A question about the dormition/assumption

[Huiou_Theou]

Interesting, in the dogmatic definition the word death isn’t used.
Just the completion of the course of her earthly life.

This is a very delicate thing, because a person may be comatose – not entirely dead.

St. Thomas Aquinas goes quite, ummmm, hyperdulia – nay! latria – over the life/death issue of Christ’s flesh while it lay in the tomb:

He comes to sort of both conclusions at once, – the flesh is no longer animated (moving) by the soul, but is in perfect lifelike stasis absolutely sustained as it were – which I have always understood to be one of the principle powers of a spiritual soul.

Perhaps there is a more to this than I am aware?
Much of St. Thomas’ speculation along this line is over my head, but the scholastic tradition leaves quite a bit of room for interpretation and is prior to the Dogmatic definition.

What is not in contest is that Mary ceased to follow living activity with the body – but I think it important to emphasize that her communion with her son was perfect there being no defect of Grace to be found in her.

There is a notion of “evil” the privation of Good – and then there are the indifferent, and the perfect. I understand that God created the indifferent and the good together – but not evil. Being as we are not God, the deficiency between absolute perfection and a necessarily lesser creation was bridged by God in Adam and Eve – the so called preternatural gifts.

Adam and eve were created less than God – a privation not of evil but of indifference and necessity – with some way of knowing God’s will. So their ignorance, whatever it was, was to be informed in some way by God – perhaps an Angel (the messenger of God) of whom a betrayer was found. Hence the sin of Adam and Eve was mitigated – whereas the sin of the Angel was not.

But, when we say that the mother was perfected in Grace – she had the gifts required to be free from every taint and stain of evil. From this, I would expect she shared – in some way – the union with God (perhaps more direct that Adam and Eve’s) which would provide an intimate contact with God which surpassed the gifts of Adam and Eve.

Although, Mary is not above our Lord, I am not convinced that death is completely satisfactory as a description. Lazarus who clearly died is not granted that title by our Lord when Jesus first announces his intention to go to the tomb – Lazarus is sleeping.
In this light, I wonder if saying she “died” in the first place rather than she fell asleep – and then only saying she “died” to the dense would be more appropriate. Certainly her honor is above Lazarus.

In the last days, men will eat and drink – and then at the sound of the trumpet – will they all die before they are transformed – in that wink of an eye? If it is a split second – then will their Glory exceed the honor of his mother whom he wrote the command to honor?

On this feast of our mother, may we hope that her death was of the shallowest sleep. And of course, when she awoke – alive – she entered heaven with joy just as the paintings show.

Amen.

 

[ebed_melech]

Just prior to the definition of Pius XII, there were two schools of thought among Latin Catholic Mariologists - the mortalists and the immortalists. The early patristic witness is somewhat sketchy (there were even some groups that held to an immortalist POV), but from what I have been able to gather, Origen was among the first to make any reference to her death. By the time of St. John of Damascus and St. Andrew of Crete you have a very well developed encomial tradition of honoring Mary’s death, now codified in liturgical feasts of her Dormition.

I have always been puzzled by Latins who hold to a position that she did not die. Part of it is out of concern to protect the full implications of the dogma of her Immaculate Conception, but the tradition of her free choice in the matter which actually portrays her petitioning her Son that she be taken up into heaven demonstrates that her mortality does not have to be viewed as a necessity of her created nature. Part of it also relates to a stream of later Western religious art that attempted to create parallels between the Assumption and the Ascension.



For a wonderful commentary on the Byzantine Dormition icon, I would recommend the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese’s website:

Page Cannot Be Found - Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America - Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America

goarch.org/en/special/listen_learn_share/dormition/learn/

For those who are interested in reading more, I would recommend two wonderful resources (in print):

The best place to start (for resources in print) is probably Fr. Brian Daley’s On the Dormition of Mary: Early Patristic Homilies.

amazon.com/Dormition-Mary-Early-Patristic-Homilies/dp/0881411779/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1197114807&sr=1-7

Stephen Shoemaker’s The Ancient Traditions of the Virgin Mary’s Dormition and Assumption is simply the best scholarly treatment of the sources of the Dormition/Assumption traditions that I have come across. He even includes many texts that have never been translated into English before.

amazon.com/Ancient-Traditions-Dormition-Assumption-Christian/dp/0199210748/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1197114475&sr=8-1

From what I understand, he plans to publish further volumes on the topic. Here is his website:
uoregon.edu/~sshoemak/texts/dormindex.htm

God bless!

