BOLLANDISTS. - A scholarly society formed by a small group of Belgian Jesuit Fathers, which for three centuries has dedicated itself to the edition of the *Acta Sanctorum*, or a critical collection of contemporary documents on the saints. It takes its name from its founder, BOLLANDISTI (v.).
I. HISTORICAL OUTLINE
The origins of Bollandism go back to Fr. Heribert Rosweyde (1569–1629) of Utrecht. Having entered the Society of Jesus at Tournai (1588) and graduated from Douai (1591), he had prepared himself for scholarly work by visiting, in the free time left by his teaching duties, the numerous monastic libraries of Belgium, where he collected documents, including numerous lives of saints from early Christianity. These gradually provided him with the framework for a vast hagiographical collection. The idea, already mature in 1603 and encouraged by his superiors, was presented by him in a small book entitled *Fasti Sanctorum quorum vitae in belgici bibliothecis manuscriptae* (Antwerp, 1607), in which, outlining the framework within which he proposed to organize the materials he had gathered, he issued an appeal to scholars for their collaboration. Rosweyde outlined his future plan in the following points: to restore the authentic text of ancient hagiographical documents; to provide complete texts of fragmentary ones; to publish the lives of saints still unpublished; and to accompany the texts with explanatory notes. He envisaged the execution of his plan in 18 volumes in-folio: 3 preliminary volumes (documents relating to the history of Jesus Christ and the feasts of His mysteries; to the life and feasts of the Virgin Mary; to the acts of the saints and martyrs who enjoy particular veneration); 12 volumes of lives of the saints; 2 volumes of notes and indices; and 1 volume of martyrologies. Before beginning the great work, however, he wished to clarify a preliminary and intricate question connected with the subject: the martyrology. Thus, in 1613, he published the martyrology of Ado, preceded by the *Parvum Romanum*, under the title: *Martyrologium Romanum... cæditi Vetus Romanum Martyrologium hactenus a Card. Baronio desideratum una cum martyrologio Adonis... recensito* (Antwerp, 1613). Another preliminary work to the *Acta Sanctorum* is the great edition of the *Vitae Patrum*: *De Vita et verbis Seniorum libri X* (ibid., 1616), a large in-folio volume of LXXIV + 1044 pp. and 118 pp. of unnumbered indices; a provisional monument like the previous one, but whose importance has been universally recognized.Rosweyde, who during his lifetime had been tempted by other subjects of historical erudition, died on 5 October 1629 without having written a single line of the great work he had planned. Fortunately, the vast documentary material he left behind was not dispersed; Bolland, who was to give his name to the work, was called by his provincial to examine Rosweyde’s writings and was able to appreciate their importance, declaring himself ready to reorganize them for publication. He was well versed in early Christianity, had a taste for scholarship, and a tenacious application to work that made him suited to the new task, which he began at the age of 36, when he was already prefect of studies at the college of Mechelen, which he left for good to move to the professed house in Antwerp. Bolland expanded Rosweyde’s program by extending the field of research to include saints not represented in hagiographical literature but whose existence is attested by the martyrology or by cult. He also modified the division announced in the *Fasti Rosweyde*, deciding that the documentation on each saint should form a single whole with its accompanying material. And since, as the materials increased, the time available to process them diminished, he was granted, at his request, an assistant in the person of one of his former students: Godfrey Henschen (Henschenius), born in 1601, who joined him in 1635. The choice proved fruitful: Henschen immediately set to work on the saints of February, beginning with a study of Sts. Vedast and Amand, in which the lives of the two saints were subjected to careful investigation. Going beyond the philological problem, Henschen’s commentaries resolutely addressed issues raised by the very nature of the documents studied: history, chronology, topography, sources, and literary parallels. Bolland, already engaged in printing the first sheets of the volume on the saints of January, did not hesitate, in the face of this revelation, to rework the material to give a definitive form to the first installment of the *Acta Sanctorum*, of which he may be called the second founder.
