Assumption

ASSUMPTION. - This term is customarily used to express the privilege according to which Mary Most Holy, at the end of her earthly life, was glorified in soul and body in heaven. Theologians still debate whether such a term extends or not also to the death and anticipated resurrection of the Virgin.

The ordinary magisterium of the Church, which finds its expression in the teaching of the Pontiffs and bishops, in the celebration of the liturgical feast, with morally unanimous consent (cf. G. Henrich - R. G. De Moos, Petitiones de Assumptione corporea B. V. Mariae in caelum ad S. Sedem delatae, 2 vols., Rome 1942), holds that the bodily Assumption of the Most Holy Mary into heaven is a truth revealed by God and therefore contained in the deposit of divine revelation, handed down in Scripture and Tradition.

I. ORIGIN AND HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT

1. In the first four centuries

Given this unanimous teaching of the Church, theologians have taken care to investigate in what way such a truth is contained in the deposit of revelation. All agree in admitting that such a truth is not contained explicitly in Sacred Scripture, since there is no biblical passage in which it is openly taught. All likewise agree in conceding that the question, in the first four centuries of the Church, of an explicit tradition reaching back to apostolic times, has not yet been sufficiently resolved. A positive solution, however, even in the present state of theological studies, is not only not considered impossible, but also presents a certain solidity of argument. From the end of the 5th century onward explicit testimonies are not lacking. The first four centuries remain. Now, if one accepts with Capelle (La fête de l'A. dans l'histoire liturgique, in Ephém. Theol. Lov., 3 [1926], pp. 35-45) the testimony of the heretic Lucius of the mid-2nd century (an echo of the teaching of the apostle St. John, who died toward the end of the 1st century); if one keeps in mind that pseudo-Melito, perhaps at the beginning of the 4th century, attests the fact of the Assumption; that Timothy of Jerusalem and St. Epiphanius (of the 4th century), in a sufficiently clear manner, attest the same thing; that the Syriac opuscule Obsequia B. Virginis, of the second half of the 5th century (cf. W. Wright, Contributions to the apocryphal Literature of New Testament, London 1865, pp. 11-16, 42-51, 55-65) asserts that the soul of Mary, after death, "was reunited with the body," one may have, with a certain foundation, a kind of guiding thread for proving, from century to century, back to the Apostles, the explicit tradition concerning the corporeal Assumption of the Most Holy Virgin into heaven. Even in the apocrypha there would be "a common nucleus" that would go back to the apostolic age, and, more precisely, to St. John. It is known, moreover, that certain myths and legends of antiquity present "a historical nucleus," such as, for example, the Babylonian myth or legend about the flood, etc. Nothing therefore strange or improbable if one seeks a "historical nucleus" also in the apocrypha, that is, in the legends about the Assumption. Such a historical nucleus, indeed, one may reasonably suppose, in order to make explicable the favor that such apocrypha enjoyed among the faithful of those times and also among some Fathers. It does not seem, therefore, that an explicit tradition concerning the corporeal Assumption of Mary should be dismissed outright as devoid of any foundation. But even if one dismisses the explicit tradition, the implicit tradition still stands. Recently the Jesuit O. Faller, in a short work on the silence of the first centuries concerning the Assumption (De priorum saeculorum silentio circa Assumptionem B.M.V., (Anal. Greg., sect. A, n. 5, Rome 1946) has proved this thesis, with scientific rigor, which is not diminished by the criticism of the Analecta Bollandiana, 64 [1946], pp. 320-22, where the question is considered only from the historical point of view. Having examined in particular the thought of Damascene and of the Fathers contemporary with him, in order to verify on which dogmatic principles they base themselves to justify the privilege of the Assumption, he demonstrates how even in the first centuries (at the time of the supposed silence) those same dogmatic principles are found explicitly. It follows therefore that such a truth, in those centuries, was implicit in the aforementioned explicitly admitted principles; without wishing to assert by this that the authors of those first centuries had subjective knowledge and awareness of the truth of the corporeal Assumption objectively contained in them.