Gordo

 

[peary]

**Common sense would dictate that the Blessed Mother would have died a natural death, unless there is something about her Immaculate Conception that would have prevented that from happening. It is all very confusing to me! **

 

[Huiou_Theou]

Hi Peary,

The great thing about a mystery, is you can probe it to learn more – and more – and more — …

There is on my part, a puzzlement of the relationship of the preternatural gifts (no-death, no-ignorance, etc) of Adam and Eve to the gifts gained through Christ. If the gifts before the fall of Adam and Eve were of a certain kind, and the gifts brought by Christ are Greater – then one is left to probe what this means with respect to his mother who has not even a taint of sin – are her gifts in some way like those of Adam and Eve?

It was not the natural course for Adam to become totally separated from the body before the fall, nor for his body to suffer decay. He had to allow his wife to eat the fruit, in order to become guilty of allowing her to be subject to death – and then in his agony of realizing he would loose his wife or perhaps his disbelief of God because his wife ate first and did not die to death visibly – he ate it himself. He allowed belief in God to die – and therefore became less than he was before.

When we acknowledge that Mary, in bringing the pure and fitting flesh (albeit saved) to her YES! which would allow the conception of her son in a totally fitting and pure environment, we are acknowledging that she is free of any TRACE of sin. Mary was saved, and her flesh, therefore was paid for – but her son has neither trace of sin – nor was he paid for – because he was never in danger – he was without a doubt the perfect “lamb”. ( In an ironic twist, Joseph pays a ransom anyway … )

The problem is, natural as we know it ALWAYS has a trace of sin associated with it. There is at least one time where God can look at anyone – and see them inevitably being without at least belief – that is ignorant, and empty of his presence – with the exceptions of Jesus and his Mother. It is for this reason that baptism has an exorcism – to cast out the prince of this world who can enter while any other person is empty of the presence of God.

This is why I hesitate, at least, in using any ‘natural’ logic as an argument about what did and did not happen with our mother and Jesus. This is also why, since she is more like Jesus than us, that I wonder to what extent her “death” is like his – and some of the things that St. Thomas talks about concerning the flesh of Jesus as it lays in the tomb – gives me great pause when considering what it means in the case of Mary.

Is Mary just like us after baptism – or is it even more attractive, since God who sees all time – see’s her purity at all times?
How does this perfection of grace manifest?

I don’t know – so I simply follow Augustine’s advice, and keep my mouth shut as much as possible where it might soil the virgin’s name.

I’ll be reading the links above, they look quite interesting.

 

[ebed_melech]

**Common sense would dictate that the Blessed Mother would have died a natural death, unless there is something about her Immaculate Conception that would have prevented that from happening. It is all very confusing to me! **

Peary,

To build upon what Huiou says above, the question of Mary’s mortality related to her created nature has to do with the belief that, because she was given the grace of the same pure human nature as Eve prior to the Fall, she should not have suffered the curse of death. As observed, death and corruption are not intrinsic to our human nature, rather they are a consequence of sin. If Mary was, through a singular act of God’s mercy and preventative grace, made free of the curse of the Fall - the Ancestral Sin - the logic is then she would also be free of all its consequences (corruption and death being two of them) as well.

So how could it be said that Mary died?

As mentioned above by another poster in a wonderful stream of Patristic quotes (particularly St. John of Damascus) it was fitting that Mary die in perfect conformity to her Son. The Son of God condescended to become man and to suffer death in view of the glory of His Resurrection and Ascension at the right hand of God. Mary as Theotokos - the Mother of God - and His first and perfect disciple could do no less than follow His example, even though she, like Him, was exempt from the curse and its consequences. It is also equally important to point out that Mary as Mother of the Church saw her own role as one who must be the exemplar for her spiritual offspring (given to her at the foot of the Cross by her dying Son) and follow the path of death (without corruption), resurrection and assumption/glorification in heaven. A good mother always goes before her children into danger. Is it not also fitting that she who is “more spacious than the heavens” should freely go before us triumphantly into those heavens to show us - the Church - the path that we must also take at the end of our lives?

