The Menologium answers to the Latin Martyrology. There are several Menologia, as, at different times, great alterations have been made in them. But the ground-word of them all is the same, so that they are neither wholly alike nor wholly different. A translation of a Menologium into Latin by cardinal Sirlet, was published by Henry Canisius, in the third volume of his Lectiones Antiquæ. The Greek original, with a new version, was published by Annibal Albani, at Urbino, in 1727. From these works it is most clear that the Greek church invokes the saints, and implores their intercession with God: "Haud obscure ostendit," says Walchius, "Græcos eo cultu prosequi homines in sanctorum ordinem ascriptos, ut ilios incocent." Bib. Theologica, vol. iii. 668. From the Menæon, and the Menologium, Raderus published a collection of pious and entertaining narratives, under the title of Viridarum Sanctorum. It is to be wished that some gentleman would employ his leisure in a translation of it. We should then be furnished, from the works of the Agiographists of the eastern church, with a collection of pious and instructing narratives, similar to those in the well-known Histoires Choisies. One of the most curious articles inserted in the Acta Sanctorum of the Bollandists, is the Muscovite or Russian Calendar, with the engravings of the saints. It was first published by father Possevin. He praises the Russians for the great attention to decency which they observe in their pictures and engravings of holy subjects. He mentions that the Russians, who accompanies him in his return to Rome, observed with surprise in the Italian paintings of saints, a want of the like attention. Father Papebroke, when he cites this passage, adopts the remark, and loudly calls on Innocent XII. to attend to the general decency of all public paintings and statues. A Greek Calendar of the Saints in hexameter verse accompanies the Russian Calendar, in the Acta Sanctorum; both are illustrated with notes by father Pane broke.
IX. 6. We proceed to the Lives of the Saints, written by individuals. For these our attention must be first directed to the Agiographists of the Greek church. The eighth century may be considered as the period when Grecian literature had reached its lowest state of depression; in the ninth, Bardas Cæsar, the brother of the empress Theodora, protected letters; from that time they were constantly cultivated by the Greeks; so that Constantinople, utile it was taken by Mahomet, was never without its historians, poets, or philosophers. Compared with the writings of the ancients, their compositions seem lifeless and unnatural; we look among them in vain either for original genius or successful imitation. Still they are entitled to our gratitude; many of the precious remains of antiquity have come down to us only in their extracts and abridgments; and their voluminous compilations have transmitted to us much useful information which has no other existence. Sacred biography, in particular, has great obligations to them. The earliest work on that subject we owe to the care which the emperor Constantine Porphyrogenitus bestowed on the literary education of his son; an example which, at the distance of about six hundred years, was successfully rivalled by the elegant edition of the Delphin Classics, published under the aspics of Lewis XIV. But the Greek emperor had this advantage over the French monarch, that he himself was the author of some of the works published for the use of his son. In the first (published by Lerch and Reisch at Leipsic, in 1751) he described the ceremonial of the Byzantine court; the second (published by Banduri, in his Imperium Orientale) is a geographical survey of the provinces, or, as he calls them, the Themata of the empire; the third, which some ascribe to the emperor Leo, his father, describes the prevailing system of military tactics; the forth delineates the political relations and intercourse of the court of Byzantium with the other states. His Geoponics (published by Nicholas Niclas at Leipsic, in 1731, in two volumes, 8vo.) were written with a view of instructing his subjects in agriculture. By his direction, a collection of historical examples of vice and virtue was compiled in fifty-three books, and Simeon Metaphrastes, the great logothete, or chancellor of the empire, composed his Lives of the Saints. Several of them were published, with a Latin translation, by the care of Lipoman, the bishop of Verona. Cardinal Bellarmin accuses Metaphrastes of giving too much loose to his imagination. "He inserts," {025} says the cardinal, "such accounts of conversations of the martyrs with their persecutors, and such accounts of conversions of bystanders, as exceed belief. He mentions many and most wonderful miracles on the destruction of the temples and idols, and on the death of the persecutors, of which nothing is said by the ancient historians." We next come to Jacobus de Voragine, a Dominican friar and archbishop of Genoa, in 1292. His Golden Legend was the delight of our ancestors during the ages which preceded the revival of letters. The library of no monastery was without it. Like the essays of Montaigne, it was to be found on the shelf of every private person; and, for a long time after the invention of printing, no work more often issued from the press. After enjoying the highest degree of reputation, it lost much of its celebrity, in consequence of the Lives of Saints published by Mombritius in two immense volumes, in folio, about the year 1480, from manuscripts in the library of the church of St. John of Lateran and in consequence of the Lives of Saints published by Surius, a Carthusian monk. The first edition of Surius's work was published in 1570-75, in six volumes; the second appeared in 1578, the third and most complete was published, in twelve volumes, in 1615. That he frequently shows too much credulity, and betrays a want of taste, must be admitted; but his works are allowed to breathe a spirit of piety; his candor, and desire to be accurate, are discernible in every part of his writings; and his learning, for the age in which he lived, was considerable. In Ribadeneira the line of ancient Agiographists respectably finishes.
