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The Background of the Definition
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 August 2024
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Some have maintained that it was the apocryphal storips current towards the middle and end of the fourth century which created the idea that our Lady went up to heaven body and soul after death. This was the not the order in the case of the Gospels and the apocryphal gospels; the ‘former came first and then they were embroidered. So it would have been with the De Dormitione Beatae Mariae. It would have rested upon some foundation in the now forgotten tradition of the earliest times about the dormitiou of Mary. But it is not on these stories that the belief in the Assumption of Mary is grounded. Indeed, Pope Gelasius, while having a feast in his sacramentary for the Assumption, went out of his way to condemn those apocrypha as not being part of the canon of Scripture. It is an interesting point to note that, while denying their authenticity, he does not condemn the underlying truth.
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- Copyright © 1950 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
1 P.G. 12,716. quoted by Livius in The Blessed Virgin in the Fathers of the First Six Centuries, to which this article is greatly indebted.
2 La Pritre des Eglises de rite byzantin. By R. P. F. Marcenier. vol. 2. p. 303.
3 These notes may be found in P. Carolus Balfc's Pro Vtritate Assumptionis R. V. Mariae Dogmatice Definienda, Rome 1949. p. 49.
4 This is the argument in P. Carolus Balf's book, p. 34, referred to above.
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