The Contemporary Review, January 1883

After this sketch of the history of the Bollandists, which the literary student can easily supplement from the various memoirs of deceased members scattered through the volumes of the "Acta Sanctorum," we proceed to a consideration of the results of labours so long, so varied, and so strenuous. We shall now describe the plan of the work, the helps all too little known towards the effective use thereof, and then offer some specimens illustrating its critical value. When an ordinary reader takes up a volume of the "Acta Sanctorum,"' he is very apt to find himself utterly at sea. The very pagination is puzzling, two distinct kinds being used in all of the volumes, and even three in some. Then again lists, indexes, dissertations, acts of Saints, seem mingled indiscriminately. This apparent confusion, however, is all on the surface, as the reader will at once see, if he take the trouble to read the second chapter of the general preface prefixed to the first volume of the "January Saints,"' where the plan of the work is elaborately set forth. Let us briefly analyze a volume. The daily order of the Roman martyrology was taken as the basis of Bolland's scheme. Our author first of all arranged the saints of each day in chronological order, discussing them accordingly. A list of the names belonging to it is prefixed to the portion of the volume devoted to each separate day, so that one can see at a glance the lives belonging to that day and the order in which they are taken. A list then follows of those rejected or postponed to other days. Next come prefaces, prolegomena, and "previous dissertations," examining the lives, actions, and miracles of the Saints, authorship and history of the manuscripts, and other literary and historical questions. Then appear the lives of the Saints in the original language, if Latin; if not, then a Latin version is given; while of the Greek menologion, which the Bollandists discovered during their Roman journey, we have both the Greek original and a Latin translation. Appended to the lives are annotations, explaining any difficulties therein; while no less than five or six indexes adorn each volume: the first an alphabetical list of Saints discussed; the second chronological; the third historical; the fourth topographical; the fifth an onomasticon, or glossary; the sixth moral or dialectic, suggesting topics for preachers.

Prefixed to each volume will be found a dedication to some of the numerous patrons of the Bollandists, followed by an account of the life and labours of any of their Company who had died since their last publication. Thus, opening the first volume for March, we find, in order, a dedication to the reigning Pope, Clement IX; the life of Bollandus; an alphabetical index of all the Saints celebrated during the first eight days of March; a chronological list of Saints discussed under the head of March 1; the lives of Saints, including the Greek ones discovered by Henschenius during his Italian tour, ranged under their various natal days, followed by five indexes as already described. But, the reader may well ask, is there no general index, no handy means of steering one's way through this vast mass of erudition, without consulting each one of those fifty or sixty volumes? Without such an apparatus, indeed, this giant undertaking would be largely in vain; but here again the forethought of Bollandus from the very outset of his enterprise made provision for a general index, which was at last published at Paris, in 1875. We possess also in Potthast's "Bibliotheca Historica Medii Aevi," a most valuable guide through the mazes of the "Acta Sanctorum," while for a very complete analysis of every volume, joined with a lucid explanation of any changes in arrangement, we may consult De Backer's "Bibliothèque des Ecrivains de la Compagnie de Jésus," t. v., under the name "Bollandus."

But some may say, what is the use of consulting these volumes? Are they not simply gigantic monuments of misplaced and misapplied human industry, gathering up every wretched nursery tale and village superstition, and transmitting them to future ages? Such certainly has been the verdict of some who knew only the backs of the books, or who at farthest had opened by chance upon some passage where—true to their rule which compelled them to print their manuscripts as they found them—the Bollandists have recorded the legendary stories of the Middle Ages. Yet even for an age which searches diligently, as after hid treasure, for the old folk-lore, the nursery rhymes, the popular songs and legends of Scandinavia, Germany, and Greece, the legends of mediæval Christendom might surely prove interesting. But I regard the "Acta Sanctorum" as specially valuable for mediæval history, secular as well as ecclesiastical, simply because the authors—having had unrivalled opportunities of obtaining or copying documents—printed their authorities as they found them; and thus preserves for us a mine of historical material which otherwise would have perished in the French Revolution and its subsequent wars. Yet it is very strange how little this mine has been worked. We must suppose indeed that it was simply due to the want of the helps enumerated above—all of which have come into existence within the last twenty-five years—that neither of our own great historians who have dealt with the Middle Ages, Gibbon or Hallam, have, as far as we have been able to discover, ever consulted them.

