QUENTIN, HENRI. — Benedictine historian and critic, first abbot of the pontifical abbey of S. Girolamo in Urbe, born at St-Thierry, in the diocese of Reims (France), on 7 October 1872, died in Rome on 4 February 1935. He spent several years in the diocesan seminary, then entered (1894) the abbey of Maredsous (Belgium), where
Eisleben (Saxony) on 9 July 1809, died at Tübingen on 21 December 1889. Q. devoted himself, among other things, to the study of the Swabian Jura.
His works contain clear indications of his religious faith: he attributes the formation and development of the inorganic and organic world to the creative and regulating action of God, and points out and admires the agreements between the Mosaic account and science (Schöpfung der Erde und ihre Bewohner, Stuttgart 1882, p. 8).
he made his profession on 6 October 1895. He moved to the abbey of Solesmes (France) on 6 September 1897 and was ordained a priest on 1 May 1902. He devoted himself to the study of conciliar collections and also to hagiographical questions, on which he published two volumes that brought him prominence in the field of textual criticism. When the Commission for the revision of the Vulgate was established in Rome (30 April 1907), under the presidency of the abbot (later cardinal) A. Gasquet (v.), Q. was called to join II.
He went to Paris (1910–11) and Spain (1912–13) to study and photograph the most important manuscripts of the Vulgate, using an apparatus that he had specially devised for the Commission. During the war of 1914–18 he lived once again in Paris without interrupting his work. After returning to Rome, he presented its fruits by preparing, in the palace of S. Callisto in Trastevere, the seat of the Commission for the Vulgate, his well-known Mémoire sur l'établissement du texte de la Volgate (Collectanea Biblica, 6, Rome 1922), a fundamental work both for the future course of the revision itself and for the development of textual-criticism studies. According to the principles established in this book, he published under his own name the first two volumes of the critically established Hieronymian version: Lib. Genesis (Rome 1926), Lib. Exodi et Levitici (ibid. 1929).
Meanwhile, Q. had become a full member of the Pont. Roman Academy of Archaeology (23 June 1923) and had begun (1926) to lecture on ecclesiastical history, hagiography, and liturgy at the Pont. Institute of Archaeology. On 6 February 1930 he was appointed by Pius XI general relator of the historical section of the S. Congregation of Rites, then newly established. Together with H. Delehaye (v.), he edited the critical edition of the Martyrologium Hieronymianum, published in Acta SS. Novembris, II, II (Brussels 1931).
On 21 October 1933 he transferred from the abbey of SS. Mauro and Maurizio of Clervaux (Luxembourg) to the abbey of S. Girolamo in Urbe, founded by the bull Inter praecipua of June 1933, with a group of monks to whom Pius XI had entrusted the task of continuing the work of revising the Vulgate, under Q.’s direction. Appointed abbot of the new pontifical monastery on 10 March 1934, he died there suddenly less than a year later.
Of extraordinary erudition, an acute and profound critic, especially in the study of manuscripts, he drew the attention of scholars to the necessity of strict principles, so as not to fling open the doors to the subjective element of internal criticism. For the revision of the Vulgate, he established a method for classifying manuscripts and editions which, after some controversy, was generally accepted by scholars.
In addition to the important works mentioned above and numerous articles in journals (especially in Revue bénédictine), miscellanies, and encyclopedias, he published: Jean Dominique Manui et les grandes collect. concil., étude d'hist. littér. (Paris 1900); Les martyrol. hist. du moyen âge. Etude sur la formation du Martyrol. romain (ibid. 1908); Boninus Mombritus. Sanctuarium seu vitae Sanctorum (ibid. 1910), in collaboration with D. Brunet; Notice histor. sur l'abbaye de Solesmes (Tours 1924); Essai de critique textuelle (Paris 1926).