rgprice wrote: ↑Tue Apr 02, 2024 8:50 am
In the mid 17th century the Catholic priest John Bolland and his team investigated the historicity of virtually all named Catholic saints, declaring huge numbers of their accounts to be ahistorical. Though his work was initially supported by the papacy, his writings ended up on the Roman Index of Prohibited Books.
The Preface of the "Acta Sanctorum"
by Patrick A. Collis
p.300
After a digression on the subject of miracles, he [Bollandus] resumes:
To return to the subject, many lives have been thus written from the
folklore, of many ancient martyrs of many of the apostles of Gaul,
of many of the saints of the nations just mentioned and, strange to say, of
many Italians. The learned men who collected these acts had nothing to
follow but folklore, which was said to have come down from ancient
times. If they happened upon some ancient document, however meagre,
like a light held out to a hopeless man in a dense fog, by it they directed
the entire course of their narration. Some, however, make so much of
this ancient folklore as to place it on a par with the apostolic traditions,
calling old popular persuasions, traditions, though they differ essentially.
The apostolic traditions do not rest upon popular report but upon
solid proofs, though handed down by word of mouth and not in writing.
Popular traditions, however, often unworthy of the belief of children,
resting on a slender or even a false basis, are greatly increased by gddi
tions but gain little strength by these additions. Even when facts are
narrated by a trustworthy man they are wrongly understood by some,
and related in a worse fashion to others, so that they travel very far
with added errors. It is a peculiarity of rumor that it acquires strength
as it progresses, and is more tenacious of the false and the wrong, than
of the true and the right. Often what I have related to another returns
to me the same day amplified in many ways and so changed that I do
not recognize what originated from myself, until by questioning the author
of what was related, I learn what was added and by whom. If with
learned men of the highest reputation for sincerity, some vagary of
thought or some unwarranted interpretation causes this, what will occur
in the case of an unlearned and uncultured.
///
Other writers have undertaken to abbreviate the original acts of the
saints. They restricted the accounts of virtues to a few words, but on
occasion amplified the accounts of miracles, including descriptions and
explanations which throw the whole account into question. This is
particularly intolerable if copyists, without any literary equipment,
insert circumstances of this kind or discard what they consider common
and trite.
Finally lives have been entirely invented, some, of wicked men, by
heretics and some by Catholics as an exercise of style. Heretics have
not only corrupted the acts of saints, to claim them for themselves, they
have proclaimed saints the most wicked men of their persuasion, and
declared their just deaths martyrdom. . This is a common form
of deceit with sectaries.
Other lives have been written by Catholics, containing not the deeds
which the saints performed, but what they could have performed. It
has been an ancient custom and it exists today, for men not without
learning, to compose the lives of kings and heroes, and relate their won
derful exploits, with fictitious names, in order that readers may be taken
with a desire to read them further. This may be tolerated if the names
are entirely fictitious, but do they not impose upon serious readers when
they attach to a king who is well known deeds which he never even
thought of performing? This foolish writing dulls the force of the
exploits worthy of praise. To me it seems the height of boldness for
men unseasonably funny, not to say impious, to dare thus to trifle with
the deeds of holy men. Thus a silly trickster falsely assuming the name
of Turpinus, a holy bishop, wrote the life of Charlemagne, thus also the acts
of the martyr Reynoldus and others have been soiled by the license of a
scurrilous style. There are others not deserving perhaps such bitter censure
who offer directions to correct morals and excite piety under the name of
a saint in order to give them greater force and cover them with the honey
of most attractive fiction to insure more ready acceptance. I do not
approve of this kind of writing, since readers form a false idea of saints, or
if it is stated that the account is fictitious, suspect that the other deeds of
the saint are likewise fictitious, and sometimes doubt whether those who
are venerated as saints ever existed. Even if this should not occur, a
falsehood should never be used as an incentive to piety. God is Truth.
All untruth is hateful to Him, whether of word, deed or script. Anv
one who desires to exercise his pen has at hand excellent material in
sacred and profane history.
With these principles established, some one may ask to what class of
historical writing my work belongs. . . . I say then, first, that there
are in this work no lives which any one may have the slightest suspicion
of being entirely imaginary, as they are always based on the testimony of
some Martyrology, or other unassailable authority ;5 second, that there
are no lives which by any probability were corrupted by heretics or other
men with evil intent.
