WELCOME!
THE BOLLANDISTS
~ Part II ~
 |
| Daniel van Papenbroek (Papebroch) |
At this time, the hagiographers were joined by a new companion, who was to accompany Henschen on his journey. This was Father Daniel van Papenbroeck, better known under the slightly altered form of Papebroch (died 1714). He entered the Society in 1646, after having been, like Henschen, a brilliant pupil of Bolland's in the course of the humanities. He had just completed his thirty-first year when he was called on, in 1659, to give himself entirely to the work of hagiography, in which he was to have a remarkably long and fruitful career, for it lasted till his death, which occurred in the eighty-seventh year of his age, and the fifty-fifth of his work in this field. At the same time that they appointed Papebroch a collaborator to Bolland and Henschen, the superiors of the order, at the instance of important persons who wished the publication of the "Acta Sanctorum" hastened as much as possible, relieved the Fathers in charge of the work of every other regular occupation, in order that they might thenceforth devote their entire time to the hagiographical work. They were not obliged to fulfil any duties of the sacred ministry except for the distraction and rest that men of such great intellectual activity might find in a change of occupation. About the same time they were granted another favour. About 1660, they were allocated a spacious hall on the first floor, where books and manuscripts could be placed on shelves in methodical order. The library or the "Hagiographical Museum", as it became customary to call it, had already received, and continued to receive daily, thanks to the gifts of generous benefactors and judicious purchases, many acquisitions, so that Henschen during the course of his literary journey was able to say that he found very few libraries, public or private, that could compare with the Hagiographical Museum" of Antwerp. This library was greatly enriched some years later when Papebroch, through the death of his father, a rich merchant of Antwerp, was enabled to apply to the work on which he was engaged his large inheritance.
Bolland's two companions began their journey on the feast of Saint Mary Magdalen, July 22, 1660. Their old master accompanied them as far as Cologne, where they left him after a week's stay. An almost daily correspondence kept up with him, and preserved nearly entire at Brussels, partly at the Royal Library and partly at the Library of the Bollandists, allows us to follow each step of the learned pilgrimage through Germany, Italy, and France. In Germany, they visited successively Coblenz, Mainz, Worms, Speyer, Frankfurt, Aschaffenburg, Würzburg, Bamberg, Nuremberg, Eichstätt, Ingolstadt, Augsburg Munich, and Innsbruck.
Everywhere the name of Bolland ensured them an enthusiastic welcome and opened every library to them; everywhere they found precious material to take with them for use in the succeeding volumes of the "Acta". A reception no less friendly and a harvest even more abundant awaited the travellers in Italy, at Verona, Vicenza, Padua, Venice, Ferrara, Imola, Florence, Ravenna, Forli, Rimini, Pesaro, Fano, Sinigaglia, Ancona, Osimo, Loreto, Assisi, Perugia, Foligno, and Spoleto.
They arrived in Rome the day before the Vigil of Christmas, and remained there until October 3 of the following year, 1661. During all this time they were overwhelmed with attentions and favours by Alexander VII, who in person did the honours of his rich Chigi library and commanded by special Briefs that all libraries should be opened to them, and especially that they should be allowed access to the manuscripts of the Vatican. They were received with no less courtesy by the cardinals, the heads of the various orders, the savants Allatius, Aringhi, Ughelli, Ciampini, and others, then shining lights in the capital of the Christian world.
The five or six copyists placed at their disposal were kept constantly busy during the nine months they were in Rome in transcribing manuscripts according to their directions, and this occupation was continued by them a long time after the Bollandists departure. As for the Bollandists themselves, their time was principally employed in collecting Greek manuscripts, in which they were diligently assisted by the celebrated Hellenist, Laurentius Porcius, and the abbot Francesco Albani, later cardinal, and pope under the name of Clement XI. The learned Maronite, Abraham of Eckel, who had just brought to Rome a great number of Syriac manuscripts, was willing to make extracts and translate for them the Acts of the Saints found therein. Ughelli gave them two volumes in folio of notes which he had collected for the completion of his "Italia Sacra". The Oratorians put them in touch with the manuscripts of Baronius, and a large collection of lives of the saints which they had intended to publish themselves. On leaving Rome they visited Naples, Grotta-Ferrata, and Monte Cassino, then Florence, where they remained for four months, and lastly Milan. Everywhere, as at Rome, they left behind them copyists who continued for years the work of transcribing which had been marked out for them. They then spent more than six months in travelling through France, where they halted successively at the Grande Chartreuse of Grenoble, at Lyons, at the monasteries of Cluny and Citeaux, at Dijon, Auxerre, Sens, and lastly at Paris. They arrived in the great capital, August 11, 1662, and were immediately put in touch with whatever distinguished savants Paris could then boast of. They found at their command, with unrestricted leave to copy whatever served their purpose, the wealth of hagiographical matter contained in the rich libraries of Saint-Germain-des-Prés and Saint Victor, as well as those of the Celestines and Feuillants, of Wion d'Hérouval, de Thou, de Séguier, and lastly the Mazarine and the Royal Library. Their stay at Paris extended over three months, every moment of which time they spent in transcribing and collating, besides enlisting the services of several copyists during the entire time.
