"Where is that written?" The question almost always lands in the same way, whether from a Protestant friend, an unbelieving colleague, or our own mind on an evening of doubt. The Assumption of Mary — her being taken body and soul into the glory of Heaven — is not narrated anywhere in the Gospels. No apostle gives an account of it. The dogma itself was proclaimed only in 1950, by Pope Pius XII. For many people, that seems enough to settle the matter: a late pious legend added to the faith of the origins.
This article takes the objection seriously and answers it directly. Belief in the Assumption is neither gullible nor arbitrary: it means recognizing a truth that stands up for four converging reasons, which we will examine one by one. It is not one single crushing proof — faith almost never works that way — but a tightly woven convergence of fittingness that makes unbelief, here, less reasonable than faith. For the neighboring but distinct question of what changes when a truth is raised to dogma and how Pius XII proceeded in 1950, see pourquoi-lassomption-est-elle-un-dogme; for the complete historical and patristic dossier, see assomption. Here the question is one thing only: why believe it?
First, what exactly are we talking about?
Before asking why to believe it, we have to know what is being believed — because many people reject a caricature.
The precise formula of the dogma
On 1 November 1950, in the apostolic constitution Munificentissimus Deus, Pius XII defined:
"We proclaim, declare and define it to be a divinely revealed dogma that Mary, the Immaculate Mother of God ever Virgin, at the close of the course of her earthly life, was assumed soul and body into heavenly glory." — Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus, § 44[4]
Every word matters. The Church does not define how Mary left this world, nor where, nor when. It defines a fact of glory: Mary's body did not undergo the corruption of the tomb; united to her soul, it already shares in the life of the resurrection. The phrase "at the close of the course of her earthly life" is deliberately careful: it leaves open the question of whether Mary died before being assumed. The dogma does not settle that point, and pourquoi-lassomption-est-elle-un-dogme explains it in detail.
What the Assumption is NOT
Three misunderstandings must be removed immediately; otherwise one ends up rejecting a doctrine that does not exist:
- It is not a divinization. Mary did not become a goddess. She remains a creature, a woman, a Jew of Nazareth. She is glorified as every saved person will one day be glorified: her Assumption is our future brought forward, not a privilege that tears her away from humanity.
- It is not Mary's achievement. She did not "earn" it. The Assumption is a pure gift of Christ's grace, of which she is the first redeemed. Everything said here in favor of the Assumption is in reality praise of the power of Christ's Redemption acting in fullness upon one creature.
- It is not an "ascent by her own power." Unlike Jesus' Ascension — in which he rises by his own power as Son of God — Mary is raised, carried, assumed (from the Latin assumere, "to take to oneself"). Even the grammar of the word marks the difference: Christ ascends; Mary is received.
That distinction already resolves a large part of the objections. The real question remains: what are the reasons for believing that this gift was truly given?
First motive: the logic of faith (the argument from fittingness)
This is the deepest motive, and paradoxically the least understood. Theology calls an argument from fittingness (ex convenientia) a reasoning that does not prove that something had to happen by necessity, but shows that it is highly coherent with what we already know of God and his plan. "It was not necessary, but it was fitting": that is Saint Thomas Aquinas' way of meditating on the mysteries of Christ[5]. In the case of the Assumption, the fittingnesses pile up until they become decisive.
The Immaculate Conception calls for the Assumption
Here is the central argument, the one Pius XII places at the heart of his definition. If Mary was preserved from original sin from the first instant of her conception — what the Church professes as the Immaculate Conception — then she escapes the sentence laid upon Adam: "you are dust, and to dust you shall return" (Gen 3:19). The corruption of the tomb is the fruit of sin; a soul preserved from sin calls for a body preserved from corruption.
"Through a special privilege, the Virgin Mary overcame sin by her Immaculate Conception, and for this reason she was not subject to the law of remaining in the corruption of the tomb, nor did she have to wait until the end of the world for the redemption of her body." — Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus, § 5[6]
This link is not artificial: it is an implication. The Assumption is the logical crown of the Immaculate Conception, as sunrise is the continuation of dawn. Whoever holds the one already holds the other in seed — which is why pourquoi-limmaculee-conception-est-elle-logique is the natural prerequisite to this article.