The dogmatic principles, then, on which Damascene and his contemporaries base the privilege of the corporeal Assumption of Mary are five: a) Principle of restoration (Eve-Mary): in Mary, set in opposition to the first woman, Eve, she through whom all die as a consequence of sin, there takes place liberation from death which reduces the body to dust; b) Principle of the divine maternity full of mystery; c) Principle of the miraculous virginity, understood in a very broad sense, to the point of rendering Mary fully incorrupt and not subject to remaining in the power of death; d) Principle of unity between the Mother and the Son; e) Principle of honor that the Son renders to the Mother.

Now, from the 4th century onward, all these principles are explicitly enunciated. Fr. Faller cites, for the 2nd century, St. Justin (d. ca. 165) and St. Irenaeus (d. ca. 202); for the 3rd century Tertullian (d. after 220), Origen (d. in 253-54), St. Gregory Thaumaturgus (d. ca. 270); for the 4th St. Epiphanius (d. in 403), St. Ambrose (d. in 397), St. Jerome (d. in 420), St. Augustine (d. in 430), etc. (cf. the texts in Faller, op. cit., pp. 93-127). In the first four centuries, therefore, the truth of the corporeal Assumption is undoubtedly taught implicitly.

2. From the 5th to the 10th century

Toward the middle of the 5th century there begins to appear, in Syria, the feast of the "Memory of the Blessed" (Mary) as a feast of the death and corporeal Assumption of Mary. This is attested by the Syriac fragment of the Transitus published by Wright and taken from a manuscript codex of the end of the 5th century (Contributions to the apocryphal Literature of the New Testament..., London 1865, pp. 42-51). Toward the middle of that century, therefore, there was in Syria a full faith concerning the corporeal Assumption. If moreover one accepts, as it seems one must accept, the liturgical character of the discourse De transitu Dei Genitricis Mariae (ed. A. Baumstark, in Oriens christianus, 5 [1905], p. 88 ff.) of Jacob of Sarug, one has a new confirmation of the existence of such a feast in Syria toward the middle of the 5th century. Around the end of the 6th century the emperor Maurice (582-602), according to the testimony of Nicephorus Callistus (d. in 1335), would have imposed by a special edict the date of 15 Aug. (Hist. eccl., XVII, 28: PG 147, 202).

The Coptic Church too, from the time of the patriarch Theodosius (d. in 567), admitted the glorious resurrection of Mary, which would have occurred 206 days after her burial. The aforementioned patriarch of Alexandria composed a long account of the death of Mary (cf. Rev. de l'Or. Chrét., 1933-34, pp. 272-304), and established the feast of the death on the 21st of Tobi (= 6 Jan.) distinct from that of her glorious resurrection (on the 16th of Mesore = 9 Aug.). The same must be said of the Ethiopian or Abyssinian Church, vassal, until recent years, of the Coptic Church.

In the second half of the 6th century, St. Gregory of Tours (d. in 594) testifies in France to the corporeal Assumption of the Virgin (cf. MGH, Scriptores rerum Merovingicarum, I, p. 489). His account is sober and probably reflects the historical nucleus of the apocrypha. Toward the end of the 7th century and at the beginning of the 8th there is among the holy Fathers a certain and explicit faith concerning the corporeal Assumption. It suffices to name St. Modestus of Jerusalem (d. in 634), Hippolytus of Thebes (7th-8th century), St. Germanus of Constantinople (d. in 783), St. Andrew of Crete (d. in 740), St. John Damascene (d. in 749), St. Cosmas of Maiuma, called the Melode (d. ca. 743), St. Theophanes Graptos, bishop of Nicaea (d. in 845), pseudo-Athanasius (7th-8th century), etc.

