Mr. Ex Nihilo;
said:
indicates a positive toward her assumption into heaven, your request for any evidence we had that the relics of Mary
did not exist in the early centuries seems pointless.
There is, after all, an
empty tomb which has been found here at the
Tomb of the Virgin Mary in Jerusalem…
http://www.kosovo.net/news/archive/2005/August_28/files/1125181499_7d262llaftk_tombofmary.jpg
Consequently, floods, which happened in 1972, made it possible for archaeologists not only to clear the area but also to have the area around the crypt excavated. These excavations were carried out by the late Fr. Bellarmino Bagatti.
He concluded, from the excavations, that the tradition of Mary’s tomb in the valley of Johosaphat is clearly marked in a cemetery in use during the first century. Furthermore the tomb itself, originally made up of three chambers, was dug out with the same techniques used in tombs of the first century, like the Holy Sepulchre and the Kings’ tombs.
The actual tomb was the inner chamber of the whole complex. These archaeological findings, corroborated by literary documents (Palestinian, Syrian, Ethiopian and Greek) of the II-IV centuries together with the constant liturgical devotion are witness to the belief about the tomb of Mary next to Gethsemani since the beginning of the Christian era.
It is from these far away origins that comes the celebration of the feast of the Assumption on August 15 since the infant Church, at this tomb, solemnly celebrated the feast of the Assumption of Mary.
No, it hasn’t. There are a several claims about an alleged “tomb or Mary.” But they have an apocryphal (legendary not factual) basis.
From the Catholic Encyclopedia:
Testimony in favor of Jerusalem
The apocryphal works of the second to the fourth century are all favourable to the Jerusalem tradition. According to the “Acts of St. John by Prochurus”, written (160-70) by Lencius, the Evangelist went to Ephesus accompanied by Prochurus alone and at a very advanced age, i.e. after Mary’s death. The two letters “B. Inatii missa S. Joanni”, written about 370, show that the Blessed Virgin passed the remainder of her days at Jerusalem. That of Dionysius the Areopagite to the Bishop Titus (363), the “Joannis liber de Dormitione Mariae” (third to fourth century), and the treatise “De transitu B.M. Virginis” (fourth century) place her tomb at Gethsemane.
Or
Testimony in favor or Ephesus
In a letter sent in 431 by the members of the Council of Ephesus to the clergy of Constantinople we read that Nestorius “reached the city of Ephesus where John the Theologian and the Mother of God, the Holy Virgin, were separated from the assembly of the holy Fathers”, etc. Tillemont has completed the elliptical phrase by adding arbitrarily, “have their tombs”.
He is followed by a few writers. According to the meditations of Sister Catherine Emmerich (d. 1824), compiled and published in 1852, the Blessed Virgin died and was buried not at Ephesus but three or four leagues south of the city. She is followed by those who accept her visions or meditations as Divine revelations. However, St. Brigid relates that at the time of her visit to the church of Gethsemane the Blessed Virgin appeared to her and spoke to her of her stay of three days in that place and of her Assumption into Heaven. The revelations of Ven. Maria d’Agreda do not contradict those of Catherine Emmerich.
Still more stories some accept as historical evidence!
Take your pick.
