[Narrative falsely attributed to Joseph of Arimathea]
Among the many things that the mother inquired about her son during the time that preceded the passion of the Lord, are those referring to his transition, about which she began to ask him in these terms: Oh dearest son! I pray to your Holiness. that, when the time comes for my soul to leave the body, let me know three days in advance; and then you, dear son, take care of her in the company of your angels.
He, for his part, accepted the supplication of his dear mother and said to her: “O habitation and temple of the living God, oh blessed mother, oh queen of all saints and blessed among all women!, before you took me away.” In your womb, I kept you continually and fed you with my angelic delicacy, as you know. How can I abandon you, after having gestated and fed me, after having taken me on the flight to Egypt and having suffered many anguish for me? Know, then, that my angels have always guarded you and will continue to guard you until the moment of your passage. But after I have suffered for men according to what is written and after I have risen on the third day and ascended to heaven at the end of forty days, when you see me coming to meet you in the company of the angels and archangels , of the saints, of the virgins and of my disciples, know for certain then that the time has come when your soul will be separated from the body and transferred by me to heaven, where it will never experience the slightest tribulation or anguish ».
Then she was filled with joy and glory, she kissed her son’s knees and blessed the Creator of heaven and earth, who had given her such a gift through Jesus Christ, her son.
During the second year after the ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ, the most blessed Virgin Mary used to devote herself assiduously and constantly to prayer night and day. But on the eve of her death she received a visit from an angel of the Lord, who greeted her saying: «God save you, Mary; full of grace; The Lord is with you. She, for her part, replied: “Thanks be to God.” He took her word again to say: “Receive this palm that was promised to you by the Lord.” She then, overflowing with joy and gratitude to God, took from the angel’s hands the palm that had been sent to her. And the angel of the Lord said to her: “Three days from now your assumption will take place.” To which she replied: “Thanks be to God.”
Then he called Joseph of Arimathea and other disciples of the Lord. And when these had gathered, as well as his own acquaintances and relatives, he announced to all those present his imminent transit. Then the blessed (virgin) Mary cleaned herself and dressed herself like a queen and waited for the arrival of her son, in accordance with his promise. And she begged all her relatives to guard her and provide him with (some) solace from her. She had three virgins next to her: Zipporah, Abigaea and Zael. But the disciples of our Lord Jesus Christ were already dispersed throughout the entire world to evangelize the people of God.
At that time (it was then terce time), while the queen [holy] Mary was in her chamber, there were great thunders, rains, lightning, tribulation and earthquakes. The apostle and evangelist John was transferred from Ephesus; He entered the room where the blessed [virgin] Mary was and greeted her with these words: «God save you, Mary; full of grace; the Lord is with you“. She in turn responded: ”Thanks be to God"; and she, rising, gave Juan a kiss. Then he said to him: O dearest son, why have you abandoned me for so long and have you not heeded the order that your Master gave you regarding my custody, as he commanded you while I was awaiting the cross? » He then, falling on his knees, began to ask her forgiveness. And the blessed [virgin] Mary blessed him and kissed him again.
And, when he was about to ask him where he came from or for what reason he had appeared in Jerusalem, behold, (suddenly) all the disciples of the blessed [virgin] Mary were carried in a cloud to the door of the chamber. Sir, except Thomas the so-called Didymus. They stopped, then, and then entered and worshiped her queen, greeting her with these words: “God save you, Mary; full of grace; the Lord is with you". She then rose eagerly; and, bowing, he kissed them and thanked God.
Here are the names of the Lord’s disciples who were carried there in a cloud: John the evangelist and his brother James: Peter and Paul; Andrew, Philip, Luke, Barnabas; Bartholomew and Matthew; Matthias, nicknamed the Just; Simon Canaanite; Judas and his brother; Nicodemus and Maximian, and many others, finally, that cannot be counted.
Then the blessed [virgin] Mary said to her brothers: “Why have you all come to Jerusalem?” Peter responded in this way: Do you ask us, since it was you to whom we should ask? For me it is certain that no one among us knows the reason why we have presented ourselves here so quickly. I have been in Antioch and now I am here. And everyone indicated the place where they had been that day, being overwhelmed with admiration to see themselves present there upon hearing such reports.
The blessed [virgin] Mary told them: «Before my son suffered the passion, I begged him that both he and you would attend my death, a grace that was granted to me. Therefore you must know that tomorrow my transit will take place. Watch and pray with me so that, when the Lord comes to take charge of my soul, he finds you awake." Then they all gave their word to remain vigilant. And they spent the entire night in vigil and worship, singing psalms and singing hymns, accompanied by great luminaries.
When Sunday arrived, and at the third hour, Christ came down accompanied by a multitude of angels, in the same way that the Holy Spirit had descended on the apostles in a cloud, and received the soul of his beloved mother. And while the angels were singing that passage from the Song of Songs in which the Lord says: “As the lily among thorns, so my friend among daughters,” there came such a radiance and such a sweet perfume that all the bystanders fell upon their faces. faces (in the same way that the apostles fell when Christ was transfigured in their presence on Tabor), and for an hour and a half no one was able to get up.
But, at the same time that the radiance began to retreat, the assumption into heaven of the soul of the blessed Virgin Mary began among psalmodies, hymns and the echoes of the Song of Songs. And, when the cloud began to rise, the entire earth trembled, and in an instant all the inhabitants of Jerusalem could clearly perceive the death of Saint Mary.
