Nadir,
As to your question of why there should be any mention of a grave or a tomb, you’re missing the point. One more time… It is theoretically IMPOSSIBLE that a tomb wherein the Mother of God was not only laid to rest, but from where she later rose body and soul into Heaven, to have been completely forgotten. And this, in the very city which boasted the greatest number of Christian pilgrims in the ancient world – Jerusalem itself. And not only was there nowhere to be found any apparent location of her death and Assumption, but there existed not even the faintest whiff of an account that even remotely hinted of her death, or any events leading up to it. No tomb. No story. No account whatsoever. Nothing. How is it you don’t understand? I’m giving you the cold, hard facts – facts which (via simple common logic) disprove the possibility of your position. Were we in a court of law, your argument would be tossed out the window. It cannot stand up in light of the facts.
Think about this for a moment: there exists today the remains of a church reputed to have been the largest in the early centuries of Christianity. It was built to honor the location where Our Blessed Lady sat down to rest on her journey to Egypt. Where she did nothing but sit down to rest. Certainly you grasp the scope and depth of Marian devotion among faithful Catholics. How then could you imagine the location of her tomb and bodily Assumption to have been completely forgotten about – in Jerusalem, no less – and in a very short amount of time? And not only the location to have vanished, but any account of the event was forgotten as well? It’s theoretically impossible. The non-existence of a tomb is solid evidence that the entire story of her death is nothing more than the elaborate concoction of a man – and a man who believed Mary suffered from sin and deterioration.
Moreover, until this concocted story of her supposed death appeared in the 6th century, the prevailing belief seems to have been that Mary was simply taken up to Heaven as was Elijah. As I wrote in the opening post, St. Epiphanius went to Jerusalem in the 4th century for the purpose of visiting the holy sights. He said that there was no story whatsoever surrounding Mary’s departure from this earth. Nothing at all. Not a word. Much less was there any tomb to venerate. Commenting around the same time period, Timothy of Jerusalem was unaware of any account describing Mary’s supposed death – and he LIVED in Jerusalem. Certainly he would have heard something? No. He believed the same as St. Epiphanius. John of Thessolonica, of the same period, believed likewise.
It would seem to me that the original “innovative” opinion on the matter came with St. John the Theologian – that of Mary’s actual bodily death. This is the first time anyone ever heard of such a story. And why not, for there existed absolutely no evidence of this event anywhere on earth – not even in Jerusalem, where it was supposed to have taken place.
And as for your quoted statements by Pius XII, certainly you recognize that the personal opinion of Pius XII hardly represents the “Teaching of the Church”. His statements regarding Mary’s bodily death were simply expressed as his own personal opinion. They have no binding or dogmatic force whatsoever. In his statements specifically regarding Mary’s Assumption, he only makes an ambiguous statement to the effect that her time on earth came to an end. He never made any statement as to her bodily death, as anyone can read. In fact, one could easily argue that the very reason WHY he didn’t specifically mention her bodily death in his official statement, was because the Holy Ghost prevented him from doing so…
Topic: Mary died? Where did that story come from? (Read 2827 times)