The Work of the Bollandists: Through Three Centuries 1615-1915

Saints Alive! The "Acta Sanctorum" Then and Now

The year 2007 marks the four hundredth anniversary of the publication, by Heribert Rosweyde, S.J., of the ?Fasti Sanctorum?, the precursor to centuries of research into the lives of the saints undertaken by a small group of Belgian Jesuits who would become known to the world at large as the Bollandists. Hippolyte Delehaye has undertaken to review their exhaustive, comprehensive, and sometimes painfully controversial work over three centuries. His account ends in 1915, and the almost-century since then has seen continued work by these scholars.
The luminaries of the early days, Rosweyde, John Bollandus (whose name is forever attached to the group), and Daniel Papebroch, created a work of monumental stature, equaling in every way?and in some ways, surpassing?the work of the Maurists. Interestingly, although the Maurists do not have the recognition today that the Bollandists have, it was Jean Mabillon, OSB, a member of the Congregation of St. Maur, who established the rules which guide the historical investigations that the Bollandists (and all others involved in the discipline of diplomatics) pursue. Daniel Papebroch famously acknowledged Mabillon's superior insights into the fledgling science of paleography with a letter rich in humility and scholarship. Delehaye outlines the nature of their relationship at length in his ?Work of the Bollandists? (pp. 34-35).
The work of the Bollandists consists in the publication of authentic hagiography, possible only after a thorough research into all available manuscripts recounting the lives of the saints of the Western (and, to a lesser extent) the Eastern Churches. To accomplish this, wide-ranging travels to libraries, monastic houses, and archives were undertaken over a period of many years. Correspondence with scholars throughout Christendom added to the resources. A truly vast library of materials developed over time. Particular care was taken to verify authentic material regarding saints' lives, and at the same time, put to rest the many myths and legends that had accumulated over centuries of devotion. They publish the results of their exhaustive research in calendar order in the ?Acta Sanctorum?, the magnum opus of the group.
Debunking cherished myths is a dangerous business, as Daniel Papebroch learned in his conflict with the Carmelite Order over his refusal to accept the legend that the Order had been founded by the Prophet Elias on Mount Carmel in Old Testament times. When it became necessary to elucidate the Acts of St. Albert, the Patriarch of Jerusalem who had written the Carmelite rule, the Old Testament legend was set aside. This provoked a years-long pamphlet war between Carmelite spokesmen and the Bollandists, with the upshot being that the volume of the ?Acta Sanctorum? containing the Acts of St. Albert was placed on the Index of Prohibited Books, where it remained for many decades. Delehaye devotes a lengthy chapter (The Period of Ordeal, pp. 117-156) to a detailed account of this unfortunate episode.
A disaster of far greater proportions awaited the Bollandists, however, and the storm broke in 1773. On 21 July of that year, Pope Clement XIV signed the papal brief ?Dominus ac Redemptor?, suppressing the Jesuit Order. Numerous accounts exist of the crisis that this brief provoked in the lives of individual Jesuits, their numerous educational establishments, and foreign missions. For the Bollandists, suppression of the Order meant the loss of their library, the cessation of the publication of the ?Acta Sanctorum? and its companion work, ?Analecta Bollandiana?. The Jesuits were gone, and with them the great work of the Bollandists.
Forty-one years on (1814) Pope Pius VII re-established the Jesuits, and slowly the Bollandist work began again. Sporadic efforts to maintain publication had been made by various groups during the suppression, but only with the resuscitation of the Society of Jesus did work again move forward in a orderly fashion. Still, as Delehaye recounts, the loss of materials, the spoliation of the library by partisan forces, and the pressures put on the researchers themselves made progress difficult during most of the nineteenth century. This was, after all, the century of revolution in Europe, the loss of the Papal States, and the growing secularization of much of European thought.
Delehaye's work concludes in 1915, another less-than-auspicious time for anything Belgian. The madness of the First World War had its own impact on the quiet work of those still maintaining the ever-growing calendar of the ?Acta Sanctorum?. For the story post World War I, the reader can be referred to Dom David Knowles's ?Great Historical Enterprises? (Nelson, 1963), which carries an interesting account of the Bollandists.
Some special conditions exist regarding ?The Work of the Bollandists? which are fully elucidated in the edition published by Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprints. Books in this series are rare, of interest to a limited audience, and inaccessible except in these reprints. The editors note on the verso of the title page, ?[This book] may have defects such as missing pages, erroneous pagination, blurred pages, missing text . . . and other issues beyond our control. Because this is such an important and rare work, we believe it is best to reproduce this book regardless of its original condition.? The book displays some of the faults noted by the editors; there are three missing pages, one of which occurs during the correspondence between Papebroch and Mabillon; and some marginalia of a long-ago reader. But, in the long run, the editors are right: without this reprint edition, no English-language version of this interesting history would be available at all.
For those interested in hagiography; paleography; and the social conditions of scholarship from the early modern period up to the present, ?The Work of The Bollandists: Through Three Centuries, 1615-1915? constitutes a valuable addition to the bookshelf. Kessinger is to be commended on making this odd volume available.