Duchesne, Louis-Marie-Olivier

DUCHESNE, LOUIS-MARIE-OLIVIER. - French prelate, archaeologist, distinguished historical critic and writer, b. at St-Servan (Ille-et-Vilaine) on 13 Sept. 1843, d. in Rome on 21 Apr. 1922. He completed the course of his studies brilliantly at the college of St-Servan, at the minor seminary of St-Méen, at the St-Charles school of St-Brieuc and at the major seminary of the same city. Msgr. David, his bishop, sent him to Rome to take his doctorate in theology at the Collegio Romano (1864-66); there he met Giovanni B. De Rossi and formed a friendship with the future Msgr. M. d'Hulst. Ordained priest at Christmas 1867, Msgr. David assigned him to teaching, then granted him permission to continue his classical studies in Paris at the "Ecole des Carmes" (1870-71); in 1872 he enrolled at the "Ecole des Hautes-Etudes," where he attended courses in archaeology, epigraphy and Greek and Latin philology (1872). When the French "Ecole archéologique" was established in Rome on 5 March 1873, D. was one of its first candidates. In Feb. of the following year D. and his colleague Charles Bayet were entrusted with a scientific mission in Epirus and Thessaly which allowed them, among other things, to visit the libraries of the monasteries of Mount Athos and of Patmos: the outcome was exceedingly flattering. In 1876 D., together with Maxime Collignon, undertook another journey of archaeological exploration in southwestern Asia Minor, interrupted by the political events of that year. On 10 March 1877 he defended in Paris his two theses, the Latin and the French, for the doctorate. The French thesis on the Liber Pontificalis met with such success that the minister W.-H. Waddington immediately offered the new doctor a university chair, but D. declined the flattering invitation in order instead to accept the chair of ancient Church history, established for him in the fledgling "Institut catholique" of Paris: he felt called to "servir l'Eglise par son histoire consciencieusement étudiée et franchement exposée" (P. Peeters, L'oeuvre des Bollandistes, Brussels 1942, p. 116), and in fact he served it excellently with his studies, which brought a contribution of the first order to the renewal of ecclesiastical historiography, patronized by Leo XIII with the letter Saepnumero of 18 Aug. 1883.

The severe method established by D. in his teaching and in his studies alarmed the proponents of the historical dogmatism then current, and the young professor, too mordant in speech and writing, and merciless in exposing the presumptuous ignorance of his opponents, had endless troubles and insults, but fortunately for him in Paris he was protected by Msgr. d'Hulst and in Rome by Giovanni B. De Rossi. In 1887, having left the "Institut Catholique," he became a professor at the "Ecole des Hautes-Etudes" and the following year a member of the "Académie des inscriptions." From 1895 until his death he resided in Rome in the capacity of director of the French School at the Palazzo Farnese. In 1896 he took an active part in the campaign for the union of the Anglican Church with the Roman; in 1900 he organized and directed the second Congress of Christian Archaeology. From Dec. 1899 to 1922 he was president of the Society of Students of Christian Archaeology. On 18 May of the same year he was numbered among the apostolic protonotaries; on 18 Dec. 1901 among the consultors of the S. Congregation of Indulgences and Relics; on 28 Nov. 1902 among the members of the historical-liturgical commission, established on that day at the S. Congregation of Rites. Finally on 26 May 1910 he was elected to the Académie de France. In that same year, D. was the object of an unseemly campaign of accusations and insults, against which he reacted with the utmost decisiveness, strong in the fact that his Histoire ancienne de l'Eglise, against which the fury of the libellers hurled itself, bore the regulation imprimatur of the Master of the Sacred Palace and that he had each time personally presented the three published volumes to the Holy Father. The condemnation of his Histoire (22 Jan. 1912: AAS, 6 [1912], pp. 56-57) was for D. a grave wound; he knew how to accept it and submitted to it without delay: "Fidèle enfant de l'Eglise — he declared on 5 Feb. to Card. Della Volpe — je dois me soumettre à ses décisions. Je viens donc déclarer à V. E. que je m'incline respectueusement devant le décret de la S. C. de l'Index relatif à mon livre" (L'Observatoire Romano, 6 Feb.; "laudabiliter se subiecit": AAS, cit., p. 103). This sorrow and the shifting fortunes of the war of 1914-18, to which D. was extremely sensitive, soon got the better of his strong constitution. With the advent of Pius XI, D. hoped to obtain the rehabilitation of his work, suitably revised, but death put an end to things along with this hope; during the course of his brief illness he was assisted by Fr. Genocchi, to whom he asked for the last Sacraments, and Pius XI, who had kept him for a long time a few days earlier, on 10 Apr. sent him his Blessing. His remains rest in the cemetery of St-Servan. In spite of all the accusations brought against him, D. was a man of good heart and a priest of the most upright life, sustained by a sincere and active Faith; his natural causticity, however, did him harm.