In the West, Pope Sergius I (687-701) established that the feast of the Dormition, like those of the Annunciation, the Nativity and the Purification, should begin with a solemn procession (cf. Liber Pontificalis, ed. L. Duchesne, I, p. 376). From Rome the feast of the Dormition spread to England and to France, taking the title Assumptio Sanctae Mariae. The introduction of the feast of the Dormition in France under the new title of the Assumption began to raise the question of the anticipated resurrection of Mary's body. Two currents immediately took shape: one openly favourable and the other rather agnostic, tormented by doubt. No one, however, with the exception of certain Spaniards of the Asturias (cf. PL 96, 1231-40), dared to deny the singular privilege. Not a few, however, refused to admit it as certain, and admitted it only as the more probable opinion, subject to reservation. Nevertheless all accepted without hesitation the opinion of the preservation of the most holy Mary's body from the corruption of the tomb, clearly expressed by the well-known liturgical texts of the Gregorian-Adrian Sacramentary: « nec tamen mortis nexibus deprimi potuit ». The celebrated Epist. ad Paulam et Eustochium of the pseudo-Jerome (PL 30, 122-42) holds primacy in this doubtful attitude. The same was held by St. Bede the Venerable (d. 735), the pseudo-Ildephonsus of Toledo (PL 96, 239-69), the pseudo-Alcuin (cf. Rev. Bénéd. 9 [1892], p. 496), the pseudo-Augustine in Serm. 208 (PL 39, 2129-34) and the Martyrologies of Ado and of Usuard.

Yet there was no lack, in that same era, of writers fully convinced of the bodily glorification of Mary, as the pseudo-Jerome himself attests to us (PL 30, 123). Among these special mention is due to the Author of the Liber de Assumptione beatae Mariae Virginis, passed down under the name of St. Augustine (PL 40, 1142-48). In it the author (probably Paschasius Radbertus), reacting against the agnosticism of some of his contemporaries regarding the bodily Assumption, has given us a very profound theological treatment — the first of its kind — on the subject. The pseudo-Augustine was echoed by Notker, monk of St. Gall (840-912).

3. From the 10th to the 13th century

In the Byzantine Church (both Greek properly so called and Russian) the bodily Assumption of Mary continued to be admitted with moral unanimity, as in the preceding period (cf. M. Gordillo, L'Assunzione corporale della Santissima Vergine madre di Dio nei teologi bizantini: sec. X-XV, in Marianum, 9 [1947], pp. 64-90). The Assumption soon became the greatest of the Marian feasts. Around the 10th century it began to have an Octave.

In the Latin Church, on the other hand, the influence of the pseudo-Jerome and of the pseudo-Augustine (regarded as authentic until the 16th century) divided theologians into two camps, more or less equal in size, until about the middle of the 13th century, when the camp of the pseudo-Augustine, ever widening, ended by prevailing, thanks especially to the great scholastic Doctors St. Albert the Great, St. Thomas, St. Bonaventure, etc. From that time onward the bodily Assumption began to be commonly held as certain (cf. C. Piana, B. Virginis Mariae Assumptio apud scriptores saeculi XIII, in Coll. Bibliotheca Mariana Medii Aevi. Textus et Disquisitiones. Fasc. 4, Sebenico-Rome 1942).

4. From the 13th century to the present

In the Greek Church the morally unanimous consent to the Assumption continues. Between the close of the 13th century and the dawn of the 14th, by virtue of a decree of the Emperor Andronicus II (1282-1328), the entire month of August was consecrated to the mystery of the Dormition and the Assumption. It is the "Marian month" of the Byzantines (cf. V. Grumel, Le mois de Marie des Byzantins, in Echos d'Orient, 31 [1932], pp. 257-69).

In the Latin Church, the doctrine of the Assumption, directly attacked by certain Protestants, was strenuously defended by Catholic apologists. It was therefore commonly held to be certain doctrine, and there was only some divergence regarding the degree of certainty. Generally, however, the denial of it was qualified as temerarious. As regards the liturgical side, it must be noted that the reform of the liturgical books promoted by St. Pius V served to orient the feast of 15 August ever more toward its true and proper object: the glorification in soul and body of the Mother of God.

