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CHAPTER IV.--COUNCILS OF CONSTANTINOPLE, EPHESUS, AND THE GENERAL
COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON


The legend on which the doctrine of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary is
founded professes to trace the tradition to Juvenal, Archbishop of
Jerusalem, when he was sojourning in Constantinople for the purpose of
attending the General Council of Chalcedon. To the Emperor and Empress,
who presided at that council, Juvenal is said to have communicated the
tradition, as received in Palestine, of the miraculous taking up of
Mary's body into heaven. This circumstance seems, as we have already
intimated, of itself, to require us to examine the records of that
Council, with the view of ascertaining whether any traces may be found
confirmatory of the tradition, or otherwise; and since that Council
cannot be regarded as an insulated assembly, but as a continuation
rather or resumption of the preceding minor Councils of Constantinople
and Ephesus, we must briefly refer to the occasion and nature generally
of that succession of Christian synods. I am not aware that in the
previous Councils any thing had transpired {319} which could be brought
as evidence on the subject of our inquiry. The questions which had
disturbed the peace of Christendom, and which were agitated in these
Councils, inseparable from a repeated mention of the Virgin Mary's name,
afforded an opportunity at every turn for an expression of the
sentiments of those who composed the Councils, and of all connected with
them, including the Bishop of Rome himself, towards her. It would be