Divine motherhood calls for incorruption
The second thread is divine motherhood. Mary bore in her flesh the Word made flesh: her body was the living sanctuary of God. It is strikingly fitting that this flesh should not know the decay of the tomb. Saint John Damascene, in the eighth century, expressed it with a clarity the tradition never forgot:
"It was fitting that she who had kept her virginity intact in childbirth should keep her body incorrupt even after death. It was fitting that she who had carried her Creator as a child in her womb should dwell in the divine tabernacles." — Saint John Damascene, Second Homily on the Dormition[7]
The argument is the same one that surrounds the Ark of the Covenant in the Old Testament with so many precautions: what has contained the sacred cannot be treated as an ordinary object. If the wooden ark that carried the tablets of the Law was sanctified, how much more the living Ark who carried the Lawgiver himself?
The New Eve shares the victory of the New Adam
The third thread is the oldest of all, because it goes back to the Fathers of the first centuries: the theme of Mary as New Eve. Just as Christ is the New Adam who repairs the fault of the first, Mary is the New Eve, closely associated with his combat. Now death and corruption entered the world through the first Eve; it is fitting that the New Eve, who said yes where the first had said no, should fully share the New Adam's victory over death. That is exactly the reasoning of Munificentissimus Deus:
"The Virgin Mary has been designated by the holy Fathers as the New Eve who, although subject to the New Adam, is most closely associated with him in that struggle against the infernal enemy which, as foretold in the proto-Gospel, was to end in a most complete victory over sin and death." — Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus, § 39[8]
The "proto-Gospel" is the first announcement of salvation given in Genesis: "I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head" (Gen 3:15)[9]. The Woman and her offspring crush the serpent's head together — that is, sin and death. A Mary left to corruption would be an unfinished victory.
The Assumption anticipates our own destiny
Finally, the most consoling fittingness: the Assumption is not an exception that isolates Mary from us, but an advance that concerns us all. Christian faith professes, in the Creed, "the resurrection of the body." We believe that our bodies, at the end, will rise glorified in the image of the risen Christ. Mary is simply the first to receive in fullness what all the saved will one day receive. Saint Paul describes that order:
"[...] Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. [...] but each in his own order: first Christ, and then, at the coming of Christ, those who belong to him." — Saint Paul, 1 Corinthians 15:20-23[10]
Mary belongs at the head of that "order." In her, the Church contemplates as already realized what she hopes for herself. Far from distancing Mary from the Christian people, the Assumption makes her the face of our future. This is why the mystery is inseparable from pourquoi-la-resurrection-de-jesus-est-elle-essentielle: without Christ's resurrection, Mary's Assumption would make no sense; with it, she is its first fruit.
Second motive: the seeds of Scripture
Then comes the direct objection: "All that is beautiful, but it is not in the Bible." The answer has to be precise and twofold.
"Not explicit" does not mean "anti-biblical"
First, a methodological clarification. Many truths held by all Christians are not "written in black and white" either: the word "Trinity" is not in the Bible, the canon of Scripture itself is not listed there, and the formula "the Bible alone" is found nowhere in it. The absence of an explicit narrative therefore proves nothing by itself. The real question is: does the Assumption contradict Scripture, or is it a coherent development from it? It not only does not contradict Scripture; Scripture carries several of its seeds.
The Ark in Heaven and the Woman of Revelation
The most striking text is the hinge passage in Revelation. Saint John sees the sanctuary of God in Heaven opened, and the Ark of the Covenant appears — then, without transition, a glorious Woman:
"God's sanctuary in heaven was opened, and the ark of his covenant appeared in the sanctuary. [...] And a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars." — Revelation 11:19–12:1[11]
The chapter break, added much later, hides the fact that these two verses follow one another: the Ark announced is the Woman. The Ark of the Old Testament — missing for centuries — contained the manna, the Law and Aaron's rod. The new Ark carried the living Bread, the Word made flesh and the eternal High Priest. And this Ark appears in Heaven, bodily glorified: the attentive reader recognizes Mary taken into glory. To be precise about the senses, so as not to force the text: tradition reads in this Woman several associated levels — the people of God who bring forth the Messiah (Israel), the persecuted Church who bring forth believers, and Mary in person, who sums them up. It is this Marian sense that Munificentissimus Deus expressly retains, invoking this "woman clothed with the sun whom John the Apostle contemplated on the island of Patmos"[12].
"Arise, O Lord, you and the Ark of your strength"
This link between Mary and the Ark is not a modern invention. It is rooted in a verse that Munificentissimus Deus applies to the Assumption:
"Arise, O Lord, and go to your resting place, you and the ark of your might." — Psalm 132 (131):8[13]
The Church reads this psalm as a prophecy: the risen Lord enters his glorious rest with the Ark he has sanctified — Mary, entering glory after her Son. Here again, the typology is not imposed from outside: it extends the way of reading the Old Testament in the light of the New that the apostles themselves practiced.
