Mary's Bodily Assumption

Matthew Levering

• Publisher: University of Notre Dame Press
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780268085834
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Marian Theology

In Mary's Bodily Assumption, Matthew Levering presents a contemporary explanation and defense of the Catholic doctrine of Mary's bodily Assumption. He asks: How does the Church justify a doctrine that does not have explicit biblical or first-century historical evidence to support it? With the goal of exploring this question more deeply, he divides his discussion into two sections, one historical and the other systematic.

Levering's historical section aims to retrieve the rich Mariological doctrine of the mid-twentieth century. He introduces the development of Mariology in Catholic Magisterial documents, focusing on Pope Pius XII's encyclical Munificentissimus Deus of 1950, in which the bodily Assumption of Mary was dogmatically defined, and two later Magisterial documents, Vatican II's Lumen Gentium and Pope John Paul II's Redemptoris Mater. Levering addresses the work of the neo-scholastic theologians Joseph Duhr, Aloïs Janssens, and Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange before turning to the great theologians of the nouvelle théologie —Karl Rahner, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Louis Bouyer, Joseph Ratzinger—and their emphasis on biblical typology. Using John Henry Newman as a guide, Levering organizes his systematic section by the three pillars of the doctrine on which Mary's Assumption rests: biblical typology, the Church as authoritative interpreter of divine revelation under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and the fittingness of Mary's Assumption in relation to the other mysteries of faith.

Levering's ecumenical contribution is a significant engagement with Protestant biblical scholars and theologians; it is also a reclamation of Mariology as a central topic in Catholic theology.

PART I

CHAPTER 1

Twentieth-Century Magisterial Teaching on Mary and Her Assumption

In part due to the dogmatic definition of Mary’s Immaculate Conception in 1854, the early decades of the twentieth century witnessed a widespread popular movement in Catholicism to define Mary’s Assumption as a dogma of faith. When Pope Pius XII did this in 1950, he did so using the fruits of historical research combined with neoscholastic theological arguments. Historical and dogmatic studies of Mary’s Assumption proliferated in the two decades before the definition. These studies generally agreed that the Church’s reasoning need not rest upon a quest for historical evidence from the earliest centuries in favor of the doctrine’s truth. Certainly, in order to be dogmatically defined, the doctrine of Mary’s Assumption must belong to Christ Jesus’ communication of the “deposit of faith” to the apostles. Yet the doctrine of Mary’s Assumption could be implicitly rather than explicitly present in this apostolic deposit (Scripture and the early witnesses to Tradition). Furthermore, almost all Catholic theologians considered the consistent affirmation of this doctrine by the ordinary magisterium of the Church since the late patristic period to provide secure evidence that the Assumption of Mary belongs to the faith that Jesus Christ wills to communicate to us. For most Catholic theologians of the period, then, the main purpose of the dogmatic definition was simply to underscore the importance of Mary’s Assumption for our understanding of salvation. Namely, the way in which Christ Jesus involves a mere creature, Mary, in the mysteries of the new creation reveals to us the power of Christ’s love, which operates through and rewards human cooperation with God in prayer and suffering.

Beginning with Pope Pius XII’s Munificentissiumus Deus and ending with the Magisterial teaching on Mary of Pope John Paul II, the present chapter traces developments in the second half of the twentieth century with respect to how the Church should account for the truth and significance of the doctrine of Mary’s Assumption. After the dogmatic definition of 1950, Marian devotion remained a significant part of Catholic life—witness the Marian Year celebrated by Pius XII in 1954—but theological currents soon began to shift quickly. The debate at the Second Vatican Council over whether to include a separate document on Mary produced the closest vote of the Council. The result was the decision to integrate the discussion of Mary into the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium. By the early 1960s, the leading young theologians were persuaded that the articulation of the Marian dogmas needed to be done in the context of ecclesiology and needed to be more explicitly biblical and typological in approach. As we will see, the treatment in Lumen Gentium of Mary’s motherhood and her mission as the new Eve is nonetheless, in many respects, much like what one finds in theological writings on Mary from the 1940s. Yet unlike Munificentissimus Deus, whose purpose is simply to proclaim and define the doctrine of Mary’s Assumption to which centuries of Catholic piety and theology bear witness, Lumen Gentium places Mary’s Assumption fully within the context of the Church’s other teachings about Mary and refers more directly to the concrete biblical portraits of Mary’s life.

This effort to exposit Marian doctrine by following the order of the New Testament’s references to Mary’s life appears even more prominently in Pope John Paul II’s 1987 encyclical on Mary, Redemptoris Mater.1 By 1987, the Catholic Church was undergoing significant turmoil among both priests and laity with respect to a variety of doctrinal and moral teachings, including Marian doctrine. A major purpose of Redemptoris Mater is to reintroduce the Church’s Marian doctrine in a persuasive way, drawing heavily upon Lumen Gentium. Redemptoris Mater proceeds upon the supposition that the best way to reignite the Church’s faith in the Marian doctrines, including the doctrine of Mary’s Assumption, is to root them ever more clearly and deeply in Scripture. At the same time, the basic claims of Munificentissimus Deus are fully retained, not least because Munificentissimus Deus, too, is deeply cognizant of biblical typology and of the typological reasoning at work among the saints and doctors who over the centuries defended the doctrine of Mary’s Assumption.

