Since the seventh and eighth centuries A.D., when belief in Mary?s Assumption took firm root in the Eastern and Western churches, Catholic and Orthodox Christians have borne witness to the reality that Mary, the mother of Jesus, was assumed body and soul into heaven after her death. According to Catholic and Orthodox faith, Mary?s body did not corrupt in the grave but was assumed into heaven, which explains why the Church never possessed relics of Mary?s body. Beginning in the fifth century with such works as Jacob of Serug?s Homily on the Dormition? and earlier still with the Liber Requiei, a Gnostic Christian narrative? legends existed about the miraculous transition of Mary?s body to heaven. Although liturgical celebrations of Mary?s Assumption employed imagery taken from these legends, however, the Church?s faith in Mary?s Assumption is not based on the legends. Rather, the Church?s faith generated the legends, which were always a secondary element in the Church?s meditation upon the Mother of God under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Thus, as René Laurentin explains, ?the Assumption is not the object of a historical tradition of apostolic origin, but of a dogmatic explicitation rooted in reflection on the whole of revelation.

? This point is also made in Pope Pius XII?s Munificentissimus Deus (1950), which defined Mary?s Assumption as a dogma of faith. Rather than being manifested publicly in a manner accessible to historians, Mary?s Assumption was an event whose historical reality the Holy Spirit taught the Church over time. For this reason, the testimony proper to Mary?s Assumption is to be found in Scripture and no new public testimony is required. Metropolitan Kallistos Ware has rightly observed that Mary?s Assumption ?is not to be regarded as a further truth added to the truths already found in Scripture. Rather, it is the fruit of the assimilation of those Scriptural truths under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.? In this process of assimilation, once Mary was proclaimed ?Theotokos? at the Council of Ephesus in 431, the doctrine of Mary?s bodily Assumption soon entered into Christian consciousness. Today, faith in Mary?s Assumption rests upon three scriptural pillars: the role of typological reasoning in the New Testament?s portrait of the mother of Jesus Christ and in our understanding of her mission; the Church?s authority as interpreter of divine revelation under the guidance of the Holy Spirit; and the fittingness of the Assumption of Mary within God?s carefully orchestrated plan for salvation. Rather than focusing on the historical development of the doctrine, the present book examines each of these pillars of the doctrine of Mary?s Assumption.

My goal is to set forth the rationale for belief in Mary?s Assumption, with a particular eye to those who do not understand how contemporary Christians could believe such a thing. As a work of systematic and ecumenical theology, this study contributes to a discussion that has somewhat lapsed in recent years; the last book published in English on Mary?s Assumption appeared over thirty years ago. During this same time period, however, Protestant (and especially Evangelical) interest in Mary has increased significantly, and so I am hoping that the time is ripe for an introductory book such as this one. Many Catholics today also do not understand the rationale for this doctrine. I have structured the book in two parts of three chapters each. The first, historical part introduces the vibrant twentieth-century Catholic discussions of Mary?s Assumption, as found respectively in the Church?s Magisterial teaching, neoscholastic theology, and the nouvelle théologie. These three chapters are largely expository, although I indicate what I consider to be the more fruitful approaches. The writings examined in these chapters provide a helpful introduction to the patristic, medieval, neoscholastic, and twentieth-century background of the doctrine of Mary?s Assumption.

Most importantly, this first part displays the three pillars at work: as we will see, neoscholastic theology and preconciliar Magisterial teaching tend to emphasize the authority of the Church and doctrinal fittingness (although biblical typology is certainly present as well), whereas the nouvelle théologie and postconciliar Magisterial teaching tend to emphasize biblical typology, indeed sometimes to the neglect of the other two pillars. The second, constructive part investigates and defends each of the three pillars of the doctrine of Mary?s Assumption. In this second part, each chapter begins with a consideration of Blessed John Henry Newman?s teaching on Mary, both because of his appreciation for the three pillars and because belief in Mary?s Assumption involves what Newman calls ?converging? or ?accumulated? probabilities. I hope to show that when taken together, the three pillars provide sound scriptural and theological foundations for Christian belief in Mary?s Assumption. I should note at the outset that although this book is about Mary?s Assumption, the book also discusses other Marian doctrines in passing, such as Mary?s Immaculate Conception, perpetual virginity, and sinlessness, as well as Marian titles such as Co-Redemptrix. The theological writings and Church documents that I survey in the first three chapters speak of these topics, and so they inevitably make their way into my book. But rather than entering into the debate about each of the Marian doctrines, I focus on articulating the rationale for Mary?s Assumption, both because it is one of the most controversial Marian doctrines (especially in Protestant-Catholic dialogue) and because I wish to understand it better myself. (Excerpted from Introduction).