passage quoted by Damascenus is not found.

The editor of John Damascenus, Le Quien, in his annotations on this
portion of his work, offers to us some very interesting remarks, which
bear immediately on the agitated question as to the first observance of
the feast of the Assumption, as well as on the tradition itself. Le
Quien infers, from the words of Modestus, patriarch of Jerusalem, that
scarcely any preachers before him had addressed their congregations on
the departure of the Virgin out of this life; he thinks, moreover, that
the Feast of the Assumption was at the commencement of the seventh
century only recently instituted. Though all later writers affirm that
the Virgin was buried in the valley of Jehoshaphat, in the garden of
Gethsemane, the same editor says, that this could not have been known to
Jerome, who passed a great part of his life in Bethlehem, and yet
observes a total silence on the subject; though in his "Epitaph on
Paula," [Jerome, Paris, 1706. Vol. iv. p. 670-688, ep. 86.] he
enumerates all the places in Palestine consecrated by any remarkable
event. Neither, he adds, could it have been known to Epiphanius, who,
though he lived long in Palestine, yet declares that nothing was known
as to the death or burial of the Virgin. [Vol. ii, p. 858.]

Again, in his remarks upon the writings falsely attributed to Melito,
the same editor says, that since this Pseudo-Melito speaks many jejune
things of the Virgin Mary, (such for example as at the approach of death
her exceeding fear of being exposed to the wiles of Satan,) he
concludes, from that circumstance, that the work was written before the
Council of Ephesus; alleging this very remarkable reason, that "after
that {312} time there BEGAN TO BE ENTERTAINED, as was right, not only in
the East, but also in the West, a far better estimate of the parent of
God." [P. 880.]