VIRGIN
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VIRGIN
have taken Our Lady with him on his apoatoUc expe-
ditions, we may suppose that he left her in the care
of his friends or relatives during the periods of his
absence. And there is httle doubt that many of the
Christians returned to Jerusalem, after the storms of
persecution had abated. Indepeiiileiitly of these con-
siderations, we may appeal to the follciwinp; reasons
in favour of jMary's death and burial in J(>rusalem: (1)
In 4-51 Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem, testified to the
presence of Mary's tomb in Jerusalem. It is .strange
that neither St . Jerome, nor the Pilgrim of Bordeaux,
nor again pseudo-Silvia give any evidence of such a
sacred place. But when the Emperor Marcion and
the Empress Pulcheria asked Juvenal to send the
sacred remains of the Virgin Mary from her tomb in
Gethsemani to Constantinople, where they intended
to dedicate a new church to Our Lady, the bi.shop cited
an ancient tradition saying that the sacred body had
been assumed into heaven, and sent to Constantinople
only the coffin and the winding sheet. This narrative
rests on the authority of a certain Euthymius whose
report was inserted into a homily of St. John Damas-
cene (hom. II in dorrait. B. V. M., IS, P. G., XCVI,
748) now read in the second Nocturn of the fourth
day within the octave of the Assumption. Scheeben
is of opinion that Euthymius's words are a later inter-
polation (Handb. der Kath. Dogmat., Freiburg, 1875,
III, 572): they do not fit into the context; they con-
tain an appeal to pseudo-Dionvsius (de divinis nomin..
Ill, 2, P. G., Ill, 690) which "are not otherwise cited
before the sixth century; and they are suspicious in
their connexion with the name of Bishop Juvenal, who
was charged with forging documents by Pope St.
Leo (ep. CXIX, 4, P. L., LIV, 1044). In his letter
the pontiff reminds the bi.shop of the holy places
which he has under his very eves, but does not men-
tion the tomb of Mary (ep. CXXXIX, 1, 2, P. L.,
LIV, 1103, 1105). Allowing that this silence is
purely incidental, the main question remains, how
much historic truth underlies the Euthymian account
of the words of Juvenal? (2) Here must be men-
tioned too the apocryphal "Historia dormitionis et
as.sumptionis B. M. V.", which claims St. John for its
author (cf. Assemani, Bibhoth. orient., Ill, 287).
Tischendorf believes that the substantial parts of this
work go back to the fourth, perhaps even to the
second, century (Apoc. apocr., Marisp dormitio,
Leipzig, 185(5, p. XXXIV). Variations of the original
text aiipeared in Arabic and Syriac, and in other lan-
guages; among these mu.st be noted a work called "De
Transitu Mariie Virg.",which appeared under the name
of St. Melito of Sardes (P. G., V, 1231-1240; cf. I,e
Hir, Etudes bibliques, Paris, 1869, LI, 131-185).
Pope Gelasius enumerates this work among the for-
bidden books (P. L., LIX, 152). The extraordinary
incidents which these works connect with the deatli of
Mary do not concern us here; but they place her last
moments and her burial in or near Jerusalem. (3)
Another witness for the existence of a tradition plac-
ing the tomb of Mary in (Jeth.semani is the basilica
erected above the sacred spot, about the end of the
fourth or the beginning of the fifth century. The
present church was built by the Latins in the same
place in which the old edifice had stood (Gufirin,
Jerusalem, Paris, ISSO, 34()-350; Socin-Benzinger,
Palastina und SjTien, Leipzig, 1891, pp. 90-91; Le
Camus, Notre voyage .aux pays bibliques, Paris, 1894,
I, 2.53). (4) In the early part of the seventh century,
Modest us. Bishop of Jerusalem, located the pa.ssing
of Our Lady on Mount Sion, in the hou.se which con-
tained the Cenacle and the upper room of Pentecost
(P. G., LXXXVI, .3288-.3300). At that time a single
church covered the localities consecrated by these
various mysteries. One must wonder at the late
evidence for a tradition which became so general since
the seventh century. (5) Another tradition is pre-
served in the "Commemoratorium de Casis Dei"
addressed to Charlemagne (Tobler, Itiner. Terr.