"Full of grace" and "blessed among women"
The angel Gabriel does not greet Mary by her name, but by a title: "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with you" (Lk 1:28)[14]. The Greek participle kecharitōmenē denotes a full and enduring state of grace. Elizabeth adds: "Blessed are you among women" (Lk 1:42)[15]. A creature thus filled, "full of grace" without reserve, is already shown as set apart from the common regime of sin and its consequences: the corruption of the tomb would be out of place.
Biblical precedents for bodily taking-up
Finally, the objection that "a body cannot be taken into Heaven" runs into Scripture itself. The Bible already knows bodily takings-up: Enoch, whom "God had taken away" (Gen 5:24)[16], and Elijah, who "went up to heaven in a whirlwind" (2 Kgs 2:11)[17]. If Scripture reserves such an honor for two servants of God, nothing forbids — and everything invites — recognizing it for the Mother of the Savior. The Assumption introduces no new impossibility: it brings a biblical type to perfection.
Third motive: the constant faith of the Church
There remains the historical argument, often turned against the faith: "If it were true, people would have spoken of it earlier." In reality, history bears witness in the opposite direction.
A feast long before any dogma
Belief in Mary's bodily glorification does not date from 1950: it is liturgical before it is defined. From the early centuries, the Christian East celebrated the Dormition of the Mother of God — her "falling asleep" followed by her glorification. Byzantine tradition attributes to Emperor Maurice (582-602) the fixing of its celebration on 15 August for the whole Empire[18]. In Rome, no Marian feast is attested before the seventh century: the first mention is the procession ordered by Pope Sergius I (687-701) for the Dormition, celebrated with the Annunciation, the Nativity of Mary and the Hypapante[19]; it was in the course of that seventh century that these feasts from the East became established in Rome, probably under the impetus of the Eastern-born Pope Theodore I (642-649)[20]. Then the whole West received them; the Council of Mainz, in June 813, listed the Assumption (15 August) among the feasts to be observed in the year[21]. Long before any pope defined anything, the Christian people were already celebrating Mary's entrance, body and soul, into glory. The dogma of 1950 invented nothing: it authenticated a millennium-old faith.
The Fathers and Doctors
This liturgical faith has its great witnesses. Saint John Damascene (d. 749), Doctor of the Church, is its most famous spokesman: in his homilies preached at Gethsemane, before what was held to be Mary's empty tomb, he sings of her elevation with serene conviction[22]. He says that, just as Christ's body rose from the tomb on the third day, "she too had to be snatched from the tomb, and the mother associated with her Son"[23]. Other Eastern Fathers — Modestus and Sophronius of Jerusalem, Germanus of Constantinople, Andrew of Crete — sing the same glory. The detail of this patristic dossier is developed in assomption; it is enough here to note that it exists, ancient and convergent.
The eloquent silence of relics
Here is perhaps the most striking clue, and it is negative: there is, to this day, no known and documented bodily relic of Mary. In an age when Christians fiercely disputed the slightest bones of apostles and martyrs — when two cities could claim the skull of the same saint — no Church, anywhere, has, to our knowledge, ever claimed to possess the body of the Mother of God, which would have been the most precious relic in all Christendom. Never her remains, to our knowledge. This universal silence, across a world passionately devoted to relics, is a converging clue: it suggests there is no body to venerate because it did not remain on earth. An argument from silence, not a proof on its own — but, taken with all the rest, a witness that carries weight.
The "sense of faith" of the Christian people
Before defining the dogma, Pius XII did not act alone: in 1946, through the letter Deiparae Virginis Mariae, he consulted the entire Catholic episcopate on whether the Assumption could and should be defined. The response was overwhelmingly close to unanimous[24]. This convergence of bishops and faithful manifests what theology calls the sensus fidei — the supernatural instinct of the believing people, who, guided by the Spirit, had always recognized in the Assumption a truth of faith. The precise mechanism of this consultation is detailed in pourquoi-lassomption-est-elle-un-dogme.
Fourth motive: the authority that defined it
The first three motives — fittingness, Scripture, Tradition — make the Assumption deeply credible. The fourth makes it certain for the Catholic: it has been defined by the very authority Christ promised to assist.
