[Footnote 119:  Baronius appears not to have referred to this history of Euthymius, but he refers to Nicephorus, and also to a work ascribed to Melito, c. 4, 5.  Nicephorus, Paris, 1630. vol. i. p. 168. lib. ii. c. 21.  Baronius also refers to lib. 15. c. 14.  This Nicephorus was Patriarch of Constantinople.  He lived during the reign of our Edward the First, or Edward the Second, and cannot, therefore, be cited in any sense of the word as an ancient author writing on the events of the primitive ages; though the manner in which his testimony is appealed to would imply, that he was a man to whose authority on early ecclesiastical affairs we were now expected to defer.]

Another authority to which the writers on the assumption of the Virgin appeal, is that of Nicephorus Callistus, who, at the end of the thirteenth or the beginning of the fourteenth century, dedicated his work to Andronicus Palaeologus.  The account given by Nicephorus is this: 

In the fifth year of Claudius, the Virgin at the age of fifty-nine, was made acquainted with her approaching death.  Christ himself then descended from heaven with a countless multitude of angels, to take up the soul of his mother; He summoned his disciples by thunder and storm from all parts of the world.  The Virgin then bade Peter first, and afterwards the rest of the Apostles, to come with burning torches[120].  The Apostles surrounded her bed, and “an outpouring of miracles flowed forth.”  The blind beheld the sun, the deaf heard, the lame walked, and every disease fled away.  The Apostles and others sang, as the coffin was borne from Sion to Gethsemane, angels preceding, surrounding, and following it. {316} A wonderful thing then took place.  The Jews were indignant and enraged, and one more desperately bold than the rest rushed forward, intending to throw down the holy corpse to the ground.  Vengeance was not tardy; for his hands were cut off from his arms[121].  The procession stopped; and at the command of Peter, on the man shedding tears of penitence, his hands were joined on again and restored whole.  At Gethsemane she was put into a tomb, but her Son transferred her to the divine habitation.

    [Footnote 120:  This author here quotes the forged work ascribed
    to Dionysius the Areopagite, to which we have before referred.]

[Footnote 121:  This tradition seems to have been much referred to at a time just preceding our Reformation.  In a volume called “The Hours of the most blessed Mary, according to the legitimate rite of the Church of Salisbury,” printed in Paris in 1526, from which we have made many extracts in the second part of this work, the frontispiece gives an exact representation of the story at the moment of the Jew’s hands being cut off.  They are severed at the wrist, and are lying on the coffin, on which his arms also are resting.  In the sky the Virgin appears between the Father and the Son, the Holy Dove being seen