Yet the very titles of even a few out of the very many critical dissertations appended to the "Lives of the Saints," will show how very varied and how very valuable were the purely historical labours of the Bollandists. Thus opening the first volume of the "Thesaurus Antiquitatis," a collection of the critical treatises scattered through the volumes published prior to 1750, the following titles strike the eye:—"Dissertations on the Byzantine historian Theophanes," on the "Ancient Catalogues of the Roman Pontiffs," on the "Diplomatic Art"—a discussion which elicited the famous treatise of Mabillon, "De Re Diplomatica," laying down the true principles for distinguishing false documents from true—on certain mediæval "Itineraries in Palestine," on the "Patriarchates of Alexandria and Jerusalem," on the "Bishops of Milan to the year 1261," on the "Mediæval Kings of Majorca" and no less than three treatises on the "Chronology of the early Merovingian and other French Kings." Let us take for instance these last mentioned essays on the early French kings. In them we find the Bollandists discovering a king of France, Dagobert II., whose romantic history, banishment to Ireland, restoration to his kingdom by the instrumentality of Archbishop Wilfrid, of York, and tragic death, had till their investigations lain hidden from every historian. As soon, indeed, as they had brought this obscure episode to light, and had elaborately traced the genealogy of the Merovingians, their claim to the discovery was disputed by Hadr. Valesius, the historiographer to the French Court, who was of course jealous that any one else should know more about the origins of the French monarchy than he did. His pretension, however, was easily refuted by Henschenius, who showed that he had himself discovered this derelict king twelve years before Valesius turned his thoughts to the subject, having published in 1654 a dissertation upon him distinct from those embodied in the "Acta Sanctorum." Hallam, in his "History of the Middle Ages," introduces this king, and notices that his history had escaped all historians till discovered by some learned men in the seventeenth century, for it is in this vague way he alludes to the Bollandists—and then refers for his authority to Sismondi, who in turn knows nothing of the Bollandists' share in the discovery, but attributes it to Mabillon when treating of the "Acts of the Benedictine Saints." Let us again take up Hallam, and we shall in vain search for notices of the kings of Majorca, a branch of the Royal family of Arragon, who reigned over the Balearic Islands in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Let any one, however, desirous of a picture of the domestic life of sovereigns during the Middle Ages, take up Papebrock's treatise on the "Palatine Laws" of James II., King of Majorca, A.D. 1324, where he will see depicted—all the more minutely because from the size of his principality the king had no other outlet for his energy—the ritual of a mediæval Court, illustrated, too, with pictures drawn from the original manuscript. In this document are laid down with painful minuteness, the duties of every official from the chancellor and the major-domo to the lowest scullions and grooms, including butlers, cooks, blacksmiths, musicians, scribes, physicians, surgeons, chaplains, choir-men, and chamberlains. Remote, too, as these kings of Majorca and their elaborate ceremonial may seem to be from the England of to-day, a careful study of these "Palace Laws" would seem to indicate either that our own Court Ritual was derived from it, or else that both are deduced from one common stock. The point of contact, however, between our own Court etiquette and that of Majorca is not so very hard to find. The kings of Arragon, acting on the usual principle, might is right, devoured the inheritance of their kinsmen, which lay so tantalizingly close to their own shores, during the lifetime of the worthy legislator, James II. But as Greece led captive her conqueror, Rome, so too Arragon, though superior in brute force, bowed to the genius of Majorca, at least on points of courtly details, and adopted en bloc the laws of James II., which were published as his own by Peter IV., King of Arragon, A.D. 1344. Thence they passed over to the United Kingdom of Castile and Arragon, and so may have easily found their way to England; for surely, if a naturally ceremonious people like the Spaniards needed instruction on such matters from the Majorcans, how much more must colder northerns like ourselves. This incident illustrates the special opportunities possessed by the Bollandists for consulting ancient documents, which otherwise would most probably have been lost for ever. Their manuscript of those Majorcan laws seems to have been originally the property of the legislator himself. When King James was dispossessed of his kingdom, he fled to Philip VI. of France, seeking redress, and bearing with him a splendid copy of his laws as a present, which his son and successor John in turn presented to Philip, Duke of Burgundy. After lying there a century it found its way to Flanders, in the train of a Duchess of Burgundy, and thus finally came into the possession of the Antwerp Jesuits.