The present chapter is the first of three chapters in which I survey the extraordinarily vibrant twentieth-century Catholic discussion of Mary. This twentieth-century discussion involved not only the highest levels of the Magisterium but also the greatest Catholic theologians of the period. As will be clear, the insights of this fertile period both situate and ground my own ecumenical effort to engage Mary’s Assumption in the second part of this book. Looking forward, I should note that the arguments of Munificentissimus Deus should largely be paired with my second chapter, which focuses on studies of Mary’s Assumption published in the years leading up to the 1950 definition. The arguments of Lumen Gentium and Redemptoris Mater should be paired more closely with chapter three, which presents the Marian teaching of four eminent Catholic theologians broadly associated with the nouvelle théologie.

Munificentissimus Deus: Mary’s Privilege of Bodily Assumption

At the outset of Munificentissimus Deus, Pope Pius XII speaks of the sorrows and joys of his time.2 Having recently emerged from World War II and the Holocaust, Pius XII clearly has reason to speak of sorrows. Among the joys, he names the increase of devotion to the Virgin Mary, in accord with the “harmony of graces” that God gave her (§ 3). Affirming the development of doctrine, he points out that “it is in our own age that the privilege of the bodily Assumption into heaven of Mary, the Virgin Mother of God, has certainly shone forth more clearly” (§ 3). While the deposit of faith does not change, nonetheless the Holy Spirit guides the Church in perceiving more fully the content of faith. In particular, Pius XII suggests, the definition of the dogma of Mary’s Immaculate Conception has stimulated reflection on Mary’s Assumption. Since God’s plan of salvation forms a wise and harmonious whole, certain consequences follow from Mary’s Immaculate Conception. God’s perfect redemption of Mary from sin meant that “she 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” (§ 5).3 It was fitting for her to be assumed bodily into heaven prior to the general resurrection.

Pius XII goes on to mention the many bishops, theologians, and groups of laity that, ever since the definition of Mary’s Immaculate Conception, urged the pope to define Mary’s Assumption. In 1946, in his Deiparae Virginis Mariae, Pius XII asked the bishops whether they, with their dioceses, desired Mary’s Assumption to be defined. With almost complete unanimity, the bishops answered in the affirmative. Pius XII had thereby been able to perceive “the concordant teaching of the Church’s ordinary doctrinal authority and the concordant faith of the Christian people which the same doctrinal authority sustains and directs” (§ 12).4 After emphasizing that this teaching belongs to the deposit of faith that Christ delivered to the Church, Pius XII turns briefly to the biblical portrait of Mary. He focuses upon her participation in Christ’s Cross, as foretold by Simeon: “[A] sword will pass through your own soul also” (Lk 2:35). Her unique participation in Christ’s Cross makes fitting her unique participation in his Resurrection.

Although Mary certainly “passed from this life” (§ 14), Christians over the centuries understood with increasing clarity that her body did not corrupt in the grave. Pius XII notes in this regard the many ancient churches dedicated to Mary’s Assumption, the icons depicting the Assumption, the religious institutes dedicated to the Assumption, the rosary’s inclusion of the Assumption, and above all the liturgical feast commemorating the Assumption. Both the Roman liturgy and the Byzantine liturgy have included such a feast for more than a millennium, and the popes have gradually increased the solemnity of this feast.5 Pius XII also mentions the testimony of late-patristic theologians, especially John of Damascus and Germanus of Constantinople.

Examining the ways in which scholastic theologians defended Mary’s Assumption, Pius XII observes that they began with the doctrine’s accordance with the other truths of God’s salvific economy. The scholastic theologians especially focused on her divine motherhood, from which follows her holiness, her intimate union with Christ, and the love that Christ particularly owes to his mother. In addition to these arguments, they also employed biblical texts to shed light on the truth of Mary’s Assumption. As Pius XII puts it, they were “rather free in their use of events and expressions taken from Sacred Scripture to explain their belief in the Assumption” (§ 26). Among the biblical passages that they interpreted typologically in favor of Mary’s Assumption, he cites Psalm 132:8, “Arise, O Lord, and go to thy resting place, thou and the ark of thy might”; Exodus 25:10–16 (about the ark of the covenant); Psalm 45:13–15, “The princess is decked in her chamber with gold-woven robes; in many-colored robes she is led to the king. . . . With joy and gladness they are led along as they enter the palace of the king”; Isaiah 60:13–14, “I will make the place of my feet glorious. . . . All who despised you shall bow down at your feet; they shall call you the City of the Lord, the Zion of the Holy One of Israel”; and Song of Solomon 3:6, 11, “What is that coming up from the wilderness, like a column of smoke, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense, with all the fragrant powders of the merchant? . . . Go forth, O daughters of Zion, and behold King Solomon, with the crown with which his mother crowned him on the day of his wedding, on the day of the gladness of his heart.” Mary is the typological fulfillment of these texts: she is the true ark of the covenant and the true Queen Mother, now enthroned by the side of her Son.

