ascension (of muhammad after his death)

883 Ascending Stairways, The (Sura 70)

Ascending Stairways, The (Sura 70)Chapter 70 of the Qur�an, revealed in Mecca andconsisting of 44 verses, is called “The AscendingStairways” (Surat al-ma�arij), because of the mentionin S 70 : 3 of the stairways to heaven on which theangels and the spirit will ascend on the day that is“50,000 years long.” That day is undoubtedly theDay of Judgment, which is mentioned six times inS 70 and forms its overall theme. The chapter de-picts the Eschaton with vivid and frightening im-agery, intended to exhort believers to rememberthe punishments for sinners and unbelievers in thehereafter. While enumerating the good and baddeeds of man that will be weighed at the last judg-ment, this chapter forms a summary of Islamic mo-rality as it emphasizes the importance of prayer,charity, chastity, modesty and honesty (S 70 : 22–35). Believers who live their lives according to theseprinciples will enter paradise. Their behavior iscontrasted with the sins of the wicked: selfishness,covetousness, and obliviousness of God, which pre-pare them for humiliation at the resurrection(v. 44).

It has been noted that the Qur�an sketchesmany different scenarios of the events towards andduring the End of Times, which cannot easily besynthesized. One unique element in this Sura is theprediction that the heavens will be as “moltenmetal” on the Day of Judgment. This also featureselsewhere in the Qur�an as a metaphor for the painin the stomachs of the sinners in hell, when theywill be forced to eat from the tree of Zakkum (S 44–45). It is also described how the mountains will be-come like plucked wool-tufts, i.e., weightless andwhite. This metaphor is also used in the earlierSura “The Calamity” (S 101) in connection with thedramatic events of the End of Times. It symbolizesthe insignificance of the imposing elements of thisworld in relation to the might of God, as well astheir ultimate annihilation.

Compared to other Suras, there are few similar-ities here to biblical eschatology. S 70 : 10, “nofriend will ask after a friend” (which also featuresin S 80 : 34), is somewhat reminiscent of verses suchas Mic 7 : 6 and Matt 10 : 21, which describe thebreakdown of social order and the egotism of man-kind in face of the final judgment. But this is afamiliar topos in Near Eastern apocalyptic writings.

Although it is clear that the S 70 is meant toinstill fearfulness in its audience, there is no refer-ence to the final judgment being imminent or itstime being determined. Nevertheless the 50,000years which it takes the angels and the spirit toclimb the heavenly stairways were seen by someMuslim exegetes as a sign that the world will re-main for this period of time. This reference to thestairways and angels ascending bears only a passingresemblance to the vision of Jacob in Gen 28 : 12,and has no obvious connection to it.

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Bibliography: ■ I. Hasson, “Last Judgment,” EQ online(www.brill.nl). ■ U. Rubin, “Sa�a,” EI2 online (www.brill.nl).■ M. Sells, “A Literary Approach to the Hymnic Suras of theQur�an,” in Literary Structures of Religious Meaning in theQur�an (ed. I. Boullata; London 2002) 3–25.

Barbara Roggema

Ascension (General)I. Ancient Near East and Hebrew Bible/Old

TestamentII. JudaismIII. New TestamentIV. ChristianityV. IslamVI. LiteratureVII. Visual ArtsVIII. Music

I. Ancient Near East and Hebrew Bible/Old Testament

1. Mesopotamia and Persia. In ancient Mesopota-mian literature, the motif of the ascension of amortal to heaven is often linked with themes ofdeath; ironically, the ascenders do not gain eternallife in heaven. For instance, Adapa successfullyjourneys to heaven, but misses out on a chance forimmortality when he accepts clothing and oil butrejects the bread and water of life, offerings regu-larly given in the cult of the dead to the spirit(breath) of the deceased (ANET 101; Katz 2004: 477;Segal 2004: 75; cf. Etana in ANET 114).

In practice, ascents to heaven as well as descentsto the netherworld occurred in dreams and visions(Assyrian Dream Book Tablet C / II; Oppenheim 281–83). The Babylonian Maqlû tablets preserve ritualpractices associated with dream incubation, heav-enly ascent and astral transformation, which iden-tifies the practitioner as a messenger of the heav-enly court and protects him from harm bywitchcraft (Maqlû 1.52–53, 3.151–52, 6.1–8, 7.55–57; cf. Isa 6 : 6–9; Abusch 1995: 23–26).

Mesopotamian descents to the netherworld, un-dertaken by both mortals and gods, are structurallyequivalent to ascents (Culianu 1983: 5, 10; Segal1980: 1339–40). The descents and ascents share nu-merous motifs, such as an enthroned deity, a court-room scene of judgment, attendants, scribes and/orfoodstuffs (e.g., Descent of Ur-Nammu; Epic of Gilga-mesh; Vision of the Netherworld). Gods and mortalswho descend often ascend (e.g., Descent of Inanna/Ishtar to the Netherworld); even the spirits of the deadthat reside in the netherworld occasionally ascendto the earth, as at the end of the month of Abu(Abusch 1995: 18).

Bousset (1971: 5, 38–58) held that the idea ofascension of the soul had its origins in Persian ideasabout the afterlife, although Zoroastrian texts aredifficult to date with precision. Early texts envisionthe soul of a righteous deceased person lingeringaround the corpse for three days, then being

885 Ascension (General)

guided by a beautiful daena maiden across theChinvat Bridge to the golden thrones of various de-ities (Vendidad 19, Hadhokht Nask 2, Yasht 19; Boyce1984: 29, 80–82). Later Pahlavi sources greatly de-velop the notion of the ascent of the post-mortemsoul, which may even be enthroned amongst thegods (e.g., Dadestan i denig 24, the inscriptions ofKirdir, Arda Viraz Namag; cf. the monuments atCommagene; Hultgård 1993: 10–17). Against Bous-set, others have proposed that the cross-cultural as-cension motif has its roots in Greece (see especiallyCulianu 1983: 10–31) or Mesopotamia (Kvanvig1988; Abusch 1995: 22).

2. Egypt. As early as the Pyramid Texts (ca. 2345BCE but reflecting earlier oral beliefs), the Phar-aoh’s soul was believed to ascend beyond the gatesof heaven, primarily by means of a ladder made bythe sun Re or through transformation into a falconor half-falcon of Horus. He ascends in a blast offire, a flash of lightning, or an earthquake, becom-ing “a cosmic being whose head is a vulture, whosetemples are the starry sky, and whose face, eyes [ …etc.] are each gods,” namely, a divine astral beingwho exists among the circumpolar stars as an akh(Pyramid Texts, utterance 539; Culianu 1991: 65;Taylor 2004: 471–72). Once he has crossed the skyand entered the gate of heaven, he transforms intoa god and becomes imperishable, absorbing (eating)the gods and their magic (Pyramid Texts, utterance317; Culianu 1991: 65–66).

Since the journeying soul is often likened to Reand Egyptian cosmology held that the sun travelsthrough the sky and the netherworld, ascents of thesoul must be considered alongside journeys of thenether regions. Depending on text and period, thepassage through the realm of the dead may be inthe sky, beneath the earth or in the West (Taylor2004: 472). The Middle Kingdom Coffin Texts depictthe deceased’s movable soul or ba rising throughthe universe as a bird (falcon, heron, ibis, vulture),a flame of fire, or a god (Coffin Texts, spells 1029–1131). At first only the coffins of nobles testify tohopes of ascension; eventually the expectation ofan afterlife is extended more democratically.

The New Kingdom Book of the Dead contains rit-ual knowledge and spells for the human-headed,birdlike soul’s successful journey, which is outlinedin careful stages, including: ascent to the earth(e.g., Spells 65–75 in Andrews), transformation(76–88), reunification with the corpse (89), catchinga ferry-boat into the sky (98–102), being seatedamongst the great gods (104), ascent to the sky andidentification with the gods (115), going into andleaving the Mounds of Osiris, after which the souldeclares “I have the rank of a god” (121), enteringthe Great Mansion (123), recognizing the names ofthe gods and architecture of the Halls of Justice(124–25), and being in the presence of Re (131).That heavenly ascent is achieved is clear in the orig-


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inal title of spell 132: “Spell for causing a man toturn about in order to see his house upon earth”(Andrews 2001: 121).

3. Canaan. A kind of ascension is implied in theUgaritic texts in the Baal cycle, which portrays thegod Baal journeying to the cosmic mountain of El,a meeting place of heaven and earth, in the hopesof enthronement (Baal VI.ii.19–iv.22; Driver 1971:75–77; Clifford 1972). The attempt results in hisdeath, Anath’s revenge on Mot (Death), and Baal’seventual resurrection and enthronement (e.g., BaalIII.ii.1–18, IV.i; Driver 1971: 110–11, 116–17). Mir-roring El’s throne on a mountain is the throne ofMot, found under two mountains, to which Gupn-and-Ugar must journey (Baal VIII.ii.1–46).

4. Israel. Ascensions in the Hebrew Bible involveseveral interrelated ideas.1) The verb �lh (“go up, ascend, climb”) is often

used to indicate one’s approach towards God orsacred places, including heaven, the mountainof God, the ark, and the temple (e.g., Exod19 : 3; 24 : 1, 12; 32 : 30; 34 : 24; Deut 10 : 1;1 Sam 9 : 13–14, 19; 2 Kgs 19 : 14; 20 : 5, 8; 23 : 2;2 Chr 29 : 20; 34 : 30; Isa 37 : 14; 38 : 22; Ps 24 : 3;Jer 26 : 10). The Songs of Ascents may preservecultic liturgy for the sacred ascent to the temple(Pss 120–34).