I have always appreciated the Byzantine insight into this - Mary’s Nativity and her Dormition/Assumption form the beginning and the end of our Church’s calendar of Great Feasts. In that sense she mirrors perfectly the life of perfect discipleship to which the Church - the Virgin Bride and spiritual Mother - is called.

In ICXC,

Gordo

 

[mardukm]

Dear brother Gordo

Peary,

To build upon what Huiou says above, the question of Mary’s mortality related to her created nature has to do with the belief that, because she was given the grace of the same pure human nature as Eve prior to the Fall, she should not have suffered the curse of death. As observed, death and corruption are not intrinsic to our human nature, rather they are a consequence of sin. If Mary was, through a singular act of God’s mercy and preventative grace, made free of the curse of the Fall - the Ancestral Sin - the logic is then she would also be free of all its consequences (corruption and death being two of them) as well.

So how could it be said that Mary died?

From my understanding, the IC refers not to the physical conception of Mary, but to the spiritual conception of Mary. Thus, the teaching does not rule out her death. I think the popularity of the immortalist view is more of a pious theologumena than anything that can be attached to the dogma itself properly understood.

Blessings,
Marduk

 

[ebed_melech]

Dear brother Gordo

From my understanding, the IC refers not to the physical conception of Mary, but to the spiritual conception of Mary. Thus, the teaching does not rule out her death. I think the popularity of the immortalist view is more of a pious theologumena than anything that can be attached to the dogma itself properly understood.

Blessings,
Marduk

Marduk,

Thanks for your reply!

First of all, I do not argue from an pure immortalist position in so far as I believe truly that Mary did in fact die. I do, however, accept the immortalist premise (which is a consequence of the early patristic typology of Mary as the New Eve later re-presented in the dogma of the Immaculate Conception) that she was not bound in her nature by the curse of Adam and Eve to suffer death and corruption, and thus was by necessity mortal. Her death was her own self-gift in petition to her Son. It was fitting, given her role in the redemption.

Secondly, conception is both a spiritual and a physical event. The spiritual soul created by God is infused into the physical body pro-created by man at the moment of conception. If at that moment God acts in a preventative way to exempt her from suffering the consequences of Adam’s fall while simultaneously ensuring that she is full of grace, overflowing with the holiness of God’s divine life of theosis, that conception will have consequences both physical and spiritual. (We see this illustrated in a secondary way by the incorruptibles.) And since physical death is a consequence of sin, in fact embodying (or disembodying) the very ancestral separation of God and man, Mary’s deliverance from this, there are spiritual consequences.

So I do not see it so much as “pious theologumena”. But immortalists who hold to the view that she did not die are ignorant of the authentic magisterial tradition, demonstrated by the Church Fathers and codified in the liturgical practice of the East.

In ICXC,

Gordo

 

[peary]

Peary,

To build upon what Huiou says above, the question of Mary’s mortality related to her created nature has to do with the belief that, because she was given the grace of the same pure human nature as Eve prior to the Fall, she should not have suffered the curse of death. As observed, death and corruption are not intrinsic to our human nature, rather they are a consequence of sin. If Mary was, through a singular act of God’s mercy and preventative grace, made free of the curse of the Fall - the Ancestral Sin - the logic is then she would also be free of all its consequences (corruption and death being two of them) as well.So how could it be said that Mary died?

Death is a natural state in the entire universe. Things are born, they live, they die. Are you then saying that this state is NOT supposed to have been suffered by all human beings because of our unique nature, and our participation in death is due to Original Sin?

In ICXC,

 

[ebed_melech]

Peary,

I think you need to distinguish between the common state of things and the nature of things. Death is a common occurrence, due to the fallen state of the world and mankind. But it is not natural, otherwise the teachings of the first few chapters of Genesis make little sense. That all of mankind has inherited this state of mortality - save the two who together form the New Adam and the New Eve of a renewed humanity - does not make it anymore natural to us than sin itself.