sanct., Leipzig, 1S()7, I, 302). It places the death of
Mary on Mt. Olivet, where a church is said to com-
memorate this event. Pcrhaiis the writer tried to
connect Mary's pas.sing with the Church of the As-
sinnption as the sister tradition connected it with the
cenacle. At, any rate, we may conclude that about
the beginning of the fifth century there existed a fairly
general tradition that Mary had died in Jerusalem,
and had been buried in Gethsemani. This tradition
appears to rest on a more sohd basis than the report
that Our Lady died and was buried in or near Ephesus.
As thus far historical documents are wanting, it would
be hard to estabhsh the connexion of either tradition
with apostolic times. Cf . Zahn, Die Dormitio Sanctae
Virginis und das Haus des Johannes Marcus, in Neue
Kirchl. Zeitschr., Leipzig, 1898, X, 5; Mommert, Die
Dormitio, Leipzig, 1899; S(5journ(;, Le heu de ladormi-
tion de laT. S. Vierge, in Revue biblique, 1899, pp. 141-
144; Lagrange, La dormition de la Sainte Vierge et la
maison de Jean Marc, ibid., pp. 589-600.
It has been seen that we have no absolute certainty as to the place in which Mary hved after the day of Pentecost. Though it is more probable that she re- mained uninterruptedly in or near Jerusalem, she may have resided for a while in the vicinity of Ephesus, and this may have given ri.se to the tradition of her Ephesian death and burial. There is still less histor- ical information concerning the particul.ar incidents of her hfe. St. Epiphanius (ha>r. LXXVIII, 1 1, P. G., XL, 716) doubts even the reality of Mary's death; but the universal belief of the Church does not agree with the private opinion of St. Epiphanius. Mary's death was not necessarily the effect of violence; it was undergone neither as an expiation or penalty, nor as the effect of disease from which, like her Divine Son, she w.as exempt. Since the Middle Ages the view prevails that she died of love, her great desire to be united to her Son either dissolving the ties of body and soul, or prevailing on God to dissolve them. Her passing away is a sacrifice of love completing the dolorous sacrifice of her life. It is the death in the kiss of the Lord (iti osculo Domini), of which the just die. There is no certain tradition as to the year of Mary's death. Baronius in his Annals rehes on a passage in the Chronicon of Eusebius for his a.ssunip- tion that Mary died A. D. 48. It is now believed that the passage of the Chronicon is a later interpolation (cf. Nirschl, Das Grab der hi. Jungfrau Maria, Mainz, 1896, 48). Nir.schl relies on a tradition found in Clement of Alexandria (Stromat. VI, 5) and Apol- lonius (in Eus., Hi.st. eccl., I, 21) which refers to a command of Oiu' Lord that the Apostles were to preach twelve years in Jerusalem and Palestine before going among the nations of the world; hence he too arrives at the conchi.sion that Mary died A. D. 48.
The Assumption of Our Lady into heaven has been treated in a special article. The reader may consult also an article in the "Zeitschrift fiir kathohsche Theologie", 1906, pp. 201 sqq. The fea.st of the As- sumption is most probably the oldest among all the feasts of Marv properly so called; cf. "Zeit.sclirift fur katholische theologie", 1878, 213. As to .art, the a-ssumpt ion was a favourite subject of the school of Siena which generally represents Mary as being car- ried to heaven in a mandorla.
VI. Early Chkistian Attitude to the Mother OF God. — No picture has preserved for us the true like- nessof Mary. The Byzantine representations, said to be painted by St. Luke, belong only to the sixth cen- tury, and reproduce a conventional type. There are twenty-seven copies in existence, ten of which are in Rome (cf. Martigny, Diet, des antiq. p\\t('\., Paris, 1877, p. 792). Even St. Augustine expres.ses the opin- ion that the real external appearance of Mary is unknown to us, and that in this regard we know and beUeve nothing (de Trinit. VIII, 5, P. L., XLII, 952).
