ILARIO DA BARENTON

Machine translation of the 1948–1954 Italian original. The original text is authoritative.

Writer and Capuchin scholar of the Paris province, b. 18 Feb. 1864; already a priest and parish assistant, he entered the novitiate on 2 Aug. 1891, d. in Paris on 24 Feb. 1946.

Professor of sacred disciplines, he defended dogmatic and biblical doctrine against modernism; in polemical pamphlets, journals, and through associations he championed the right of religious orders to exist against the French expulsion laws; he illustrated the history of the French Franciscan and Capuchin orders through articles and monographs. He distinguished himself especially in studies on ancient civilizations with personal research, noteworthy even if controversial. In numerous monographs, collected in the Collection d'études orientales (1-10, Paris 1920-37), in the Collection d'études orientales et bibliques (1-3, ibid. 1923-25), and in the Collection de sciences et découvertes modernes (1-6, ibid. 1935-46), he examined with new solutions problems concerning the origin of languages, religions, peoples, and the spread of civilization in the Mediterranean world. The breadth of his erudition offers, alongside some reservations, many elements capable of development.

Bibl.: P. Perali, L'origine delle lingue, dei popoli e delle religioni negli studi del p. cappuccino Hilaire de Barenton, in Miscellanea Franc., 34 (1934), pp. 263-71; Godefroy de Paris, Un orientaliste capucin. Le r. p. Hilaire de Barenton, in Analecta Ord. Min. Cappuccinorum, 64 (1948), pp. 92-97, 123-25, and in Les Amis de St François, 49 (1948), pp. 15-24.