ASCENSION. - After appearing repeatedly over forty days, the risen Jesus appeared one last time to the apostles in the cenacle, he ate with them, leaving his final admonitions; then he walked with them in the direction of Bethany, ordering them not to depart from Jerusalem until they had been clothed with the "power from on high." When they had reached the Mount of Olives, while they were looking on, he was taken up on high and a cloud enveloped him and hid him from their eyes. Two men clothed in white appeared and declared: "This same Jesus who has been taken up into heaven from you will come in the same way that you have seen him go into heaven" (Lk. 24:44-53; Acts 1:1-14). The appendix of Mk. (16:19) also alludes to the Ascension. In Jn. 6:62 Jesus had promised his Ascension as a "sign."
Various non-Catholics supposed that the account of the Ascension was an interpolation; but objective textual criticism recognizes the genuineness of the twofold Lucan text in the form preserved by the Eastern recension (all the codices of the 4th and 5th centuries). Even in the so-called Western form (Codex Bezae) which harmonizes the two accounts of Luke, the historical fact is clearly affirmed. Literary criticism, which discovers in the account the unmistakable trace of the Lucan style, and historical criticism, which finds the fact affirmed or presupposed in the primitive apostolic catechesis, confirm its reality. The attempts to discern in it a myth, arisen in various evolutionary phases, break against the established fact of the antiquity of the Acts (years 62-63).
In the New Testament itself, the apostles Paul, Peter and John presuppose or attest the reality of the Ascension or of the presence of the glorified humanity of Christ in heaven (I Thess. 1:10; Eph. 1:20-22; 4:10; 6:9; especially Hebr. 9:24 [and 7:27; 8:1; 10:12; etc.]; I Pt. 3:22; I Io. 2:1). The testimonies are more than sufficient to compensate for the silence of Matthew, who preferred to close his Gospel with the appearance in Galilee of Jesus who sends the apostles to evangelize the world.
BIBL. V. Larrañaga, L'Ascension de N.-S. dans le N. T., French trans. by G. Cazaux, Rome 1938 (a capital exegetical-critical work).
Pietro De Ambroggi
II. IN LITURGY
The feast of the Ascension is celebrated on the Thursday following the fifth Sunday after Easter, forty days after it, in conformity with the account of the event left to us by the Acts. In the ancient Roman liturgical monuments, such as the Leonine, Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries, it is called Ascensa, and in the Mozarabic, Gallican and Ambrosian liturgies, Ascensio, a name that later remained in the Roman liturgy. Its first mention is found in Eusebius of Caesarea (De solemn. paschali, ch. 5), who calls it most solemn. At the end of the 4th century it is also mentioned in the Peregrinatio Aetheriae, according to which it was celebrated in Jerusalem fifty days after the Resurrection, that is, on the afternoon of Pentecost. But in the 8th century this Church too conformed to the usage of Rome. In the Middle Ages it was accompanied by certain symbolic ceremonies, and in some countries somewhat singular customs still survive today, but they are full of meaning. The paschal candle is extinguished after the Gospel of the Mass, to signify that the risen Christ has ascended into Heaven.
BIBL. F. Cabrol, s. v. in DACL, I, II, coll. 2934-43; F. G. Holweck, Cal. liturg. festorum Dei et Dei Matris Mariae, Philadelphia 1925, p. 170.
Mauro Ingusanez
III. IN ARCHAEOLOGY
The composition of the scene of the Ascension was inspired by the texts of the Gospels and of the Acts of the Apostles, as well as by the apocryphal monuments, such as the Gospels of Nicodemus and of Peter, besides the so-called Ascension of Isaiah. A determining element was also the liturgical diffusion of the solemnity of the Ascension in the Christian world, from the basilica erected in Jerusalem (v.) on the initiative of the matron Poemenia, before the year 378, on the summit of the Mount of Olives, at the point where the Lord ascended into Heaven.
Ancient Christian iconography created two clearly distinct types of the Ascension: the first, of Eastern origin, represents the divine glorification of Christ, the Rex gloriae (Ps. 23): the Lord ascends into Heaven in a mandorla, supported by the angels; the second, of Western origin, is more realistic and exalts the Son of Man: the Lord ascends into Heaven from the Mount of Olives aided by the divine hand.