Again, the study of the Bollandists throws light upon the past history and present state of Palestine. Thus the indefatigable Papebrock, equally at home in the most various kinds of learning, discusses the history of the Bishops and Patriarchs of Jerusalem, in a tract preliminary to the third volume for May. But, not content with a subject so wide, he branches off to treat of divers other questions relating to Oriental history, such as the Essenes and the origin of Monasticism, the Saracenic persecution of the Eastern Christians, and the introduction of the Arabic notation into Europe. On this last head the Bollandists anticipate some modern speculations.10 He maintains, on the authority of a Greek manuscript in the Vatican, written by an Eastern monk, Maximus Planudes, about 1270, that, while the Arabs derived their notation from the Brahmins of India, about A.D. 200, they only introduced it into Eastern Europe so late as the thirteenth century. Upon the geography of Palestine again they give us information. All modern works of travel or survey dealing with the Holy Land, make frequent reference to the records left us by men like Eusebius and Jerome, and the itineraries of the "Bordeaux Pilgrim," of Bishop Arculf, A.D., 700, Benjamin of Tudela, A.D. 1163, and others. In the second volume for May, we have presented to us two itineraries, one of which seems to have escaped general notice. One is the record of Antoninus Martyr, a traveller in the seventh century. This is well known and often quoted. The other is the diary of a Greek priest, Joannes Phocas, describing "the castles and cities from Antioch to Jerusalem, together with the holy places of Syria, Phœnicia, and Palestine," as they were seen by him in the year 1185. This manuscript, first published in the "Acta Sanctorum," was discovered in the island of Chios, by Leo Allatius, afterwards librarian of the Vatican. It is very rich in interesting details concerning the state of Palestine and Christian tradition in the twelfth century. The Bollandists again were the first to bring prominently forward in the last volume of June the "Ancient Roman Calendar of Polemeus Silvius." This seems to have been a combined calendar and diary, kept by some citizen of Rome in the middle of the fifth century. It records from day to day the state of the weather, the direction of the wind, the birthdays of eminent characters in history, poets like Virgil, orators like Cicero, emperors like Vespasian and Julian; and is at the same time most important as showing the large intermixture of heathen ideas and fashions which still continued paramount in Rome a century and a half after the triumph of Christianity.