2) Divine beings move freely between heaven andearth. For instance, in a dream, Jacob sees astaircase or ziggurat with angels ascending(�olîm) and descending (veyordîm) (Gen 28 : 10–22).

3) As in Mesopotamia, Persia and Egypt, the deadcan ascend from the netherworld to earth, butthe Torah forbids summoning the dead as anoracle (Deut 18 : 11, cf. 26 : 14, 1 Sam 28 : 8–13).

4) Isaiah and perhaps Michaiah ben Imlah have vi-sions of God in the heavenly temple-palace (Isa6 : 1–13; 1 Kgs 22 : 19–23). Isaiah’s vision locateshim there experientially (combining visual, au-ditory, olfactory, and sensory elements) andcontains typical cultic motifs, including the en-throned Lord, angelic attendants, liturgy, andpurification. Daniel likewise experiences him-self as present in a visionary enthronementscene, most likely in the heavenly temple-palace(Dan 7 : 9–27). All of these scenes have at theircenter a vision of God’s Glory on the heavenlythrone, affirming God’s transcendent reign inthe universe (Tengström 1993: 93–96).

5) Ezekiel ascends “between earth and heaven”during his visionary spirit journeys in Babylonand Jerusalem (Ezek 3 : 12–14; 8 : 3; 11 : 1) andin another instance is lifted up in a vision andthen set down upon “a very high mountain,”often seen as a ladder between earth and heaven(Ezek 40 : 2; Clifford 1972).

6) Daniel contains the only clear articulation inthe Hebrew Bible of permanent spiritual ascen-


sion after death: hammaskilîm (the wise) will“shine like the brightness of the sky … like thestars forever,” suggesting the attainment of as-tral transformation and immortality (Dan12 : 3).

7) Rarely, ascent to heaven averts death. Elijah as-cends in a whirlwind rather than dying (2 Kgs2 : 11–18). Some extra-canonical HellenisticJewish traditions interpret Gen 5 : 24,“Enoch … was no more, because God tookhim,” as an ascension to heaven by means ofwhich Enoch escapes death (e.g., 1 En. 13 : 7–36;37–71; 2 En. 3–22; Sir 44 : 16; cf. BerR 25.1).

Bibliography. Primary: ■ C. Andrews (ed.), The Ancient Egyp-tian Book of the Dead (London 2001 [= 1972]). ■ M. Boyce,Textual Sources for the Study of Zoroastrianism (Chicago, Ill.1984). ■ G. R. Driver, Canaanite Myths and Legends (Edin-burgh 1971 [= 11956]). ■ R. O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyp-tian Coffin Texts, 3 vols. (Warminster 1973–1978). ■ J. B.Pritchard (ed.), ANET (Princeton, N.J. 31969).

Secondary: ■ T. Abusch, “Ascent to the Stars in a Meso-potamian Ritual,” in Death, Ecstasy, and Other Worldly Jour-neys (eds. J. J. Collins/M. Fishbane; Albany, N.Y. 1995) 15–38. ■ W. Bousset, Die Himmelreise der Seele (Darmstadt 1971[= ARW 4 (1901) 136–69; 229–73]). ■ R. J. Clifford, The Cos-mic Mountain in Canaan and the Old Testament (HSM 4; Cam-bridge, Mass. 1972). ■ I. P. Culianu, Psychanodia (Leiden1983); trans. and revision of id., Expériences de l’extase et sym-boles de l’ascension de l’Hellénisme à l’Islam (Diss. Paris 1980).■ I. P. Culianu, Out of this World (Boston, Mass. 1991). ■ A.Hultgård, “Trône de Dieu et trône des justes dans les tradi-tions de l’Iran ancient,” in Le Trône de Dieu (ed. M. Philon-enko; Tübingen 1993) 1–18. ■ D. Katz, “Death, The After-life, and other Last Things: Mesopotamia,” in Religions of theAncient World (ed. S. I. Johnston; Cambridge 2004) 477–79.■ H. Kvanvig, Roots of Apocalyptic (WMANT 61; Neukirchen-Vluyn 1988). ■ G. W. E. Nickelsburg, Resurrection, Immortal-ity, and Eternal Life in Intertestamental Judaism and Early Chris-tianity (Cambridge, Mass. 2007 [= 1972]). ■ L. Oppenheim,The Interpretation of Dreams in the Ancient Near East (TAPhS 46;Philadelphia, Pa. 1956). ■ A. F. Segal, Life after Death (NewYork 2004). ■ G. G. Stroumsa, “Mystical Descents,” inDeath, Ecstasy, and Other Worldly Journeys (eds. J. J. Collins/Michael Fishbane; Albany, N.Y. 1995) 137–52. ■ J. Taylor,“Death, the Afterlife, and Other Last Things: Egypt, EarlierPeriod,” in Religions of the Ancient World (ed. S. I. Johnston;Cambridge 2004) 471–75. ■ S. Tengström, “Les visionsprophétiques du trône de Dieu,” in Le Trône de Dieu (ed. M.Philonenko; Tübingen 1993) 28–99.

Frances Flannery

II. Judaism■ Second Temple and Hellenistic Judaism ■ Rabbinicand Medieval Judaism

A. Second Temple and Hellenistic JudaismThe idea of ascension to heaven in Second TempleJudaism has its roots in several biblical accounts,most notably Enoch (Gen 5 : 24), Elijah (2 Kgs 2 : 1–11), Ezekiel (Ezek 40–48) and Daniel (Dan 7 : 9–14).These traditions do not reflect a consistent repre-sentation of ascension. Elijah is the only one whois explicitly said to have ascended to the heavens,


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while Daniel provides the most elaborate accountof the heavens.

These and other traditions were developed inSecond Temple literature for several purposes,drawing both on the figures mentioned in the Bibleand on other biblical figures who might have, orshould have ascended, in the eyes of a Second Tem-ple author (e.g., Moses, Isaiah and Ezra).

The concept of ascension to the heavens can bedivided into two types of ascension, one involvingrevelation, the other emphasizing the experience ofbeing in heaven. In both types deification may beimplied as part and parcel of the ascension, al-though this is not true of all ascension narratives(Himmelfarb: 47–71).

As a revelatory experience, ascension plays animportant role in apocalyptic literature. It is con-ceived as the most authoritative way of receivingrevelation and secrets concerning the heavenly andearthly worlds.

Thus, ascension narratives are filled with mys-terious and glorious descriptions of the scenery ofthe heavens, characterized as majestic palaces (orthe heavenly temple) on the one hand, and appear-ances that do not comply with any known humanexperience on the other (1 En. 14; 3 Bar. 2–12;4Q403 1 II).

In addition to the description of the heavensthemselves, the ascender is entrusted with secretsregarding nature or prophesying the future andfate of either mankind or of his people. These se-crets can be rightly categorized as apocalypses, andoften bear either messianic or eschatologicalthemes (1 En. 19, 48; 3 Bar. 14–17).

A related genre in Second Temple literature isthe portrayal of the heavens or of an experience ofelevation during prayer. This type is most prevalentamong poetic or liturgical writings found in theDead Sea Scrolls, such as the Thanksgiving Scroll (Ho-dayot), the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice and others(e.g., 1QHa XI, 20–22; 4Q400 1 I; 11Q5 XXVI, 11–12). The Self-Glorification Hymn, in which thespeaker describes himself sitting among an assem-bly of angels (4Q431 1, 4 and parallels), is probablythe most explicit account of an ascension amongthese texts.

In these types of texts the purpose of ascensionis not to receive knowledge, but to glorify God.Through prayer the ascenders are elevated to thedegree of angels, but the major gain of this eleva-tion is not of the individual ascenders, but thepraise of God obtained by it.

Bibliography: ■ L. Carlsson, Round Trips to Heaven (LundStudies in History of Religions 19; Stockholm 2004).[Translated from Swedish] ■ J. J. Collins, The Apocalyptic Im-agination (New York 1989). ■ J. R. Davila, “Heavenly As-cents in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” in The Dead Sea Scrolls afterFifty Years, vol. 2 (eds. P. W. Flint/J. C. VanderKam; Leiden1999) 461–85. ■ M. Dean-Otting, Heavenly Journeys (Frank-furt a. M. 1984). ■ E. Eshel, “The Identification of the


‘Speaker’ of the Self-Glorification Hymn,” in The Provo Inter-national Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls (eds. D. W. Parry/E. C. Ulrich; STDJ 30; Leiden 1999) 619–35. ■ M. Himmel-farb, Ascent to Heaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (Ox-ford 1993). ■ A. A. Orlov, From Apocalypticism to MerkabahMysticism (JSJ Supplement 114; Leiden 2007).

Aryeh Amihay

B. Rabbinic and Medieval JudaismThe early rabbinic writings produced in RomanPalestine during the 2nd to 5th centuries CE (i.e.,Mishnah, Tosefta, Palestinian Talmud, and earlymidrashim) evince little interest in the theme ofheavenly ascent. Unlike earlier apocalyptic and li-turgical writings of Second Temple Judaism, thesesources do not treat human ascent to heaven, recep-tion of heavenly knowledge, or participation in theangelic liturgy as vital components of Jewish pietyor literary imagination. This displacement of theliterature and discourse of heavenly ascent seems tohave been a deliberate act of suppression that wenthand-in-hand with the rabbinic valorization of To-rah-study and the practice of Jewish law (halakhah)as the primary paths to knowledge of and proxim-ity to God (Reed: 136–49). While the rabbis doshow interest in the descriptions of God and hisentourage contained in Scripture (e.g., Isa 6; Ezek1, 10; Dan 7), they apparently developed this eso-teric tradition as a strictly exegetical – rather thanritual or experiential – discipline (Halperin 1980).

