* The tradition of the cave is found in some of the earliest Christian writers, e.g. Justin, Dial. 78; Orig. c. Cels.i. 61. It is supposed to have been derived from Is 3316 οὗτος οἰχήσει iv ὑψυλὼ σανυλαίω πίτρας ἰσχυρᾶς. See Blass, 1.6. p. 165.
+ This is referred to by Clem. Alex. Strom. 889, μετὰ τὸ rextiv αὐτὴν μαιωϊσάν φασί τινες παρθένον εὑρεθῆναι; οἷ. Jerome, adv. Pelag. 2, ‘Solus Christus clausas portas νυν virginalis
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and was punished for her impiety by the witnering of her hand, which was, however, restored on her repentance. On the third day after the birth, Mary moved from the cave to a stable, and place¢ the Child in a manger, where the ox and the ass worshipped Him, thus fulfilling the word of the rophet, ‘the ox knoweth his owner, and the ass nis master’s crib.’
The adoration of the Magi and the subsequent massacre of the Innocents are taken with little alteration from the Bible. But many fanciful additions are made in narrating the Journey to Egypt. Wild beasts play around the infant Saviour; trees bend down their branches to offer their fruit to Mary; springs burst forth at her need; the idols fall from their bases to the earth; the journey is miraculously shortened; lepers and demoniacs and sick people of all sorts are healea by being sprinkled with the water in which Mar had washed her Child, or by handkerchiefs whie He had touched. One of the most remarkable stories is that of the healing of a young man who had been turned by enchantment into a mule. His sisters having besought the Virgin’s help, she placed her Son on the mule, and at her prayer He restored the youth to his original shape. Another story relates to the two robbers who were after- wards crucified with Jesus. The one, called Titus,* had with difficulty prevented his fellow from giving the alarm as the Holy Family passed by. Mary thanked him, and prayed that he might receive forgiveness of his sins; whereupon Jesus answered, ‘After thirty years he shall be crucified on my right hand, and shall precede Me to Paradise.’ At the end of the third year they returned from Egypt to Nazareth. It is unnecessary to relate the miracles, trivial or even malicious, said to have been wrought there by the child Jesus. Joseph died when Jesus was eighteen years of age.
No further particulars of interest are added to the life of Mary, as recorded in the Bible, till after the resurrection, when Jesus is said to have appeared to her, first of all, accompanied by the patriarchs and prophets whom He had released from Hades.+ wo years later (other versions give 22 or 24 years) she was warned by an angel that her death was. approaching, and the apostles were all miraculously conveyed from various parts of the earth to be present at her bedside. Jesus Himself received her soul, and after three days her body was carried up by angels to heaven. St. Thomas, who had come too late for her death, was privileged to behold her ascension, and to receive her girdle as a sign of blessing.
In his note on Jn 19% Westcott says, ‘ Nothing is known with reasonable certainty of the later life of the mother of the Lord. Epiphanius was evidently unacquainted with any accepted tradi- tion on the subject (Her. 78). He leaves it in doubt whether she accompanied St. John to Asi« Minor or not. But in the course of time surmises
aperuit, que tamen clause jugiter permanserunt’; and, on the other side, Tertull. de Carne Christi, 23; Orig. Hom. 14 in Luc. ; Epiphan. Her. p. 1051.
* Evang. Infant. c. 23, elsewhere called Dysmas.
+ Pseudo-Ambrose, de Virginitate, i. 3.
t For the story of the death and Assumption, see the apocry- phal treatises de Transitu Marie, ascribed to St. John and te Melito. The earliest hint of such a belief among orthodox writersis to be found in Epiphanius (d. 403), who, while strongly censuring the heretical sect of the Collyridians for their worship of Mary (Panar. p. 1061), believes that some extraordinary mystery about her death is implied in the words of Rey (1214), “there were given to her eagle’s wings.’ Melito’s de Transitu was condemned as heretical in the decree de Libris Canonicis, attributed to Pope Gelasius, a.p. 494. The most recent state- ment of the Roman Catholic belief on this point will be found in Wilhelm and Scannel, vol. ii. p. 220: ‘ Mary’s corporeal assump- tion into heaven is so thoroughly implied in the notion of her personality as given by Bible and dogma, that the Church can dispense with strict historical evidence of the fact.’ Cf. alse Livius, Blessed Virgin, pp. 338-378.
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were converted into facts; and Nicephorus Callisti (te. 1350), Hist. Εἰ τοῖς ii. 3, relates that she lived with St. John at Jerusalem for eleven years after the death of the Lord, and died there in her 59th year. The site of the Tomb of the Virgin, just to the north of the Garden of Gethsemane, is not mentioned by any traveller of the first six centuries, and the later tradition that the church there was built by Helena is certainly false. See Quares- mius, ii. 240ff.; Williams, Holy City, ii. 434 ff. From a passage in a synodical letter of the Council of Ephesus (A.D. 431, Cone. iii. 573, Labbe) it appears that, according to another tradition, the mother of the Lord accompanied St. John to Ephesus, and was buried there.’ See, further, art. ‘Le lieu de la dormition de la Trés Sainte Vierge,’ by Pére Séjourné in Revue Biblique, Jan. 1899, p. 141 ff. The traditional site of the Dormitio Marve in Jerusalem was made over to the Emperor of Germany in 1898.