The process of grieving is therefore a natural response to an unnatural occurrence - the death of and separation from our friends and relations. This is why we also instinctively fear our own death, because we know that to have our soul and body separated is decidedly unnatural, although it reflects the wounds of our nature in its fallen state. This is precisely the fear that must be overcome by Christ, who willingly suffered death to conquer its power. This is the sacrificial strength of the martyrs - to fear sin and love God over death. It is the reverse of the fall of Adam.

It is thus fitting that we weep for now, just as Jesus did over Lazarus. But that grief and sorrow will be turned to joy. This joy is rooted in the hope of healing that we find in the promised resurrection and glorification of our bodies.

God bless!

In ICXC,

Gordo

 

[ebed_melech]

I was distracted when I wrote this sentence…

overflowing with the holiness of God’s divine life of theosis…

It should read:

overflowing with the holiness of God’s divine life of grace and the power of theosis

Gordo

 

[Ghosty]

I think you need to distinguish between the common state of things and the nature of things. Death is a common occurrence, due to the fallen state of the world and mankind. But it is not natural, otherwise the teachings of the first few chapters of Genesis make little sense. That all of mankind has inherited this state of mortality - save the two who together form the New Adam and the New Eve of a renewed humanity - does not make it anymore natural to us than sin itself.

Well, good friend, let’s not forget St. Athanasius’ explanation of this from “On the Incarnation”:

For the transgression of the commandment was making them turn back again according to their nature; and as they had at the beginning come into being out of non-existence, so were they now on the way to returning, through corruption, to non-existence again. The presence and love of the Word had called them into being; inevitably, therefore when they lost the knowledge of God, they lost existence with it; for it is God alone Who exists, evil is non-being, the negation and antithesis of good. By nature, of course, man is mortal, since he was made from nothing; but he bears also the Likeness of Him Who is, and if he preserves that Likeness through constant contemplation, then his nature is deprived of its power and he remains incorrupt.

According to St. Athanasius, our nature is actually mortal, but we were created in Grace and therefore preserved from our nature. If our nature were not inherently mortal then we are left with no explanation as to why the demons did not become mortal by sin, but remain immortal.

So I think it’s helpful to differentiate between what we were designed to be, and what we are by nature; just as a knife is designed to remain sharp and rust-free, but can be corrupted by dullness and rust due to its metallic nature when not preserved with care, humans are designed to be immortal, but can be corrupted by death when not preserved by Grace.

Just my thoughts.

Peace and God bless!

 

[ebed_melech]

Brother Ghosty,

Thanks for sharing the fruits of your contemplation!

I suppose one could define “mortal” in one of two ways: capable of dying or destined to die (or both, in the current state of things after the Ancestral Sin). It certainly can be said (and I believe that this is St. Athanasius’ perspective) that man is the former, otherwise how could one explain the death of the Savior? But that was not my meaning. My use of “mortal” was intended to reference the latter.

You wrote:

“According to St. Athanasius, our nature is actually mortal, but we were created in Grace and therefore preserved from our nature.”

It would seem by that statement that you are asserting (or ascribing to Athanasius) the view that our nature, save for the gift of grace, tends towards non-being. It does not seem to me, at first reading, to be what he is saying. My reading is that he is asserting that man, following the transgression in Paradise, follows the path of his created nature, not necessarily as it was intended to be, but rather quite the opposite: he is returning in reverse along the path of his nature to nothingness…to non-being. It would be much like if I journey 10 miles down a road towards my destination, have an accident and then decide I need to put the car in reverse and head back to my origin. By doing so I am following the natural course I have taken, but it was not my true destination. Rather, it is quite the reverse!

His passage:

“and if he preserves that Likeness through constant contemplation, then his nature is deprived of its power and he remains incorrupt.”

Here he could simply be saying that man’s nature in its fallen state which is now subject to corruption, to non-being, is still in the likeness of God and capable through contemplation (now THERE is a word worth unpacking a bit!) of remaining “incorrupt”.