By contrast, rabbinic literature produced inboth the Sasanian east and the Roman-Byzantinewest from approximately the 5th century onwardsexhibits an increasing interest in the theme ofheavenly ascent. Thus, several late Palestinian mi-drashic works explore the process of heavenly as-cent, most notably through narrative accounts ofMoses’ ascent to receive the Torah (Halperin 1988:289–358). In this same period, the redactors of theBabylonian Talmud incorporated such Palestinianascent narratives into their monumental literaryproject (e.g., bShab 88a–89a) as well as motifs spe-cific to the early Jewish mystical tradition (e.g.,bHag 14b; Schäfer 1988). Nevertheless, the Babylo-nian sages remained wary of practices aimed atachieving direct access to the heavenly sphere, andoften domesticated ascent and other related tradi-tions by assimilating them to the norms of rabbinicculture (Schäfer 2005).

It is equally clear, however, that numerous lateantique and early medieval Jews – likely some rab-bis among them – viewed the notion of heavenlyascent as a significant and perhaps central compo-nent of Jewish culture and practice. The renewedinterest in heavenly ascent characteristic of the rab-binic writings from the second half of the 1st mil-lennium CE coincides with the emergence of He-khalot literature as a distinct class of texts(Boustan). The term “hekhalot” comes from theHebrew word for the celestial “palaces” withinwhich God is said to sit enthroned and through


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which the visionary ascends. The religious dis-course and practice contained in this literature isoften referred to as “Merkavah mysticism” becauseof its general preoccupation with Ezekiel’s visionof the divine chariot-throne (merkavah). The concep-tion of heavenly ascent in Hekhalot literature dif-fers from the passive model of “rapture” character-istic of the apocalyptic genre; here, instead,heavenly ascent is achieved through the perform-ance of ritual speech and action (Himmelfarb).Hekhalot literature and its powerful image ofGod’s chariot-throne had a lasting impact on thereligious imagination of European Jewry in theHigh Middle Ages, in particular on the subsequentdevelopment of the Jewish mystical tradition(Wolfson: 188–269).

Bibliography: ■ R. S. Boustan, “The Emergence of Pseudo-nymous Attribution in Heikhalot Literature,” JSQ 13 (2006)1–21. ■ D. J. Halperin, The Merkavah in Rabbinic Literature(New Haven, Conn. 1980). ■ D. J. Halperin, The Faces of theChariot (Tübingen 1988). ■ M. Himmelfarb, “Heavenly As-cent and the Relationship of the Apocalypses and the He-khalot Literature,” HUCA 59 (1988) 73–100. ■ A. Y. Reed,Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christianity(Cambridge 2005). ■ P. Schäfer, “The New Testament andHekhalot Literature,” in Hekhalot-Studien (TSAJ 19; Tü-bingen 1988) 234–49. ■ P. Schäfer, “From Cosmology toTheology,” in Creation and Re-Creation in Jewish Thought, FSJ. Dan (eds. R. Elior/P. Schäfer; Tübingen 2005) 39–58.■ E. R. Wolfson, Through a Speculum That Shines (Princeton,N.J. 1994).

Ra‘anan Boustan

III. New Testament“Ascension” can include (1) short-term visits to andthrough heaven (“heavenly journeys”); (2) someonebeing taken permanently to heaven while still alive(“rapture,” Entrückung); and (3) the dead being like-wise taken to heaven in vindication (“assumption”).The ascension of Jesus, subsequent to his beingraised from the dead, at least according to Acts 1 : 9,should probably be regarded as sui generis.

1. Heavenly Journey. The most notable examplesin the NT are 2 Cor 12 : 2–4 and the revelationsgranted to John the seer, author of Revelation.

In the former, Paul speaks of “someone inChrist” who, 14 years earlier, had been “caught up(8ρπαγ�ντα) into the third heaven,” “into Para-dise,” where he heard “inexpressible words whichno one is permitted to utter.” There is generalagreement that the person in view is Paul himself;he speaks of being granted many such visions andrevelations (12 : 1, 7), and it is possible that Paulhad been a practitioner of merkabah mysticism. Heevidently discounted such experiences, boastingmore in the weakness through which God’s powercomes to its fullest expression (12 : 7–10).

It is less clear whether the seer of Revelationwas taken up to heaven, or simply saw visions ofwhat was happening in heaven (Rev 4 : 1; 5 : 1, 2, 6,


11; 6 : 1, 2, 5, 8, 9, 12; etc.). But in that he sawthe heavenly realities behind earthly events and thecondition of those already taken from earth, his“ascension” was not so very different from theheavenly journey, particularly of Enoch, as in 1 En.39 : 3–8 and 2 En.

It is noticeable that the account of the transfig-uration of Jesus (Mark 9 : 2–10 pars.) echoes Moses’ascent of Sinai, which had a somewhat similarlytransforming effect (Exod 34 : 29–35; cf. 2 Cor 3 : 7–18), and which Ezekiel the Tragedian had alreadypresented as a type of ascent to heaven (Ezek. Trag.68–82).

Also worthy of note is the way in which theFourth Evangelist insists that the revelationbrought by Jesus was not the result of his ascendingto heaven, like the prophets of old to be allowed tolisten in to the heavenly council, but of his comingfrom heaven (John 3 : 13).

2. Rapture. In 1 Thess 4 : 16–17, at “the coming ofthe Lord,” “the dead in Christ will be raised first,”then those who are alive “will be caught up (8ρ-παγησ&μεθα) in the clouds to meet the Lord in theair.” This passage has given rise to the belief in the“rapture” of Christians, removed from earth beforethe final tribulation; but it should be noted thatthe imagery seems to be of citizens going out tomeet a visiting dignitary and to escort him backinto the city (TDNT 1: 380–381). Similarly the gath-ering of “the elect from the four winds and fromthe end of earth to the end of heaven” will takeplace when the Son of Man comes in clouds (Mark13 : 26–27 par.).

It is possible that the “two witnesses” of Rev11 : 3–12 refer to Enoch and Elijah, both rapturedto heaven without experiencing death (Gen 5 : 24;2 Kgs 2 : 1–12). The expectation of Elijah’s coming(Mark 6 : 15; 8 : 28; 15 : 35 pars.) attests the same be-lief.

3. Assumption. The most famous usage in Chris-tian tradition is the (bodily) Assumption of the Vir-gin. But of this there is no mention or even hint inthe NT itself. In Rev 12 : 1–6 it is the child of thewoman who “was caught up (�ρπ�σθη) to God,”while the woman herself fled into the wilderness.

Jesus envisaged an existence “like angels inheaven” after death and resurrection, assumingthat Abraham, Isaac and Jacob are alive in heaven(Mark 12 : 24–27 pars.), in the transfiguration scenehe speaks with Moses and Elijah (Mark 9 : 4–5pars.), and in Luke he promises the thief on thecross that he would be with Jesus in Paradise thatvery day (Luke 23 : 43). Paul reckons that to “depart(die) and be with Christ” (presumably in heaven)would be better than remaining alive (Phil 1 : 21–23). And the seer of Revelation assumes that thefaithful saints have been taken to heaven following“the great affliction/tribulation” (Rev 7 : 4–17).

James D. G. Dunn


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IV. Christianity■ Patristics through Reformation Era ■ Modern Europeand America

A. Patristics through Reformation EraIts Jewish and Greco-Roman cultural roots fur-nished Christianity with a rich inheritance of ideasconcerning the ascent of the soul. Models for ascentadopted by Christians included ladders, chariots,mountains, passage through astral spheres or sta-tions, simple bodily translation and pure contem-plation. Ascent to God underlies most Christianmystical and visionary writing; this entry will con-centrate on how the specifically biblical elementsof ascent were received in Christianity. The Bibleprovided many heroes of the faith who had as-cended to the heavenly realms, whether in body orin spirit. Christians treasured the memory of vi-sionary Old Testament patriarchs and prophetssuch as Enoch, Jacob, Moses, Elijah, Ezekiel andDaniel, and of New Testament heroes such as theapostle Paul. Pre-modern Christian contemplationon these figures falls into three major streams: thepatristic, the apocryphal and the heterodox.

1. Patristic Exegetes. The church fathers ex-pounded the mystical, moral and ascetic signifi-cance of patriarchal and prophetic ascensions fortheir own time. Notable examples include Gregoryof Nyssa’s On the Life of Moses, Dionysius the Areopa-gite’s Mystical Theology, Gregory the Great’s Homilieson Ezekiel and John Climacus’ Ladder of Divine Ascent.Moses’ ascent up Mount Sinai, his entrance into thedark cloud of the divine presence and admittanceto the inner sanctuary and vision of the tabernaclemerged with neoplatonic mystical concepts of as-cent for both Gregory of Nyssa and Dionysius toform the perfect paradigm for ascent of the Chris-tian soul towards contemplation and union. Ezek-iel’s prophetic visions of the divine throne providedGregory the Great and his Roman congregation,under Lombard siege, with consolation and a callto repentance and growth in virtue. The image ofJacob’s ladder came to represent the Christian’sstruggle to rise above earthly vices and attachmentsand ascend through the virtues to the divinerealms, where Christ himself waited to welcomethe triumphant climber into heaven. From 7th-cen-tury Sinai (John Climacus) to the present day,Jacob’s ladder has inspired countless Christians tocontemplation of higher things, whether encoun-tered in mystical and ascetic treatises or in its manypainted and carved representations.

