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Good_Fella
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Did I say "The Gospel of Thomas’? Oops!
I did. I meant to rewrite ‘The Passing of Mary.’I guess I had Thomas on my mind. I apologize and stand corrected.
‘Transitus Maria’ nonetheless has been called a “Marian” gospel. It must have had much influence in spreading belief and shaping Marian theological thought and expression during the Patristic period from the 2nd to 8th centuries. But Catholic belief never originated with this apocryphal work nor with its sister gospel ‘De Obitu S Dominae’ attributed to St.John the Evangelist, of the turn of the 6th century. These stories of Mary’s Assumption are the result of a long-standing traditional belief among Christians. Essentially, not unlike the canon Gospels, the Marian gospels are written works based on an oral tradition or legend. But they appeared after the four Gospels and all the other books of the Bible were declared canon. The words of St. Juvenal, the Bishop of Jerusalem, to the Emperor Marcian shows that belief in Mary’s Assumption must have started in Palestine during apostolic time. It makes sense that her remains would have been kept for veneration if her tomb were not found empty.
I am sure it was 300 to 400 years after the fact that the Church finally resolved the questions of the Holy Trinity and the hypostatic union of Christ’s two natures. If the early Church Fathers of the first two centuries made no mention of Mary’s Assumption, it must have been because the Church was preoccupied with finally defining these concepts and formulating a fundamental profession of faith. The great Roman persecutions, unfortunately, slowed the pace because the Church was barely struggling to stay alive, let alone get visibly established once and for all. Meanwhile, there is no record of the early Church Fathers right through the Patristic period ever having rejected the belief in Mary’s Assumption. Epiphanus and Augustine expressed their beliefs in the Assumption, while Jerome said he was unsure.
Epiphanius said in 370 AD, “Let them search the scriptures. They will not find Mary’s death; they will not find whether she was buried or not buried…Scripture is absolutely silent on Mary’s earthly end because of the extraordinary nature of the prodigy, in order not to shock the minds of men…Neither do I maintain stoutly that she died.” Neither Jerome, Origen, Athanasius, Ambrose, nor Augustine contested Epiphanius’ assertion. Not one of the Church Fathers was prepared to claim otherwise. Belief in the Assumption of Mary was too strong among the early Christians for any of the Fathers to publicly condemn it.
How do we know that Jesus actually resurrected from the dead and ascended into heaven apart from our faith? By the fact that his followers possessed no physical remains of him for veneration. They had to be content with the claims of the apostles and an empty tomb. We cannot dismiss the negative-historical approach to resolve the question of Mary’s Assumption into heaven after her own bodily resurrection, which has rightly preceded ours, for she is our Lord’s mother.
Marian doctrines have developed in the course of the centuries based on long-standing common Christian beliefs. The first Marian dogma, Mary invoked as Mother of God (Theotokos), was eventually proclaimed after the Council of Nicea. The following dogmas were likewise proclaimed only after certain fundamental concepts, such as original sin and the virgin birth, were finally clarified and defined.
The Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to St. Bridget of Sweden and said, " That my Assumption was not known to many persons (but only to a few) was the will of God, my Son, in order that faith in His Ascension might first be established in the hearts of men, for they were not prepared to believe in His Ascension, especially if my Assumption was announced in the beginning."
Pax vobiscum
Good Fella
