Part 21 (1/2)
[Footnote 110: The author visited that convent whilst this edition of the Chronicon of Eusebius was going through the press, and can testify to the apparent anxiety of the monks to make it worthy of the patronage of Christians.]
The next authority, to which we are referred, is a letter[111] said to have been written by Sophronius the {305} presbyter, about the commencement of the fifth century. The letter used to be ascribed to Jerome; Erasmus referred it to Sophronius; but Baronius says it was written ”by an egregious forger of lies,” (”egregius mendaciorum concinnator,”) who lived after the heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches had been condemned. I am not at all anxious to enter upon that point of criticism; that the letter is of very ancient origin cannot be doubted.
This doc.u.ment would lead us to conclude, that so far from the tradition regarding the Virgin's a.s.sumption being general in the Church, it was a point of grave doubt and discussion among the faithful, many of whom thought it an act of pious forbearance to abstain altogether from p.r.o.nouncing any opinion on the subject. Whoever penned the letter, and whether we look to the sensible and pious sentiments contained in it, or to its undisputed antiquity, the following extract cannot fail to be interesting[112].
[Footnote 111: The letter is ent.i.tled ”Ad Paulam et Eustochium de a.s.sumptione B.M. Virginis.” It is found in the fifth volume of Jerome's works, p. 82. Edit. Jo. Martian.]
[Footnote 112: Baronius shows great anxiety (Cologne, 1609, vol.
i. p. 408) to detract from the value of this author's testimony, whoever he was; sharply criticising him because he a.s.serts, that the faithful in his time still expressed doubts as to the matter of fact of Mary's a.s.sumption. By a.s.signing, however, to the letter a still later date than the works of Sophronius, Baronius adds strength to the arguments for the comparatively recent origin of the tradition of her a.s.sumption. See Fabricius (Hamburgh, 1804), vol. ix. p. 160.]
”Many of our people doubt whether Mary was taken up together with her body, or went away, leaving the body. But how, or at what time, or by what persons her most holy body was taken hence, or whither removed, or whether it rose again, is not known; although some will maintain that she is already revived, and is clothed with a blessed immortality with Christ in heavenly places, which very many affirm also of the blessed {306} John, the Evangelist, his servant, to whom being a virgin, the virgin was intrusted by Christ, because in his sepulchre, as it is reported, nothing is found but manna, which also is seen to flow forth.
Nevertheless which of these opinions should be thought the more true we doubt. Yet it is better to commit all to G.o.d, to whom nothing is impossible, than to wish to define rashly[113] by our own authority any thing, which we do not approve of.... Because nothing is impossible with G.o.d, we do not deny that something of the kind was done with regard to the blessed Virgin Mary; although for caution's sake (salva fide) preserving our faith, we ought rather with pious desire to think, than inconsiderately to define, what without danger may remain unknown.” This letter, at the earliest, was not written until the beginning of the fifth century.
[Footnote 113: These last words, stamping the author's own opinion, ”Which we do not approve of,” are left out in the quotation of Coccius.]
Subsequent writers were not wanting to fill up what this letter declares to have been at its own date unknown, as to the manner and time of Mary's a.s.sumption, and the persons employed in effecting it. The first authority appealed to in defence of the tradition relating to the a.s.sumption of the Virgin[114], is usually cited as a well-known work written by Euthymius, who was contemporary with Juvenal, Archbishop of Jerusalem. And the testimony simply quoted as his, offers to us the following account of the miraculous transaction[115]:--
[Footnote 114: Coccius heads the extract merely with these words: ”Euthumius Eremita Historiae Ecclesiasticae, lib. iii. c.
40;” a.s.signing the date A.D. 549.]
[Footnote 115: This version by Coccius differs in some points from the original. Jo. Dam. vol. ii. p. 879.]
