The Coptic Homily on the Theotokos (sixth century) condemning the Bodily Assumption of Mary as a False Doctrine

There is a homily attributed (incorrectly) to Cyril of Jerusalem and dates no earlier than the middle of the sixth century; according to Stephen J. Shoemaker:

 

At the end of the nineteenth century Forbes Robinson published a fragment of this homily separately, along with three other similar fragments understanding them to have been part of a larger, now lost, Life of the Virgin. Of the four fragments, the one from Cyril’s homily is by far the longest, yet two of the others share some very similar content with other parts of Cyril’s homily. Accordingly, one wonders whether perhaps all of these fragments once belonged to a larger, more complex literary tradition that included different versions of this homily. I suggest this as a possibility especially in light of the three closely related, yet quite different, versions of the (ps-) Evodius Homily on the Dormition that have survived. Presumably, there may have been similar variations in this homiletic biography ascribed to Cyril. Indeed, the first of these Coptic fragments, which identifies its content as the ‘life (ⲉⲡⲃⲓⲟⲥ) of the Virgin’, begins with polemic against those who would profess Mary’s bodily assumption into heaven: ‘cursed is the one who says that the Virgin was assumed (ⲛⲧⲁγⲁⲛⲁⲗⲁⲙⲃⲁⲛⲉ) into heaven in her body.’ (Stephen J. Shoemaker “The Coptic Homily on the Theotokos Attributed to Cyril of Jerusalem: An Aberrant and Apologetic ‘Life’ of the Virgin from Late Antiquity,” in The Reception of the Virgin in Byzantium: Marian Narratives in Texts and Images, ed. Thomas Arentzen and Mary B. Cunningham [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019], 220)

 

Here is the relevant portion of "Sahidic Fragments of the Life of the Virgin, Fragment 1":

 

⁵ But let no evil thought come up into our heart against the true Queen, ⁶ as the godless Jews who blasphemed her with their tongue that ought to be cut off and their mouth that ought to be closed, whilst she was still living; ⁷ and after her death they wished to burn her holy body, because of their hatred against her. ⁸ But do not say as the heretics that a power caught her away, or say as . . . that she was taken up in her body into heaven. ⁹ Cursed is he who shall say that the Virgin was not born as we are. ¹⁰ Cursed is he who shall say that Joseph had intercourse with the Virgin before she conceived Christ. ¹¹ Then again after she bare Him, cursed is he who shall say that the Virgin was taken up into the heavens in her body. ¹² But she died like all men, and was conceived by man's seed as we are. (Forbes Robinson, Coptic Apocryphal Gospels [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1896], 3, 5)

 

What is interesting is that here we have a document from the sixth century condemning the belief in the bodily assumption of Mary, attributing this belief to the heterodox of the time.