Being astounded at the miraculous mystery, they could form no
other thought, but that He, who in his own person had vouchsafed to be
clothed with flesh, and to be made man of the most holy Virgin, and to
be born in the flesh, God the Word, and Lord of Glory, and who after
birth had preserved her virginity immaculate, had seen it good after she
had departed from among the living, to honour her uncontaminated and
unpolluted body by a translation before the common and universal
resurrection."
Such is the passage offered to us in its insulated form, as an extract
from Euthymius. To be enabled, however, to estimate its worth, the
inquirer must submit to the labour of considerable research. He will not
have pursued his investigation far, before he will find, that a thick
cloud of uncertainty and doubt hangs over this page of ecclesiastical
history. Not that the evidence alleged in support of the reputed miracle
can leave us in doubt as to the credibility of the tradition; for that
tradition can scarcely be now countenanced by the most zealous and
uncompromising maintainers of the assumption of the Virgin. What I would
say is, that the question as to the genuineness and authenticity of the
works by which the tradition is said to have been preserved, is far more
difficult and complicated, than {309} those writers must have believed,
who appeal to such testimony without any doubt or qualification.
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