In 1667, there came into controversy questions in regard to the bodily ascension of Mary into heaven. These controversies brought into the Index a number of treatises written on either side of the issue. Benedict XIV (in the decree _De Festis_, ii, 8, 18) says that the bodily assumption of Mary may be held as a pious and probable belief which it would be rash to contest; it is not, however, to be accepted formally as a dogma of the Church. The passages from the Scriptures which are cited to sustain the belief can be otherwise interpreted. The text of the announcement proceeds: _Nec est ejusmodi traditio, quae satis sit ad evehendam hanc sententiam ad gradum articulorum fidei_. Reusch is of opinion that the tendency during the 19th century has been to develop this pious belief into a dogma. Dom. Arnaldi, in a treatise entitled _Super transitu B. M._, printed in Genoa in 1879, undertook to prove that Mary had never suffered death.[52] Several monographs, written in honour of the Madonna of Loreto, found their way into the Index on the ground not of the substance of their teachings but of the extravagance of their language. In 1654, a work by Vincenzo Caraffa (later general of the Jesuits) was prohibited (with a _d.c._) which had been published under a pseudonym in Naples and later reprinted in Rome under the title _Camino del cielo overo prattiche spirituali, del P. Luigi Sidereo_. The book was brought into the Index under the instructions of the general of the Dominicans on the ground that it maintained the theory of the Immaculate Conception. An examination of the text showed that this was not the case, whereupon the following new grounds for condemnation were presented: first, the author claims that the Virgin during her sojourn in the temple had been fed by the angels with heavenly nectar; second, the author says that the grace of Mary from the first moment of her life was greater than that of any created being; the author states with approval the opinion of Bernardino of Siena that Mary is to be worshipped as a goddess. Scheeben points out[53] that, during these later years, the teaching of the Church holds that the power of the grace of Mary, at least after the birth of Christ, must be held as being greater not only than the heavenly grace given to the highest of mankind but even than that possessed by the highest among the angels. In 1700, was prohibited, twenty-seven years after its publication, a volume by Zepherin de Somèire, a French Franciscan, printed in Narbonne under the title of _La dévotion à la mère de Dieu dans le très-saint Sacrement de l’autel, fondé sur les unions qui sont entre son fils et elle en ce divin mystère_. The list of books on Mariology condemned in the Indexes is, as stated, very considerable, but the larger number of the more important works treating upon different phases of the worship of Mary escaped attention.