“It is a traditionary pious belief, that the body of the Blessed Virgin was raised by God soon after her death, and assumed to glory, by a singular privilege, before the general resurrection of the dead. This is mentioned by the learned Andrew of Crete in the East, in the seventh, and by

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Gregory of Tours in the West, in the sixth century.⁠ ⁠… So great was the respect and veneration of the fathers towards this most holy and most exalted of all pure creatures, that

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