They left Paris November 9 and turned their steps toward Rouen, then went through Eu, Abbeville, and Arras, omitting, to their great regret, the city of Amiens, because of the impassable roads, and the impossibility of securing means of transportation. They reached Antwerp December 21, 1662, after an absence of twenty-nine months. They not only brought back with them an enormous mass of documents transcribed by themselves and by the copyists they had been obliged to engage, but they found awaiting them at Antwerp a like number from the copyists they had employed in the principal cities they had visited (notably, Rome, Florence, Milan, and Paris) and who were still carrying on with the labour with which they had been charged. This long journey caused little delay in the progress of the work, for which, on the other hand, it was so productive of good results.
Thanks to the incredible activity of the three eminent hagiographers, the three volumes for March were given to the public in 1668. They bore only the name of Henschen and Papebroch, as Bolland had passed to a better life, September 12, 1665, thirty-six years after succeeding Rosweyde in the preparation of the "Acta Sanctorum".
Seven years later, in 1675, the three volumes for April appeared, preceded by preliminary treatises, the subjects of which were respective: in the first volume, the two most ancient collections of notices on the popes (catalogues of Liberius, and Felix) and the date of Saint Ambrose's death, both by Henschen; in the second, the attempt at a diplomatical treatise by Papebroch, "whose chief merit", as the author himself was fond of saying with as much sincerity as modesty, "was that it inspired Mabillon to write his excellent work: "De re diplomatica"; in the third, a new revised edition of the new revised edition of the "Diatribi de tribus Dagobertis", which had made the name of Henschen celebrated twenty years previously. The custom of having these "Parerga" was kept up in the succeeding volumes; there was even an entire volume, the "Propylaeum ad tomos Maii", filled with notes of Papebroch on the chronology and history of the popes from St. Peter to Innocent XI. Another happy thought first carried out at that time was the publication of the Greek acts in their original text; previously, only Latin versions had been given. The Greek texts were still relegated to the end of the volumes in the form of appendices; it was only in the fourth volume of May that they were first printed in the body of the work. The first three volumes of May were published in 1688. Besides the names of Henschen and Papebroch, the title-page bore those of Conrad Janninck and François Baert, who had been appointed to the work, the former in 1679; the latter in 1681, at the same time as Father Daniel Cardon, who was carried off by a premature death the second year after his appointment.
Up to this time Bolland and his first two companions had met with nothing but encouragement. A severe storm was soon to burst on the one who was now head of the undertaking and on the work itself. In the first volume of April Papebroch had occasion to treat, under date of the eighth, the Acta of Saint Albert Patriarch of Jerusalem, and author of the Carmelite rule. In his preliminary commentary he had combatted, as insufficiently grounded, the tradition universally received by the Carmelites, that the origin of the order dated back to the prophet Elias, who was regarded as its founder. This was the signal for an outburst of wrath on the part of these religious. From 1681 to 1693 there appeared no less than twenty or thirty pamphlets filled with abusive language against the unfortunate critic. Papebroch, who was receiving at the same time from the most distinguished scholars lively protests against the attacks of which he was made the object, met them at first merely with a silence which perhaps seemed disdainful. But learning that active steps were being taken at Rome to obtain a condemnation of the collection of the Acta Sanctorum or of some of its volumes, he and his companions decided that the time for silence had passed. It was Father Janninck who entered the lists in an open letter to the author of the "Exhibitio Errorum", followed soon afterwards by another in which he replied to a new little book published in support of the work of Father Sebastian of Saint Paul. The two letters were printed in 1693. They were followed by a more extended apology for the "Acta", published by the same Janninck in 1695; and lastly there appeared in 1696, 1697, and 1698 the three volumes of the "Responsio Danielis Papebrochii ad Exhibitionem Errorum", in which the valiant hagiographer takes up one by one the charges hurled against him by Father Sebastian and confutes each with an answer as solid in argument as it was temperate in tone. The adversaries of Papebroch, fearing lest they should not be able to obtain from the Court of Rome the condemnation for which they were begging, addressed themselves, with the utmost secrecy, to the tribunal of the Spanish Inquisition, where they won over to their side the most powerful influences. Before the writers of Antwerp had any suspicion of what was being plotted against them, there was issued, in November, 1695, a decree of this tribunal condemning the fourteen volumes of the Acta Sanctorum published up to that time, under the most rigorous qualifications, even going so far as to brand the work with the mark of heresy. Papebroch was painfully and deeply moved by the blow. He could submit to all the other insults heaped upon him, but he was obliged to refute the charge of heresy. He made the most vehement entreaties and had all his friends in Spain on the alert to let him know which propositions the Holy Office of Spain had regarded as heretical, in order that he might retract them, if he was unable to furnish satisfactory explanations, or secure the correction of the sentence, if his explanations were acceptable. His efforts proved fruitless. Having fallen seriously ill in 1701, and believing himself at the point of death, immediately after receiving the last sacraments he had a notary-public draw up in his presence and before witnesses a solemn protest which shows how greatly he was affected by the condemnation levelled at his head by the Spanish Inquisition.