2. Apocryphal Visions and Revelations. Vision-ary literature responded to the hunger whichChristians felt, from earliest times, for stories ofbiblical heroes who had high visions of the divine,either on mountain tops or in the actual heavensthemselves. Such narratives filled gaps in the Bible,forming a textual penumbra around the references


to ascent, often tantalizingly brief and cryptic, incanonical scripture. They purported to tell exactlywhat Enoch, Baruch, Abraham, Isaiah, Ezra andother patriarchs, prophets and scribes saw whenthey were taken up into the heavens. These Jewishpseudepigraphic “apocalypses” became a populargenre throughout medieval Christendom: manysurvive today only in later Christian versions andtranslations, copied for a global public eager tolearn the marvelous celestial secrets and sternmoral lessons revealed in texts such as 1 Enoch (com-plete version extant only in Ethiopic), 2 Enoch (OldChurch Slavonic) and the Ascension of Isaiah (Ethi-opic, Latin and Slavonic). A purely Christian addi-tion to the tradition which built on the earliermodels was the Apocalypse of Paul, part of the NewTestament apocrypha. Originating in a 3rd-centuryEgyptian monastic milieu, it revealed, in detail al-ternately glorious and gory, just what Paul sawwhen he was “caught up into Paradise” (2 Cor12 : 4), and spawned a huge family of translated andadapted versions. The Pauline apocalypse wastranslated into every major medieval language andenjoyed a wide circulation, from Ireland to Anato-lia. It inspired several medieval imitations, such asthe Apocalypse of the Virgin (Gk. θε�τ&κ�ς) and themedieval Byzantine Apocalypse of Anastasia. Like allthe visionary ascents in the Pauline family, theseprivilege moral teaching over mystical endeavor,and were written primarily to inspire repentanceand virtue, through fear of terrible otherworldpunishments, in those who heard them.

3. Otherworld Journeys. Accounts of otherworldjourneys proliferated in the Latin Middle Ages. TheApocalypse of Paul and the biblical pseudepigraphacontinued to be read, but West-European Chris-tians also began to produce their own, remarkablyvivid and individual, accounts of visionary journeysto the Other World. Whether in the body duringlife, or out of the body during a near-death experi-ence, the visionaries all ascend, either guided up-wards easily by angels, or pushing their way withdifficulty through demons, to see places both ofpunishment and of blessedness, and often the heav-enly Jerusalem as well. Beginning with the 7th-cen-tury stories preserved by the Venerable Bede, andcontinuing throughout the medieval period, theseaccounts, recorded in both Latin and vernacularlanguages, narrate the most varied and idiosyn-cratic experiences, closely related to the state of theotherworld tourist’s soul. Anyone, it seemed, couldbe caught up into the Other World. Monastics andascetics are well-represented in the tales, but so arelaypeople. As well as the accounts of monks (themonks of Wenlock and of Eynsham in England;Wetti of Reichenau), tales survive which describethe experiences of simple folk (the 7th-centuryNorthumbrian layman Drythelm, the 12th-centuryGerman peasant Gottschalk); kings (the 9th-cen-


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tury emperor Charles the Fat); holy men (the 7th-century Irish intinerant preacher Fursey), and even,in a few cases, women.

4. Heterodox Christian Groups. Heterodoxgroups, especially those with gnostic tendencies,drew on the Hellenistic culture of speculation onthe psychanodia (“soul’s journey up”), to create alarge corpus of alternative gospels, apocalypses andwisdom literature, including writings from NagHammadi such as the Gospel of Thomas, the Apocry-phon of John and the Pistis Sophia, which claimed toreveal eschatological mysteries that Christ hadpassed on in an oral tradition to his disciples. Theascent of the soul back to its source in the spiritualrealms, freed from the material bondage of thisworld, was the ultimate goal of every gnostic be-liever. Dark, satanic forces tried to prevent this as-cent, and in gnostic cosmology, the soul was madeto pass through a celestial ordeal, often representedas a series of stations, spheres, or tollbooths,manned by guardians variously called watchers, ar-chons, demons, or toll collectors. Although suchstations lack any genuine scriptural or patristic ba-sis, some elements of the system found their way(mainly through idiosyncratic texts such as the10th-century Greek Life of Basil the Younger) into me-dieval Eastern Orthodox beliefs about the progressof the soul, in the forty days after death, throughaerial “toll-booths” where satisfaction was made forsins, and have persisted in some Eastern Ortho-dox circles.

5. Mystical Ascent. The theology of mystical as-cent in its classic three-fold form of purgation, illu-mination and union continued to develop in bothEast and West with reference to biblical models.Eastern mystics tended to focus on the contempla-tive ascent of two mountains in particular: Sinai,with Moses as guide into the dark cloud, and Ta-bor, with Moses, Elijah, Peter, James and Johnpointing the way to the Transfigured Christ. Thehighest goal of Eastern mysticism, as expressed byByzantine mystics such as Symeon the New Theolo-gian and Gregory Palamas, was an apophatic questto pass beyond all earthly, sensory images, achiev-ing illumination, and union with the energies ofGod through the pure vision of the uncreatedLight. The visionary accounts of Western contem-platives, less abstract and more personal, presenthighly individual models and narratives of ascent,which press the allegorical and spiritual potentialof their biblical sources to the highest level. Theburning love of the six-winged seraphim and therapt adoration of the many-eyed cherubim beforethe divine glory gave the 13th-century Franciscanfriar Bonaventure inspiration for his explication ofthe six stages of contemplative ascent. His Soul’sJourney into God is saturated with biblical forerun-ners (Moses, Jacob, Elijah) and biblically-derivedimagery of angelic transformation. At the culmina-


tion of his treatise, Bonaventure promotes a con-temporary exemplar, St. Francis of Assisi, but Fran-cis is couched as another Moses, high upon amountain top, having passed through the Red Seaand desert, and a second Jacob (Soul’s Journey, vii.2–3; also McGinn 1998: 93–96). The Carmelite Order,which originated in a group of 12th-century her-mits living around a holy site in Palestine con-nected with the prophet Elijah, elevated yet a 3rdmountain (actually, a mountain range) in the HolyLand to the status of mystical peak: Mount Carmel.Carmelite spirituality received its fullest expressionin the works of John of the Cross (Ascent of MountCarmel), writing in 16th-century Spain. Theprophet Elijah, known for his dramatic encountersupon mountains (Carmel, Horeb), and taken upinto heaven in a whirlwind (1 Kgs 18 : 20–46;19 : 1–18; 2 Kgs 1 : 1–12), became a focus of devo-tion for mystics and common people alike, withchurches and chapels dedicated to him on the highplaces of Orthodox Europe, to which the faithfulascend in pilgrimage. The mystical and devotionalgenius of Christianity has always embraced the bib-lical patriarchs, prophets and apostles as “soulfriends” – fellow pilgrims and guides in the com-mon ascent to the heavenly Jerusalem.

Bibliography: ■ J. Baun, Tales from Another Byzantium (Cam-bridge 2007). ■ J. Baun, “Last Things,” in Early MedievalChristianities, c. 600–c. 1100, vol. 3 of The Cambridge Historyof Christianity (eds. T. F. X. Noble/J. M. H. Smith; Cambridge2008) 606–24. ■ P. Boehner (ed.), Saint Bonaventure’s Itinera-rium mentis in Deum (St. Bonaventure, N.Y. 1956). ■ C. Car-ozzi, Le voyage de l’âme dans l’au-delà, d’après la littérature la-tine, Ve–XIIIe siècle (Rome 1994). ■ M. P. Ciccarese, Visionidell’aldilà in occidente (Florence 1987). ■ I. P. Culianu, Psy-chanodia (Leiden 1983). ■ A. De Conick, Seek to See Him (Lei-den 1996). ■ G. Every, “Toll Gates on the Air Way,” ECR 8(1976) 139–50. ■ E. Gardiner, Medieval Visions of Heaven andHell (New York 1993). ■ A. Golitzin, “‘Earthly Angels andHeavenly Men’,” DOP 55 (2001) 125–53. ■ A. Golitzin,“‘Suddenly,’ Christ,” in Mystics (eds. M. Kessler/C. Shep-herd; Chicago, Ill. 2003) 8–37. ■ M. Himmelfarb, Ascent toHeaven in Jewish and Christian Apocalypses (Oxford 1993).■ R. A. Kraft, “The Pseudepigrapha in Christianity,” in Trac-ing the Threads (ed. J. C. Reeves; Atlanta, Ga. 1994) 55–86.■ B. McGinn, The Foundations of Mysticism, vol. 1 of id., ThePresence of God (London 1991). ■ B. McGinn, The Floweringof Mysticism, vol. 3 of id., The Presence of God (New York1998). ■ J. D. Tabor, Things Unutterable (London 1986).■ C. O. Tommasi, “Ascension,” ER2 1 (Detroit, Mich. 2005)518–26. ■ C. Zaleski, Otherworld Journeys (Oxford 1987).

Jane Baun

B. Modern Europe and AmericaIn the modern era “ascension,” apart from the As-cension of Christ, has to a great extent disappearedfrom Christian discourse. Several factors wouldseem to have worked against its persistence. TheScientific Revolution’s displacement of the Earthfrom the center of the universe was accompaniedby the shattering of physical understandings of thepositioning of heaven and earth. The effect was fur-


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ther compounded by the damage done to all no-tions of the miraculous and supernatural with thediffusion of Enlightenment skepticism. Contempo-rary principles of social egalitarianism can alsowork against the hierarchical ordering that can beimplicit in notions of ascension. At the same time,within post-Reformation spirituality the Quietistand Pietist emphasis on the passivity, annihilation,and immersion of the soul in the divine seems toleave little room for ascent into heaven.