”It has been above said, that the holy Pulcheria {307} built many churches to Christ at Constantinople. Of these, however, there is one which was built in Blachernae, in the beginning of Marcian I's _reign_ of divine memory. These, therefore, namely, Marcian and Pulcheria, when they had built a venerable temple to the greatly to be celebrated and most holy mother of G.o.d and ever Virgin Mary, and had decked it with all ornaments, sought her most holy body, which had conceived G.o.d. And having sent for Juvenal, Archbishop of Jerusalem, and the bishops of Palestine, who were living in the royal city on account of the synod then held at Chalcedon, they say to them, 'We hear that there is in Jerusalem the first and famous Church of Mary, mother of G.o.d and ever Virgin, in the garden called Gethsemane, where her body which bore the Life was deposited in a coffin. We wish, therefore, her relics to be brought here for the protection of this royal city. But Juvenal answered, 'In the holy and divinely inspired Scripture, indeed, nothing is recorded of the departure of holy Mary, mother of G.o.d. But from an ancient and most true tradition we have received, that at the time of her glorious falling asleep, all the holy Apostles who were going through the world for the salvation of the nations, in a moment of time borne aloft, came together at Jerusalem. And when they were near her, they had a vision of angels, and divine melody of the highest powers was heard: and thus with divine and more than heavenly glory, she delivered her holy soul into the hands of G.o.d in an unspeakable manner. But that which had conceived G.o.d being borne with angelic and apostolic psalmody, with funeral rites, was deposited in a coffin in Gethsemane. In this place the chorus and singing of the angels continued for three whole days. But {308} after three days, on the angelic music ceasing, since one of the Apostles had been absent, and came after the third day, and wished to adore the body which had conceived G.o.d, the Apostles, who were present, opened the coffin; but the body, pure and every way to be praised, they could not at all find. And when they found only those things in which it had been laid out and placed there, and were filled with an ineffable fragrancy proceeding from those things, they shut the coffin. Being astounded at the miraculous mystery, they could form no other thought, but that He, who in his own person had vouchsafed to be clothed with flesh, and to be made man of the most holy Virgin, and to be born in the flesh, G.o.d the Word, and Lord of Glory, and who after birth had preserved her virginity immaculate, had seen it good after she had departed from among the living, to honour her uncontaminated and unpolluted body by a translation before the common and universal resurrection.”
Such is the pa.s.sage offered to us in its insulated form, as an extract from Euthymius. To be enabled, however, to estimate its worth, the inquirer must submit to the labour of considerable research. He will not have pursued his investigation far, before he will find, that a thick cloud of uncertainty and doubt hangs over this page of ecclesiastical history. Not that the evidence alleged in support of the reputed miracle can leave us in doubt as to the credibility of the tradition; for that tradition can scarcely be now countenanced by the most zealous and uncompromising maintainers of the a.s.sumption of the Virgin. What I would say is, that the question as to the genuineness and authenticity of the works by which the tradition is said to have been preserved, is far more difficult and complicated, than {309} those writers must have believed, who appeal to such testimony without any doubt or qualification. The result of my own inquiries I submit to your candid acceptance.
The earliest author in whose reputed writings I have found the tradition, is John Damascenus, a monk of Jerusalem, who flourished somewhat before the middle of the eighth century. The pa.s.sage is found in the second of three homilies on the ”Sleep of the Virgin,” a term generally used by the Greeks as an equivalent for the Latin word ”a.s.sumptio.” The original publication of these homilies in Greek and Latin is comparatively of a late date. Lambecius, whose work is dated 1665, says he was not aware that any one had so published them before his time[116]. But not to raise the question of their genuineness, the preacher's introduction of this pa.s.sage into his homily is preceded by a very remarkable section, affording a striking example of the manner in which Christian orators used to indulge in addresses and appeals not only to the spirits of departed men, but even to things which never had life. The speaker here in his sermon addresses the tomb of Mary, as though it had ears to hear, and an understanding to comprehend; and then represents the tomb as having a tongue to answer, and as calling forth from the preacher and his congregation an address of admiration and reverence. Such apostrophes as these cannot be too steadily borne in mind, or too carefully weighed, when any argument is sought to be drawn from similar salutations offered by ancient Christian orators to saint, or angel, or the Virgin.
[Footnote 116: Vol. viii. p. 281. Le Quien, who published them in 1712, refers to earlier homilies on the Dormitio Virginis.