Around the middle of the 17th century people began to ask the Holy See for the dogmatic definition of the bodily Assumption. The first to present such a request was the Servite Father Cesario Shguanin (1692-1769), in a petition addressed to Clement XIII, as appears from a document in the general archive of the Order of the Servants of Mary. Almost a century passed before there were new petitions. In 1849 Cardinal Sterk, Archbishop of Mechelen, and Monsignor Sánchez, Bishop of Osma in Spain, responding to the encyclical in which Pius IX had asked the episcopate's opinion on the definability of the Immaculate Conception, also expressed their wish for the definition of the Assumption. These, however, remained isolated votes. About twenty-five years later, in 1863, Queen Isabella of Spain, prompted by Bl. Anthony M. Claret, begged Pius IX to "publish as dogma" the mystery of the Assumption as well. From that time onward a true movement arose in favor of the definition, a movement that has gone on constantly growing, prompting many studies on the definability of this singular privilege. Pius XII, taking into account the requests of 113 cardinals, 2,523 patriarchs, archbishops and bishops, of 82,000 priests and religious, and of more than eight million faithful, on May 1, 1946 sent all the bishops a letter to ask their opinion on the definability of the Assumption.

II. THEOLOGICAL ELABORATION

Besides investigating tradition, theologians have also applied themselves to examining with growing accuracy the various biblical passages, both of the Old and of the New Testament, in which the corporeal Assumption of Mary can be seen to be implicitly contained, and to bringing out its many fittingnesses.

1. Biblical texts

The first biblical text is the so-called Protoevangelium (Gen. 3:15): "I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring; she (in the Hebrew text: 'the offspring') shall crush your head, and you shall strike her heel." We have here a prophecy, the first, made by God immediately after our ruin, concerning the Redemption. The "offspring of the woman" is undoubtedly the Redeemer, considered not only personally, but insofar as he represents all sinful humanity, recapitulated in him as in the new Adam. Consequently, the "woman" of whom it speaks there is the Most Holy Mary, understood not only individually, but insofar as she too represents, in her own way, as the new Eve, all sinful humanity. This is the obvious sense of the text, confirmed by the interpretation of the Fathers and ecclesiastical writers.

This being established, in our text the human redemption is foretold under the figure of a struggle ("I will put enmity") culminating in a total victory of the offspring over the diabolical serpent ("she shall crush your head"), and with a partial victory of the diabolical serpent over the "offspring" (a bite on the heel). This full victory of the Redeemer over the serpent, according to St. Paul, consists in destroying, by death, the empire of the devil: the Son of God became man "that through death he might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil" (Hebr. 2:14). But in order that by his death the Redeemer might fully conquer death and him who had dominion over it, that is, the devil, it was indispensable that his death should not be definitive, but of brief duration, followed at once by the resurrection. Now, the "Woman," mother of the "offspring," as appears from the Genesis text, is intimately and indissolubly associated with the battle, with the full victory of her offspring over the devil and with the partial defeat (the bite of the diabolical serpent on the heel, that is, the real death of the Redeemer on the cross and the mystical death, by means of the sword of sorrow, of the Co-redemptrix at the foot of the cross). Two blocs clash: that of the vanquished (the serpent and his offspring) and that of the victors (the Woman and her offspring). There were therefore common, for the Woman and for her offspring, the enmities (that is, the struggle), the total victory (that is, the crushing of the head of the diabolical serpent) and the partial defeat (the bite on the heel); just as there were common, for the diabolical serpent and for his offspring, the enmities (that is, the struggle), the total defeat (that is, the crushing of the head) and the partial victory (that is, the bite on the heel). Consequently, as for the Redeemer, so also for the Co-redemptrix, death was soon followed by the resurrection, victor over death. From this analysis of the Genesis text, illuminated by other biblical texts and by testimonies of Fathers and Doctors, one may legitimately conclude that the corporeal Assumption of the Most Holy Mary is implicitly foretold, in equivalent terms, in the Protoevangelium and is therefore contained there in a formal and implicit manner. With reason, therefore, 113 Fathers of the Vatican Council subscribed a postulatum for the definition of the Assumption, in which the eminent privilege was proved by such an argument cf. (G. Hentrich-R. G. De Moos, op. cit., I, p. 97 ff.).

Other proofs drawn from the Old Testament (from symbols, types, etc.) do not seem able to furnish a scriptural argument.