That said, I would like to research a bit more what he means by “incorrupt” here…

Your thoughts?

God bless!

Gordo

 

[Ghosty]

Your thoughts?

I think St. Athanasius is distinguishing between the “intended trajectory” of humanity and what we are by nature. By nature he means what we are in and of ourselves, aside from the presence of Grace. The surrounding context of the passage I cited highlights this, I think:

Upon them, therefore, upon men who, as animals, were essentially impermanent, He bestowed a grace which other creatures lacked—namely the impress of His own Image, a share in the reasonable being of the very Word Himself, so that, reflecting Him and themselves becoming reasonable and expressing the Mind of God even as He does, though in limited degree they might continue for ever in the blessed and only true life of the saints in paradise. But since the will of man could turn either way, God secured this grace that He had given by making it conditional from the first upon two things—namely, a law and a place. He set them in His own paradise, and laid upon them a single prohibition. If they guarded the grace and retained the loveliness of their original innocence, then the life of paradise should be theirs, without sorrow, pain or care, and after it the assurance of immortality in heaven. But if they went astray and became vile, throwing away their birthright of beauty, then they would come under the natural law of death and live no longer in paradise, but, dying outside of it, continue in death and in corruption…

and shortly after the passage I cited in the previous post:

This, then, was the plight of men. God had not only made them out of nothing, but had also graciously bestowed on them His own life by the grace of the Word. Then, turning from eternal things to things corruptible, by counsel of the devil, they had become the cause of their own corruption in death; for, as I said before, though they were by nature subject to corruption, the grace of their union with the Word made them capable of escaping from the natural law, provided that they retained the beauty of innocence with which they were created.

We were intended to live forever in Glory, but our nature is not that. Our nature, the “stuff of our being”, is mortal and in itself is destined to die. Only by Grace, the indwelling of God, are we preserved from our nature. It is incorrect, I think, to say that human nature was immortal but was altered by the Fall so as to become mortal; rather I think it’s more precise to say that our nature is and has ever been mortal, but through Grace (which was always intended for us) we are altered and become immortal. It can even be said that our nature is designed to operate with Grace, and that without it we actually fail even in our natural operations. This can be likened to how a car engine is designed to operate with the addition of motor oil, and without it the engine destroys itself by its own natural operation. In other words we were built and designed with Divine Life in mind, but it can only be an addition to our nature and not a part of it since we are not God.

continued…

 

[Ghosty]

This view, supported by St. Athanasius IMO, resolves all difficulties that come from the death of Christ and Mary. Their human natures were mortal and capable of death by their very essence, and all that was required was for God to allow the natural bodily processes to take over. It doesn’t imply that Mary or Christ were removed from God in order to die (which would be an impossibility in the case of Christ, obviously) but rather that God simply allowed the the natural course of the body to take place in spite of the Divine indwelling (just as He allowed Christ to suffer pain and emotional torment despite Christ, by His Divine Nature, BEING Happiness Itself). Christ was able to die not because of some bizarre miracle that caused the naturally immortal “pure human nature” to die against its essential design, but BECAUSE He had a pure human nature that was mortal unless God specifically intervened by Grace to prevent that natural operation (and likewise with Mary).

It’s also important to note that this understanding doesn’t at all change the fact that we are the cause of our own death and corruption; even though it arises from our very nature, it is we who “chose” the path of our nature, the world, rather than the path of super-nature, the Divine Life given to us.

This is one area in which I think that popular Byzantine theology actually confuses the issue a bit by implying that humans were “immortal by nature” at the beginning of our creation, rather than “mortal by nature but preserved by Grace and intended for immortality” from our origin. The supposed difficulty that Mary’s death poses for the Immaculate Conception simply doesn’t arise in the Latin understanding of human nature, which follows from St. Athanasius’ teaching (and other Fathers as well, but St. Athanasius is the most accessible and eloquent on this particular issue). We remain the authors of death, but the pen and ink were always there within us, and therein lies our free will.

Sometimes the “Latin complexity” serves to obscure the truths of Faith, but in this case I think it lends greater precision to them (and it’s also quite Patristic in this instance as well).

Just my thoughts!

Peace and God bless!