Countering Enlightenment skepticism andChristian mysticism, 19th-century Anglo-AmericanProtestant dispensationalists affirmed a literal as-cension but called it “The Rapture.” Interpretingthe figurative, apocalyptic language of 1 Thess4 : 16–17 literally, they posited that at Jesus’ secondcoming Christians will be miraculously removedfrom this wicked earth and ascend to “meet theLord in the air” (v. 17). This view remains thestandard view among millions of fundamentalists,Pentecostals, and charismatics worldwide. It hasbeen popularized in hymns, films, and best-sellingbooks such as The Late Great Planet Earth (1970) andthe Left Behind Series (1995–2007) and is defendednot only by dispensational theologians but by someconservative Protestant NT scholars.

In a less dramatic fashion, the idea of ascentremains current in Western Christianity in the lan-guage of devotion, as in the lifting up of the heartand mind to God in prayer or communion or as inthe instruction to “seek the things that are above”(Col 3 : 1).

Secularized versions of ascension have alsoemerged. Many of these are rooted in evolution andplay off Charles Darwin’s Descent of Man (1871); forexample Henry Drummond’s Lowell Lectures of1894, “The Ascent of Man,” and the 1973 BBC doc-umentary of the same name. The Jesuit paleontolo-gist/theologian Pierre Teilhard de Chardin can beseen to have attempted to bring the spiritual andevolutionary ideas of ascent together in his progres-sion of collective human consciousness towards theOmega Point.

A quick search of the World Wide Web also re-veals that while ascension may have fallen out ofcurrency in contemporary Christianity, it has a sig-nificant place in many streams of New Age spiritu-ality. For the most part, however, these seem to beonly distantly related to more biblically based con-cepts of ascension.

Bibliography: ■ T. A. Boogaart, “Ascension, Adoption,Homecoming,” Perspectives 7 (April 2007) 7–12. ■ B. J. Tyr-rell, S.J., “Christian Imagination and Christian Prayer,” Lon-ergan Workshop IV (1983) 167–85. ■ N. T. Wright, Surprisedby Hope (New York 2008).

James Deming


V. Islam■ Ascension in Islam ■ Resurrection and Ascension ofMuh� ammad

A. Ascension in IslamIn the Qur�an God controls “the ways of ascent” onwhich the angels are said to ascend to God (S 70 : 3–4). They also descend from God to bring his mes-sage to humans (S 97 : 4). One of the prophets, Idrıs,was “raised to a high station” (S 19 : 56–57). In Is-lamic tradition he is understood as having as-cended to heaven while still alive, and has beenidentified with both Enoch and Elijah. Jesus wasnot crucified as the Jews alleged but rather “Godraised him to Himself” (S 4 : 157–58), which hasusually been interpreted as ascension while aliverather than resurrection after death. Muh� ammadwas taken by God on “a journey by night from thesacred place of prayer to the furthest place ofprayer” (see /plate 13) to be shown God’s signs(S 17 : 1). This last reference forms the basis forelaborate accounts of the Prophet’s ascensionthrough the heavens to the presence of God him-self.

In the 8th-century Life of Muhøammad by Ibn Is-h� aq, “the sacred place of prayer” was identified asMecca and “the furthest place of prayer” with Jeru-salem. The angel Gabriel came to Muh� ammad withthe buraq, an animal other prophets had ridden,and after showing him the wonders of the world,he took him to Jerusalem. There Muh� ammadfound Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and the other pro-phets, and led them in prayer. Ibn Ish� aq also re-ported that Muh� ammad said that after his visit toJerusalem had been completed a ladder wasbrought to him to climb, by which he reached thelowest heaven where he met Adam. He continuedto rise through the seven heavens and met Jesusand his cousin John in the second, Joseph in thethird, Idrıs in the fourth, Aaron in the fifth, Mosesin the sixth, and Abraham in the seventh, who tookhim into Paradise (Guillaume: 182–85). An alterna-tive form of this tradition, which is silent about avisit to Jerusalem, mentions that Muh� ammad wastaken to heaven from Mecca (Schrieke/Horovitz:98).

There have been three tendencies in later inter-pretations of this story of the ascension of Muh� am-mad to heaven: first, that it was a vision, second,that it was a bodily transportation, and third, thatit is not necessary to know how the experience hap-pened. An early supporter of the ascension as a vi-sionary state was Muh� ammad’s wife �A�isha, whosaid of the night journey that Muh� ammad’s body“remained where it was, but that God removed hisspirit by night” (Guillaume: 183). Al-Ash�arı (d.935) agreed with �A�isha that Muh� ammad had a vi-sion during sleep, and that visions during sleepmay be genuine and can be interpreted (Watt: 45).An early advocate of the ascension as an actual


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transportation of Muh� ammad to heaven was al-Ta-h� awı (d. 933), a follower of Abu H� anıfa, who wrote,“The Ascension of Muhammad is a reality. TheProphet was taken by night bodily and awake toheaven and then to what (place) on high Godwilled” (Watt: 50). This literal understanding be-came common in subsequent Islamic writing. IbnIsh� aq represented a middle position by declaringthat, “only God knows how revelation came and hesaw what he saw. But whether he was asleep orawake, it was all true and actually happened” (Guil-laume: 183).

The ascent of Muh� ammad through the sevenheavens became a model for Muslim reflection onthe progress of the resurrected from the grave toparadise. Abu H� amid al-Ghazalı (d. 1111) portrayedthe believer ascending through the seven heavensescorted by angels until finally entering the gardenof bliss (Smith). The night journey was also an im-portant symbol for the ascent of the soul in S� ufıIslam. E.g., Ibn al-�Arabı (d. 1240) described a be-liever and a philosopher making the journey to-gether through the heavens, but only the believergained access to the seventh heaven because of thesuperiority of his spiritual knowledge. This S� ufı in-terpretation of the ascension of Muh� ammad influ-enced Islamic poetry and painting, which often de-picted the night journey as one of the key momentsin the life of the Prophet. For in the elevation ofMuh� ammad above the other prophets there wasconfirmation of his unique role in revelation. Mo-ses had said to Muh� ammad in heaven that Muh� am-mad was higher than himself in God’s esteem andthat the number of Muh� ammad’s followers wouldsurpass his (Schrieke/Horovitz: 100).

S� ufı contemplation on the ascent of the Prophetis strikingly portrayed in the mystical experience ofAbu Yazıd al-Bis�t�amı (d. 874), who is supposed tohave traveled through seven heavens, in each ofwhich he was offered a kingdom by angels. Afterrefusing these he arrived in the seventh heavenwhere he met the spirit of Muh� ammad who toldhim to return to earth to inspire other Muslims toseek God (Renard: 236–37). The movement fromearth to heaven and back again shows how closelysuch S� ufı spirituality followed Muh� ammad’s nightjourney, all the time keeping a distinction betweenthe outward physical ascent and descent of theProphet and the inward spiritual experience of thebeliever. It has been strongly contended thatDante’s Divine Comedy was inspired by S� ufı accountsof journeying through the heavens (Palacios).

In an analogous way, stages of spiritual experi-ence are sometimes expressed in terms of degreesof closeness between the believer and God. AbuZayd al-Dabbagh (d. 1296) wrote about ten stationsof love: attachment to the beloved, desire for him,doing his will, being deeply in love, seeing nothingbut God, being intoxicated, being seduced, per-


plexed, bewildered, and finally losing self-aware-ness (Abrahamov: 116–20). Here the notion of anupward journey to God took on the dimension ofan inward movement in which the believer becameever more deeply united with him.

While in some versions of Islam Muh� ammadwas never depicted, in Persian miniature illustra-tions portrayals of the Prophet were frequent. Theearliest painting of the ascension of Muh� ammad isin Rashıd al-Dın’s early 14th-century World History,which depicts a bearded Muh� ammad, mounted onthe buraq, being conducted from earth to heaven byGabriel and several other angels (Hillenbrand: 139).Later versions pictured him with a veiled face, as inthe 17th-century Khalılı Falnama. Here Muh� am-mad is seen riding the buraq with his face obscuredbut his head surrounded by golden light beingpoured over him by the angels who accompany himon his upward journey (Piotrovsky/Vrieze: 254).Such a picture reflects the notion of Muh� ammad asthe light of the world that existed before creation,a belief sustained in S� ufı circles that promoted theveneration of the Prophet.

Bibliography. Primary: ■ Al-Ghazalı, al-Durra l-fakhira fıkashf �ulum al-akhira (Beirut 1407/1987); ET: id., The PreciousPearl: a Translation from the Arabic (trans. J. Idleman Smith;Missoula, Mont. 1979). ■ Ibn Ish� aq, The Life of Muhammad(ed. A. Guillaume; London 1955); trans. of Ibn Ish� aq, SıratRasul Allah.