In the New Testament the corporeal Assumption is customarily seen as implicitly contained in four places: in the angel's greeting (Lk. 1:28), in the texts in which St. Paul teaches the precedence of Christ in the resurrection (I Cor. 15:23) or the connection between sin and death (Rom. 5:12 etc.), and in the woman of the Apoc. (12:1-2).

The first argument is drawn from the angel's greeting: "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you, you are blessed among women" (Lk. 1:28). The Most Holy Virgin is greeted "full of grace" by antonomasia, as if that were her name, without limit of time, and therefore immune, from the first instant of her existence, from any fault, and consequently exempt from the dominion of death which, according to Scripture and tradition, in the present state is purely a penalty of sin. The Immaculate One therefore had also to be the Assumed One. The Most Holy Virgin, in the second place, is greeted as she in whom the Lord is present in a particular way: "the Lord is with you"; present not as in others (for example, as in Moses, when the mission of liberating the Israelites from the slavery of Egypt was entrusted to him) but specially in order to give birth to God in a manner worthy of him, that is, virginally (as the angel later explained), triumphing over concupiscence, which was a guarantee of immunity from the corruption of the tomb and of the resurrection of the body. The Most Holy Virgin, finally, is greeted "blessed among women" in a wholly singular way. This "singular blessing," a consequence of the "fullness of grace" and of the "special presence of the Lord in her," is opposed to the classic divine curse: "You shall return to dust" (Gen. 3:16-19). It is therefore a question of a "blessing" that is in radical antithesis to the curse hurled by God in the earthly paradise and that is equivalent to a threefold blessing, expressed by the threefold greeting, namely: a blessing of "fullness of grace" in the face of the intrinsic curse of sin; a blessing of virginal fruitfulness, in the face of the curse of the pains of childbirth; a blessing of anticipated resurrection in the face of the curse of the corruption of the tomb. The angel's greeting, therefore, in its threefold blessing, echoes the Protoevangelium in Mary's threefold victory, together with Christ, over sin, by means of the Immaculate Conception, over concupiscence, by means of the virginal motherhood, and over death, by means of the corporeal Assumption.

A second biblical argument taken from the New Testament in favor of the Assumption is drawn from I Cor. 15:20-23, where it is said: "But now Christ is risen, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, so by a man (has come) the resurrection from the dead. For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive, each in his own order: Christ, as the firstfruits, and then those who are of Christ, at his coming." St. Paul here, speaking of those who rise, distinguishes two different categories: that of the firstfruits (Christ) and that of the remainder of the harvest (all the others, who will rise at the end of the world). Now, if Christ — according to St. Paul — belongs to the firstfruits of those who rise because he is the principle of life (in opposition to Adam, who was the principle of death), the same can be said of Mary, since she too was a principle of life (in opposition to Eve, who was a principle of death, according to that saying of Eccli. 25:23: "Because of the woman all die").

As Christ, therefore, so also the Most Holy Mary had to rise in anticipation.

The third scriptural proof is drawn from certain Pauline texts taken as a whole, which on the one hand establish for the Christian the grounds for resurrection (I Cor. 15:20-23) and on the other present death as a consequence of sin (Rom. 4:25; 5:12-21; 6:23; 8:19-23; I Cor. 15:3; 15:56). In the light of these texts and of the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, not a few reason as follows: the deferral of the final glorification, even bodily, of the children of God to the parousia is presented by St. Paul as a painful trial which, in the light of his doctrine on the connection between sin and death, must be explained as a penalty for a moral fault, both personal and original. But the Most Holy Virgin was immune from any fault, whether original or actual: therefore she must also have been immune from the penalty of the delay of resurrection until the day of the parousia. The Assumption of the Virgin is therefore implicit in the Pauline theory.