A guarantee, not an invention
When Christ says to Peter, "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it" (Mt 16:18)[25], he promises his Church an assistance that preserves her from error when she solemnly teaches on faith. The dogma of 1950 is therefore not a pope imposing a private opinion: it is the Church recognizing, with Christ's guarantee, that a truth always believed truly belongs to the revealed deposit. The Catechism of the Catholic Church summarizes it:
"Finally the Immaculate Virgin, preserved free from all stain of original sin, when the course of her earthly life was finished, was taken up body and soul into heavenly glory, and exalted by the Lord as Queen over all things, so that she might be the more fully conformed to her Son, the Lord of lords and conqueror of sin and death." — Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 966[26]
What the definition changes, and what it does not
It is crucial to understand: the 1950 definition did not make the Assumption true. It already was. A dogma does not manufacture a truth; it recognizes and protects it, just as a verdict does not create the accused person's innocence but acknowledges it. Mary was not "less in Heaven" on 31 October 1950 than she was the day after the definition. For this essential distinction — belief, doctrine, dogma — see pourquoi-lassomption-est-elle-un-dogme and quest-ce-que-linfaillibilite-pontificale. The point to retain here is simple: for anyone who recognizes the authority Christ gave to his Church, the question "why believe it?" receives its firmest answer — because the Church, assisted by the Spirit, attests it.
Short answers to frequent objections
Let us now gather the most common objections and answer them directly. The deeper treatment of each one is found in assomption; here we give the essential answer.
"It is not in the Bible"
Many major Christian truths are not "in the Bible" in the sense of an explicit narrative: neither the word "Trinity," nor the canon of Scripture, nor Sunday as the Lord's Day. The criterion is not "is it narrated?" but "is it contrary to the Word of God, or does it flow from it?" The Assumption grows from Scripture (Rev 12, Ps 132, Gen 3:15, 1 Cor 15) and contradicts not a single line of it.
"It is a 1950 invention"
The date of definition is not the date of belief. The Dormition was celebrated at least from the sixth century; John Damascene preached it in the eighth; the Council of Mainz listed it among the feasts to be observed in 813. To confuse the year when a truth is defined with the year when it begins to be believed is like claiming that the roundness of the earth was "invented" on the day it was demonstrated.
"It is borrowed from pagan myths of apotheosis"
Greco-Roman apotheoses divinized emperors by political decree; the Assumption does exactly the opposite: it divinizes no one — Mary remains a creature — and it is received passively as a gift from God. The surface resemblance (a heavenly elevation) covers a deep opposition: glory given by grace versus divinity decreed by men.
"It contradicts Heb 9:27: men die once"
"since it is appointed for men to die once" (Heb 9:27)[27] — precisely: the dogma does not exclude that Mary died; it leaves the question open (see above). And the Assumption does not speak of a human being escaping death, but of a body escaping corruption after the end of earthly life. There is no contradiction.
"Why should I believe it?"
If one is not Catholic, the first three motives (fittingness, Scripture, Tradition) remain objective reasons to hold the Assumption as credible: they do not depend on adherence to the dogma. If one is Catholic, the fourth motive adds the certainty of faith. In both cases, belief in the Assumption is not a leap into the void, but a step into the light of a coherent mystery.
What the Assumption changes for my life
One last word, because the Assumption is not a theorem to file away: it is a hope to live.
The face of our future
In looking at Mary assumed, the Christian looks at his own destiny in advance. This body that we sometimes drag like a burden, this flesh seemingly destined for dust, is promised to glory. Vatican II says that Mary shines "as a sign of sure hope and comfort to the pilgrim People of God"[28]. She has already arrived where we are going; her glory is not a privilege that distances her, but a promise that draws us onward.
"[...] our citizenship is in heaven [...] and he will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body." — Saint Paul, Philippians 3:20-21[29]
A mother who has completed the path
Finally, the Assumption changes our prayer. Mary is not an idea: she is a living person, body and soul, in the glory of God — therefore able to intercede for us with concrete closeness. That is the foundation of Marian confidence: we do not pray to a memory, but to a mother who has already crossed the passage and awaits us there. On this living bond, see marie-entend-elle-nos-prieres and faut-il-prier-les-saints.
Believing in the Assumption, at bottom, does not mean adding one more belief to a list: it means letting Christ's Redemption go all the way to its logic in one creature, and recognizing there the first fruit of what he wants to do in each of us.