Of the keenest intuition and an exceedingly perspicacious intelligence, D. possessed a capacity for work that is extraordinary: proof of this are the 429 numbers of his bibliography, moreover incomplete, collected and arranged chronologically, from 1875, by H. Leclercq (DACL, IV, II, coll. 2711-35). D. limited himself to the ancient history of the Church and to that of the early Middle Ages; he was an archaeologist and historian, but above all a critic and philologist.

The Liber Pontificalis, the Martyrologium Hieronymianum and the Liber censuum were the cornerstones on which he hinged the best part of his scholarly output. Of the first and the third he produced the critical edition, of the second he collaborated on the diplomatic edition and left in manuscript a commentary for the first eight months, from which Fr. H. Delehaye profited, recalling it. For the most part his articles are nothing other than investigations into particular points that had to be studied in order to proceed to the edition of the sources mentioned above or that were barely touched upon in his major works.

I. THE «LIBER PONTIFICALIS» AND THE STUDIES INSPIRED BY IT

D. established its various recensions and classified 110 manuscripts for his doctoral thesis (Etude sur le Liber Pontificalis, Paris 1877), then published the critical edition of it (Le Liber Pontificalis, texte, introduction et commentaire, 2 vols., ibid. 1886 and 1892, based on 150 manuscripts), which has remained unsurpassed to this day both for the text he established and for the archaeological, hagiographic and historical commentary that accompanies it. Even Th. Mommsen, although in his edition of 1898 (MGH: Gestorum Pontificum Romanorum, I) he had improved the critical apparatus and although he disagreed with D. on secondary questions, made this open acknowledgment regarding the classification of the manuscripts: «Hace mea editio Duchesnianam non reformat, sed comprobat et confirmat» (p. cx). He polemicized with G. Waitz and with R. A. Lipsius concerning the classification of the manuscripts and the date of the Lib. Pont. (La date et les recensions du Lib. Pont., in Revue des questions hist., 26 [1879], pp. 493-530; Le premier Lib. Pont., ibid., 29 [1881], pp. 246-83; Un mot sur le Lib. Pont., in Mélanges d'arch. et d'hist., 6 [1886], pp. 275-83). The articles that follow are preliminary studies for the commentary on the Lib. Pont. or developments given to questions touched upon in the introduction or in the commentary: Le Lib. Pont. en Gaule au VIe siècle (in Mélanges d'arch. et d'hist., 2 [1882], pp. 3-15); La succession de Félix IV (ibid., 3 [1883], pp. 239-66); L'historiographie pontificale au VIIIe siècle (ibid., 4 [1884], pp. 232-73); Vigile et Pélage. Etude sur l'histoire de l'Eglise romaine au milieu du VIe siècle (in Revue des questions hist., 36 [1884], pp. 369-440); Serge III et Jean XI (in Mélanges d'arch. et d'hist., 33 [1913], pp. 25-64); Le Lib. Pont. aux mains des guibertistes et des pierléonistes (ibid., 38 [1920], pp. 165-93).

With Les circonscriptions de Rome pendant le moyen âge (in Revue des questions hist., 24 [1878], pp. 217-25), D. began an interesting and extensive investigation of Roman topography, which he then took up again a few years later under the title: Notes sur la topographie de Rome au moyen âge, published in 14 installments in the aforementioned Mélanges from 1886 to 1915. To these Notes may be added: Les légendes de l'Alta Samita (ibid., 36 [1916-17], pp. 27-56) and Le sanctuaire de St-Laurent (ibid., 39 [1921], pp. 3-24).

Another work that stands in close connection with the study of the Lib. Pont. is the one entitled: Les premiers temps de l'Etat pontifical (Paris 1898, 3rd ed., ibid. 1911, Italian trans., Turin 1947), which describes with terse sobriety the rise and consolidation of the temporal power from 754 to 1073.