Then he enumerates the various classes to which the lives belong.
1. Those related by eyewitnesses. "These were not deliber
ately invented after many centuries, but were consigned to writing
by wise men who had seen the events, and most faithfully pre
served them to our own day. Neither should captious men accuse
the monks of being stupid and lazy, men by whose industry, to
tell the truth, not only the sacred documents of ancient piety, but
all the monuments of ancient learning have come down to us, as
even many heretics themselves do not deny."
2. "There are in this work many authors who did not them
selves see what they related, or did not see everything, (though
those whom we call eyewitnesses did not so carefully view every
thing that they also did not learn from others), but learned most
from the accounts of those who saw them enacted."
3. "There are also several who wrote not what they saw or
heard from eyewitnesses, but, since they were separated by a long
distance what they had learned from men to whom the eyewit
nesses had related it."
4. "Finally there are many who revised what was written by
writers of the above class, in a new order and a new style, or who
composed the lives of saints from old and authentic documents,
or from reliable historians. These I imitate whenever I do not
find the acts of any saint, but only their memory found in the
fathers, or historians or martyrologies."
"I do not think that belief in these lives can easily be destroyed
by anyone, except that perhaps not a few things may occur to
the reader which may be added to what I have published."
5. "There are some lives written from popular report a long
time after the death of the saint, or from documents not so
authentic or reliable."
6. "The last class of lives are those contracted from the
original, or certainly interpolated in various places. This indeed
has sometimes been cleverly done by learned men, but I should
prefer that they had made separate notes of their observations,
additions and corrections, which they have woven into the original
account. This class has a very wide range, and like the former,
demands a close examination."
The Preface of the "Acta Sanctorum"
Author(s): Patrick A. Collis
Source: The Catholic Historical Review , Oct., 1920, Vol. 6, No. 3 (Oct., 1920), pp. 294-307
Published by: Catholic University of America Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25011698
by Patrick A. Collis
p.300
After a digression on the subject of miracles, he [Bollandus] resumes:
To return to the subject, many lives have been thus written from the
folklore, of many ancient martyrs of many of the apostles of Gaul,
of many of the saints of the nations just mentioned and, strange to say, of
many Italians. The learned men who collected these acts had nothing to
follow but folklore, which was said to have come down from ancient
times. If they happened upon some ancient document, however meagre,
like a light held out to a hopeless man in a dense fog, by it they directed
the entire course of their narration. Some, however, make so much of
this ancient folklore as to place it on a par with the apostolic traditions,
calling old popular persuasions, traditions, though they differ essentially.
The apostolic traditions do not rest upon popular report but upon
solid proofs, though handed down by word of mouth and not in writing.
Popular traditions, however, often unworthy of the belief of children,
resting on a slender or even a false basis, are greatly increased by gddi
tions but gain little strength by these additions. Even when facts are
narrated by a trustworthy man they are wrongly understood by some,
and related in a worse fashion to others, so that they travel very far
with added errors. It is a peculiarity of rumor that it acquires strength
as it progresses, and is more tenacious of the false and the wrong, than
of the true and the right. Often what I have related to another returns
to me the same day amplified in many ways and so changed that I do
not recognize what originated from myself, until by questioning the author
of what was related, I learn what was added and by whom. If with
learned men of the highest reputation for sincerity, some vagary of
thought or some unwarranted interpretation causes this, what will occur
in the case of an unlearned and uncultured.
///
Other writers have undertaken to abbreviate the original acts of the
saints. They restricted the accounts of virtues to a few words, but on
occasion amplified the accounts of miracles, including descriptions and
explanations which throw the whole account into question. This is
particularly intolerable if copyists, without any literary equipment,
insert circumstances of this kind or discard what they consider common
and trite.
Finally lives have been entirely invented, some, of wicked men, by
heretics and some by Catholics as an exercise of style. Heretics have
not only corrupted the acts of saints, to claim them for themselves, they
have proclaimed saints the most wicked men of their persuasion, and
declared their just deaths martyrdom. . This is a common form
of deceit with sectaries.