Jo. Damas. Paris, 1712. vol. ii. p. 857.] {310}
The following are among the expressions in which the preacher, in the pa.s.sage under consideration, addresses the Virgin's tomb: ”Thou, O Tomb, of holy things most holy (for I will address thee as a living being), where is the much desired and much beloved body of the mother of G.o.d?”
[Vol. ii. p. 875.] The answer of the tomb begins thus, ”Why seek ye her in a tomb, who has been taken up on high to the heavenly tabernacles?”
In reply to this, the preacher first deliberating with his hearers what answer he should make, thus addresses the tomb: ”Thy grace indeed is never-failing and eternal,” &c. [P. 881.] By the maintainers of the invocation of saints, many a pa.s.sage far less unequivocal and less cogent than this has been adduced to show, that saints and martyrs were invoked by primitive wors.h.i.+ppers.
We find John Damascenus thus introducing the pa.s.sage of Euthymius, ”Ye see, beloved fathers and brethren, what answer the all-glorious tomb makes to us; and that these things are so, in the EUTHYMIAC HISTORY, the third book and fortieth chapter, is thus written word for word.” [P.
877.]
Lambecius maintains, that the history here quoted by John Damascenus was not an ecclesiastical history, written by Euthymius, who died in A.D.
472, but a biographical history concerning Euthymius himself, written by an ecclesiastic, whom he supposes to be Cyril, the monk, who died in A.D. 531. This opinion of Lambecius is combated by Cotelerius; the discussion only adding to the denseness of the cloud which involves the whole tradition. But whether the work quoted had Euthymius for its author or its subject, the work itself is lost; and an epitome only of such a work has come down to {311} our time. In that abridgment the pa.s.sage quoted by Damascenus is not found.
The editor of John Damascenus, Le Quien, in his annotations on this portion of his work, offers to us some very interesting remarks, which bear immediately on the agitated question as to the first observance of the feast of the a.s.sumption, as well as on the tradition itself. Le Quien infers, from the words of Modestus, patriarch of Jerusalem, that scarcely any preachers before him had addressed their congregations on the departure of the Virgin out of this life; he thinks, moreover, that the Feast of the a.s.sumption was at the commencement of the seventh century only recently inst.i.tuted. Though all later writers affirm that the Virgin was buried in the valley of Jehoshaphat, in the garden of Gethsemane, the same editor says, that this could not have been known to Jerome, who pa.s.sed a great part of his life in Bethlehem, and yet observes a total silence on the subject; though in his ”Epitaph on Paula,” [Jerome, Paris, 1706. Vol. iv. p. 670-688, ep. 86.] he enumerates all the places in Palestine consecrated by any remarkable event. Neither, he adds, could it have been known to Epiphanius, who, though he lived long in Palestine, yet declares that nothing was known as to the death or burial of the Virgin. [Vol. ii, p. 858.]
Again, in his remarks upon the writings falsely attributed to Melito, the same editor says, that since this Pseudo-Melito speaks many jejune things of the Virgin Mary, (such for example as at the approach of death her exceeding fear of being exposed to the wiles of Satan,) he concludes, from that circ.u.mstance, that the work was written before the Council of Ephesus; alleging this very remarkable reason, that ”after that {312} time there BEGAN TO BE ENTERTAINED, as was right, not only in the East, but also in the West, a far better estimate of the parent of G.o.d.” [P. 880.]
Many of the remarks of this editor would appear to savour of prejudice had they come from the pen of one who denied the reality of the a.s.sumption, or oppugned the honour and wors.h.i.+p now paid by members of the Church of Rome to the Virgin. Nor could the suspicion of such prejudice be otherwise than increased by the insinuation which the same editor throws out against the honesty of Archbishop Juvenal, and on the possibility of his having invented the whole story, and so for sinister purposes deceived Marcian and Pulcheria; just as he fabricated the writings which he forged for the purpose of securing the primacy of Palestine; a crime laid to the charge of Juvenal by Leo the Great, in his letter to Maximus, Bishop of Antioch. [P. 879. See Leo. vol. i. p.
1215. Epist. cxix.]