Thus, after a common and conscientious effort, the two volumes on the saints of January appeared in 1643 and were greeted with genuine enthusiasm by the scholarly world. Fifteen more years of work were needed for the publication of the three volumes on the saints of February (1658). But thanks to the rigor of the method and the clarity of the research, these volumes were noticeably superior to the first two. Admiration grew, and even in Protestant circles homage was paid to the learning and scholarly probity of the Jesuit hagiographers. To the praise was added an invitation from Alexander VII for Bolland to come to Rome. Prevented by illness and infirmity, he sent Henschen, who took with him a young collaborator recently assigned to the editing of the *Acta Sanctorum*: Daniel Van Papenbroeck or Papebroch, born in 1628, who was soon to make a name for himself in the field of hagiographical scholarship. With this new recruit, the future of the *Acta* took on substance after a painful beginning, for Papebroch was to become one with the work itself. His commentaries soon revealed him as a penetrating critic, aided by a good pen, an indefatigable researcher, rich in information, solid in reconstruction, never at a loss over minute details. A modest man, but also courageous, he did not hesitate to conceal the truth once he was convinced he had found II.
The journey of the two Bollandists lasted two years; after a stay in Rome of nine months, they visited other libraries in Italy and France, returning to Antwerp on 21 December 1662 with a rich harvest of documents transcribed from 1,400 manuscripts, but also with a new experience gained in the meantime: the need to give greater scope to Byzantine hagiography, which Bolland’s plan had neglected. The final stage of the Bollandist plan, expanded and refined in light of experience, is seen in the three volumes for March, which mark the beginning of Papebroch’s collaboration. But Bolland did not live to see them, for he died on 12 September 1665 at the age of 69, three years before their publication (1668). To take his place, Conrad Janning (Janninck), born in Groningen in 1650, was called in March 1669. He was initiated into the secrets of the craft while still a student for two and a half years; then he was sent to the Gregorian University to study theology. During his absence, Fr. Baert was called in, who, besides rendering distinguished service to the temporal administration of the work, also collaborated on volumes IV of May and V of June.
Meanwhile, Henschen died on 11 September 1681, after 46 years of indefatigable collaboration on the *Acta*, during which 14 of the first 24 volumes were published in his lifetime.
The tranquil work of the hagiographers was disturbed after the publication of volume I of April, which discussed the acts of St. Albert of Jerusalem, from whom the Carmelite hermits received their Rule. The implicit condemnation of the tradition that wished to trace the origins of the Order back to the prophet Elijah sparked a bitter dispute on the part of the Carmelites, which ended with the intervention of the Spanish Inquisition, which condemned Papebroch as the author.
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Companion of Du Sollier, d. in 1740, he was from 1713 the Pien, who followed him to the grave nine years later. He took a notable part in the July volumes and his commentary on St Ignatius of Loyola still remains a source of information, as are also his works on the ancient liturgies of Spain. Pien, already old, was left alone after the retirement of Du Sollier and the death of another bollandist, Fr. Peter Van den Bosche, who had worked on the Acta for barely fifteen years (1723-37). He was given an assistant of undoubted value, in whom contemporaries thought they saw Papebroch, because of his extraordinary power of assimilation, being capable of rapidly acquiring vast knowledge on every subject.
He was Fr. John Stilting, who, arriving in 1737 when volume V of August was beginning to be printed, so quickly mastered his new office that he was able to prepare two-thirds of the work for that folio published in 1739. From then until February 1762, when he died not yet sixty, despite the difficulties caused by the scarcity of new collaborators, he wrote no fewer than 250 commentaries, which largely filled the ten volumes published during his lifetime. This facility of composition also explains the rapid obsolescence of his work compared with so many others in the Acta. In his lifetime he gained the reputation of a brilliant talent, which he truly possessed, and enjoyed great authority, though the security of his criticism was not always justified to the same degree. But his prestige served Bollandism in traversing the difficult years that lay ahead.
