7 SEPTEMBER 1985, Page 21

Gibbon's Assumption

Sir: Of course A. N. Wilson (Letters, 24 August) was aware that the legend of the Assumption was extant long before 1950: Mr Robinson was being silly-clever. It goes back 15 centuries, as Gibbon explains:

The Christians of the four first centuries were ignorant of the death and burial of Mary. The tradition of [her death at] Eph- esus is affirmed by the synod . . . yet it has been superseded by the claim of Jerusalem; and her empty sepulchre, as it was shown to the pilgrims, produced the fable of her resurrection and assumption, in which the Greek and Latin churches have piously acquiesced (Decline and Fall, Ch.46, note 29).

B. Dorrien-Magens

St Osyth's Priory, Brightlingsea, Essex