Bollandist

The Society of Bollandists (Latin: Societas Bollandistarum; French: Société des Bollandistes) is an association of scholars, philologists, and historians (originally all Jesuits, but now including non-Jesuits) who since the early seventeenth century have studied hagiography and the cult of the saints in Christianity. Their most important publication has been the Acta Sanctorum (The Acts of the Saints). They are named after the Flemish Jesuit Jean Bolland (1596–1665).

The idea of the Acta Sanctorum was first conceived by the Dutch Jesuit Heribert Rosweyde (1569–1629), who was a lecturer at the Jesuit college of Douai. Rosweyde used his leisure time to collect information about the lives of the saints. His principal work, the 1615 Vitae Patrum, became the foundation of the Acta Sanctorum. Rosweyde contracted a contagious disease while ministering to a dying man, and died himself on October 5, 1629, at the age of sixty.^{[page needed]}

Father Jean Bolland was prefect of studies in the Jesuit college of Mechelen. Upon the death of Rosweyde, Bolland was asked to review Rosweyde's papers. Bolland then continued the work from Antwerp.

The task was to search out and classify materials, to print what seemed to be the most reliable sources of information concerning the saints venerated by the Church and to illustrate points of difficulty. Underestimating the magnitude of the undertaking, Bolland initially thought he could finish the work on his own, but after a few years he had to admit that the undertaking was beyond his individual strength. He was then assigned an assistant, Godfrey Henschenius (1601–81). The first two volumes of the Acta, by Bolland and Henschenius, were published in Antwerp in 1643.

Unlike Rosweyde and Bolland, Henschenius was allowed to devote himself exclusively to the writing of the Acta. He solved many problems relating to chronology, geography and the philological interpretation of the sources. February, March, and April (that is, the collected hagiographies of saints whose feast days occur in each month) took up three volumes each, May covered eight, and June seven volumes. By the time of his death, 24 volumes had appeared; moreover, Henschenius left many notes and commentaries for the following volumes. It can therefore be said that the Acta owe their final form to Henschenius.

In 1659, Bolland and Henschenius were joined by Daniel Papebrochius (1628–1714), who devoted fifty-five years of his life to the Acta. From July 1660 until December 1662, Henschenius and Papebrochius travelled through Germany, Italy and France in order to collect copies of hagiographic manuscripts. Another Bollandist of this period was Jean Gamans.^{[citation needed]}

With publication in 1675 of the first volume of April, the Bollandists became embroiled in a lengthy controversy with the Carmelites. In writing of St. Albert, Patriarch of Jerusalem and author of the Carmelite rule, Papebrochius had stated in his preliminary commentary that the tradition universally received by the Carmelites that the origin of the order dated back to the prophet Elijah, who was regarded as its founder, was insufficiently grounded. But learning that the attacks could jeopardize the work of the group, he and his companions decided that the time for silence had passed. From 1681 to 1698 a series of letters, pamphlets and other documents was issued by each side. The Carmelites were supported by a Spanish tribunal, while the Bollandists had the support of Jean de Launoy and the Sorbonne. In November 1698, Pope Innocent XII ordered an end to the controversy.

By the time of the death of Father Papebrochius in 1714, the first six months of the year were practically completed. Work continued in the following years, led by Conrad Janninck among others.^{[citation needed]}