The new Bollandists, indeed, do not produce such exhaustive monographs as their predecessors did; but we cannot join in the verdict of the writer in the new issue of the "Encyclopædia Britannica," who tells us that the continuation is much inferior to the original work. Some of their articles manifest a critical acquaintance with the latest modern research, as, for instance, their dissertation on the Homerite Martyrs and the Jewish Homerite kingdom of Southern Arabia, wherein they display their knowledge of the work done by the great Orientalists of England and Germany, while in their history of St. Rose, of Lima, A.D. 1617, they celebrate the only American who was ever canonized by the Roman Catholic Church, and, at the same time, give us a fearful picture of the austerities to which fanaticism can lead its victims. Perhaps to some readers one of the most interesting points about this great work, when viewed in the light of modern history, will be the complete change of front which it exhibits on one of the test questions about Papal Infallibility. One of the great difficulties in the path of this doctrine is the case of Liberius, Pope in the middle of the fourth century. He is accused—and to ordinary minds the accusation seems just—of having signed an Arian formula, of having communicated with the Arians, and of having anathematized St. Athanasius. He stood firm for a while, but was exiled by the Emperor. During his absence Felix II. was chosen Pope. Liberius, after a time was permitted to return; whereupon the spectacle, so often afterwards repeated, was witnessed of two Popes competing for the Papal throne. Felix, however he may have fared in life, has fairly surpassed his opponent in death, since Felix appears in the Roman Martyrology as a Saint and a Martyr under the date of July 29; while Liberius is not admitted therein even as a Confessor. This would surely seem to give us every guarantee for the sanctity of Felix, and the fallibility of Liberius, as the Roman Martyrology of to-day is guaranteed by a decree of Pope Gregory XIII., issued "under the ring of the Fisherman." In this decree "all patriarchs, archbishops, bishops, abbots, and religious orders," are bidden to use this Martyrology without addition, change, or subtraction; while any one so altering it is warned that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul. The earlier Bollandists, with this awful anathema hanging over them, most loyally accepted the Roman Martyrology, and therefore most vigorously maintained, in the seventh volume for July, the heresy of Liberius, as well as the orthodoxy and saintship of Felix. But, as years rolled on, this admission was seen to be of most dangerous consequence; and so we find, in the sixth volume, for September, that Felix has become, as he still remains in current Roman historians, like Alzog, a heretic, a schismatic, and an anti-Pope, while Liberius is restored to his position as the only valid and orthodox Bishop of Rome. But then the disagreeable question arises, if this be so, what becomes of the Papal decree of Gregory XIII. issued sub annulo piscatoris, and the anathemas appended thereto? With the merits of this controversy, however, we are, as historical students, in a very slight degree concerned; and we simply produce these facts as specimens of the riches contained in the externally unattractive volumes of the "Acta Sanctorum." Space would fail us, did we attempt to set forth at any length the contents of these volumes. Suffice it to say that even upon our English annals, which have been so thoroughly explored of late years, the records of the Bollandists would probably throw some light, discussing as they do, at great length, the lives of such English Saints as Edward the Confessor and Wilfrid of York; and yet they are not too favourably disposed towards our insular Saints, since they plainly express their opinion that our pious simplicity has filled their Acts with incredible legends and miracles, more suited to excite laughter than to promote edification.

But, doubtless, our reader is weary of our hagiographers. We must, therefore, notice briefly the controversies in which their labours involved them. Bollandus, when he died, departed amid universal regret: Dominicans, Franciscans, Carmelites, all joined with Jesuits in regret for his death, and in prayers for his eternal peace. A few years afterwards the Society experienced the very fleeting character of such universal popularity. During the issue of the first twelve volumes, they had steered clear of all dangerous controversies by a rigid observance of the precepts laid down by Bollandus. In discussing, however, the life of Albert, at first Bishop of Vercelli, and afterwards Papal Legate and Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, Papebrock challenged the alleged antiquity of the Carmelite Order, which affected to trace itself back to Elijah the Tishbite. This piece of scepticism, brought down a storm upon his devoted head, which raged for years and involved Popes, yea even Princes and Courts, in the quarrel. Du Cange threw the shield of his vast learning over the honest criticism of the Jesuits. The Spanish Inquisition stepped forward in defence of the Carmelites; and toward the end of the seventeenth century condemned the first fourteen volumes of the "Acta Sanctorum" as dangerous to the faith. The Carmelites were very active in writing pamphlets in their own defence, wherein after the manner of the time they deal more in hard words and bad names than in sound argument. Thus the title of one of their pamphlets describes Papebrock as "the new Ishmael whose hand is against every man and every man's hand is against him." It is evident, however, that they felt the literary battle going against them, inasmuch as in 1696 they petitioned the King of Spain to impose perpetual silence upon their adversaries. As his most Catholic Majesty did not see fit to interfere, they presented a similar memorial to Pope Innocent XIII., who in 1699 imposed the clôture upon all parties, and thus effectually terminated a battle which had raged for twenty years. Papebrock again involved himself at a later period in a controversy touching a very tender and very important point in the Roman system. In discussing the lives of some Chinese martyrs, he advocated the translation of the Liturgy into the vulgar tongue of the converts; which elicited a reply from Gueranger in his "Institutions Théologiques;" while again between the years 1729 and 1736 a pitched battle took place between the Bollandists and the Dominicans touching the genealogy of their founder, St. Dominic. All these controversies, with many other minor ones in which they were engaged, will be found summed up in an apologetic folio which the Bollandists published. In looking through it the reader will specially be struck by this instructive fact, that the bitterness and violence of the controversy were always in the inverse ratio of the importance of the points at issue. This much also must any fair mind allow: the Society of Jesus, since the days of Pascal and the "Provincial Letters," has been regarded as a synonym for dishonesty and fraud. From any such charge the student of the "Acta Sanctorum" must regard the Bollandists as free. In them we behold oftentimes a credulity which would not have found place among men who knew by experience more of the world of life and action, but, on the other hand, we find in them thorough loyalty to historical truth. They deal in no suppression of evidence; they give every side of the question. They write like men who feel, as Bollandus their founder did, that under no circumstances is it right to tell a lie. They never hesitate to avow their own convictions and predilections. They draw their own conclusions, and put their own gloss upon facts and documents; but yet they give the documents as they found them, and they enable the impartial student—working not in trammels as they did—to make a sounder and truer use of them. They display not the spirit of the mere confessor whose tone has been lowered by the stifling atmosphere of the casuistry with which he has been perpetually dealing; but, the braced soul, the hardy courage of the historical critic, who having climbed the lofty peaks of bygone centuries, has watched and noted the inevitable discovery and defeat of lies, the grandeur and beauty of truth. They were Jesuits indeed, and, like all the members of that Society, were bound, so far as possible, to sink all human affections and consecrate every thought to the work of their order. If such a sacrifice be lawful for any man, if it be permitted any thus to suppress the deepest and holiest affections which God has created, surely such a sacrifice could not have been made in the pursuance of a worthier or nobler object than the rescue from destruction, and the preservation to all ages, of the facts and documents contained in the "Acta Sanctorum."