"After forty two years of assiduous toil, devoted to the elucidation of the Acts of the Saints, hoping to go to the enjoyment of their society, I ask only one thing on earth, and it is that His Holiness Clement XI be immediately implored to grant me after death what in life I have sought in vain from Innocent XII. I have lived a Catholic, and I die a Catholic, by the grace of God. I have also the right of dying a Catholic in the eyes of men, which is not possible so long as the decree of the Spanish Inquisition shall appear justly issued and published, and so long as people read that I have taught in my books heretical propositions for which I have been condemned. Papebroch had accepted without appeal or murmur the decision of the Roman Congregation of December 22, 1700, placing on the Index his chronological and historical Essay on the Popes, published in the "Propylaeum Maii", a decree issued, as was expressly stated, on account of the sections bearing on certain conclaves and requiring merely the correction of the passages in question. But he did not cease working during the twelve years and a half that he still lived, both by his own efforts and those of his friends, not only to prevent the confirmation by Rome of the decree of the Spanish Inquisition, but also to secure the retraction of the decree.
Father Janninck was even sent to Rome with this end in view and remained there for over two years and a half, from the end of October, 1697, till June, 1700. He was completely successful with respect to the first object of his mission, as in December, 1697, he received the assurance that no censure would be passed against the volumes condemned in Spain. The persecutors of Papebroch were compelled to sue for an injunction to silence for both parties, which was accorded them by a Brief of November 25, 1698, gratefully accepted by Papebroch. More time was necessary, however, to bring about a final decision in the second matter. Whether it was judged prudent in Rome not to enter into conflict with the Spanish tribunal, or whether the latter prolonged the affair by passive resistance, the decree of condemnation made in 1695 was not revoked until 1715, the year following the death of Papebroch. However, this did not prevent the French editor, Victor Palmé, from publishing it in his reprint of the Acta Sanctorum, which he undertook about 1860.
A grievous trial of another sort was visited on Papebroch during the last years of the seventeenth century. A cataract affecting both eyes reduced him for about five years to a state of total blindness, which compelled him to give up all literary composition. The sight of his left eye was restored in 1702 by a successful operation. He immediately took up his work again and continued the Acta Sanctorum as far as the fifth volume of June, the twenty-fourth of the whole collection, which appeared in 1709. The weight of age - he was then eighty-one - compelled him to abandon the more arduous work of the Bollandist museum. He lived for almost five years, which he devoted to editing the "Annales Antverpienses" from the foundation of Antwerp down to the year 1700. The manuscript of this work comprised eleven volumes in folio, seven of which are at the Royal Library of Brussels, the others probably having been lost. An edition of the volumes which have been preserved to us was published at Antwerp, 1845-48, in five volumes in octavo.
 |
| A page of the Acta sanctorum, 1780 |
We shall not pursue further the history of the Bollandist work during the eighteenth century up to the suppression of the Society of Jesus, in 1773. The publication continued regularly, though with more or less unevenness as to the value of the commentaries, up to the third volume of October, which appeared in 1770. The suppression of the Society brought about a crisis in which the work nearly foundered.
The Bollandists then in office were Cornelius De Bye, James De Bue, and Ignatius Hubens. The Fathers Jean Clé and Joseph Ghesquière had but recently been transferred from the work. The former, at the time of the suppression of the Society, was superior of the Flemish-Belgian province; the latter was in charge of the projected publication of the "Analecta Belgica", a collection of documents relating to the history of Belgium, a work for which the funds of the Musée Bellarmine were appropriated. This Museum was established at Mechlin at the beginning of the eighteenth century, for the purpose of opposing the Jansenists, but was afterwards transferred to the Professed House at Antwerp. In September 1773, commissaries of the Government presented themselves at the residence of the professed Jesuit Fathers at Antwerp, and before the assembled community read the Bull of suppression of Clement XIV and the imperial letters patent empowering them to execute it. They then affixed seals to the entrances of the archives, libraries, and any rooms of the Fathers which contained money or objects of value. A like proceeding took place on the same day in all the houses of the Society then existing in Belgium. Nevertheless a special order was issued enjoining the members of the commission charged with executing the decree on the Professed House at Antwerp "to summon the Jesuits employed in the publication of the 'Acta Sanctorum' and to announce to them that the government, satisfied with their labours, was disposed to exercise special consideration in their regard". Father Ghesquière and his collaborators in the "Analecta Belgica" were included in this indulgence granted to the Bollandists.
Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913
%%%
Comments
Post a Comment