Further Reading
- pourquoi-lassomption-est-elle-un-dogme — What it means for a truth to be raised to dogma, and how Pius XII proceeded on 1 November 1950.
- pourquoi-limmaculee-conception-est-elle-logique — The prerequisite that calls for the Assumption: Mary preserved from sin from her conception.
- pourquoi-marie-est-elle-appelee-mere-de-dieu — Divine motherhood, the root of all Marian privileges.
- pourquoi-la-resurrection-de-jesus-est-elle-essentielle — Without Christ's resurrection, the Assumption would make no sense; with it, it is the first fruit.
- marie-entend-elle-nos-prieres · faut-il-prier-les-saints — What Mary's glorification changes for Christian prayer.
- assomption — The full dossier: detailed patristic tradition, the tomb at Gethsemane, deeper objections.
Main Sources
- Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus, apostolic constitution of 1 November 1950 (official text on vatican.va; AAS 42, 1950, pp. 753-773).
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, §§ 966, 974.
- Second Vatican Council, dogmatic constitution Lumen Gentium (1964), §§ 59, 68.
- Saint John Damascene, Homilies on the Dormition, ed. and trans. P. Voulet, Sources chrétiennes 80, Cerf, 1961.
Notes and References
Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus, § 27: reference to "the woman clothed with the sun whom John the Apostle contemplated on the island of Patmos" (Rev 12:1).
1 12The Byzantine historian Nicephorus Callistus Xanthopoulos (fourteenth century), Ecclesiastical History, XVII, 28 (PG 147, col. 292), reports that Emperor Maurice (582-602) fixed "the Dormition of the all-pure Mother of God on the fifteenth day of the month of August"; the great lectionary of Jerusalem places the feast at Gethsemane, "in the edifice of King Maurice" (M. Tarchnischvili, Le Grand Lectionnaire de l'Église de Jérusalem, Louvain, 1959-1960). A late testimony: the feast of the Dormition is attested before that date, in Syria from the first half of the sixth century (see S. P. Panagopoulos, "L'établissement de la fête de la Dormition de la Vierge Marie à l'époque byzantine", Mirabilia Journal 31, 2020/2, pp. 622-648, here pp. 628-632).
2 18Saint John Damascene, Homilies on the Dormition, preached at Gethsemane before the monument held to be the now-empty tomb of the Virgin; ed. P. Voulet, Sources chrétiennes 80, Cerf, 1961.
3 22Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus (1 November 1950), § 44, official text on vatican.va; Acta Apostolicae Sedis 42 (1950), p. 770. Original Latin: "pronuntiamus, declaramus et definimus divinitus revelatum dogma esse: Immaculatam Deiparam semper Virginem Mariam, expleto terrestris vitae cursu, fuisse corpore et anima ad caelestem gloriam assumptam."
4Saint Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, IIIa, q. 1, a. 2, resp.: he examines whether the Incarnation was necessary for the restoration of mankind and concludes that it was fitting ("conveniens fuit Deum incarnari"); this is the model of the ex convenientia argument taken up by the whole theology of the mysteries of Christ (text verified: newadvent.org/summa/4001.htm). Marian theology uses the same approach: the axiom "potuit, decuit, ergo fecit" ("he could do it, it was fitting that he do it, therefore he did it"), attributed to the Scotist tradition regarding the Immaculate Conception.
5Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus (1 November 1950), § 5, published French translation (official text: vatican.va): "Through a special privilege, the Virgin Mary overcame sin by her Immaculate Conception, and for this reason she was not subject to the law of remaining in the corruption of the tomb, nor did she have to wait until the end of the world for the redemption of her body." Latin text verified word for word on vatican.va: "Quae quidem, singulari prorsus privilegio, immaculata conceptione sua peccatum devicit, atque adeo legi illi permanendi in sepulcri corruptione obnoxia non fuit, neque corporis sui redemptionem usque in finem temporum exspectare debuit." (Acta Apostolicae Sedis 42, 1950, pp. 753-773; same French wording in the Latin-French bilingual edition, Laval théologique et philosophique 6/2, 1950).
6Saint John Damascene, Second Homily on the Dormition of the Virgin Mary, § 14 (the series of "It was fitting that…" on the fittingness of the Dormition); ed. and trans. P. Voulet, Sources chrétiennes 80, Cerf, 1961; Greek text: Patrologia Graeca 96 (Homily II). The two members quoted follow one another in this order, in the middle of a longer series of fittingnesses.
