (the one stated to have been absent) to embrace the body; and then he proceeds to describe the personal appearance of the Virgin. [Vol. i. p. 171.]

I am unwilling to trespass upon the patience of my readers by any comment upon such evidence as this. Is it within the verge of credibility that had such an event as Mary's assumption taken place under the extraordinary circumstances which now invest the tradition, or under any circumstances whatever, there would have been a total silence respecting it in the Holy Scriptures? That the writers of the first four centuries should never have referred to such a fact? That the first writer who alludes to it, should have lived in the middle of the fifth century, or later; and that he should have declared in a letter to his contemporaries that the subject was one on which many doubted; and that he himself would not deny it, not because it rested upon probable evidence, but because nothing was impossible with God; and that nothing was known as to the time, the manner, or the persons concerned, even had the assumption taken place? Can we place any confidence in the relation of a writer in the middle of the sixth century, as to a tradition of what an archbishop of Jerusalem attending the council of Chalcedon, had told the sovereigns at Constantinople of a tradition, as to what was said to have happened nearly four hundred years before, whilst in the "Acts" of that Council, not the faintest trace is found of any allusion to the supposed fact or the alleged tradition, though the transactions of that Council in many of its most minute circumstances are recorded, and though the discussions of that Council brought the name and circumstances of the Virgin Mary continually before the minds of all who attended it?

This, however, is a point of too great importance to be dismissed summarily; and seems to require us to examine, however briefly, into the circumstances of that Council.