Secondary: ■ B. Abrahamov, Divine Love in Islamic Mysti-cism (London 2003). ■ M. Asín Palacios, Islam and the DivineComedy (London 1926); abridged trans. of id., La EscatologiaMusulmana en la Divina Comedia (Madrid 1919). ■ J. E.Bencheikh, Le voyage nocturne de Mahomet (Paris 1988). ■ Y.Erder, “Idrıs”, EQ 2 (Leiden 2002) 484–85. ■ R. Hillen-brand (ed.), Persian Painting from the Mongols to the Qajars(London 2000). ■ M. B. Piotrovsky/J. Vrieze, Heavenly ArtEarthly Beauty (Amsterdam 1999). ■ J. Renard, Seven Doorsto Islam (Berkeley, Calif. 1996). ■ B. Schrieke/J. Horovitz,“Mi�radj,” EI2 7 (Leiden 1993) 97–100. ■ M. Sells, “Ascen-sion,” EQ 1 (Leiden 2001) 176–80. ■ W. M. Watt, IslamicCreeds (Edinburgh 1994). ■ G. Webb, “Angel,” EQ 1 (Lei-den 2001) 84–92.

Mark Beaumont

B. Resurrection and Ascension of Muhø ammadIn addition to the many accounts of the ascensionof Muh� ammad to heaven during his lifetime, thereare also several traditions about his ascension afterhis death. For example, according to a traditioncited in some 11th-century writings, both Sunnıand Twelver Shı�ı, Muh� ammad said, “I am so pre-cious to God that He will not leave me in the earthafter three (days)” (al-Karajikı: vol. 2, 140; al-Ju-waynı: vol. 3, 66; and al-Ghazalı: 42 [ET 40–41]).Similarly, a Sunnı tradition quoted from the workof Sufyan al-Thawrı (d. 778) claims that “Noprophet remains in his grave for more than fortydays before he ascends (to heaven)” (al-Bayhaqı: 29–30). Another saying, ascribed to Ja�far al-S� adiq (d.765), the sixth Imam of the Twelver Shı�ıs, main-tains that “No prophet or legatee remains in the


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earth for more than three days before he ascends toheaven in his spirit, his bones and his flesh” (AbuJa�far al-Qummı: vol. 2, 349; al-Kulaynı: vol. 4, 567;Ibn Qulawayh: 329–30; and Ibn Babawayh: vol. 2,577–78).

According to these and a few other traditions(�Abd al-Razzaq: vol. 3, 383; al-Bayhaqı: 29; al-T� usı:vol. 6, 118; Ibn �Abd al-Hadı: 273; Ibn al-Mulaqqin:vol. 5, 285; and al-Samhudı: vol. 1, 115–16), Mu-h� ammad and other prophets ascended to heavenfrom their graves, three or forty days after theirburial. In classical Islam, it is commonly believedthat Muh� ammad and other prophets were restoredto life after their burial and are alive in their tombs,though the nature of this postmortem life is dis-puted (for example, al-Bayhaqı: 25–53; Ibn �Abd al-Hadı: 222–28; Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya: 187–93; al-Subkı: 179–92; al-Suyut�ı: 147–55; and al-S� alih� ı:vol. 12, 355–68). The traditions quoted above standalone in referring to the prophets’ ascension toheaven. They elicited reactions ranging from slightunease to explicit rejection from the authors whodiscussed their content (for example, al-Karajikı:vol. 2, 140–41; al-Bayhaqı: 29–30; Ibn �Abd al-Hadı: 272–73).

Although only few in number, these traditionspoint to a belief in some circles in pre-classical Is-lam that Muh� ammad and other prophets ascendedto heaven after their deaths. An analysis of the is-nads connected with these traditions suggests 8th-century Kufa as a place where this belief mighthave been more widely accepted than elsewhere,but the available information is too scarce to associ-ate it exclusively with this city. The same can besaid about its dating and dissemination. It is hardlypossible to trace how long before and after the 8thcentury the belief was held, and just how popularit was at any one time.

In addition, it seems that some early Muslimsdid not regard ascension to heaven as the exclusiveproperty of the prophets. According to some tradi-tions, �Amir b. Fuhayra, a freedman of Abu Bakr(reigned 632–634) and an early convert to Islam,ascended to heaven after he was stabbed during thebattle of Bi�r Ma�una (for example, al-Waqidı: vol.1, 349; Ibn Sa�d: vol. 3, 165; Ibn H� abıb: 118; andal-S� alih� ı: vol. 6, 59–60). According to other versionsof the story, however, �Amir only rose to a certainheight, and then returned to the ground (for exam-ple, al-Bukharı: vol. 3, 41 [ET vol. 5, 291]).

Bibliography: ■ �Abd al-Razzaq al-S�an�anı, al-Musøannaf(Beirut 1421/2000). ■ Abu Ja�far al-Qummı, Basøa�ir al-dara-jat fı fadø a�il Al Muhøammad (Qom 1426/2005). ■ Al-Bayhaqı,Kitab ma warada fı høayat al-anbiya� ba�d wafatihim (Beirut1410/1990). ■ Al-Bukharı, al-Søahø ıhø (Cairo 1296/1879); ET:id., The Translation of the Meanings of Sahih al-Bukhari (trans.M. M. Khan; Lahore 1983). ■ Al-Ghazalı, al-Durra l-fakhirafı kashf �ulum al-akhira (Beirut 1407/1987); ET: id., The Pre-cious Pearl: A Translation from the Arabic (trans. J. IdlemanSmith; Missoula, Mont. 1979). ■ Ibn �Abd al-Hadı, al-Søarim


al-munkı fı �l-radd �ala �l-Subkı (Beirut 1412/1992). ■ Ibn al-Mulaqqin, al-Badr al-munır fı takhrıj al-ahø adıth wa-�l-athar al-waqi�a fı �l-Sharhø al-kabır (Riyadh 1425/2004). ■ Ibn Baba-wayh, Kitab man la yahødøuruhu �l-faqıh (Qom 1404/1983–84).■ Ibn H� abıb, Kitab al-muhøabbar (Hyderabad 1361/1942).■ Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, al-Kafiya �l-shafiya fı �l-intisøar li-�l-firqa al-najiya (Riyadh 1425/2004). ■ Ibn Qulawayh, Kamilal-ziyarat (Najaf 1356/1937–38). ■ Ibn Sa�d, Biographien Mu-hammeds, seiner Gefährten und der späteren Träger des Islams(eds. E. Sachau et al.; Leiden 1905–40). ■ Al-Juwaynı, Niha-yat al-matølab fı dirayat al-madhhab (Jedda 1428/2007). ■ Al-Karajikı, Kanz al-fawa�id (Beirut 1405/1985). ■ Al-Kulaynı,al-Furu� min al-Kafı (Tehran 1362–63/1943–44). ■ Al-S� alih� ı,Subul al-huda wa-�l-rashad fı sırat khayr al-�ibad (Beirut 1414/1993). ■ Al-Samhudı, Khulasøat al-wafa� bi-akhbar dar al-Musø-tøafa (Cairo 1427/2006). ■ Al-Subkı, Shifa� al-siqam fı ziyaratkhayr al-anam (Beirut 1971). ■ Al-Suyut�ı, Hø awı li-�l-fatawa fı�l-fiqh wa-�ulum al-tafsır wa-�l-høadıth wa-�l-usøul wa-�l-nahøw wa-�l-i�rab wa-sa�ir al-funun (Cairo 1352/1933). ■ Al-T� usı, Tah-dhıb al-ahøkam (Tehran 1417/1997). ■ Al-Waqidı, Kitab al-maghazı (ed. M. Jones; Oxford 1966).

Krisztina Szilágyi

VI. Literature“In whatever religious context you find them,”claims Mircea Eliade, “ascents, the climbing ofmountains or stairs, flights into the air, … all thesethings always signify a transcending of the humanand a penetration into higher cosmic levels” (Eliade1974: 108; cf. Eliade 1960: 99–122). According toIoan Culianu, the rewards reaped by such ascentsinclude “transcendent vision (or spiritual knowl-edge)” or even “divinization, becoming like one ofthe gods” (Culianu 1987: 435).

Critics of Eliade and Culianu might warn thatsuch phenomenological generalizations must betaken with a grain of salt. Yet the fact that patternsof descent and ascent are so prevalent in myths andlore around the world makes the task of ascertain-ing direct linkages between ascensions in the Bibleand ascensions that occur in post-biblical literatureall the more challenging. While, of all biblical as-cents, Christ’s is the one most commonly adaptedas a literary topos, its typological linkage with theascents of Enoch and Elijah (e.g., in the Biblia paupe-rum) has made Elijah’s ascent in the Chariot of Fire(see /plate 14.a) especially susceptible to literaryadaptation. This article considers the literary themeof ascension in general in its relation to the Bible.

The Commedia, “[t]he most important account ofheavenly ascension in Western Culture” (Tommasi:524), is both biblically and classically inspired, eventhough, “[s]tripped of its cultural complexity,” itmay seem reducible to “a shamanistic story thatcould have taken place in any space or time setting”(Culiano 1991: 230–31). Dante’s descent into theInferno and his subsequent ascent via Purgatory toParadise take cues from book 6 of Virgil’s Aeneidand 2 Cor 12 : 2–4 (Inferno 1.13–15, 28–32). Puta-tively the image of Jacob’s Ladder underlies Dante’sglimpse, in Saturn’s heaven, of a golden ladder onwhich contemplative souls descend from and as-


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cend to the highest heavenly sphere (Paradiso 21–22; Eliade: 107). More generally, Northrop Fryefinds that the Commedia’s whole movement repeatsthe patterns of descent and ascent, apostasy andrestoration, upon which the Bible is structured.The two Testaments together tell one great “U-shaped story” in which humankind first descendsby losing the tree and water of life at the outsetof Genesis, and then ascends back up, re-obtainingthem at the end of Revelation (Frye 1983: 169). Inbetween, following the disasters involving Adamand Noah (= descent), and Abraham’s subsequentcall to the Promised Land and the resulting patriar-chal era (= ascent), Israel’s history constitutes along, continuous series of descents into subjuga-tion by heathen powers (Egypt, Philistia, Babylon,Syria, Rome), followed by re-ascents to a favorablerelationship with God (summed up by Frye asPromised Land II, Jerusalem/Zion, the rebuilt tem-ple, the temple purified by the Maccabees, and Je-sus’ spiritual kingdom).