II. IL « MARTYROLOGIUM HIERONYMIANUM »

In his first year of teaching at the "Institut catholique" (1877), D. took this important hagiographic source as the theme of study and practical exercises. The conclusions reached were such that De Rossi wanted him as his collaborator for the edition he had in mind to publish (cf. Roma sotterranea, III, Rome 1877, p. xxii). The diplomatic edition reproducing in four columns the integral text of the principal manuscripts in fact appeared in the Acta SS. Novembris (II, I, Brussels 1894: Martyrologium Hieronymianum ad fidem codicum adiectis prolegomenis). The greater part of the introduction is by D.; in it he treats of the origins, the sources and the restoration of the text, proposing with discretion a classification of manuscripts that was in conflict with that of the master, a classification later adopted by Quentin. He had already treated this subject in the article: Les sources du martyrologe hiéronymieu (in Mélanges d'arch. et d'hist., 5 [1885], pp. 120-60), to which De Rossi prefixed a brief introduction (ibid., pp. 115-19). D. clarified his part in the edition and insisted on his conclusions in the dignified reply to the harsh review and the quibbles of Br. Krusch: A propos du martyr. hiér. (in Analecta Bollandiana, 17 [1894], pp. 421-47); Un dernier mot sur le martyr. hiér. (ibid., 20 [1901], pp. 241-45). In 1920 he indicated, among other things, how to proceed in order to restore its text: Sur le martyrologe dit de st Jérôme, in Miscellanea geronimiana (Rome 1920, pp. 221-26).

III. IL « LIBER CENSUUM »

The edition of this important source for the history of the Roman Church had been begun by P. Fabre, who published only one fascicle of it in 1889. In memory of his friend and taking advantage of the material he had collected, D. brought it to completion in 1910 (Le Liber censuum de l'Eglise romaine, I, Paris 1889-1910; II, Le Liber censuum remanié sous Grégoire IX et Innocent IV avec ses suppléments, ibid. 1905). The article: L'auteur des «Mirabilia» (in Mélanges d'arch. et d'hist., 24 [1904], pp. 479-89), in which D. identifies its author as Benedict the Canon, stands in close connection with this edition.

IV. I « FASTES EPISCOPAUX » E STUDI AFFINI

From 1883 to 1915, D. studied the origins of Christianity in the Gauls and the ancient episcopal catalogs of the episcopal sees of that same region. After a series of preliminary articles, the principal ones being: Les origines du christianisme en Gaule (in Annales de philosophie chrétienne, 8 [1883], pp. 1-15); Mémoire sur l'origine des diocèses épiscopaux de l'ancienne Gaule (in Mémoires de la Soc. des antiquaires de France, 50 [1890], pp. 337-416); St Martial de Limoges (in Annales du Midi, 4 [1892], pp. 289-330); La légende de ste Marie-Madeleine (ibid., 5 [1893], pp. 1-33), D. delivered the result of his vast hagiographic and historical investigations in the three volumes of the Fastes épiscopaux de l'ancienne Gaule (I, Paris 1894; 2nd ed. ibid. 1907; II, ibid. 1900; 2nd ed. ibid. 1910; III, ibid. 1915). A courageous work conducted with impeccable scientific rigor, in which the data historians are freed from all legendary dross. Having demonstrated the absolute groundlessness of the apostolic origins of various Frankish episcopal sees earned the author very lively polemics. Closely linked to the research for his Fastes are the articles: St Barnabé (in Mélanges J. - B. De Rossi, Rome 1892); Les anciens recueils de légendes apostoliques (in Compte-rendu du 3e Congrès scientifique international catholique tenu à Bruxelles du 3 au 8 sept. 1894, Brussels 1895, pp. 67-79); St Jacques en Galice (in Annales du Midi, 12 [1900], pp. 145-80).

V. THE BISHOPRICS OF ITALY

From 1885 to 1906 he published various articles on the bishoprics of Italy, among which the notable ones are: Le sedi episcopali dell'antico ducato di Roma (in Archivio della Soc. rom. di st. patria, 15 [1892], pp. 475-503); Les évêchés de la Calubre (in Mélanges Paul Fabre, Paris 1902, pp. 1-16); Les évêchés d'Italie et l'invasion lombarde (in Mélanges d'arch. et d'hist., 23 [1903], pp. 83-116; 25 [1905], pp. 365-99).

VI. CHRISTIAN AFRICA

Of the studies on Christian Africa published from 1884 to 1896, the most important is the Dossier du donatisme (in Mélanges d'arch. et d'hist. 10 [1890], pp. 589-650), with which D. brought fully to light the origin of the African schism.

