Some Roman Catholics may have
expected me to include a discussion of the historicity of the Immaculate
Conception and of the Assumption of Mary. But these Marian doctrines, which are
not mentioned in Scripture, clearly lie outside my topic which was the quest
for historical knowledge of Mary in the NT. Moreover, I would stress the
ambiguity of the term “historicity” when applied to these two doctrines. A
Roman Catholic must accept the two dogmas a true upon the authority of the
teaching Church, but he does not have to hold that the dogmas are derived
from a chain of historical information. There is no evidence that Mary (or
anyone else in NT times) knew that she was conceived free of original sin,
especially since the concept of original sin did not fully exist in the first
century. The dogma is not based upon formation passed down by Mary or by the
apostles; it is based on the Church’s insight that the sinlessness of Jesus
should have affected his origins, and hence his mother, as well. Nor does a
Catholic have to think that the people gathered for her funeral saw Mary
assumed into heaven—there is no reliable historical tradition to that effect,
and the dogma does not even specify that Mary died. Once again the doctrine
stems from the Church’s insight about the application of the fruits of
redemption to the leading Christian disciple: Mary has gone before us, anticipating
our common fate. (Raymond E. Brown, Biblical Reflections on Crises Facing
the Church [New York: Paulist Press 1975], 105 n. 103, emphasis in bold
added)
