The Work of the Bollandists Through Three Centuries, 1615-1915 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos, missing text or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1922. Not illustrated. Excerpt: ... chapter V the period of ordeal The exploration of an unknown land, such as hagiography was in those days, could not fail to be accompanied by many a surprise. We do not refer to those unexpected finds which await every scholar who treads a new path and who is rewarded for his labor by the joy of discovery. However, the unlooked for results with which the Bollandists were rewarded were not always of a speculative character. For centuries past, the custom of reading the Lives of the saints had created a peculiar state of mind in the public. A heterogeneous literature, if ever there was one, in which the historical element goes side by side with the free inspirations of pious fancy, the Lives offered to the gaze of the multitude a vast panorama, as it were, of Christian life, in which the various scenes were all believed to have their counterpart in reality, and were distinctive only by the intensity of their coloring. Each scene was thought equally worthy of contemplation, the differences of shading mattered little. The faithful were thus transported to an ideal and supernatural atmosphere, which "7 they were led to accept as the normal condition of Christian perfection, never suspecting that in these fascinating pictures much of the composition was often due to the artist alone. This role of art, often in exaggeration of nature, was sure to be revealed by the study of the texts and the classification of the material. If hagiography was hitherto but little known, the hagiographer was quite unknown, nor did anyone have even a faint idea as to the researches achieved by certain scholars in this field. General ignorance prevailed in that epoch as to the manner in which the cult of the saints had developed, and the many causes which had contributed to its later forms, ...