The Assumption of Mary
Both the sixth-century manuscript used by Wright, and
the much later nineteenth-century manuscript used by Smith Lewis to fill in the
gaps of her fragmented fifth-century palimpsest codex, narrate Mary’s death as
follows: Mary’s soul departs from her, and Jesus sends it to the mansions of
the Father’s house. Mary bids Jesus farewell and states, “I am looking to Thy
coming which is at hand.” Jesus commands the apostles to place Mary’s body in a
chariot of light. Her body is taken to the paradise of Eden, where later in the
narrative Jesus approaches the body, commands Mary to rise, and she worships
him. The reader is never told that Mary is reunited with her soul, although
this may be assumed when Jesus resurrects her in the paradise of Eden.
Some scholarship has attempted to demonstrate a
doctrinal development within the ancient Dormition traditions from those with a
supposedly assumptionless Mary to those that confirm a bodily assumption. The
key claim on the part of this developmental view is that early Dormition
traditions, like the Six Books. Portray Mary’s resurrection in the paradise of
Eden as temporary, in order to provide her a tour of the heavens and Gehenna.
It is true that earlier in Smith Lewi’s palimpsest codex Jesus says to Mary, “I
will make thy body go into the Paradise of Eden, and there it will be until the
resurrection.” This statement could be understood as referring to the
participation of Mary’s uncorrupted body in a future general resurrection.
However, there is nothing in either Wright’s manuscript, nor in the much later
manuscript used by Smith Lewis to complete her palimpsest codex, stating that
after Jesus resurrects Mary’s body in the paradise of Eden, she resumes her
bodily separation in anticipation of a future general resurrection. Therefore,
Jesus’s statement may be best understood as simply referring to Jesus’s
upcoming resurrection of Mary in the paradise of Eden.
Shoemaker surveys the perspectives on Mary’s
assumption in the various Dormition traditions, from those which clearly
support Mary’s bodily assumption to those, like the Six Books, that some
scholars have understood as supporting an assumptionless Mary. According to
Shoemaker, not only is the assumptionless understanding of the Six Books
mistaken, because Mary is not separated from her body after her tour, but so is
the argument that there is a demonstrable development in the assumption
theologies of the ancient Dormition traditions. Shoemaker argues that the
variety in the Dormition traditions regarding Mary’s assumption is not due to
theological development. Rather, there was an initial diversity in theological
differences concerning the exact nature of Mary’s final state, so that one
tradition cannot claim to be the original from which the others evolved. He
states that “the various narrative types are best understood as coexistent,
rival traditions [. . .] with none having a substantial claim to priority over
the others, and with no evidence of any tradition having developed or decayed
from the others.” (J. Christopher Edwards, “The Departure of My Lady Mary From
This World (The Six Books Dormition Apocryphon),” in Early New Testament
Apocrypha, ed. J. Christopher Edwards [Ancient Literature for New Testament
Studies 9; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan Academic, 2022], 314-15)
