Misplaced Pages

#940059

25-515: They derived their name from a Seleucus, who with a certain Hermias is said to have propounded and taught their beliefs. According to Philastrius ( Diversarum Hereseon Liber , LV), the teaching of these beliefs was based on the crudest form of dualism . While they maintained that God was incorporeal, they asserted that matter was coeternal with Him. They exceeded the usual dualistic tenets in attributing evil to God as well as to matter. In their system

50-663: A catalogue of heresies ( Diversarum Hereseon Liber ) about 384. Richard Adelbert Lipsius discovered that in Philastrius's "Catalogue" of heresies, for the Christian heresies up to Noetus , the compiler drew from the same source as Epiphanius of Salamis , i. e. the lost Syntagma of Hippolytus . By the aid, therefore, of these two and the Pseudo-Tertullian Adversus Omnes Haereses it has been possible in great measure to reconstruct

75-553: A little later. At Rome he held both private and public disputations with heretics, and converted many. His wanderings ceased when he was made Bishop of Brescia . He died some time before 387. Philastrius was buried in the ancient cathedral of St Andrew at Brescia. He is venerated as a Saint by the Catholic Church on 18 July each year, as noted in the latest official edition of the Roman Martyrology . Among

100-664: Is an association of scholars, philologists, and historians (originally all Jesuits , but now including non-Jesuits) who since the early seventeenth century have studied hagiography and the cult of the saints in Christianity. Their most important publication has been the Acta Sanctorum (The Acts of the Saints). They are named after the Flemish Jesuit Jean Bollandus (1596–1665). The idea of

125-473: Is plausible but there are vital differences between the teaching of Hermogenes and that of the Seleucians as, for example, on the subject of Christ as Creator which, together with the virgin birth, was admitted by Hermogenes. If any weight is to be attached to a method of chronology which seems rather arbitrary, the date assigned by Philastrius to the Seleucians, viz. after the reign of Decius , would exclude

150-642: The Acta Sanctorum was first conceived by the Dutch Jesuit Heribert Rosweyde (1569–1629), who was a lecturer at the Jesuit college of Douai . Rosweyde used his leisure time to collect information about the lives of the saints. His principal work, the 1615 Vitae Patrum , became the foundation of the Acta Sanctorum . Rosweyde contracted a contagious disease while ministering to a dying man, and died himself on October 5, 1629, at

175-491: The dogmas of the Resurrection and Last Judgment . According to Philastrius they 'perverted' (i.e. converted) large numbers. A great deal of uncertainty exists regarding the history and real cause of the fact that the doctrines of the Seleucians so closely resembled those of Hermogenes , and because Hermogenes is not mentioned by Philastrius, conclude that these two were one and the same system of belief. This assumption

200-571: The Baptist (Matthew 3:11): "He shall baptize you in the Holy Ghost and fire". By hell they understood this present world, while Resurrection they explained as being merely the procreation over death with the expectation of a glorious immortality. The doctrines of Seleucus and his adherents were the source of another series of doctrines taught by some of their disciples who called themselves Prolinianites or Hermeonites . These latter rejected

225-680: The Sorbonne. In November 1698, Pope Innocent XII ordered an end to the controversy. By the time of the death of Father Papebrochius in 1714, the first six months of the year were practically completed. Work continued in the following years, led by Conrad Janninck among others. By the time the Society of Jesus was suppressed by Pope Clement XIV in 1773, the Bollandists had produced 50 volumes in 130 years. They had also moved from Antwerp to Brussels , where they continued their work in

250-507: The age of sixty. Father Jean Bollandus was prefect of studies in the Jesuit college of Mechelen . Upon the death of Rosweyde, Bollandus was asked to review Rosweyde's papers. Bollandus then continued the work from Antwerp . The task was to search out and classify materials, to print what seemed to be the most reliable sources of information concerning the saints venerated by the Church and to illustrate points of difficulty. Underestimating

275-493: The following volumes. It can therefore be said that the Acta owe their final form to Henschenius. In 1659, Bollandus and Henschenius were joined by Daniel Papebrochius (1628–1714), who devoted fifty-five years of his life to the Acta . From July 1660 until December 1662, Henschenius and Papebrochius travelled through Germany, Italy and France in order to collect copies of hagiographic manuscripts. Another Bollandist of this period

SECTION 10

#1732772405941

300-701: The lost treatise of Hippolytus. Philastrius' comments and spellings do not always accord with those of Epiphanius or Pseudo-Tertullian, for example his description of Nazaraei does not match well with either the Nasaraioi or Nazoraioi which Epiphanius attempts to distinguish. [REDACTED]  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain :  Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). " St. Philastrius ". Catholic Encyclopedia . New York: Robert Appleton Company. Bollandist The Bollandist Society ( Latin : Societas Bollandistarum ; French : Société des Bollandistes )

