Oh, here's a summary of Christian (mainly Catholic and Orthodox) beliefs regarding Mary.
I knew all of it, but not in the precise detail given here. For example:
The early centuries of the Christian tradition were silent on the death
of Mary. But by the seventh and eighth centuries, the belief in the
bodily ascension of Mary into heaven, had taken a firm hold in both the
Western and Eastern Churches.
The Eastern Orthodox Greek Church held to the dormition of Mary.
According to this, Mary had a natural death, and her soul was then
received by Christ. Her body arose on the third day after her death. She
was then taken up bodily into heaven.
For a long time, the Catholic Church was ambiguous on whether Mary
rose from the dead after a brief period of repose in death and then
ascended into heaven or was “assumed” bodily into heaven before she
died.
Belief in the ascension of Mary into heaven became Catholic doctrine in 1950. Pope Pius XII then declared that Mary
was not subject to the law of remaining in the corruption of the
grave, and she did not have to wait until the end of time for the
redemption of her body.
I am curious as to how Pope Pius XII could be so certain of this detail. How exactly does the Holy Spirit whisper this level of detail?
Anyway, does it mean that she didn't die at all? Apparently, that remained an open question, but a more recent Pope said:
On 25 June 1997 Pope John Paul II said that Mary experienced natural death prior to her assumption into Heaven.
OK, well still seems to me there is room for speculation on how soon after the death the rise into the sky happened. I mean, it could have quite the surprise for those preparing the body for burial.
Or does "ascend into heaven" have to mean a sky ascension such as that of Christ? Could it be done by the body just disappearing into the higher dimension of heaven? I know that art has favoured the former, but a more subtle form of "ascension" might be easier for the relatives to handle.
I didn't know this, too:
Indeed, Mary is mentioned more often in the Qur'an than in the New Testament.
Huh.
Update: OK, so this (Catholic) University of Dayton site (also called "All about Mary") cites one of the earliest writings (perhaps back to 5th century) about what is supposed to have happened, and it went into a lot of detail:
This text, more commonly known as Transitus (passing on, crossing over) Mariae, and attributed to Melito of Sardes tells of Mary's homegoing in detail:
In
the presence of the apostles gathered around her bed, also in the
presence of her divine Son and many angels, Mary died and her soul, rose
to heaven, accompanied by Christ and the angels. Her body was buried by
the disciples. Difficulties developed among certain of the Jews who
wished to dispose of her body. Various types of miracles occurred to
convince them to honor Mary's body. On the third day, Christ returned.
At the request of the apostles the soul of Mary is reunited with her
body. Accompanied by singing angels, Christ brought Mary to paradise.
So, that's where the Eastern Church's "dormition of Mary" comes from.
And I see from reading this article that I was getting confused in my post - that the doctrine is definitely the assumption of Mary, not the ascension: although I still think it fair to say that artist representations make it look like an physical rising into the sky:
It is essential and significant to note the distinction between the
resurrection and ascension of Christ, who rose up, in contrast to Mary
who is assumed or taken into heaven. The early poetry on the Assumption
of Mary, which originated and circulated widely in the Eastern Church,
expresses this difference and parallelism.
Anyway, the Transitus was pooh-poohed, for some reason, by a Pope soon after:
In the early sixth century, a papal decree, Decretum Gelasianum, classified the Transitus Mariae
writings as apocryphal, but this did not hinder the wide distribution
of well over thirteen-hundred manuscripts throughout the West. In
England, it was known well before the thirteenth century and is one of
the first poetic texts written in early English. There are many versions
among the hand copied manuscripts. The Transitus Mariae was incorporated into the Golden Legend of Jacobus de Voragine. It is also incorporated into a text known as Vita BVM et salvatoris rhythmica
(The rhythmic life of the BVM and redeemer), written in the
mid-thirteenth century. These later texts add many embellishments to
describe Mary's entry into heaven. All the saints and angels come to
greet her and do her homage as her Son crowns her queen. These texts are
gathered uncritically from various sources, but they nevertheless
express faith-filled devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.
On the question of how, nearly 1,900 years later, it could be declared as dogma, is explained as follows:
The proclamation of the dogma was part of a plan of Pope Pius XII to
honor Mary. He appealed to the faith of the Church as partial basis for
the definition. As O'Carroll writes:
"The faith of the Church had
been manifest in different ways. Between 1849 and 1950, numerous
petitions for the dogma arrived in Rome. They came from One hundred and
thirteen Cardinals, eighteen Patriarchs, twenty-five-hundred-five
archbishops and bishops, thirty-two-thousand priests and men religious,
fifty-thousand religious women, eight million lay people. On May 1, 1946
the Pope had sent to the bishops of the world the Encyclical Deiparae
Virginis, putting this question to them: 'More especially we wish to
know if you, Venerable Brethren, with your learning and prudence
consider that the bodily Assumption of the Immaculate Blessed Virgin can
be proposed and defined as a dogma of faith and whether in addition to
your own wishes this is desired by your clergy and people.' When the
replies were collated, it was found that twenty-two residential bishops
out of 1181 dissented, but only six doubted that the Assumption was
revealed truth--the others questioned the opportuneness." (p. 56)
Pius XII considered this response as a "certain and firm proof" that the Assumption is a truth revealed by God.
So this paints it as if it was more or less by popular demand - but the "8 million lay people" is surely a tiny fraction of the overall number. Look at these counts of the global Catholic population over a century:
This graph doesn't give us the totals for 1950, but adding them up, it looks like it might have been around 400 - 500 million?:
Well, this puts the significance of the number of laity petitioning for the doctrine - and it seems it was 8 million over the course of a century - making the total at any one time a tiny fraction of the actual laity.
If dogmatic doctrine can be made by popular demand of a small fraction of the most conservative laity (and a bigger group of bishops and priests), can they be reversed by a more overwhelming popular vote in future? But these are the knots that the Church has tied itself into unnecessarily.
