Today is the
Solemnity of the Assumption, the feast day in honour of the bodily assumption
of Mary into heaven, defined as a dogma of Catholicism 1 November 1950 by Pius
XII in Munificentissimus
Deus:
In it, we
read the following dogmatic definition and condemnation of those who would
knowingly reject it as a dogma of the faith:
44. For which reason, after we have poured
forth prayers of supplication again and again to God, and have invoked the
light of the Spirit of Truth, for the glory of Almighty God who has lavished
his special affection upon the Virgin Mary, for the honor of her Son, the
immortal King of the Ages and the Victor over sin and death, for the increase
of the glory of that same august Mother, and for the joy and exultation of the
entire Church; by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ, of the Blessed
Apostles Peter and Paul, and by our own authority, we pronounce, declare, and
define it to be a divinely revealed dogma: that the Immaculate Mother of God,
the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was
assumed body and soul into heavenly glory.
45. Hence if anyone, which God forbid, should
dare willfully to deny or to call into doubt that which we have defined, let
him know that he has fallen away completely from the divine and Catholic Faith.
46. In order that this, our definition of the
bodily Assumption of the Virgin Mary into heaven may be brought to the
attention of the universal Church, we desire that this, our Apostolic Letter,
should stand for perpetual remembrance, commanding that written copies of it,
or even printed copies, signed by the hand of any public notary and bearing the
seal of a person constituted in ecclesiastical dignity, should be accorded by
all men the same reception they would give to this present letter, were it
tendered or shown.
47. It is forbidden to any man to change
this, our declaration, pronouncement, and definition or, by rash attempt, to
oppose and counter it. If any man should presume to make such an attempt, let
him know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed
Apostles Peter and Paul.
I have
written about how ahistorical this doctrine is, and how it is clearly not an apostolic tradition. See, for
e.g.:
And Chapter 5: The Bodily Assumption of Mary in my book, Behold
the Mother of My Lord: Towards a Mormon Mariology. For the best scholarly
treatment of the topic, see Stephen J. Shoemaker, The
Ancient Traditions of the Virgin Mary's Dormition and Assumption
(Oxford University Press).
In a book
attempting to defend Catholic theology in light of early Christian writings,
James L. Papandrea, who himself is an expert in early Christian history (see
his very informative book, Novatian
of Rome and the culmination of Pre-Nicene Orthodoxy) offered the following
as the main sources for the Dormition and Assumption of Mary—notice (1) how
many of these are forgeries (“Ps” = pseudo [i.e., pseudepigraphical]) and (2)
how late (e.g., 13th century; John of Damascus wrote in the early/mid
8th century!) the documents are, only highlighting how late the
belief in the assumption of Mary is:
The primary sources for the dormition and
Assumption of Mary include Ps. Melito of Sardis, The Passing of the Blessed Mary, Ps. John the Theologian, The Dormition of the Theotokos, Ps.
Cyril of Jerusalem, Homily on the
Dormition, Theodosius of Alexandria, Homily
on the Dormition, Ps. Evodius of Rome, Homily
on the Dormition, Ps. Joseph of Arimathea, The Passing of the Blessed Virgin, John of Damascus, Sermons on the Assumption, the anonymous
Psalm of the Tree of Life, The Six Books, Obsequies of the Virgin, and Jacobus de Voragine (13th c.), The Golden Legend. (James L. Papandrea, Handed Down: The Catholic Faith of the
Early Christians [El Cajon, Calif.: Catholic Answers Press, 2015], 294 n.
592)