325-465: The magnitude of the undertaking, Bollandus initially thought he could finish the work on his own, but after a few years he had to admit that the undertaking was beyond his individual strength. He was then assigned an assistant, Godfrey Henschenius (1601–81). The first two volumes of the Acta , by Bollandus and Henschenius, were published in Antwerp in 1643. Unlike Rosweyde and Bollandus, Henschenius

350-756: The monastery of the Coudenberg until 1788, when the Bollandist Society was suppressed by the Austrian government of the Low Countries. Their library was acquired by the Premonstratensians of Tongerlo Abbey , who endeavored to carry on the work. The fifty-third volume was published by the abbot of Tongerloo in 1794. The 53 volumes of the first series covered the saints from January 1 to October 14. Four former Bollandists supervised

375-642: The more perfectly to disengage himself from the ties of the world." He traveled over nearly the whole Roman world (circumambiens Universum pene ambitum Romani Orbis ), preaching against pagans, and heretics, especially the Arians . Like Paul of Tarsus he was scourged for his zeal against the Arians. In Milan he was a great pillar of the Catholic party in the time of Ambrose's Arian predecessor, Auxentius. Augustine of Hippo met him at Milan about 383, or perhaps

400-682: The new philological methods. In 1882, a quarterly review on critical hagiography was established under the title of Analecta Bollandiana , which still exists today and publishes supplements to the Acta . The Bollandists' studies led to the texts of the Missale Romanum , the Liturgia Horarum and the Martyrologium referring to Mary of Magdala . These studies were positively cited in Pope Francis ' elevation of

425-434: The saint's feast day to the status of a liturgical Feast. The Bollandist Society is the only institution dedicated exclusively to the critical study of hagiography. "There is a lot of ‘fake news’" about saints, said Bollandist Marc Lindeijer, S.J. "We can spend a lifetime correcting Misplaced Pages." Nonetheless, legends of the saints provide important information for historians and linguistic scholars. Patrick J. Geary says that

450-507: The souls of men were not created by God, but were formed from earthly components -fire and air- by angels. Christ , they said, did not sit at the right hand of the Father in Heaven because (Psalm xviii, 6) "He hath set his tabernacle in the sun" must be interpreted to mean that Christ left His body in the sun. They did not practise baptism , basing their refusal to do so on the words of John

475-507: The supposition that he confounded them with the followers of Hermogenes. Philastrius Philastrius (also Philaster or Filaster ) Bishop of Brescia , was one of the bishops present at a synod held in Aquileia in 381 . Philastrius was born around 330 and ordained at the age of 30. According to Butler , "We know nothing of this saint’s country, only that he quitted it and the house and inheritance of his ancestors, like Abraham,

500-508: The undoubted sermons of Gaudentius. Marx was answered by Knappe, "Ist die 21 Rede des hl. Gaudentius (Oratio B. Gaudentii de Vita et Obitu B. Filastrii episcopi prædecessoris sui) echt? Zugleich ein Betrag zur Latinität des Gaudentius" (Osnabrück), who endeavoured to prove the genuineness of the sermon in question by linguistic arguments. His Bollandist reviewer thought he has made a strong case ( Anal. Boll. , XXVIII, 224). Philastrius composed

525-588: The work. After the re-establishment of the Society of Jesus in Belgium , a new Society of Bollandists was formed in the second quarter of the nineteenth century under the patronage of the Belgian government. The first volume of the new series appeared in 1845. A collection of 61 volumes was published in Paris between 1863 and 1867. By the end of the 19th century the work was re-oriented, bringing it more in line with

SECTION 20

#1732772405941

550-421: The writings of Gaudentius of Brescia was a sermon purporting to be preached on the fourteenth anniversary of Philastrius's death. Historians such as Louis Ellies du Pin have questioned the genuineness of this sermon. Friedrich Marx thought the sermon a forgery of the eighth or ninth century. The chief objection to its genuineness, rather a weak one, seems to be that it is not found in the manuscripts containing

575-596: Was Jean Gamans . With publication in 1675 of the first volume of April, the Bollandists became embroiled in a lengthy controversy with the Carmelites . In writing of St. Albert , Patriarch of Jerusalem and author of the Carmelite rule, Papebrochius had stated in his preliminary commentary that the tradition universally received by the Carmelites that the origin of the order dated back to the prophet Elijah , who

600-475: Was allowed to devote himself exclusively to the writing of the Acta . He solved many problems relating to chronology, geography and the philological interpretation of the sources. February, March, and April (that is, the collected hagiographies of saints whose feast days occur in each month) took up three volumes each, May covered eight, and June seven volumes. By the time of his death, 24 volumes had appeared; moreover, Henschenius left many notes and commentaries for

625-404: Was regarded as its founder, was insufficiently grounded. But learning that the attacks could jeopardize the work of the group, he and his companions decided that the time for silence had passed. From 1681 to 1698 a series of letters, pamphlets and other documents was issued by each side. The Carmelites were supported by a Spanish tribunal, while the Bollandists had the support of Jean de Launoy and

#940059