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 BOLLANDISTS

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BOLLANDISTS

generally to the whites in other South American countries. They differ of course from the inhabi- tants of less mountainous coimtries in that they have the general characteristics common to all moimtaineers.

(For special information on the individual dioceses, aboriginal tribes, languages, etc., of BoUvia, see articles under separate headings.)

International Bureau of the American Republics, Bolivia (Washington, D. C, 1904); Rene Moreno, Biblioleca Boliviana (Santiago, Chile, 1879). Of the latter very full and -ver.v reliable book a supplement was issued by the author in 1899, and Valentin Abeicia published Adicicnes, in 1902. These Chilian publications are not very easy to obtain; easier «f access is Geoarafla de la Republica de Boliria (La Paz, 1905). The colonial history of Bolivia is so intimately connected with that of Peru that the early sources touching the former ore also those tor the latter. Of general works from the six- teenth and seventeenth century. Gomara, AcosT.t, Herhera, •Garcia are of course indispensable for consultation.

Ad. F. Bandelier.

BoUandists, The, an association of ecclesiastical scholars engaged in editing the Acta Sanctorum. This work is a great hagiographical collection begun during the first years of the seventeenth century, and continued to our own day. The collaborators are called BoUandists, as being successors of BoUand, tlie editor of the first volume. The collection now num- bers sixty-three volumes in folio, to which must be added a supplementary volume, published in 1875 by a French priest, and containing chiefly certain tables and directions facilitating research in the volumes which had appeared at that time. Although Bolland has given his name to the work, he is not to be regarded as its founder. The idea was first conceived by Heri- bert Rosweyde (b. at Utrecht, 1569; d. at Antwerp, 1629). He entered the Society of Jesus in 1588. An indefatigable worker and a fearless but judicious inves- tigator, notwithstanding his duties as professor of phi- losophy in the Jesuit college at Douai during the last years of the sixteenth century, Rosweyde devoted the leisure of his vacations and holidays to exploring the libraries of the numerous monasteries scattered through Hainault and French Flanders. He copied with his own hand a vast number of documents relat- ing to church history in general, and to hagiography in particular, and found in the old te.xts contained in the manuscripts coming under his observation quite a different flavour from that of the re^•isions to which many editors, notably Lippomano and Surius, then the latest and most celebrated, had believed it nec- «ssarj' to subject them. Rosweyde thought it would be a useful work to pubhsh the texts in their original form. His superiors, to whom he submitted his plan in 1603, gave it their hearty approval, and allowed him to prepare the projected edition, without, how- ever, relieving him of any of the occupations on which he was expending his prodigious activity. So, for the time being, he was allowed merely the privilege of devoting his spare moments to the preparation of the work. Rosweyde did not cease to pursue his project, which he announced publicly in 1607, as well as the plan he proposed to follow. Under the title: "Fasti sanctorum quorum vitje in belgicis bibliothecis manuscripta;", he gave in a little volume in 16mo., published by the Plantin press at Antwerp, an alphabetical list of the names of the fiaints whose acts had been either foimd by him or called to his attention in old manuscript collections. This list filled fifty pages; the prefatory notice in which he indicates the character and arrangement of his work, as he had conceived it, takes up fourteen. Finally, the work contains an appendix of twenty- six pages containing the unpublished acts of the pas- sion of the holy Cilician martyrs, Tharsacus, Probus, and Andronicus, which Rosweyde regarded — wrongly — as the authentic official report from the pen of a clerk of the court of the Roman tribunal. Accord- ing to this programme the collection was to comprise

sixteen volumes, besides two volumes of explanations and tables. The first volume was to present docu- ments concerning the life of Jesus Christ and the feasts established in honour of the special events of His life; the second volume would be devoted to the life and the feasts of the Blessed Virgin, and the third to the feasts of the saints honoured with a more special cult. The twelve succeeding volumes were to give the lives of the saints whose feasts are celebrated respectively in the twelve months of the year, one volume for each month. This calendar arrangement had been prescribed by his superiors, in preference to the chronological order Rosweyde himself favoured. But this presented, especially at that time, formidable difficulties. Lastly, the six- teenth volume was to set forth the succession of martyrologies which had been in use at different periods and in the various Churches of Christendom. The first of the two supplementary volumes was to contain notes and commentaries bearing on the lives already published. It was to be divided into eight books treating respectively of the following subjects: (1) The authors of the lives; (2) the sufferings of the martyrs; (3) the images of the saints; (4) liturgical rites and customs mentioned in hagiographical docu- ments; (5) profane customs to which allusions had been made; (6) questions of chronology; (7) names of

E laces encountered in these same documents; (8) bar- arous or obscure terms which might puzzle the readers. The other supplementary volume was to present a series of copious tables giving: (1) the names of the saints whose lives had been published in the preceding volumes; (2) the same names fol- lowed by notes indicating the place of the saint's birth, his station in life, his title to sanctity, the time and place in which he had lived, and the author of his life; (3) the state of life of the various saints (religious, priest, virgin, widow, etc.); (4) their posi- tion in the Church (apostle, bishop, abbot, etc.); (5) the nomenclature of the saints according to the countries made illustrious by their birth, apostolate, sojourn, burial; (6) nomenclature of the places in which they are honoured with a special cult; (7) enu- meration of the maladies for the cure of which they are especially invoked; (8) the professions placed un- der their patronage; (9) the proper names of persons and places encountered in the published lives; (10) the passages of Holy Scripture there explained; (11) points which may be of use in religious controversies; (12) those applicable in the teaching of Christian doctrine; (13) a general table of words and things in alphabetical order. "And others still" adds the author, "if anytliing of importance presents itself, of which our readers may give us an idea."

Cardinal Bellarmine, to whom Rosweyde sent a copy of his little volume, could not forbear exclaiming after he had read this programme: "This man counts, then, on living two hundred years longer!" He ad- dressed to the author a letter, the original of which is preserved in the present library of the BoUandists, signed, but not written, by the hand of Bellarmine, in which he intimates in polished but perfectly plain language that he regarded the plan as chimerical. Rosweyde was nowise disconcerted by this. From various other sources he received encouragement, enthusiastic praise, and valuable a.ssistance. The new enterprise found an especial protector, as gener- ous as he was zealous and enlightened, in .\ntotne de Wynghe, abbot of the celebrated monastery ot Liessies in Hainault. Venerable Louis of Blois, whose third successor de WjTighe was, seemed to have be- queathed to him his affectionate devotion to the sons of St. Ignatius of Loyola. The large sympathy of this religious Mscenas manifested itself in every way; in letters of recommendation to the heads of the various houses of the great Benedictine Order, which opened to Rosweyde and his associates monastic