But at that very moment Satan penetrated inside them, and they began to wonder what they would do with [Mary’s] body. And so they provided themselves with weapons to set fire to the corpse and kill the apostles, since [they thought] that she [Mary] had been the cause of the dispersion of Israel, [which had come about] due to their own sins and through the conspiracy of the Gentiles. But they were attacked by blindness and came to hit their heads against the walls and each other.
Then the apostles, dismayed by such great clarity, rose to the beat of the psalmody and the transfer of the holy corpse from Mount Zion to the valley of Jehoshaphat began. But, when they reached the middle of the road, behold, a certain Jew by the name of Reuben came out to them, intending to throw the coffin to the ground along with the body of the blessed [virgin] Mary. But suddenly his hands became dry up to the elbow; and, by choice or by force, he had to go down to the valley of Jehoshaphat, crying and sobbing when he saw that his hands had remained rigid and adhered to the coffin and that he was not able to draw them back to him.
Then he begged the apostles to grant him health and become a Christian through their prayers. They then bowed their knees and begged the Lord to deliver him. At that very moment he was, in fact, cured and began to thank God and kiss the soles of the Queen and all the saints and apostles. He was immediately baptized in that place and began to preach the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Afterwards the apostles placed the body in the tomb with all kinds of honors and began to cry and sing, due to the excessive love and sweetness. Suddenly they saw themselves surrounded by a heavenly light and fell prostrate to the ground, while the holy corpse was carried to heaven in the hands of angels.
Then the blessed Thomas suddenly felt transported to Mount Olivet; and, seeing how the blessed body was heading towards heaven, he began to cry out, saying: “O holy mother, blessed mother, immaculate mother! If I have found favor in your eyes, since it is given to me to contemplate you, have -a ”It is good for your goodness to make your servant happy, since you are going on your way to heaven." And at the same moment the belt with which the apostles had girded the most holy body [of Mary] was thrown from above to the blessed Thomas. Upon receiving it in his hands, he kissed it, and, giving thanks to God, he returned to the valley of Jehoshaphat.
And he found all the apostles and a large crowd beating their breasts, overwhelmed as they were by the brilliance they had seen. And, after they had met and given the kiss [of peace] to each other, the blessed Peter addressed him in these terms: “Truly you have always been stubborn and unbelieving and [perhaps] because of your unbelief the Lord He did not see fit to grant you the grace of attending with us the funeral of El Salvadoro’s mother. He responded by beating his chest: I know it and I am firmly convinced of it; I have always been a perverse and unbelieving man; ”I ask, therefore, forgiveness from all of you for my obstinacy and my disbelief." And everyone began to pray for him.
Then blessed Thomas said: “Where did you put his body?” They pointed their fingers at the tomb. But he replied: “No, this body which is called most holy is not there.” To which the blessed Peter replied: «Once again you refused to give us credit regarding the resurrection of our Master and Lord, unless you were able to see and touch it with your fingers. How are you going to believe now that the holy corpse was there? He, for his part, insisted saying: “It is not here.” Then, as if enraged, they approached the tomb, which had just been dug in the rock, and they rolled away the stone; but they did not find the body, so they were left without knowing what to say, seeing themselves defeated by Tomás’ words.
Then blessed Thomas began to tell them how he was celebrating mass in India. He was still clothed in the priestly vestments, [when], ignoring the word of God, he found himself transported to Mount Olivet and had the opportunity to see the most holy body of the blessed [virgin] Mary ascending to heaven; and he begged her to grant him a blessing. She heard her prayer and threw him the belt with which she was girded. Then he showed everyone the belt.
When the apostles saw the girdle that they themselves had placed, they glorified God and asked forgiveness of the blessed Thomas, [moved] by the blessing of which he had been given by the blessed [virgin] Mary and that it had fallen to his lot to contemplate her most holy body upon ascending to heaven. Then the blessed Thomas blessed them, saying: “See how good and how pleasant it is for brothers to live together.”
And the same cloud that had brought them, took each one to their respective place, in a manner analogous to what happened to Philip when he baptized the eunuch, as we read in the Acts of the Apostles; and with the prophet Habakkuk, when he brought food to Daniel, who was in the lion’s lake, and immediately returned to Judea. In the same way the apostles were also quickly returned to the place where they were before to evangelize the people of God.
And there is nothing strange about the fact that he works such wonders who entered and left a virgin, leaving her womb sealed, who entered behind closed doors into the place where the apostles were, who made the deaf hear, who raised the dead, who He cleansed the lepers, who gave sight to the blind and, finally, performed many other miracles. There is no reason to doubt this belief.
I am Joseph, the one who placed the body of the Lord in my tomb and saw him resurrected; the one who continually guarded his most sacred temple, the blessed ever virgin Mary, before and after the ascension of the Lord; the one in which I wrote, finally, on paper and in my heart the words that came out of the mouth of God and the way in which the events recorded above came to be realized. And I made known to all, Jews and Gentiles, what my eyes saw and my ears heard, and I will not stop preaching [it] as long as I live. Let us instantly pray to her, whose assumption is today venerated and honored by the whole world, to remember us before her most pious Son in heaven. To whom is due praise and glory forever and ever. Amen.