A last scriptural argument is drawn from Apoc. 12:1-2: "A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and a crown of twelve stars on her head." The prophet then goes on to describe the war of the infernal Dragon against the mysterious Woman, a war that unfolds in three phases: 1st phase (vv. 4-5): the dragon tries to devour the woman's son as soon as he is born, but he is caught up to God and to his throne; 2nd phase (vv. 6; 14-15): the dragon, thwarted, turns his fury against the woman, who, mysteriously sustained by God, flies into the desert, to the place prepared for her by God, thus definitively escaping the diabolical hostilities; 3rd phase (v. 17): the dragon, seeing his assaults against the woman to be in vain, turns his wrath "against the rest of her offspring," that is, "against those who keep the commandments of God and hold the testimony of Jesus." It is legitimate to note in this text the parallelism of Apoc. (the last inspired book) with Gen. (the first) or the Protoevangelium. If the Son of whom it speaks is the Messiah (as appears from the evident allusion to Ps. 2), the woman can be none other than His mother, the Madonna, that is, the mother of the whole Christ, both physical and mystical. As mother of the physical Christ she is in heaven physically, in soul and body, as is affirmed in the first verse; as mother, on the other hand, of the mystical Christ, she is mystically on earth, in the grip of the mysterious pains of childbirth and of the hostilities of the devil. Such is the interpretation given by Pius X in the encyclical Ad diem illum. It might perhaps be objected that the heaven in which the mysterious woman is described (in v. 1) is not heaven properly so called (Paradise) but the sidereal heaven. One can, however, reply that, by force of the context, it is a question of heaven properly so called. The apostle, in fact, in the last verse of the preceding chapter (a verse which, logically, belongs to the following chapter) sees the heavenly regions opened (11:19). Furthermore: the frame surrounding the woman is entirely composed of astronomical elements: an evident sign that it is not a question of the sidereal heaven, but of heaven properly so called.

Not all and each of the biblical arguments have the same value; to give them the value they merit it will be well to consider them as a whole, always taking into account Catholic tradition (v. the rich study by L. G. da Fonseca, L'A. di Maria nella S. Scrittura, Rome 1948).

2. The manifold fittingnesses

The principal and also the most effective among the various theological reasons adduced in favor of the bodily Assumption seems to be that drawn from the threefold bond that the Most Holy Mary has with Christ: physical, moral and dynamic, that is, soteriological. If it is true that the Incarnate Word, by force of the moral or affective bond, freely assumed, with regard to His mother, all those moral obligations that sons have toward their own mother, it follows that He would not have satisfied, at least in an exemplary way, such freely assumed duties and particularly that of honoring His own mother, if He had not immediately made her body a partaker of the glory of her soul. If it is true that the Most Holy Virgin, by force of the dynamic or soteriological bond, was associated with Christ, the new Adam, as the new Eve, in the work of Redemption, it follows that she must necessarily be drawn into Christ's own furrow. Now, the resurrection and ascension of Christ are numbered, according to the doctrine of St. Paul, among the mysteries that have wrought our salvation. The same, therefore, must be said of Mary. In the present order of Providence, death is either a penalty for sin or a reparation for it. In Christ and in Mary it was not and could not be a penalty for sin: it was therefore a reparation for it. But to repair sin only death is of avail, not the permanence in death. The Co-Redemptrix, therefore, like the Redeemer, had to rise again at once and, as the reward of the reparation of sin, receive the fullness of glory.

On this threefold bond are based the other Mariological principles which also claim, in their own way, the same singular privilege, namely: the principle of singularity, the principle of eminence and the principle of analogy or likeness to Christ.

According to the principle of singularity the Most Holy Virgin constitutes an order, a world of her own, with laws entirely her own, that is, as St. Albert the Great expresses it, "she is not one among all, but one above all" (Mariale, qq. 70-80) in every order. The Virgin, says St. Thomas of Villanova, "sola per se facit chorum," she forms a choir by herself (In Praesent. B.M.V.). She is therefore singular in everything, with respect to others, not only in the first instant of her earthly existence, by being redeemed before all others by way of preservative redemption, but also in the last instant of her earthly existence, by rising glorious before all others.

According to the principle of eminence, what God has granted to others must with greater reason be granted to the Most Holy Mary. Now, to some of His faithful servants God has granted the gift of the incorruptibility of the body. The same, indeed far more, He had to do for His Most Holy Mother, granting to her body not only incorruptibility but also anticipated glorification.

