BATIFFOL, PIERRE. – French prelate, born at Toulouse on 27 January 1861, died in Paris on 13 January 1929; a student of S. Sulpizio, he was ordained a priest in 1884. He attended the Catholic Institute of Paris and the «Ecole pratique des
Hautes-Etudes», where he was a disciple of L. Duchesne from 1882 to 1884. In 1885 he was sent on an official mission to Albania to study there the celebrated Codex purpureus of Berat. From 1887 to 1889 he stayed in Rome as chaplain at S. Luigi dei Francesi, and worked there under the direction of G. B. De Rossi. As early as 1887 he began contributing to various scholarly journals. But it was between 1889 and 1898, when he held in Paris the post of chaplain at the Sainte-Barbe school, that he began to publish studies and works concerning patristics, biblical scholarship and the history of the liturgy. The most important of this period are, besides the Studia patristica (Paris 1889–1900), his doctoral theses L'abbaye de Rossano and Quaestiones Philostorgianae (both there 1891); L'Histoire du bréviaire romain (there 1893); La Littérature grecque chrétienne (there 1897); and Six leçons sur les Evangiles (there 1897). In 1895 he founded the Bibliothèque de l'enseignement de l'histoire ecclésiastique, which continues to this day.
From 1898 to 1908 he was rector of the Catholic Institute of Toulouse. Under his impetus, the study of positive theology there experienced a remarkable flourishing. Without completely neglecting his earlier studies—for in 1900 he published in Paris the Tractatus Origenis, later restored to Gregory of Elvira—he 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 Etudes d'histoire des dogmes et d'ancienne littérature ecclésiastique (5 vols., 1905–1914). As the fruit of his teaching, he published a methodological work, Questions d'enseignement supérieur ecclésiastique (Paris 1905), and two volumes of Etudes d'histoire et de théologie positive, the first devoted chiefly to Penance (there 1902), the second entirely to the Eucharist (there 1905). Appearing at the height of the Modernist crisis, these publications were the object of lively criticism: the second was placed on the Index by the decree of 26 July 1907. Although B. had been one of the first to denounce the errors of A. Loisy and had opposed him in numerous articles, especially in his book L'Enseignement de Jésus (there 1905), he nevertheless had to resign his office as rector in 1908. He then retired to Paris, where he resumed his position as chaplain at the Sainte-Barbe school, which he held until his death.
It was during this period of forced retirement (1908–29) that the series of his most important and enduring works appeared, devoted chiefly to the history of the origins of the Church. In 1909 he published L'Eglise naissante et le Catholicisme (Paris), which remains his masterpiece and which, together with La paix constantinienne (there 1914), Le catholicisme de s. Augustin (there 1920) and Le Siège apostolique (there 1924), forms his major work: Le Catholicisme des origines à s. Léon le Grand. Meanwhile, he published his lecture on Orpheus et l'Evangile (there 1910) and his commentary on the Odes de Salomon (there 1911), founded, in collaboration with Fr. de Labriolle, the Bulletin d'ancienne littérature et d'archéologie chrétiennes (1911–14), and completely revised his history of the Roman breviary (there 1911), as well as his work on the Eucharist condemned in 1907 (5th ed., there 1913). After the First World War, he published the Leçons sur la Messe (there 1919) and Etudes de liturgie et d'archéologie chrétiennes (there 1919), soon followed by Survivances du culte impérial (there 1920). His participation in the Malines conferences gave him the opportunity to publish an apologetic study: Catholicisme et papauté, difficulté anglicanes et russes (there 1925). The fine biography of S. Grégoire (there 1928) closes the series of his major works. In a posthumous volume entitled Cathedra Petri. Etudes d'histoire ancienne de l'Eglise (Unam Sanctam, 4 [there 1938]), several articles by B. (published and unpublished) have been collected which supplement the 4 volumes on Catholicism from its origins to S. Leo the Great.
A very prolific writer, B. contributed to numerous journals and took part in works on national history, congresses on liturgy and religious ethnology. It is nevertheless his studies on the origins of the Church and the history of the Holy See that secure him an eminent place in twentieth-century Catholic scholarship.
Damiano Van den Eynde