As Frye points out, in literature “[t]he mostcommon images of ascent are ladders, mountains,towers and trees; of descent, caves or dives into wa-ter” (Frye 1990: 151). However, the Bible’s “U-shaped” pattern may also assume a non-physical,utterly spiritualized guise. This is exemplified bythe Yiddish theater masterpiece, The Dybbuk (1914–1919, a.k.a. Between Two Worlds) by S. Ansky (or An-ski; 1863–1920). Saturated with ideas from theKabbalah, in which the ten sefirot (the levels of di-vine emanation) are schematized in a vertical con-figuration (the symbolic “Tree of Life”) throughwhich humans may hope to ascend back to God,The Dybbuk opens and ends with the chant: “Whydid the soul / … / Tumble from Heaven / to theGreat Abyss? / The most profound descents con-tain / Ascensions to the heights again” (Ansky: 9,106–7). The play, about the ill-fated relation be-tween two lovers, also features a “messenger” whoshuttles between the human and divine realms.

Themes and motifs of ascension, many of thembiblically derived, have informed mystical poetry ofthe Christian West for almost a millennium. Notheme proves more recurrent than the ascent of thesoul to God or to heaven; such ascents appear inmystically-informed poetry of Western Europefrom the Middle Ages on. For example, Mechthildof Magdeburg (ca. 1208–1282/94), in her The Flow-ering Light of the Godhead (Das fließende Licht der Gott-heit) 3.10, traces the stages of a divinely-bestowed,Christ-like passion undergone by the loving soul,which, in the end, resurrects and ascends toheaven, while Jacopone da Todi (1230/36–1306) inLaud 89 (as numbered by F. Bonaccorsi) invitesreaders to emulate his own rapturous ascent of atree called Love, planted by God. Eventually thetheme of mystical ascent finds its nonpareil West-ern poetic expression in St. John of the Cross’


(1542–1591) The Ascent of Mount Carmel (Subida delMonte Carmelo), consisting of a short poem with anincomplete prose exposition, accompanied by aschematic drawing, in John’s own hand, of the met-aphorical Mount. As the poem is meant to “de-scribe the way that leads to the summit of themount,” i.e., the perfected state of the soul’s unionwith God (as the poet defines his theme at the start[John of the Cross: 55]), John makes frequent biblicalallusions to illustrate his vision, as when, to illus-trate the renunciation and mortification that theascent to God requires, he cites certain divine pre-requisites for Moses’ ascent of Sinai (Exod 34 : 3)and Jacob’s ascent at Bethel (Gen 35 : 2) (Ascent5.6.2–3).

Ascents, often to heaven, are also common infairytales and other folk literature that tell of ac-tions not bound by the laws of nature. E.g., theGrimm Brothers’ Kinder- und Hausmärchen, knownin English as Grimms’ Fairy Tales, include Mary’sChild (Marienkind) in which the Virgin Mary takes awoodcutter’s three-year-old daughter up to heavento stay with her, and The Tailor in Heaven (Der Schnei-der im Himmel) in which a tailor arrives in heavenwith the Apostle Peter. In both cases the guests (thelittle girl and the woodcutter) defy their hosts’ in-structions and consequently are sent back down toEarth. Following the same inverted U-shaped pat-tern, another Grimm tale, The Flail from Heaven (DerDreschflegel vom Himmel), tells of a peasant whoclimbs a tree up to heaven, but who, when someonestarts chopping the tree, has to hurry back down.In still other tales, however, this pattern is defied,as the protagonist dies and therefore ascends toheaven without returning (The Poor Peasant inHeaven [Das Bürli im Himmel]), or he dreams that hehas died and gone to heaven, only to awaken andrealize he is still alive on earth (Master Stitchum[Meister Pfriem]). In German literature, the theme ofascent-of-the-soul-after-death was to find its mostrenowned exemplification at the close of part 2 ofGoethe’s drama Faust (1832), where the chorus ofangels bears the redeemed Faust’s soul upward,singing: “All unite, / rise and exalt! / Air iscleansed, / Let the soul breathe [Alle vereinigt / Hebteuch und preist! / Luft ist gereinigt, / Atme der Geist!]”(7368–71).

A notable development in associations of as-cents results from the gradually shifting attitude,from the late 17th through the late 19th century,toward mountains. What had been viewed from thetraditional Jewish and Christian perspectives as dis-turbing aberrational consequences of the earth’sfallenness and accursedness came to be regarded asmanifestations of sublimity and divine glory.Mountains become associated with what M. H. Ni-colson documents as the “aesthetics of the infi-nite,” which gradually project the image of God’svastness, through the vastness of cosmic space,


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upon the vastness of the world, with all its spatialvariations (Nicolson: 271–323; Ziolkowski: 27–54).With the emergence of Romanticism and the tend-ency of its exponents “to naturalize the supernatu-ral and to humanize the divine” (Abrams: 68), theclimbing of mountains becomes a popular literarytheme that often garners spiritual, quasi-religiousassociations with biblical resonances (i.e., associa-tions it had already evoked for centuries amongmystics). This is epitomized in the concluding bookof W. Wordsworth’s autobiographical poem ThePrelude. As M. H. Abrams points out regarding book14’s celestially reflective account of the poet’s climbof Mount Snowdon, mountain ascents have been“the traditional place for definitive visions sinceMoses had climbed Mount Sinai” (Abrams: 286).

Eventually ascension is re-conceptualized as aninternal poetic process, one that is enticingly com-parable though by no means equatable with mysticascents. Jean Paul, in his Vorschule der Ästhetik (1804,Elementary course in aesthetics), asserts that thetrue poet combines art and nature in such a way asto encircle “restricted nature” with the “infinity ofthe idea,” allowing the one to fade away into theother “as though on a heavenly ascent [wie auf einerHimmelfahrt]” (§4). When he later comments thatthe “inner heavenly ascent [innere Himmelfahrt]” ofthe ancient Greek poets was assisted by the fact thatthey sang not only about but for the gods, he isalluding to a pagan tradition. Yet, moments earlier,he drew into an inexorably Gospel-bound associa-tion the mythology that sustained those poets: “onOlympus every delight had found its trans-figura-tive Tabor [Verklärung-Tabor]” (§18).

S. Kierkegaard, who, though strongly influ-enced by the Romantics, reacted against them,makes odd, humorous usage of two different talesthat draw the figure of a tailor into humorous asso-ciations with heavenward ascent. To illustrate thefallacy of any human generation that, not satisfiedwith fulfilling its own proper “task,” usurps therole of the world-ruling spirit, Johannes de Silen-tio, Kierkegaard’s pseudonym in Fear and Trembling(1843), avers in that work’s “Epilogue” that no onecould ever have found existence more flawed thanthe tailor in the abovementioned Brothers Grimmtale who went to heaven and saw from that vantagepoint everything that happens on earth. Years ear-lier, in a 19 September 1836 journal entry, Kierke-gaard reflected upon E. T. A. Hoffmann’s littlestory Master Flea (Meister Floh, 1822), which tells ofa tailor who, having inhaled inflammable balloongas in an apothecary, ascended to the ceiling andthen descended again before finally being borneout the window by a breeze. This tale’s humor, Ki-erkegaard observed, emerges not from the tailor’sgetting the dose of gas, but from the contradictionbetween his extraordinary ascent and his previousfinite, mundane, bourgeois existence (Kierkegaard:5 : 5177; cf. 5 : 5162).


While “many purely literary works” employ theascent theme “only for adventure’s sake” (Tom-masi: 518), they can readily betray its religious ifnot necessarily biblical association. For example,the poet-hero of French playwright Edmond Ro-stand’s “heroic-comedy” Cyrano de Bergerac (1897),after enumerating six fanciful ways to fly to themoon, tells of a seventh: emerging wet from theocean as the tide seeks the moon, he would bedrawn up by the lunar beams, rising in the air “likean angel [comme un ange]” (act 3).

Some memorable literary adaptations of bibli-cally-related ascent scenes result from ecphrasis,where a picture or sculpture depicting the scene isrepresented in a poem or literary narrative. For in-stance, Rilke’s two poems “Himmelfahrt MariaeI.II.” (1913, Ascension of Mary) were directly in-spired by El Greco’s Immaculate Conception, whichshows the seraph-accompanied Virgin ascendingheavenward toward a descending dove (= the HolySpirit), a painting the poet had beheld in theChurch of San Vicente in Toledo. A humorous ref-erence to an ascent scene based upon an extra-bibli-cal account of St. John the Evangelist’s death (in St.Isidore’s On the Life and Death of the Saints, recordedin the Legenda aurea), occurs in E. M. Forster’s novelA Room With a View (1923), where Mr. Emerson de-scribes the subject of Giotto’s frescoed Ascension ofSt. John as “that fat man in blue … shooting intothe sky like an air-balloon” (pt. 1, ch. 2).