According to the principle of analogy or likeness to Christ, the Most Holy Mary was always and in everything like her Son, insofar as her nature and condition allowed. The mysteries of Mary's life harmonize wonderfully with the mysteries of Christ's life. To the mystery, therefore, of Christ's anticipated resurrection there had to correspond the mystery of Mary's anticipated resurrection; to Christ's glorious Ascension there had to correspond Mary's glorious Assumption. Two destinies so wonderfully united from the beginning and throughout the course of their earthly existence could not be brusquely divided at its end.

All these reasons, drawn from Scripture, from tradition and from theological fittingnesses, taken together, acquire such force as to make the bodily Assumption of Mary definable.

Gabriele M. Roschini

III. ICONOGRAPHY

The account of the death, Assumption and coronation of the Virgin, as handed down to us by the ancient legends, finds no depictions before the 12th century except on fabrics, ivories and miniatures. These generally go back to Byzantine or Byzantinizing representations of the dormitio, introducing into the lower zone the customary depiction of the group of apostles gathered around the deathbed together with Jesus; beside it is the figure of an angel carrying the soul to heaven (ivories of the museum of Cluny, 12th century, and of Darmstadt). These images symbolizing the assumption of the soul in the form of a child were preceded by others that showed the Virgin as an adult praying among angels with outspread wings (fabric of Sens, 7th century, panel of Tuotilo, 9th century, in the monastery of St. Gall). While such scenes needed the clarification of an inscription, the miniaturists of the abbey of Reichenau found in the year 1000 a new solution for the difficult theme: in their works the angels support a medallion with the bust of Mary, later replaced by the mandorla enclosing her full figure. This type of "Mary in glory" was adopted both by the 14th-century Sienese school of painting and by very many 15th-century artists (Masolino, Pinturicchio and Perugino), until Titian with the celebrated painting of 1518 (Venice, Frari) abandoned the old iconographic scheme, boldly transforming the assumption into a true ascension with the figure of the Madonna freely suspended in space between earth and heaven, attended by angels above the empty tomb. This iconographic type was adopted by almost all later artists, from Rubens to Tiepolo.

Kurt Rahe

IV. THE A IN LITURGY

a) In the East. — As certain as the Eastern origin of the feast of the Assumption is, so uncertain remain its time and place. The hypothesis that it derives from the feast of the Marian church called Kathisma, situated between Jerusalem and Bethlehem, celebrated on 15 August, as appears from an Armenian lectionary of c. 460, is now abandoned, because it concerns the dedication of this church. Even a kind of transfer of the primitive Marian feast, common to almost all the Eastern rites, placed either after Christmas or after the Epiphany, seems improbable. The celebration of a Marian feast in Jerusalem on 15 August, linked to a church built, it seems, by Eudocia (c. 450) in Gethsemane, is attested by a geographical lectionary of the 8th century, which reflects Jerusalemite customs of about the end of the 7th century. This feast, however, as other texts, it concerned Mary in her quality as Mother of God. However, in the 6th century it was believed that this latter church could be recognized as the place of the Madonna's burial, and it is probable that the narratives of the apocrypha concerning Mary's death contributed to transforming the Jerusalem celebration of 15 August into a feast of the Madonna's death. This is today the most accepted hypothesis. It seems that the emperor Maurice (582-602) ordered that the feast of the κοίμησις, dormitio, of Mary be celebrated throughout the empire; in fact from that time it became very popular. The Byzantines place before the feast a fast of 15 days, from the time of Theodore Studites (826); among the Armenians the celebrant blesses after the Mass, at the foot of the altar, some bunches of grapes which are then distributed to those present.

