How the Assumption saved Malta during WWII

Abstract

While some Catholics and some biblical scholars from other traditions argue that Revelation 12 reflects the Assumption of the Virgin, the New Testament may otherwise be silent on the end Mary’s life on earth. “When the dragon saw that it had been thrown down to the earth, it pursued the woman who had given birth to the male child. But the woman was given the two wings of the great eagle, so that she could fly to her place in the desert, where, far from the serpent,…” (Revelation 12: 13-14). However, several early apocryphal sources, such as Transitus Mariae or Passing of Mary, the earliest extant historical writings on the Assumption, describe her death and burial in Jerusalem. The oldest of these, believed to have been composed in the 2nd century by Leucius Karinus, a disciple of John, is thought to be based on an original document from the apostolic era, and possibly by the Evangelist himself.