Mary's Bodily Assumption

Matthew Levering

Description

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.

Sujets

• Religion
• Christianisme
• Vatican II
• Christian Theology
• Philosophie et théologie
• Benedicto XVI
• Mariology
• Roman Catholic theology
• Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange
• Pope Benedict XVI
• Second Vatican Council
• Pope Pius XII
• Pope John Paul II
• Catholic
• Christology
• Christianity
• Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange
• Lumen Gentium
• John Henry Newman
• Louis Bouyer
• Munificentissimus Deus
• Karl Rahner
• Benoît XVI
• Hans Urs von Balthasar
• IIe concile ?cuménique du Vatican

Informations

• Publié par: University of Notre Dame Press
• Date de parution: 24 novembre 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780268085834
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Mary’s Bodily Assumption
MATTHEW LEVERING
UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME PRESS
NOTRE DAME, INDIANA
Copyright © 2015 by the University of Notre Dame Press
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556
undpress.nd.edu
All Rights Reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Levering, Matthew, 1971– Mary’s bodily Assumption / Matthew Levering. pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-268-03390-3 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-268-03390-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Mary, Blessed Virgin, Saint—Assumption. 2. Catholic church—Doctrines. I. Title. BT630.L48 2014 232.91'4—dc23 2014033014 ∞ The paper in this book meets the guidelines for permanence and durability of the Committee on Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of the Council on Library Resources. -->
E-ISBN: 978-0-268-08583-4
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Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART I
CHAPTER 1 Twentieth-Century Magisterial Teaching on Mary and Her Assumption
CHAPTER 2 Early to Mid-Twentieth-Century Theologies of Mary’s Assumption
CHAPTER 3 The Nouvelle Théologie and Mary’s Assumption
PART II
CHAPTER 4 The Validity and Scope of Typological Exegesis
CHAPTER 5 The Authority of the Church as Interpreter of Revelation
CHAPTER 6 The Fittingness of Mary’s Assumption in God’s Economy of Salvation
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography Index -->
Acknowledgments
This book had its origin in a book review by Michael Allen of my Christ and the Catholic Priesthood . Michael gave a sympathetic survey of my arguments in that book, but he pointed out that in my defense of hierarchical order in the Church, I had not accounted for such things as the Marian dogmas. The challenge he gave me was to explain how the Catholic Church can teach dogmatically that Mary was assumed body and soul into heaven. Whether or not I have succeeded in the present book, I owe a large debt to Michael for his generous ecumenical question.
Jörgen Vijgen, on whose key eye and friendship I have relied for many years, read an early version of this manuscript and offered numerous helpful corrections, as did Sean Fagan, who brought to bear his Lutheran and Orthodox theological training. Hans Boersma read an early draft and, without being persuaded by the arguments, was both encouraging and critical in ways that improved the manuscript. Andrew Hofer, O.P., prompted me to add chapter 6 and to rewrite the introduction, among other crucial contributions. This book could not have gone forward without Fr. Hofer’s generous help. Matthew Olver, an Episcopalian priest who is now undertaking a doctorate at Marquette University, provided me with a lengthy and rich set of corrections and suggestions. I fear to think how much poorer this book would have been without his careful work. He and I first spoke about this topic (and this manuscript) at a meeting of the Wilken Colloquium at Baylor University, and I am grateful to Thomas Hibbs for hosting the Wilken Colloquium and thereby making such conversations possible. Thanks also to three superb doctoral students: Elizabeth Farnsworth for preparing the bibliography and Alan Mostrom and Jason Heron for assisting me in obtaining articles.
Chuck Van Hof shepherded this manuscript through the University of Notre Dame Press. I thank him for his friendship and encouragement. The two readers for the Press offered very helpful suggestions; one remained anonymous and the other was John Betz. With gratitude, let me observe that John is a theologian who cares about the souls of his students and colleagues, and this book benefited from his spiritual sensitivity. During the copyediting phase, Elizabeth Sain improved the manuscript in a large number of ways, for which I am thankful.
Part of chapter 3 appeared as “Mary in the Theology of Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI,” in Explorations in the Theology of Benedict XVI , edited by John C. Cavadini (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012): 276–97. I gratefully acknowledge John Cavadini’s invitation to speak at a conference of the same name. His friendship is one of the real fruits of this book. Part of chapter 4 appeared as “Readings on the Rock: Typological Exegesis in Contemporary Scholarship,” Modern Theology 28 (2012): 707–31. An excerpt from this chapter was originally delivered at a conference at Regent College co-organized by Hans Boersma and me, and funded by a grant from the Association of Theological Schools. One of the conference attendees was Jim Fodor, and he graciously helped to get my article and other conference papers published in a special issue of Modern Theology that Hans and I coedited.
Further debts during the period of this manuscript’s preparation are too numerous to name, but let me at least acknowledge the friendship and encouragement given to me during this period by, among others, Lewis Ayres, Todd Billings, Michael Carter, Romanus Cessario, O.P., Reinhard Hütter, Guy Mansini, O.S.B., Bruce Marshall, David Meconi, S.J., Francesca Murphy, François Rossier, S.M., Michele Schumacher, Jared Staudt, Michael Vanderburgh, Thomas Joseph White, O.P., and Bill Wright.
Right before this book was accepted for publication by the University of Notre Dame Press, I received a job offer from Fr. Robert Barron, rector of Mundelein Seminary and an extraordinary evangelist, scholar, and friend. I owe the privilege of working at Mundelein Seminary also to Francis Cardinal George and to Jim and Molly Perry. Many thanks, too, to Fr. Thomas Baima, academic dean of the seminary, and to Melanie Barrett, Fr. Emery de Gaál, Denis McNamara, the late (and greatly missed) Edward Oakes, S.J., and numerous other faculty and staff who welcomed me and my family so generously.
My wife and dearest friend, Joy Levering, is the center and star of our family. Her strong and mature faith, hard work, and love of our children and her friends are extraordinary. Thank you, dearly beloved Joy!
I dedicate this book to Hans and Gerald Boersma. Beginning in 2009, Hans and I have undertaken a number of joint projects whose main purpose is Catholic-Evangelical dialogue. Hans has been a wonderful friend, and I was able to teach Gerald during his master’s degree, prior to his PhD under Lewis Ayres. Gerald is now established as a professor of theology and inspires all who meet him with the joy that he, like Hans, takes in being a Christian theologian.
Introduction
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. 1 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. 2 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.” 3 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. 4
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.” 5 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. 6
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. 7 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. 8 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. 9 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 unde