No eyewitnesses to Mary's Assumption?

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HomeschoolDad

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“Mary had died in the presence of the apostles; but her tomb, when opened later…was found empty…the apostles concluded that the body was taken up to heaven.”
John of Damascene, PG (96:1)(A.D. 747-751)

Are we then to understand that nobody actually saw Our Lady assumed into heaven body and soul?

I’ve always just inferred that the event was seen by various apostles and others, and that they recorded the story in some fashion, just not in Scripture.

I don’t doubt the teaching for an instant — it is dogma — but this seems to present somewhat of an apologetics problem. One could always claim that someone stole or hid the body (just as they say about Our Lord). But they would have no proof of that either.
 
I have not heard that Mary died in the presence of the Apostles. I do know that the church is silent on whether Mary died or not. Since she is free of original sin, she did not have to die.
 
What do we mean by “the sleep of Mary” or “the dormition of Mary”?
"St. John Damascene (d. 749) also recorded an interesting story concerning the Assumption: “St. Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem, at the Council of Chalcedon (451), made known to the Emperor Marcian and Pulcheria, who wished to possess the body of the Mother of God, that Mary died in the presence of all the Apostles, but that her tomb, when opened, upon the request of St. Thomas, was found empty; wherefrom the Apostles concluded that the body was taken up to Heaven.”

These stories, however, must not take precedence over the theological grounding for our belief in the Assumption of our Blessed Mother. Rather, we must remember that the Patristic Fathers defended the Assumption on two counts: Since Mary was sinless and a perpetual virgin, she could not suffer bodily deterioration, the result of original sin, after her death. Also, if Mary bore Christ and played an intimate role as His mother in the redemption of man, then she must likewise share body and soul in His resurrection and glorification."

Life of Mary (XIX): Dormition and Assumption
 
The ancient world did not normally talk much about women, unless they did something big (preferably very bad) and were of high birth and big power.

I cannot stress enough how different the Gospels were. We know more about the Virgin Mary, Elizabeth, Mary and Martha of Bethany, and Mary of Magdala, than we know about almost every ancient queen in the same period.

We do not know much about what happened to the women of the early Church. We do know that the whole House of David got investigated, for possible sedition, by the Romans at various times. We do know that other Messiah claimants put out literature about their moms leading armies (while riding fire-breathing camels or something). So there is probably a reason that we do not hear much about Mary’s life after Pentecost; John was trying not to paint a target on her.

The people who were the disciples of the Apostles are also shadowy figures, unless they appear in a bishop list or a legend or a comment in Paul. But we know they were around and doing plenty. No reason to put them in paper, for the Roman government or hostile neighbors to know. The Discipline of the Secret begins, and they do not talk on paper about doctrines much either.

But from quite early, we have someone like St. Melito of Sardis talking about Jesus’ Mom being assumed into Heaven. You get people talking about the difference between Jesus ascending by His own power, and Mary and Enoch and Elijah having to be brought there by God. The story of what happened where and when is a little murky, but nobody in the early Church claimed to have Mary’s body or that she had not been assumed. (And there was something about that teaching that the Gnostics did not like – probably the idea that a human body of a normal human, and an icky girl at that, would be brought into Heaven. Gnostics hated the human body and matter itself.) Somebody knew what happened and taught the rest of us, and that somebody must have been authoritative. But whoever it was, he or she seems to be covered by the growing secrecy of the early Church about the doings of their important people.

Of course, it is also.possible that documentation existed and got destroyed, either in the Fall of Jerusalem or in the various persecutions of the Church. Eusebius talks about documentation losses in his Ecclesiastical History; the Romans were always seizing Christian books, and not just the Bible books, either.
 
Mintaka said:
(And there was something about that teaching that the Gnostics did not like – probably the idea that a human body of a normal human, and an icky girl at that, would be brought into Heaven. Gnostics hated the human body and matter itself.)
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Your post is fascinating, I’d never heard any of this before. But do you say “icky girl” because Mary in particular was “icky” (for having been a Jewish maiden who bore a child out of wedlock, maybe?), or simply because she was a female?
 
PatK63 said:
I have not heard that Mary died in the presence of the Apostles. I do know that the church is silent on whether Mary died or not. Since she is free of original sin, she did not have to die.
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While her death is not included in the dogma of the Assumption, the Church is really not silent about her death. Her death is commemorated by the Eastern Churches in the Feast of the Dormition, which also celebrates her Assumption. The reality of her death is explicit in the liturgy. Her death is also mentioned several times in the document which defined the dogma.
 
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I can’t speak for Mintaka, but I think for Gnostics all women were “icky”. One of their texts (the Gospel of Thomas?) says that women need to be reborn as men to be saved. Nasty stuff.
 