The first arose in Palestine, probably as a decoration of the very basilica of the Ascension in Jerusalem, because the most characteristic examples are furnished by an ampulla (v.) from Monza and one from Bobbio of undoubted Palestinian origin, reproducing subjects copied from representations existing in Palestinian sacred buildings. Other examples of the same type are furnished by the encolpium of the royal library of Windsor and by the reliquary casket from the Sancta Sanctorum, now in the Sacred Museum of the Vatican Library. Related to the Palestinian type are: the one that developed in Syria, whose archetype is offered by the Syriac manuscript written in 586 by the monk Rabula of the monastery of St. John of Zagba in Mesopotamia, in the Laurentian Library in Florence since 1497 (cod. Plut. I, 56); the silver plate of Perm (Siberia); the Syriac manuscript of the National Library of Paris; the Armenian type, represented by the evangeliary of Queen Mike (today at St. Lazarus, no. 1144); the Egyptian type with the fresco of chapel no. 42 in Bawit.
To the Eastern type are also linked both the panel with the Ascension in the door of St. Sabina, and the Ascension in the underground of St. Clement, both in Rome, as well as those of Monreale and of the ciborium of St. Mark in Venice. In all these representations the Lord is always accompanied by a procession of angels, according to the text of the Gospel of St. John (1:51) and the homily of St. John Chrysostom (de Ascensione: PG 50, 449).
The second type, Western, is depicted in the ivory of the National Museum of Munich of the 4th century; analogous representations are found in a sarcophagus of Servanne (Wilpert, Sarcofagi, p. 336 and pl. XV); in an ivory of the Free Public Museum of Liverpool, in the diptych of the South Kensington Museum of London, etc. Certainly the scene of the Ascension spread very soon also in the West, because it was represented at the beginning of the 5th century in the basilica of Saragossa in Spain, as attested by the tetrastich no. 44 of the Dittochoeum of Prudentius.
Bibliography3 works
Enrico Josi
IV. IN ICONOGRAPHY
While in the 10th and 11th centuries Western representations of the Ascension appear ever richer in Oriental elements, already by the year 1000 (Missal of Robert of Jumièges, Rouen) an entirely new theme begins to be introduced, which prevailed beyond the Alps until the late Gothic period: of the figure of Jesus raised into the air only the feet and the hem of the garment remain visible. For the definitive development of the subject, three Italian masterpieces finally mark its stages: the fresco by Giotto in the Arena of Padua, that of Melozzo da Forlì (Rome, Quirinal) and that of Correggio in the dome of the cathedral of Parma, where the glory of Jesus, thanks to the grandiose rotary movement of the entire composition, assumes its maximum figurative vigor.
Bibliography
V. IN POPULAR TRADITIONS
In popular life the feast of the Ascension had in the past an extremely great importance, whereas at present, perhaps more than for other feasts, the character of its manifestations is growing dim and being lost. It gave rise to a series of practices, rites and beliefs, whose inspiring foundation stems from this being a solemn day of purification and blessing; a day, therefore, awaited with anxiety by those afflicted by serious illnesses, and also considered of joyful omen.
The majority of popular customs is connected with the valustrative and therapeutic power attributed to the waters, since the people believe that on the night of the Ascension an angel blesses them, transmitting to them a miraculous power, or that God, opening a stretch of the heavenly vault, raises His arm to bless the world. The portentous efficacy of the waters is revealed, according to the common folk, at the stroke of midnight: at that moment the salt water of the sea becomes sweet, just as fresh water becomes blessed, giving rise to a series of prodigies. As is obvious, it is especially those afflicted with skin diseases who plunge into the sea, with firm faith in being cured. "On this blessed night - says the folklorist G. Pitrè - the sea becomes a pool of Bethesda to which, from nearby and distant lands, the sick anxiously flock." And the efficacy of the waters on that day is held to be miraculous also for animals, so that "owners of sheep, goats, oxen, mules, horses, to preserve them from possible diseases or to cure them of some they may have, have them bathed at that very hour or during the night"; and they lead them there festively adorned with colorful kerchiefs and with rattles and cowbells, which constitutes one of the most picturesque spectacles. In Palermo the lustrations were accompanied by the sounds of a band, songs and dances of an unusually jubilant character.
(int. Benedicto di S. Paolo)
The same miraculous powers attributed to herbs, plants and fruits are believed by the people to be possessed by the Ascension egg, which is jealously guarded. The belief in the extraordinary healing efficacy of the Ascension egg for every form of illness, even for those most resistant to every cure, has given rise to a very widespread proverb, which we find often recalled in the comedies of the 16th century: "The Ascension egg would not cure him (or save him)." In Romagna the peasants believed that this egg had the power to help trace drowned persons, deluding themselves that, left to the current, it would stop at the point where the drowned person was.
In certain cities of Italy, the feast of the Ascension had, in past centuries, a grandiose and picturesque solemnity. In Venice it was one of the most sumptuous: a fair was held there that lasted fifteen days, and the ceremony of the marriage of the sea was performed, which was matched, in Bari, by the rite of the blessing of the sea waters.
In Florence there still takes place today, for the Ascension, the famous "feast of the cricket."