Dormition (Assumption) of Mary

DORMITION (ASSUMPTION) OF MARY. - An apocryphon, very widespread in antiquity, on the death and assumption of the Virgin. After narrating the life of concealment and prayer of Mary, the little work describes the miraculous hastening of the Apostles and Evangelists (those who had died are raised) from all parts of the world. To John, coming from Ephesus and the fictitious author of the book, is assigned the principal part in the prayers and decisions (cf. Jn 19:27).

Each one narrates to the Virgin the reason and the manner of his own hastening: the Jews having compelled the Roman military authorities to act against the Virgin and the Apostles. God protects the latter by transporting them to Jerusalem. On a Sunday Jesus appears to his Mother, saying to her: "Behold, from this moment your precious body will be transported into paradise and your holy soul into the heavens, into the treasures of my Father in transcendent splendor, where is the peace and the gladness of the holy Angels." The transitus is thus described: "Then the face of the Mother of the Lord shone more brightly than the light, and having stood up she blessed with her own hand each of the Apostles and all gave thanks to God: and the Lord, stretching out his immaculate hands, received her holy and pure soul." After 3 days the body is transported from the tomb into paradise. The Apostles return miraculously to their cities.

The little book is a beautiful glorification of Mary, even if it is by no means lawful to point to it as the foundation and basis of Marian theology and piety, of which there are much older and more reliable documents; its explicit testimony to the mystery of the Assumption is of great importance. There exist versions in Latin, Syriac, Coptic (Sahidic and Bohairic dialect), Arabic, Ethiopic and Armenian. The rather profound diversity among some of these translations suggests different texts also in the Greek original (4th-5th centuries), of which as many as 4 recensions are noted.

Angelo Penna