Note 526 — Chapter III

This legend is first mentioned by Gregory of Tours in the sixth century, (De Gloria Mart., lib. i, c. 4,) next by John Damascenus in the eighth century, but is most fully detailed in the Legenda Aurea in the fourteenth. Some of the earlier paintings represent with touching naiveté the translation of the soul of Mary as a new-born infant to heaven, where it is received in the arms of her Divine Son. In later art the assumption is more literally represented, and Mary is received and crowned by the three persons of the Holy Trinity, while angels bear her train. Bodily assumption was also attributed to John the Baptist and Mary Magdalene.