7Pius XII, Munificentissimus Deus, § 39: Mary as "New Eve" associated with the "New Adam" in the combat announced by the proto-Gospel (Gen 3:15). Latin verified on vatican.va: "Mariam Virginem a Sanctis Patribus veluti novam Hevam proponi novo Adae, etsi subiectam, arctissime coniunctam in certamine illo adversus inferorum hostem […] ad plenissimam […] victoriam de peccato ac de morte"; the English quoted in the body is translated from this Latin (the official French wording to be checked against the printed edition).
8Book of Genesis 3:15: the traditional proto-Gospel, announcing enmity between the serpent and the woman, between the serpent's offspring and hers.
9First Epistle to the Corinthians 15:20-23: Christ as "firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep"; "but each in his own order: first Christ, and then, at the coming of Christ, those who belong to him."
10Revelation 11:19–12:1. The chapter division is later than the text and should not obscure the continuity between the appearance of the Ark of the Covenant and that of the Woman crowned with twelve stars.
11Psalm 132 (131):8, in the form cited by Munificentissimus Deus, § 26 after the Vulgate (Ps 131:8): Latin verified on vatican.va, "Surge, Domine, in requiem tuam, tu et Arca sanctificationis tuae"; the English quoted in the body is translated from this Latin. This verse is applied by liturgical tradition and by Munificentissimus Deus (§ 26) to Mary's entrance, as the sanctified "Ark," into the glorious rest of the risen Lord.
13Gospel according to Saint Luke 1:28. The Greek participle kecharitōmenē denotes a full and enduring state of grace.
14Gospel according to Saint Luke 1:42: "Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb."
15Book of Genesis 5:24: "He walked with God, then he was no more, for God had taken him away." Cf. Heb 11:5.
16Second Book of Kings 2:11: "Then Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind."
17Louis Duchesne (ed.), Le Liber pontificalis. Texte, introduction et commentaire, vol. I, Paris, Thorin, 1886, notice LXXXVI (Sergius I), § XIV, p. 376: procession from Saint-Hadrian to Saint Mary Major for the feasts of the Annunciation, the Dormition, the Nativity of Mary and the Hypapante; Duchesne's commentary, p. 381: these feasts "were established in Rome in the course of the seventh century," imported from the East. A probable role of the Greek-born Pope Theodore I (642-649) in this reception: S. P. Panagopoulos, art. cit., p. 637.
19 20Council of Mainz (June 813), canon 36 "De festivitatibus anni", ed. A. Werminghoff, Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Concilia, vol. II/1, Hanover and Leipzig, 1906, pp. 269-270: "… nativitatem sancti Iohannis Baptistae, adsumptionem sanctae Mariae, dedicationem sancti Michahelis…". A capitulary slightly earlier than 813 still left the question to be examined ("De adsumptione sanctae Mariae interrogandum reliquimus", Capitula ecclesiastica, c. 19, ed. A. Boretius, MGH Capitularia vol. I, 1883, no. 81, p. 179); Mainz settled it by naming the Assumption among the feasts to be observed.
21Saint John Damascene, Second Homily on the Dormition, § 14 (PG 96, col. 741): "just as the holy and pure body […] rose from the tomb on the third day, she too had to be snatched from the tomb, and the mother associated with her Son"; ed. and trans. P. Voulet, Sources chrétiennes 80, Cerf, 1961 (Voulet page not recorded: the reference rests on PG 96, col. 741).
23Pius XII, encyclical letter Deiparae Virginis Mariae (1 May 1946), consulting the entire Catholic episcopate on the definability of the Assumption; the responses were close to unanimous, with the very great majority of bishops favorable. The figures are taken up in Munificentissimus Deus, §§ 8-12.
24Gospel according to Saint Matthew 16:18: "You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it."
25Catechism of the Catholic Church, § 966, official French text (Mame/Plon ed., 1992) reproduced on vatican.va (archive FRA0013); citing Lumen Gentium § 59 (cf. DS 3903 for the 1950 proclamation).
26Epistle to the Hebrews 9:27: "as it is appointed for men to die once, and then to be judged." The dogma of the Assumption leaves open the question of Mary's death and therefore does not contradict this verse.
27Second Vatican Council, dogmatic constitution Lumen Gentium (21 November 1964), § 68: the Mother of Jesus, already glorified in heaven body and soul, shines "as a sign of sure hope and comfort to the pilgrim People of God."
28Epistle to the Philippians 3:20-21: "our citizenship is in heaven [...]. He will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body."
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