In some instances, though rarely, the ascent ofa whole group, rather than of an individual, maybe depicted. One indirectly biblical example occursin the titular story of the American writer CynthiaOzick’s Levitation: Five Fictions (1982), about a Jew-ish novelist, Feingold, and his novelist wife Lucy, aPresbyterian minister’s daughter. Although Fein-gold “had always known he did not want a Jewishwife,” while Lucy too “had hoped to marry out ofher tradition,” having since girlhood “felt herselfto belong to the people of the Bible,” her latent butultimately irrepressible sense of alienation fromher husband’s tradition is exposed when, during aparty they host in their Manhattan apartment, shesees their living room, in which her husband and agroup of exclusively Jewish guests are discussingthe Holocaust, rise away from her: “The room be-gan to lift. It ascended. It rose like an ark on wa-ters” – an obvious allusion to Noachic salvation.“Why did it not take her too? Only Jesus couldtake her.”

Ascension is ultimately inverted in the poem“Ascent into Hell” in the Australian poet A. D.Hope’s collection The Wandering Islands (1955). Paro-dying and undermining Dante’s Inferno, Hopepresents the moment of birth as the ascent intohell, so that, as one interpreter puts it, “the expul-sion of birth is something like the expulsion fromEden,” and the mother’s vagina, as hell’s “Birth-gate,” becomes a vagina dentata (McCooey: 115).


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Unsurprisingly, physical ascensions are de-picted in modern fantasy literature and science fic-tion. This finds classic exemplification in Perelandra(1944) by C. S. Lewis, the second installment of histrio of fantasy novels or romances known as theSpace Trilogy (1938–1948), about whose biblically-derived, Miltonic mythic underpinnings much hasbeen written. The novel’s plot, the averting of a sec-ond biblical Fall on the planet Venus (Perelandra),is framed between an ascent and a descent by theearthling hero Elwin Ransom: his being trans-ported in a state of suspended animation within acoffin-like casket from Earth (Thulcandra) to Venusby the ruling angel (eldil) of Mars (the Oyarsa ofMalacandra), and his later being transported backto Earth through that same agency (chs. 2 and 17).Prior to his return to Earth, the action on Venusculminates with two ascensions by him there. First,he climbs the Holy Mountain, or Hill of Life, onwhose summit he meets the only two Venusian hu-mans, the un-fallen Eve-like queen and Adamicking of Venus, as well as the ruling angels (eldila)of that planet and Mars. The next ascent, spiritualrather than physical, and reminiscent of Dante’s vi-sion of the Trinity from the vantage of the Empy-rean Heaven, occurs after Ransom beholds “theGreat Dance.” This quasi-mystical experiencedraws him up to “the very zenith of complexity”that fades into “a simplicity beyond all comprehen-sion” (ch. 17).

Not always physical, visible actions, ascents inscience fiction are often, like the biblical Enoch’sascent, only implicit. A prime example occurs inRobert Heinlein’s bestselling, futuristic novel AStranger in a Strange Land (1961), whose title echoesExod 2 : 22, and whose portrayal of a mass religiousmovement called the Church of the New Revelationis viewed as auguring the vast, evangelical mega-churches that emerged in late-20th-centuryAmerica. The hero, a messianic human named Mi-chael Valentine Smith who was born and raised onMars, not only possesses supernatural psychic pow-ers (acquired through his Martian upbringing), but,near the end, just as he is being savaged to deathby a mob, “discorporates” and presumably ascends(ch. 37). In the novel’s closing scene, he reappears,now as the haloed “Archangel Michael” setting “towork” in some otherworldly “studio.”

Ascension again figures at the end of anotherbestseller, James Redfield’s The Celestine Prophecy: AnAdventure (1993), the plot of which revolves aroundthe discovery of nine sequential “insights” of lifeinscribed upon an ancient Aramaic manuscript inPeru (sic). Drawing the novel to a close, the culmi-nating ninth “insight” (“The Emerging Culture”)reveals that Jesus’ ascension prefigured a stage ofhuman development at which, having evolved to ahigher state of spiritual “vibration,” “everyone willvibrate highly enough that we can walk intoheaven, in our same form.”

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Bibliography. Primary: ■ S. Ansky, A Dybbuk (adapted by T.Kushner; New York 1998). ■ John of the Cross, SelectedWritings (ed. K. Kavanaugh; New York 1987). ■ S. Kierke-gaard, Søren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers, 7 vols. (eds.H. V. Hong/E. H. Hong; Bloomington, Ind. 1967–78).

Secondary: ■ M. H. Abrams, Natural Supernaturalism (NewYork 1971). ■ I. P. Culianu, “Ascension,” ER1 1 (Detroit,Mich. 1987) 435–41. ■ I. P. Culianu, Out of this World (Bos-ton; Mass. 1991). ■ M. Eliade, Myths, Dreams, and Mysteries(New York 1960). ■ M. Eliade, Patterns in Comparative Reli-gion (New York 1974); trans. of id., Traité d’histoire des reli-gions (Paris 1939). ■ N. Frye, The Great Code (San Diego, Ca-lif. 1983). ■ N. Frye, Words With Power (San Diego, Calif.1990). ■ D. McCooey, “‘What Are We Doing Here?’,”Southerly 61.1 (Spring 2001)112–16. ■ M. H. Nicolson,Mountain Gloom and Mountain Glory (Ithaca, N.Y. 1959).■ C. O. Tommasi, “Ascension,” ER2 1 (Detroit, Mich. 2005)518–26. ■ T. Ziolkowski, The Classical German Elegy 1795–1950 (Princeton, N.J. 1980).

Eric Ziolkowski

VII. Visual ArtsThe ascension of Christ (Acts 1 : 9–11), not surpris-ingly, is the most frequent representation of thebiblical variations of this motif, while the ascen-sions of Elijah and the apocryphal Ascension of Eli-jah and Enoch are seen to prefigure Christ’s ascen-sion.

While the most important symbol in Christ’sascension is a cloud, in the ascension of other sig-nificant personages there can be a range of attrib-utes such as angels, the fiery chariot in the case ofElijah, and the 12 stars and crescent moon associ-ated with the ascension of the Virgin.

The scriptural episodes depicted are the takingup of Elijah to heaven in 2 Kgs 2; Enoch’s transferalto heaven in the pseudepigraphical books of Enoch;and Isaiah’s being taken up by an angel to the sev-enth heaven where he saw God, in the apocryphalAscension of Isaiah. Elijah’s ascension (see /plate14.a) is regarded as a prototype of both the ascen-sion of Christ and the assumption of the Virgin; ithas been depicted by countless artists in composi-tions that often owe a great deal to the ancient clas-sical world, specifically to the sun god Helios orApollo. The subject was linked especially to thehagiography of the Carmelites – an order that re-garded Elijah as their founder.

Important pictorial cycles directly compare thelife of Christ with the life of Moses, such as thefrescoes of the Sistine Chapel (1481–82) in which aparallel is drawn between the ascension of Christand the legendary assumption of Moses. The as-sumption of Mary in the Eastern tradition was tra-ditionally depicted as Christ receiving her soul pre-sented in the form of a child while, in Westerntradition, artists tended to illustrate her corporealassumption. Like her son, Mary is resurrected threedays after her death and is carried up to heaven byangels. A relief in Autun Cathedral (12th cent.)shows her, in an allusion to the resurrection of


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Christ, piercing the roof of her tomb. Until the17th century, the Virgin is normally portrayed asbeing carried on a cloud to God the father but fromthis century onwards, the nature of her assumptionchanges and she is shown ascending unaided by an-gels. Her forehead is encircled by 12 stars and acrescent moon appears under her feet; she has be-come, in effect, the Woman of Rev 12 : 1.

The most frequent Old Testament iconographicmotif is that of Elijah taken up to heaven in awhirlwind or chariot, portrayed in countless im-ages. Besides the Virgin, John the Baptist is anotherbiblical figure sometimes depicted as ascending toheaven, especially by artists such as Donatello andCorreggio.

Works: ■ The Ascension of Elijah: Giotto, Elijah on the fire char-iot; Doré, Elisha watches as Elijah is taken up in a whirlwind;Chagall, Elijah carried off to heaven. ■ The Ascension of the Vir-gin: di Giovanni, The Assumption; Titian, The Assumption,Frari Church, Venice. ■ The Ascension of John the Evangelist:Correggio, The Passing away of St. John; Donatello, The Ascen-sion of St. John.

Bibliography: ■ P. Murray/L. Murray, The Oxford Companionto Christian Art and Architecture (Oxford 1996). [Esp. 34–35,37–38] ■ G. Duchet-Suchaux/M. Pastoureau, The Bible andthe Saints (Paris 1994). [Esp. 47–50]

Martin O’Kane

VIII. MusicMotifs of ascension other than the ascension ofChrist rarely appear in music. One exception isMendelssohn-Bartholdy’s oratorio Elias (1846, re-vised in 1847; Elijah) which includes the ascensionof Elijah (2 Kgs 2 : 11).

Bibliography: ■ R. L. Todd, “Mendelssohn, Felix”, GroveMusic Online (http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/, accessed3 July 2008). ■ H. E. Smither, A History of the Oratorio, 4vols. (Chapel Hill, N.C. 1977–2000).

Nils Holger PetersenSee also /Ascension of Christ; /Ascension ofElijah; /Ascent, Songs of; /Descent into theNetherworld/Hell; /Dormition andAssumption of Mary; /Isaiah, Martyrdom andAscension of; /Paul, Ascension of

Ascension of ChristI. New TestamentII. ChristianityIII. IslamIV. LiteratureV. Visual ArtsVI. MusicVII. Film

I. New TestamentBy “the ascension of Christ” is traditionally under-stood Jesus being “taken up to (into heaven),” thatis, his exaltation to God’s right hand 40 days afterhis resurrection, as described in Acts 1 : 9–11 (also

ascension (of muhammad after his death)

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