The Apostles were focused on the Oral Tradition. The Assumption was believed in the early Church and the Feast of the Assumption was celebrated in Syria and Jerusalem as early as the 5th century that we know of. That is good enough for me. Let the doubters be.
 
What are your thoughts on why she died?

Jesus chose death. Did Mary chose also?
 
Learned something new today. I didn’t realize that Catholics didn’t have to believe the Theotokos died first. In Orthodoxy, we believe in her Dormition (death/falling asleep), and that Christ received her soul and she was bodily resurrected on the third day after her death and taken to heaven.
 
I like to pray the rosary with the Rosary Center & Confraternity aid for praying the rosary mysteries without distractions.

Under the Glorious mysteries
  1. Mary dies, not of bodily infirmity, but is wholly overcome in a rapture of divine love.
  2. Her body as well as her soul is taken up into heaven.
  3. After her burial the apostles go to the tomb and find only fragrant lilies.
I’m not sure where they got this from. It’s not scriptural as far as I know.
 
PatK63 said:
What are your thoughts on why she died?

Jesus chose death. Did Mary chose also?
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Breaking in here, there are two trains of thought. 1) that Mary desired to taste death - undeserving - just as her Son did and 2) that her Son disallowed her the dying process out of his infinite love for her and her merits as the mother of God. Probably other theories as well.

I am dying to find out.
 
Well- Dormition is one of the feasts of the Orthodox Church (preceded by a two week fast). While Dormition is a dogma- the bodily resurrection/ascension part is just considered a pious tradition and not a dogma of the faith. I don’t know of anyone that doesn’t believe it though.
 
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Mary was human except that she like Jesus was conceived without sin. She did not have to die! That is the Catholic belief.
You can learn to accept it or not,
 
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I have heard an argument on the basis of the book of Revelation that St. John may have witnessed something of the Assumption or at least had it revealed to him:
Rev 12:1 A great sign appeared in heaven : a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head.
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Of course, the woman might also be interpreted exclusively as the Church, but I think it could be better argued to actually be the Virgin Mary understood also as the Church, by way of standing in for the Church, as it were.

There is a mediation associated with praying the Rosary specifically linked to a story about the Assumption, which describes St. Peter and St. John as being at the tomb of the Virgin Mary and being granted a vision of Mary, bodily assumed into heaven and her body missing from her tomb. There were also others of the faithful said to be with them:
A Rosary Mediation on the Assumption of Mary
https:// www.ourcatholicprayers.com / assumption -of- mary -meditation.html
Meanwhile, on the morning of Mary 's Assumption into heaven, St. Peter and St. John had been watching and praying at her tomb with some of the faithful. Suddenly they noticed that the music of the angels had ceased. Looking up at the sky, the two Apostles were partly enlightened by the Holy Spirit and guessed that the Blessed Virgin 's body might have been taken up to Heaven by God.
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2/2

From my personal experience, most of what is taught or said about the Blessed Virgin in the Church has its basis largely in Old Testament foreshadowing or prototypes of her. Saint Luke might be argued to consider or propose the Virgin Mary as also being a prophetess based on the Magnificat, which is very similar to a prophecy of Hannah recorded in the Old Testament canon. The structure of the full Angelic salutation includes, I have read, a part that is said to be similar in structure to marriage proposals of the time, which would mean that God is specifically and especially asking the Blessed Virgin to be united with Him in a very special and peculiar way. Many have made the claim that the holy Tabernacle of the Mosaic Covenant foreshadowed or typified the Virgin Mary, she being its New Testament fulfilment and reality; and this item was extremely sacred and holy to God, He providing it with special care and protection and even inflicting death if anyone unworthy presumed to touch it, even if this was intended to stabilize it (and as actually happened in one instance):
Numbers 15:1 And when the tabernacle sets forward, the Levites shall take it down : and when the tabernacle is to be pitched, the Levites shall set it up : and the stranger that comes near shall be put to death .
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Saint Luke also appears to grant the Virgin Mary a special authority, perhaps flowing from Christ Himself, as when at the wedding feast of Cana the Virgin Mother says: “Do whatever he tells you.” It is hard not to understand this instruction as a command, which might make one wonder on what basis or for what reason the servants at the wedding feast should have headed it, unless perhaps the Virgin Mary was understood to be able to speak for Christ, who was certainly at least the guest of honor.

When you take all these considerations (and there are many more) and sort of add them all up, it becomes hard to deny that Virgin Mary has a very special role or place in the New Covenant. Especially if she is to identified in a way with the Tabernacle of the Old Testament, then her personal holiness would be hard to deny, as the Tabernacle was one of the holiest things in the Mosaic covenant: when we couple this with the promise of God often repeated in the Psalms that God will not let his holy ones see corruption, we might understand this as applying in a special way to the Virgin Mary.
 
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