Pius XII also notes that scholastic theologians considered Revelation 12 to be a typological depiction of Mary’s Assumption, especially its presentation of “a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars” (Rev 12:1).6 In the angel Gabriel’s greeting to Mary as “full of grace” and in Elizabeth’s testimony that Mary is blessed among women, scholastic theologians likewise saw indications that Mary, as the new Eve, had been rewarded with a share in Christ’s victory. Pius XII quotes Amadeus of Lausanne, Anthony of Padua, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure, and Bernadino of Siena. Among baroque theologians, he cites Robert Bellarmine, Francis de Sales, Peter Canisius, and Francisco Suárez. These theologians, he says, based their arguments in favor of Mary’s Assumption “upon the Sacred Scriptures as their ultimate foundation” (§ 38).7

Pius XII continues by remarking that, in the Scriptures, these theologians found that Mary was always associated with her Son, “always sharing his lot” (§ 38). They therefore found it to be supremely fitting that her Son would take his mother to dwell, body and soul, in heaven with him. Indeed, at a human level, “it seems impossible to think of her, the one who conceived Christ, brought him forth, nursed him with her milk, held him in her arms, and clasped him to her breast, as being apart from him in body, even though not in soul, after this life” (§ 38). When viewed from this angle, the Assumption of Mary shows Jesus honoring his parents, in obedience to the commandment. In this way Munificentissimus Deus makes room for the broadly sentimental arguments of fittingness that, while of lesser theological weight, have a notable late-patristic and medieval pedigree as exemplifications of Mary’s extraordinary intimacy with Jesus.8

Pius XII emphasizes that since the second century, on the basis of numerous biblical texts, theologians have understood Mary as the new Eve, associated with Christ the new Adam. As he recalls, in Genesis 3:15 (the “protoevangelium”) God prophesies, “I will put enmity between you [the serpent] and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” This passage is not a “just-so” story about the conflict between snakes and humans.9 Rather, it prophesies the struggle that “would finally result in that most complete victory over the sin and death which are always mentioned together in the writings of the Apostle of the Gentiles” (§ 39), for example in Romans 5–6 and 1 Corinthians 15. Through his Cross, the new Adam won the victory and was glorified in the flesh. At the foot of the Cross, Mary participates in his sufferings, and the glorification of her body means that she shares uniquely in his victory too. In this regard Pius XII applies 1 Corinthians 15:54 to Mary: “When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory’” (§ 39). As the mother of her Son and the new Eve, “the noble associate of the divine Redeemer who has won a complete triumph over sin and its consequences,” Mary now “sits in splendor at the right hand of her Son, the immortal King of the Ages” (§ 40).

In addition to these arguments from doctrinal fittingness and from biblical typology, Pius XII appeals to the authority of the Church. Prior to its definition as a dogma of faith, Mary’s Assumption was taught by the ordinary magisterium “over the course of centuries” (§ 41). Although the dogma was not clear in the earliest Church, nonetheless “[v]arious testimonies, indications and signs of this common belief of the Church are evident from remote times down through the course of centuries” (§ 13). Indicating the diverse foundations of the dogma, he states that it is a “truth which is based on the Sacred Scriptures, which is thoroughly rooted in the minds of the faithful, which has been approved in ecclesiastical worship from the most remote times, which is completely in harmony with other revealed truths, and which has been expounded and explained magnificently in the work, the science, and the wisdom of the theologians” (§ 41). He concludes with the hope that the definition of the dogma will strengthen believers’ willingness to follow Christ, by helping us to “see clearly to what a lofty goal our bodies and souls are destined” and by strengthening our faith in bodily resurrection (§ 42). He likewise hopes that the dogma will undermine materialist worldviews such as those that produced the recent war.

There is a tendency today to depreciate theological arguments made in the period before the Second Vatican Council.10 This is a mistake that we should not replicate here. The generally indirect way in which Munificentissimus Deus references the narrative of Scripture with regard to Mary and the more frequent appeals to ecclesiastical authority do indeed distinguish it from more recent Church documents on Mary. But it would be a mistake to conclude that this difference reflects poorly upon Munificentissimus Deus, which simply has different strengths. In setting forth the three pillars of biblical typology, Church authority, and doctrinal fittingness, Munificentissimus Deus devotes a good bit of attention to the defense of the doctrine by the saints and doctors of the Church, who very frequently employed typological interpretation of Scripture and whose profound faith encouraged them to...