VII. VARIA

He oversaw the French version of De Rossi's Bullettino from 1880 to 1883 (Bulletin d'archéologie chrétienne de M. le Comm. J.-B. De Rossi, Paris). From its very inception, on 15 May 1880, he collaborated on the Bulletin critique de littérature, d'histoire et de théologie (a continuation of the Echo), which he then directed from 1881 with a group of other scholars for twenty years, a review « absolument orthodoxe et inexorablement scientifique » intended principally for the clergy, in order to make known to them works of value and to guard them « contre les innombrables publications mauvaises ou médincres qu'on lui sert quotidiennement » (cf. ibid., 2 [1881-82], p. 2). D. remained faithful to his program, but his inexorable pen, with which he laid bare the scant scientific preparation of many ecclesiastical writers, and his severe critical scrutiny of works by authors then of high repute such as Renan, Krusch, Schultze and others, made him many enemies. Another much-appreciated book is the Autonomies ecclésiastiques. Eglises séparées (Paris 1896, 2nd ed. ibid. 1905), written while work was being done for union with the Anglican Church. After a first chapter on the Anglican Church, he refutes the letter written by the patriarch Anthimos against the letter Praeclara of Leo XIII of 20 June 1894 and sets out the causes of the Eastern schism. Very well known are the Origines du culte chrétien. Etude sur la liturgie latine avant Charlemagne (ibid. 1889; 5th ed. ibid. 1909 with reprints, ibid. 1920, 1925). With this work D. made a notable contribution to the renewal of liturgical studies; certain conclusions are today superseded, but the book remains always a model of erudition. He polemicized with dom Cagin on the origin of the Gallican liturgy with the article: Sur l'origine de la liturgie gallicane (in Revue d'hist. et de littérature religieuse, 5 [1900], pp. 31-47). His address to the Académie française was lively (Discours de réception à l'Acad. Française, prononcé le 26 janv. 1911, suivi de la réponse de M. E. Lamy, Paris 1911). For Roman Christian epigraphy one must recall his acute study on the Cambridge sylloge: Le recueil épigraphique de Cambridge (in Mélanges d'arch. et d'hist., 30 [1910], pp. 279-311). Especially deserving of mention are: L'iconographie byzantine dans un document grec du IXe siècle (Grottaferrata 1913), containing the text of a letter of the Council of Jerusalem of 836 where there is question of the mosaic of the church of the Nativity at Bethlehem; and L'Ecole française de Rome, in Nouvelle revue d'Italie, 16 [1919], pp. 106-12. Of particular archaeological and liturgical interest is the study published after his death by H. Quentin, entitled: La « Memoria Apostolorum » de la via Appia (in Memorie della Pont. acc. rom. di arch., 1 [1923], pp. 1-22).

VIII. THE « HISTOIRE ANCIENNE DE L'ÉGLISE »

This work has its distant origin in the lectures given in the first years of his teaching at the « Institut catholique » entitled: Les origines chrétiennes, lithographed several times beginning in 1880. The work aroused bitter polemics from its very appearance; Msgr. d'Hulst, who had read and corrected it, took up its defense. D.'s aim was to bring

« en relief le grand fait de l'apparition du christianisme au sein du monde antique et à suivre ses premiers développements » (introduction). Once completed and reworked, these lectures became the Histoire ancienne de l'Eglise (I, Paris 1906; II, ibid. 1907; III, ibid. 1910; English trans., London 1907, 1912; Spanish trans., Barcelona 1910; Italian trans., Rome 1911), a work of great literary and historical merit. In it the author demonstrates an absolute mastery of the sources and is abreast of the most recent scholarship. But wishing to produce a work of pure history, he deliberately passed over the supernatural factor, the fulcrum of the Church's life; even the person of its Founder remained in the shadows. Apart from the author's formal declaration that « l'action dello Spirito Santo nella Chiesa, l'intervento della Divina Provvidenza nei fatti umani in genere, e specialmente negli affari religiosi, non sono realtà contestabili » (Protesta, p. 6), this is a serious lacuna capable of misleading beginners and ordinary readers; thus one understands the reason for the condemnation of the work. That D. did not intend to follow the path trodden by the modernists is attested by his submission to the decree of condemnation (he wrote immediately afterwards: « L'Eglise est toujours l'Eglise. Une mère peut gronder avec exhubérance, c'est toujours une mère. Il faut la respecter, l'aimer quand même. Dieu aidant je ne faillirai pas à ce devoir », C. D'Habloville, p. 153) and by his desire, mingled with much fear (cf. P. Monceaux), to publish its vol. IV, which was later given to the press by abbot dom H. Quentin (L'Eglise au VIe siècle, Paris 1925, not on the Index). Presenting the volume, Quentin wrote: « Tous ceux qui ont approché plus intimement mgr Duchesne, dans les dernières années de sa vie, savent combien il était désireux de voir paraître ce volume avec l'approbation de ses supérieurs ecclésiastiques; il avait saisi avec bonheur cette occasion de montrer l'esprit qui l'animait » (preface, p. vii). Through his powerful scholarly work, recalled here only in outline, D. earned for himself a place of the first rank in the field of philology and ecclesiastical historiography.

A. Pietro Frutaz