While candor and good taste must allow that, even in the Lest of the compilations we have mentioned, there is a great want of critical discernment, and that they are wholly deficient in elegance, and the artificial beauties of composition, justice requires that their defects should not be exaggerated. Still less should an intention to deceive, even on the pretence of edification, be imputed to them. Whatever may have been either the error or the criminality of some of her members, the church herself, in this, as in every other instance, has always inculcated the duty of sincerity and truth, and reprobated a deviation from them, even on the specious pretence of producing good. On this subject our author thus forcibly expresses himself, in one of his letters on Mr. Bower's History of the Lives of the Popes: "It is very unjust to charge the popes or the Catholic church with countenancing knowingly false legends; seeing all the divines of that communion unanimously condemn all such forgeries as lies in things of great moment, and grievous sins; and all the councils, popes, and other bishops, have always expressed the greatest horror of such villanies; which no cause or circumstances whatever can authorize, and which, in all things relating to religion, are always of the most heinous nature. Hence the authors, when detected, have been always punished with the utmost severity. Dr. Burnet himself says, that those who feigned a revelation at Basil, of which he gives a long detail, with false circumstances, in his letters on his travels, were all burnt at stakes for it, which we read more exactly related by Surius in his Commentary on his own times. The truth is, that many false legends of true martyrs were forged by heretics, as were those of St. George, condemned by pope Gelasius, as many false gospels were soon after the birth of Christianity, of which we have the names of near fifty extant. Other wicked or mistaken persons have sometimes been guilty of a like imposture. A priest at Ephesus forged acts of St. Paul's voyages, out of veneration for that apostle, and was deposed for it by St. John the evangelist, as we learn from Tertullian. To instance examples of this nature would form a complete history; for the church has always most severely condemned all manner of forgeries. Sometimes the more virtuous and remote from fraud a person is, the more unwilling he is to suspect an imposture in others. Some great and good men have been imposed upon by lies, and have given credit to false histories, but without being privy to the forgery; and nothing erroneous, dangerous, or prejudicial was contained in what they unwarily admitted. However, if credulity in private histories was too easy in any former age, certainly skepticism and infidelity are the characters of this in which we live. No histories, except those of holy scripture, are proposed as parts of divine revelation or articles of faith; all others rest upon their bare historical authority. They who do not think this good and sufficient in any narrations, do well to suggest modestly their reasons; yet may look upon them at least as parables, and leave others the liberty of judging for themselves without offence. But Mr. Bower says, p. 177, 'The Roman Breviary is the most authentic book the {026} church of Rome has, after the scripture; it would be less dangerous, at least in Italy, to deny any truth revealed in the scripture, than to question any fable related in the Breviary.' Catholic divines teach that every tittle in the holy scriptures is sacred, divinely inspired, and the word of God dictated by the Holy Ghost. Even the definitions of general councils do not enjoy an equal privilege; they are indeed the oracles of an unerring guide in the doctrine of faith; which guide received, together with the scriptures, the true sense and meaning of the articles of faith contained in them; and, by the special protection of the Holy Ghost, invariably preserves the same by tradition from father to son, according to the promises of Christ. But the church receives no new revelation of faith, and adds nothing to that which was taught by the apostles: 2dly, Its decisions are not supernaturally infallible in matters of fact, as scripture histories are, but only in matters of faith. Nor do Catholics say that its expressions, even in decisions of faith, are strictly dictated by the Holy Ghost, or suggested from him, by any immediate revelation or inspiration; but only that the church is directed by his particular guidance, according to his divine truths, revealed and delivered to his church by his apostles. As to the Roman Breviary, the prayers consist, for the greatest part, of the psalms, and other parts of the holy scriptures, to which the same respect is due which we pay to the divine books. The short lessons from the Homilies, or other works of approved