Other lives have been written by Catholics, containing not the deeds
which the saints performed, but what they could have performed. It
has been an ancient custom and it exists today, for men not without
learning, to compose the lives of kings and heroes, and relate their won
derful exploits, with fictitious names, in order that readers may be taken
with a desire to read them further. This may be tolerated if the names
are entirely fictitious, but do they not impose upon serious readers when
they attach to a king who is well known deeds which he never even
thought of performing? This foolish writing dulls the force of the
exploits worthy of praise. To me it seems the height of boldness for
men unseasonably funny, not to say impious, to dare thus to trifle with
the deeds of holy men. Thus a silly trickster falsely assuming the name
of Turpinus, a holy bishop, wrote the life of Charlemagne, thus also the acts
of the martyr Reynoldus and others have been soiled by the license of a
scurrilous style. There are others not deserving perhaps such bitter censure
who offer directions to correct morals and excite piety under the name of
a saint in order to give them greater force and cover them with the honey
of most attractive fiction to insure more ready acceptance. I do not
approve of this kind of writing, since readers form a false idea of saints, or
if it is stated that the account is fictitious, suspect that the other deeds of
the saint are likewise fictitious, and sometimes doubt whether those who
are venerated as saints ever existed. Even if this should not occur, a
falsehood should never be used as an incentive to piety. God is Truth.
All untruth is hateful to Him, whether of word, deed or script. Anv
one who desires to exercise his pen has at hand excellent material in
sacred and profane history.
With these principles established, some one may ask to what class of
historical writing my work belongs. . . . I say then, first, that there
are in this work no lives which any one may have the slightest suspicion
of being entirely imaginary, as they are always based on the testimony of
some Martyrology, or other unassailable authority ;5 second, that there
are no lives which by any probability were corrupted by heretics or other
men with evil intent.
Then he enumerates the various classes to which the lives belong.
1. Those related by eyewitnesses. "These were not deliber
ately invented after many centuries, but were consigned to writing
by wise men who had seen the events, and most faithfully pre
served them to our own day. Neither should captious men accuse
the monks of being stupid and lazy, men by whose industry, to
tell the truth, not only the sacred documents of ancient piety, but
all the monuments of ancient learning have come down to us, as
even many heretics themselves do not deny."
2. "There are in this work many authors who did not them
selves see what they related, or did not see everything, (though
those whom we call eyewitnesses did not so carefully view every
thing that they also did not learn from others), but learned most
from the accounts of those who saw them enacted."
3. "There are also several who wrote not what they saw or
heard from eyewitnesses, but, since they were separated by a long
distance what they had learned from men to whom the eyewit
nesses had related it."
4. "Finally there are many who revised what was written by
writers of the above class, in a new order and a new style, or who
composed the lives of saints from old and authentic documents,
or from reliable historians. These I imitate whenever I do not
find the acts of any saint, but only their memory found in the
fathers, or historians or martyrologies."
"I do not think that belief in these lives can easily be destroyed
by anyone, except that perhaps not a few things may occur to
the reader which may be added to what I have published."
5. "There are some lives written from popular report a long
time after the death of the saint, or from documents not so
authentic or reliable."
6. "The last class of lives are those contracted from the
original, or certainly interpolated in various places. This indeed
has sometimes been cleverly done by learned men, but I should
prefer that they had made separate notes of their observations,
additions and corrections, which they have woven into the original
account. This class has a very wide range, and like the former,
demands a close examination."
The Preface of the "Acta Sanctorum"
Author(s): Patrick A. Collis
Source: The Catholic Historical Review , Oct., 1920, Vol. 6, No. 3 (Oct., 1920), pp. 294-307
Published by: Catholic University of America Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/25011698
https://origin-rh.web.fordham.edu/Halsa ... k3.asp#int
Internet Medieval Sourcebook
Saints' Lives
Editor: Paul Halsall
Internet Medieval Sourcebook
Saints' Lives
Editor: Paul Halsall
https://archive.org/details/legendsofsa ... 7/mode/2up
The Legends of the saints; an introduction to Hagiography;
by Delehaye, Hippolyte, 1859-1941
The Legends of the saints; an introduction to Hagiography;
by Delehaye, Hippolyte, 1859-1941
The invention of Hagiography is usually attributed to Athanasius with his "Life of Anthony" c.360 CE.
It would be useful to expand some of these "Important milestones in biblical scholarship" which are related to the exposure of pious forgery, fabrication and fraud, back into antiquity in order to understand when and by whom stuff like hagiography, martyrology and the holy relic trade were instituted.