George T. Stokes.

ENGLAND, FRANCE, AND MADAGASCAR

The present difficulties between France and Madagascar, and the recent arrival of a Malagasy Embassy in this country, have made the name of the great African island a familiar one to all readers of our daily journals during the last few weeks. For some time past we have heard much of certain "French claims" upon Madagascar, and alleged "French rights" there; and since the envoys of the Malagasy sovereign are now in England seeking the friendly offices of our Government on behalf of their country, it will be well for Englishmen to endeavour to understand the merits of the dispute, and to know why they are called to take part in the controversy.

Except to a section of the English public which has for many years taken a deep interest in the religious history of the island and given liberally both men and money to enlighten it, and to a few others who are concerned in its growing trade, Madagascar is still very vaguely known to the majority of English people; and, as was lately remarked by a daily journal, its name has until recently been almost as much a mere geographical expression as that of Mesopotamia. The island has, however, certain very interesting features in its scientific aspects, and especially in some religious and social problems which have been worked out by its people during the past fifty years; and these may be briefly described before proceeding to discuss the principal subject of this article.

Looking sideways at a map of the Southern Indian Ocean, Madagascar appears to rise like a huge sea monster out of the waters. The island has a remarkably compact and regular outline; for many hundred miles its eastern shore is almost a straight line, but on its north-western side it is indented by a number of deep land-locked gulfs, which include some of the finest harbours in the world. About a third of its interior to the north and east is occupied by an elevated mountainous region, raised from 3,000 to 5,000 feet above the sea, and consisting of Primary rocks—granite, gneiss, and basalt—probably very ancient land, and forming during the Secondary geological epoch an island much smaller than the Madagascar of to-day. While our Oolitic and Chalk rocks were being slowly laid down under northern seas, the extensive coast plains of the island, especially on its western and southern sides, were again and again under water, and are still raised but a few hundred feet above the sea-level. From south-east to north and north-west there extends a band of extinct volcanoes, connected probably with the old craters of the Comoro Group, where, in Great Comoro, the subterranean forces are still active. All round the island runs a girdle of dense forest, varying from ten to forty miles in width, and containing fine timber and valuable gums and other vegetable wealth—a paradise for botanists, where rare orchids, the graceful traveller's-tree, the delicate lattice-leaf plant, the gorgeous flamboyant, and many other elsewhere unknown forms of life abound, and where doubtless much still awaits fuller research.