fathers, especially those fathers who are mentioned by Gelasius I. in his decree, carry with them the authority of their venerable authors. As it was the custom in the primitive ages to read, in the churches or assemblies, the acts of the most illustrious martyrs, of which frequent mention is made in those of St. Polycarp, &c., some short histories of the martyrs and other saints have been always inserted in the Breviary, to which only an historical assent is due, whence they have been sometimes altered and amended. These are chiefly such as are judged authentic and probable by the cardinals Baronius and Bellarmin, who revised those lessons, in the last correction under Clement VIII. Gavant, who was himself one of the revisers of the Breviary, and secretary to the congregation, writes thus, (in Breviar. sect. 5, c. 12, n. 15, p. 18:) 'The second lessons from the histories of the saints were revised by Bellarmin and Baronius, who rejected what could be justly called in question: in which difficult task they thought it best to restore the truth of history with the least change possible, and to retain those things which had a certain degree of probability, and had the authority of some grave voucher, though the contrary sentiment had perhaps more patrons.' In computing the years of the popes, the chronology of Baronius was judged the most exact, and retained. Historical facts, nowise revealed or contained in scripture, cannot be made an object of divine faith. If edifying histories are inserted in the church-office, they stand upon their own credit. Such only ought to be chosen which are esteemed authentic. This rule has been always followed when any were compiled. If the compilers are found afterwards to have been mistaken, it is nowhere forbid to correct them.[1] This has been often done by the order of several popes."
Footnotes:
1. Nimia profecto almplicitate peccant qui scandalizantur quoties
audiunt aliquid ex jam olim creditia et juxta breviarii prescriptum
hodiedum recitandis, in disputationem adduci.—Diss. Ballandic{e}.
vol. 2, p. 140.
IX. 7. Among the modern collections of the Lives of Saints, of which our authors availed himself, in the work we are speaking of, the histories which different religious have written of their own orders, hold a distinguished place. But he was indebted to no work so much as the Acta sanctorum of the Bollandists. That noble collection was first projected by Father Roswede of the society of Jesus. He died before he had completely digested his plan. Fortunately for the lovers either of sacred history or sacred literature, it mm taken up by father Bollandus of the same society, and has been carried down to the eleventh day of October inclusive. Those who, after Bollandus's decease, succeeded him in his undertaking, were from him called Bollandists.
As far as the editor has been able to learn, the work was composed by the following authors, and published in the number of volumes and years following:
No. of Vols. Years of their
Months. all in folio. appearance. Authors.
January Two, 1643 ……….. Bollandus and Henschenius
February Three, 1658 ……….. Bollandus and Henschenius
March Three, 1668 ……….. Henschenius and
Papebrochius
April Three, 1675 ……….. Henschenius and
Papebrochius
May Seven, 1680-1688……. Henschenius, Papebrochius,
Baertius, and Janningus
{027}
June Six, 1695—1715…… Henschenius, Papebrochius,
Baertius, Janningus,
and Sollerius
July Seven, 1719—1731…… Janningus, Sollerius,
Pinius, Cuperius, and
Boschinus.
August Six, 1733—1743…… Sollerius, Pinius,
Cuperius, Boschius, and
Stiltingus
September Eight, 1746—1762…… Pinius, Stiltingus,
Limpenus, Veldius,
Suyskenius, Pericrius,
and Cleus.
October Five 1765—1786…… Stiltingus, Suyskenius,
Perierius, Byeus, Boæus,
Gnesquierus, Hubenus,
and Fronsonus.
Antwerp was the scene of the labors of the Bollandists. They were engaged on them, when the enemies of every thing sacred arrived there under Pichegrû. The most eminent of the Bollandists was Father Papebroke, a rival of the Petaviuses, the Sirmonds, and Mabillons: one of those men who exalt the character of the society to which they belong, and the age in which they live. The Spanish Inquisition condemned some of the volumes in which he was concerned, but afterwards retracted the censure. Several dissertations, replete with various and profound erudition, are interspersed in the body of the work; they are equally distinguished by the learning, and the soundness and sobriety of criticism which appear in them. It would be an irreparable loss to the Christian world that the work should not be completed. The principal dissertations have been printed, in three volumes folio, at Venice, in 1749-59. Those who wish to see an account of the controversy which produced or was occasioned by the sentence of the Inquisition, may consult the Acta Eruditorum, 1696, p. 132-500.