Fr. Cornelius De Bye, among the many who in this period succeeded one another within the Bollandist enterprise, had qualities that might have made him a figure of great importance in the line of ancient hagiographers. Less brilliant than Stilting, he had the necessary clarity of vision to maintain the Acta at the level of their past. Adverse events reserved for him only the role of victim, though he bore it with courage. Together with the other editors, he followed the fortunes of the work after the suppression of the Society, which in 1775 found refuge in the abbey of Caudenberg near Brussels. The reforms of Joseph II and the suppression of Caudenberg in May 1786 imposed a further move, and it became necessary to settle in a wing of the former Jesuit college in Brussels. But the destruction of the Museum Bollandianum was now decided and was publicly announced on 16 October 1788. The warehouse of publications and the library were to be sold for the benefit of the state treasury. To prevent the dispersal of precious materials, the bollandists entered into negotiations with the Premonstratensians of Tongerloo. The abbey accepted the conditions and, together with the Bollandist equipment, also received the hagiographers as guests, giving them the opportunity to resume their work. With the French invasion of 1792, the last hopes of saving the painstakingly preserved work were destroyed: documents and library were dispersed.
After the restoration of the Society of Jesus in 1814, Bollandism still had to wait many years before being reconstituted, because the Belgian Jesuits were overburdened with works and colleges, to which the available manpower could barely suffice. But towards the end of 1836, the lively interest of the rector of the Catholic University of Louvain, De Ram, both with the government and with the superiors of the Society in Belgium, secured the desired effect and on 29 January 1837 Fr. Provincial Van Lil announced to the head of government that the Society of Bollandists had been reconstituted and would soon set to work. It was composed of Frs. J. B. Boone, J. Van der Moere, Pr. Coppens, and later also Fr. J. Van Hecke. The new editorial team had to face uncommon technical difficulties, because what remained of the old inheritance was only a plan to follow; but the continuation of the school tradition formed over a century and a half was lacking, together with its thousand secrets of execution, and the scientific equipment, which had to be painstakingly rebuilt over many long years, during which the publication of the October volumes had to be pushed forward, which, as was natural, suffered from the inferior conditions in which the tasks of recovery were undertaken.
The initial difficulties were eased after a few years (1840) by the arrival of two recruits of value: Anthony Tinnebroek and Victor de Buck, still students. The former contributed no fewer than 500 pages of personal work to volume VII of October. The promise shown by this talent was unfortunately cut short after his return from theology (1850); he died of tuberculosis five years later. Victor de Buck, his fellow student, left instead a memorable mark within the Bollandist enterprise. Spirit, memory, will and intelligence were of firm temper in him. Because of his zeal in study and his uncommon power of assimilation, he was the providential man of the moment. Returning from theology in 1850, after having previously spent five years of scientific training at the Bollandian Museum, De Buck was one of the first to grasp the importance of Christian archaeology for the study of ancient hagiography, to which the discoveries of G. B. De Rossi opened wide prospects. The progress he made in this field was seen in his dissertation De Phialis rubricatis, which marks a date in the history of hagiographic criticism, even if for the moment it brought upon the author attacks and annoyances from reactionaries. Today no one disputes his conclusions, namely that the so-called phials of blood (v.) are not a sign of martyrdom.
The volumes of the saints of October from volume VII onwards all bear his collaboration, and the numerous commentaries he signed have been judged the best of this series. He is nevertheless reproached with the defect of not having been able to resist certain tendencies of the previous generation, chiefly the exaggerated importance given to the dissertation.
