PEETERS, PAUL

PEETERS, PAUL. — Jesuit, hagiographer and Orientalist, of the Bollandist College, born at Tournai on 20 September 1870, died at Brussels on 18 August 1950.

He entered the Society of Jesus on 14 September 1887 and immediately displayed an exceptional facility for learning languages; even before beginning his theological studies, he taught the classical languages and Hebrew, and learned Armenian and Russian on his own. Ordained a priest in 1901 and having completed his studies, he spent some time in Syria, both for his health and to learn Arabic there. In 1905 he was attached to the Bollandist College, where for more than 45 years he devoted himself to extensive and profound research and to numerous hagiographical publications concerning Georgia (s. Romano, Porphyry of Gaza, Hilarion of Iberia, Serapion of Zarzma, santa Nino, etc.), Armenia (santa Soušanik martyr, Gregory the Illuminator, etc.), Persia (s. Eleuterio-Guhištazad, s. Simeon archbishop of Seleucia, the Passionary of Adiabene, santa Golindouch martyr, etc.), Syria (ss. Simeon Stylites the Elder and the Younger, s. Thomas of Emesa), Egypt and Byzantium. In 1930 he was chosen as a consulter to the S. Congr. of Rites for the historical section; in 1933 he became a member of the Reale Accademia Belgica; in 1941 he succeeded Fr. H. Delehaye as director of the Bollandist College; in 1942 he was appointed a member of the Roman Academy of Archaeology. In 1946 the University of Strasbourg conferred upon him an honorary doctorate in theology; in 1947 the University of Louvain

the degree in philology and in Oriental history. How highly he was esteemed in the scholarly world is demonstrated by the two volumes of the Mélanges P. P., presented to him on his eightieth birthday.

A complete bibliography is given in Anal. Bolland., 69 (1951), pp. XLVIII-LIX, and comprises 160 items, most of them articles published in Anal. Bolland. and in many other periodicals devoted to specialized scholarship. Among his separate works, the following deserve mention: Bibliotheca hagiographica orientalis, Brussels (Beyruth) 1910; Evangiles apodchryphes, 2 vols., Paris 1911-14; Histoires monastiques géorgiennes, there 1922; L'oeuvre des Bollandistes, Brussels-Paris 1942; Figures bollandiennes contemporaines, there 1948; Orient et Byzance. Le tréfonds oriental de l'hagiographie byzantine, Brussels 1950; Recherches d'hist. et de philologie orientales, 2 vols., there 1951. He also contributed extensively to the Acta SS. Novembris, III, IV, V, and to the volumes of the Martyrologium Hieronymianum and the Martyrologium Romanum.