b) In the West. - The feast of the A. passed to the West by various routes. In Spain and in Gaul a Marian feast, at first generic, but later as a celebration of Mary's A. in heaven, appears at the end of the 6th century (Gregory of Tours speaks of it in the De gloria martyrum, c. 9), and it was fixed on 18 January. However in Rome, Gregory the Great (d. 604) does not yet know of any particular Marian feast. Around that time a generic feast of Mary, as divine Mother "in octabas Domini", that is on 1 January, was born. Only with Sergius I (d. 701) is there news of four Marian feasts in Rome; in fact with a *constitutum** of his, he decrees that the feasts of the Purification, Annunciation, A. (called Dormitio) and Nativity be celebrated with a solemn procession from St. Adrian in the Forum to St. Mary Major. It is therefore certain that such feasts were introduced in Rome during the 7th century. Scholars have proposed various Greek Popes, among them Theodore I; nevertheless it may be observed that the introduction of these Marian feasts by pontifical decree should have left some trace in the Liber Pont. A slow infiltration seems more likely, probably through the Eastern monks who emigrated en masse from the East in the first decades of that century because of the Persian and Arab invasions. The feast of the A. rapidly took first place among the other Marian feasts. The most ancient liturgical texts contemplate Mary's bodily death, her bodily A. and glorification in heaven. At the end of the 8th century the feast of the A. already had a vigil, and Leo IV added its octave. During the Middle Ages various popular customs accompanied this feast, especially in the north, such as the blessing of herbs and of the first fruits of the harvest.

Giuseppe Löw

V. THE ASSUMPTION IN POPULAR TRADITIONS

Among the feasts in honor of the Mother of God, that of the Assumption was considered by the people the greatest, and indeed it gave rise to grandiose displays through the solemnity of its ceremonies, the participation of the faithful, and the variety and beauty of its traditional customs. Now the feast, almost confused with the amusements of mid-August, has lost much of its original character, which was genuinely sacred and broadly popular. Since its recurrence falls at the height of summer, and in a period of pause between the principal agricultural labors, the displays were in keeping with the seasonal conditions: it is the most favorable time for the great pilgrimages, still very much in use, especially in France.

In various localities, as, for example, in Sicily, the expressions of popular worship began with the first [day], since on that day the fortnight of the Madonna began: in Palermo the children would go about the most populous streets leading "barettes" with the statue of the Madonna of mid-August and would stop before the houses to sing some little strophe in honor of the Assumption and to ask for a coin with which to meet the expenses of the feast. Since it was the fruit season, it was a sign of devotion, during the fortnight, to abstain from all fruits, or at least from certain kinds of them; in compensation, on the day of the feast it was customary to make copious gifts of baskets full of the finest fruits. Still in Sicily, one of the most characteristic and most tenaciously preserved customs is in Messina the cavalcade of the giant and the giantess; such a cavalcade also takes place at Mistretta (Messina), but for the feast of the Madonna on September 8; these are curious survivals, which find a counterpart also outside Italy, and in which are perhaps to be recognized echoes and reflections of very ancient customs.

The Assumption is celebrated with particular solemnity and with picturesque forms of popular worship also in other regions of Italy, as in Abruzzo, where the feast is also called "of the Madonna della Libera," and gives rise especially to illuminations and fireworks; in the Marche, where, at Fermo, the famous cavalcade of the Assumption takes place; in Liguria and in particular at Genoa, which had it as a feast of obligation from the year 856; indeed, in the 17th century the consecration of the city to Mary was, by decree of the Senate, transferred from the day of the Annunciation to that of the Assumption, thus bringing about a greater diffusion of the cult and of the festive displays throughout the territory of the republic. Genoa dedicated to her the magnificent basilica due to the art of Galeazzo Alessi, which rises on the hill of Carignano. Finally, at Sassari and at Nulvi, in Sardinia, the famous "candelieri" figure in the procession of August 15: very tall constructions of papier-mâché, with an internal skeleton of cane, which as a whole have the form of palms. For further details v. CANDELIERI. To be remembered also is the Inchinata of Tivoli, so called because at a certain point of the procession the statue of the Virgin met that of her Son and three times the two images bowed beneath green triumphal arches.

Almost everywhere, in many displays of mid-August, characteristic elements of the feast of the Assumption are still recognizable. We therefore refer also to that entry. - See PLATES XIX-XX.

Paolo Toschi