The progress announced by Fr. de Buck seemed confirmed by the promising contributions of Frs. Eugenio Carpentier and Enrico Matagne. The former appeared destined to pioneer work in Eastern hagiography. His commentary on the acts of the martyrs of Nadjran, included in vol. X of October, judged the fruit of original and solid erudition, was completed by him with rudimentary means in unexplored territory. Death took him in 1868 at the age of 46. At an even younger age, Matagne died at thirty-nine in 1872, when de Buck, still in the prime of life, was reduced to relative inaction by the illness that undermined him. When de Buck died on 22 April 1876, not yet sixty years old, there was a moment of crisis for the Acta entrusted to weak shoulders; it would have been fatal had not a worthy continuer of the work arrived: Fr. Charles de Smet, called to direct its fortunes in 1882. A professor of ecclesiastical history at the Scholasticate of Louvain, Fr. de Smet had, during the years of his teaching, followed the progress of the historical method and developed works of erudition. He had written a little book that became famous: *Principes de la critique historique* (1872), which produced a half-revolution in ecclesiastical circles, where historiography was in a pitiful state, especially hagiography, where false legends and false traditions reigned. By appealing to common sense, he showed by what characteristics historical truth is recognized by those who seek it, and he combated the spirit of bias and partisanship. In concrete terms, everything resolved itself into a technical problem in which only a secure method, rigorously applied, allowed the risk of error to be reduced to a minimum, and the entire plan of reform he had long meditated for the edition of the Acta reduced itself to a simple question of method. His predecessors believed they could escape the complicated labyrinth of hagiographical literature by taking as the basis for the history of a saint the life or text that seemed most acceptable, discussing it and trying to make the other surviving strands converge upon II. He, on the other hand, thought that the texts themselves had to be subjected to critical scrutiny; hence the documentation of a saint must include all the documents of the tradition concerning him (which was, in the end, the method of the ancient hagiographers, although not always applied).
Hence the necessity of providing, as far as possible, a complete census of all hagiographical sources. This was indeed accomplished by the publication of two series of repertories: of sources already published (*Bibliotheca hagiographica latina*; *Biblioth. hagiogr. graeca*; *Biblioth. hagiogr. orientalis*) and of sources still in manuscript form scattered through the various libraries of Europe (*Catalogi*), which found a place in a new section later entitled *Subsidia hagiographica*.
To Fr. de Smet also goes the credit for the idea of adding to the Acta a periodical organ intended to expedite the main collection by publishing all preparatory work and subject to revision. Thus was born from 1882 the journal *Analecta Bollandiana*, which from vol. X (1891) onwards regularly includes a bibliographical bulletin of hagiographical publications.
This body of preparatory work noticeably slowed the pace of publication of the Acta, but the wait was fully justified, and in the volumes on the saints of November, the first after the reform of Fr. de Smet, one notes an expansion in the field of research: not only did Byzantine hagiography take the place it deserved, but also, beginning with vol. IV, the complicated Christian literature of the ancient East. In 1911, Fr. de Smet was succeeded by Fr. Delehaive (v.), as senior editor, who gained such authority and prestige for the work of the Bollandists with his vast scholarly output, continued until the eve of his death (1941). At present, Fr. P. Peeters attends to directing the fortunes of the work.
II. The Bollandist Method
This method, by some not well informed, is judged a kind of iconoclasm intended to demolish the cult of the saints, especially those of antiquity. The reality is quite different, for the criticism is directed at the hagiographical texts, which are often based on elements easily dissolved. The historical truth of a saint is not necessarily connected with a text, there being no necessary relation between the value of a narrative and the right a saint has to cult. This remains fully justified as soon as one arrives at the hagiographical coordinates or essential elements, one of a topographical order (i.e., the place where the relics of a saint were deposited) and the other of a chronological order, namely the anniversary of deposition: the day and month.When these elements are present, nothing is obscure or suspect at the starting point, when the cult of a saint is normally established. The legend (*Acta*) begins afterwards, but demolishing this does not suppress the reality of the person.
