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FEAST OF ASSUMPTION

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Originally appearing in Volume V02, Page 787 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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FEAST OF

ASSUMPTION  . The feast of the " Assumption of the blessed Virgin Mary " (
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Lat. festum assumptionis, dormitionis, depositions, pausationis B . V . M.; Gr . Koiµrla'z5 or avaXrt>Gts Ti7s BeorbKov) is a festival of the Christian Church celebrated on the 15th of August, in
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commemoration of the miraculous ascent into heaven of the
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mother of Christ . The belief on which this festival rests has its origin in apocryphal
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sources, such as the eh TO KoL/.uynv Tits vaepayfas Seoiroivrls ascribed to the Apostle John, and the de transitu Mariae, assigned to
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Melito, bishop of
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Sardis, but actually written about A.D . 400 . Pope
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Gelasius I . (492-4.96) included them in thelist of apocryphal books condemned by the Decretum de libris recipiendis et non recipiendis; but they were accepted as authentic by the pseudo-Dionysius (de nominbus divinis c . 3), whose writings date probably from the 5th century, and by Gregory of
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Tours (d . 593 or 594) . The latter in his De gloria martyrum (i .

4) gives the following

account of the miracle: As all the Apostles were watching round the dying Mary, Jesus appeared with His angels and committed the soul of His Mother to the Archangel Michael . Next day, as they were carrying the
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body to the
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grave, Christ again appeared and carried it with Him in a cloud to heaven, where it was reunited with the soul . This story is much amplified in the account given by St John of
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Damascus in the homilies In dornzilionem Mariae, which are still read in the
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Roman Church as the lesson during the octave of the feast . According to this the patriarchs and Adam and
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Eve also appear at the
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death-bed, to praise their daughter, through whom they had been rescued from the curse of
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God; a, Jew who touches the body loses both his hands, which are restored to him by the Apostles; and the body lies three days in the grave without corruption before it is taken up into heaven . The festival is first mentioned by St Andrew of Crete (c . 65o), and, according to the
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Byzantine historian Nicephorus Callistus (His' .
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Eccles. xvii . 28), was first instituted by the Emperor Maurice in A.D . 582 . From the East it was borrowed by Rome, where there is evidence of its existence so early as the 7th century . In the Gallican Church it was only adopted at the same time as the Roman liturgy . But though the festival thus became incorporated in the
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regular usage of the Western Church, the belief in the resurrection and bodily assumption of the Virgin has never been defined as a dogma and remains a " pious opinion," which the faithful may reject without imperilling their immortal souls, though not apparently—to quote Melchior Cano (De Locis Tlzeolog. xii .

'o)—without " insolent temerity," since such rejection would be contrary to the

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common agreement of the Church . By the reformed Churches, including the Church of England, the festival is not observed, having been rejected at the Reforma tion as being neither
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primitive nor founded upon any " certain warrant of
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Holy Scripture." See Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopadie (ed . 3), s . Maria "; Mgr.L . Duchesne, Christian Worship (Eng. trans.,
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London, 1904) ; Wetzer and Welte, Kirchenlexikon, s . "Marienfeste "; The Catholic
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Encyclopaedia (London and New York, 1907, &c.), s . " Apocrypha," .

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