BATIFFOL, PIERRE. - French prelate, b. in Turin in 1872, d. in Paris on 13 January 1929; a student of Saint-Sulpice, ordained priest in 1884. He attended the Catholic Institute of Paris and the *École pratique des Hautes-Études*, where he was a pupil of L. Duchesne from 1882 to 1884. In 1885, he was sent on an official mission to Albania to study the famous Codex purpureus of Berat. From 1887 to 1889, he resided in Rome as chaplain at San Luigi dei Francesi, working under the direction of G. B. De Rossi. As early as 1887, he began collaborating with various scholarly journals. However, it was between 1889 and 1898, when he held the position of chaplain at the Sainte-Barbe school in Paris, that he began publishing studies and works concerning patristics, biblical science, and the history of liturgy. The most important of these from this period, besides the *Studia patristica* (Paris 1889-1900), are his doctoral theses *L'abbaye de Rossano* and *Quaestiones Philostorgiae* (both published there in 1891); *L'Histoire du bréviaire romain* (ibid. 1893); *La Littérature grecque chrétienne* (ibid. 1897); and *Six leçons sur les Evangiles* (ibid. 1897). In 1895, he founded the *Bibliothèque de l'enseignement de l'histoire ecclésiastique*, which continues to this day.
From 1898 to 1908, he served as rector of the Catholic Institute of Toulouse. Under his leadership, studies in positive theology flourished there. Without entirely neglecting his earlier research, in 1900 he published in Paris the *Tractatus Origenis*, later attributed to Gregory of Elvira, and subsequently devoted his best works to the history of dogma. In 1899, he founded the *Bulletin de littérature ecclésiastique*, and in 1905 he began the collection *Études d'histoire des dogmes et d'ancienne littérature ecclésiastique* (5 vols., from 1905 to 1914). As a result of his teaching, he published a methodological work, *Questions d'enseignement supérieur ecclésiastique* (Paris 1905), and two volumes of *Études d'histoire et de théologie positive*, the first devoted mainly to Penance (ibid. 1902) and the second entirely to the Eucharist (ibid. 1905). Published during the height of the Modernist crisis, these works were the subject of lively criticism: the second was placed on the Index by decree of 26 July 1907. Although B. had been among the first to denounce the errors of A. Loisy and had opposed him in numerous articles and especially in his book *L'Enseignement de Jésus* (ibid. 1905), he nonetheless had to resign his position as rector in 1908. Retiring to Paris, he resumed his post as chaplain at the Sainte-Barbe school, which he held until his death.
It was during this period of enforced retirement (1908-29) that he produced the series of his most important and enduring works, devoted especially to the history of the origins of the Church. In 1909, he published *L'Église naissante et le Catholicisme* (Paris), which remains his masterpiece and, together with *La paix constantinienne* (ibid. 1914), *Le catholicisme de s. Augustin* (ibid. 1920), and *Le Siège apostolique* (ibid. 1924), forms his major work: *Le Catholicisme des origines à S. Léon le Grand*. Meanwhile, he published his lectures on *Orpheus et l'Évangile* (ibid. 1910) and his commentary on the *Odes of Solomon* (ibid. 1911), founded, in collaboration with Fr. de Labriolle, the *Bulletin d'ancienne littérature et d'archéologie chrétiennes* (1911-14), completely revised his history of the Roman breviary (ibid. 1911) as well as his work condemned in 1907 on the Eucharist (5 vols., ibid. 1913). After the First World War, he published *Leçons sur la Messe* (ibid. 1919) and *Études de liturgie et d'archéologie chrétiennes* (ibid. 1919), soon followed by *Survivances du culte impérial* (ibid. 1920). His participation in the Malines conferences provided him with the opportunity to publish an apologetic study: *Catholicisme et papauté, difficultés anglicane et russes* (ibid. 1925). The fine biography of St. Gregory (ibid. 1928) concludes the series of his major works. In a posthumous volume entitled *Cathedra Petri. Études d'histoire ancienne de l'Église* (Unam Sanctam, 4 [ibid. 1938]), some of B.’s articles (published and unpublished) were collected, supplementing the volumes on Catholicism from its origins to St. Leo the Great.
A very prolific writer, B. contributed to numerous journals and participated in works on national history, liturgical congresses, and religious ethnology. It is, however, his studies on the origins of the Church and the history of the Holy See that secure for him an eminent place in twentieth-century Catholic scholarship.
Damiano Van den Eynde