III. Bollandist Publications
1. *Acta Sanctorum*. There are three different editions of the *Acta*: the original edition, that of Venice, and that of Paris.The original edition consists of 50 volumes printed at Antwerp, one volume printed at Tongerloo, and 16 volumes printed at Brussels, in addition to the *Autocritica*. At Antwerp were printed the 2 volumes of January (1643), 3 of February (1658), 3 of March (1668), 3 of April (1675), 7 of May (1680–88), together with the *Propylaeum Maii*, 7 of June (1695–1717), 7 of July (1719–31), 6 of August (1733–43), 8 of September (1746–62), October (first three volumes: 1765–70). At Brussels appeared volumes IV and V (1780–86); volume VI at Tongerloo (1794); the remaining volumes of October (VII–XIII) were printed at Brussels during the period 1845–83, followed by the first 4 of November (1887–1925), to which must be added the *Propylaeum ad Acta SS. Nov.* (*Synaxarium Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae*) in 1902; the *Pars Posterior*, volume II (*Commentarius in Martyr. Hieronymianum*) in 1931; and finally the *Propylaeum ad Acta SS. Dec.* (*Martyr. Romanum*) in 1940.
The Venice edition, begun in 1734, reaches volume V of September (1770). The distribution of days and pagination is identical to that of the Antwerp edition, except for the last 4 volumes of May.
The Paris edition, begun in 1863 by the publisher Victor Palmé, was edited by a priest of the diocese of Langres, J. Carnandet, and consists of 60 volumes reaching as far as volume XII of October (1867), in addition to one of indices (1875). The distribution of days is identical to the original, except for the months of May and June; but the pagination is different.
2. *Analecta Bollandiana* is the quarterly journal of the Bollandists, begun in 1882, which from volume X (1891) onwards has regularly included a *Bulletin des publications hagiographiques* in each issue of the journal.
In the *Analecta*, in addition to unpublished texts and dissertations, catalogues of hagiographical manuscripts scattered through the various libraries of Europe have found a place; these have been published separately whenever they could not be accommodated in the journal because of their length. To date, three volumes of indices have appeared: I, 1882–1902 (Brussels 1904); II, 1902–22 (IV 1931); III, 1923–44 (IV 1944).
3. Subsidia Hagiographica
This series comprises works falling within the scope of the Analecta but, on account of their size, require separate publication. Thus, in this series have been included volumes of hagiographical sources edited: *Bibliotheca hagiographica latina antiquae et mediae aetatis* (1898–1901); *Bibliotheca hagiographica graeca* (2nd ed., 1909); *Bibliotheca hagiographica orientalis* (1910). In addition, various volumes cataloguing hagiographical manuscripts dispersed in various libraries: *Catalogus codicum hagiographicorum bibliothecae Bruxellensis* (2 vols., 1886–89); *Catalogus codicum hagiographicorum latinorum in bibliotheca nationali Parisiensi* (4 vols., 1889–93); *Catalogus codicum hagiographicorum graecorum bibliothecae Vaticanae Parisiensis* (1896); *Catalogus codicum hagiographicorum graecorum bibliothecae Vaticanae* (1899); *Catalogus codicum hagiographicorum latinorum bibliothecarum romanarum praeter quam Vaticanae* (1909); *Catalogus codicum hagiographicorum latinorum bibliothecae Vaticanae* (1910); *Catalogus codicum hagiographicorum graecorum Germaniae Belgii Anglo- latina* (1913). To these must be added the 4 volumes of the *Repertorium hymnologicum* edited by U. Chevalier (1892–1912) and the various works of hagiographical criticism by Fr. H. Delehaive, to mention the principal numbers of the collection.4. Pseudo-bollandiana. The Bollandists have nothing to do with the works listed below, which, by their titles, seem intended to connect themselves with the *Acta Sanctorum*. They are distinguished by a studied lack of criticism: 1° *Les petits bollandistes. Vies des saints de l’Ancien et du Nouveau Testament...* by Mgr. Paul Guérin (7th ed., 17 vols., Paris 1888); 2° *Supplément aux vies des saints...* by Dom Paul Piolin (3 vols., Paris 1888); 3° *Les actes des saints d’après les bollandistes...* edited by J. Carnandet and J. Fèvre (4 vols., Lyon 1865–68); 4° *Supplément aux Acta Sanctorum pour des vies de l’époque mérovingienne*, by Abbé C. Barbey (3 vols. fol., Paris 1899 ff.). — See Plate CV.