§ 86. THE CHRISTIAN CALENDAR. ACTA SANCTORUM. 4-17
" Calendaria martyrum," i. e., lists of tlie names of the martyrs commemorated by tlie particular church in the order of the days of their death on the successive days of the year, with or without statements of the place and manner of their passion. This simple skeleton became gradually animated with biographical sketches, coming down from ditferent times and various authors, containing a confused mixture of history and fable, truth and fiction, piety and superstition, and needing to be used with great critical caution. As these biographies of the saints were read on their annual days in the church and in the cloisters for the edification of the people, they were called Legenda.
The first Acts of the Martyrs come down from the second and third centuries, in part from eye-witnesses, as, for example, the martyrdom of Poly carp (a, d. 155), and of the martyrs of Lyons and Yienne in South Gaul ; but most of them originated, at least in their present form, in the post-Constantlnian age. Eusebiiis wrote a general martyrology, which is lost. The earliest Latin martyrology is ascribed to Jerome, but at all events contains many later additions ; this father, however, furnished valuable contributions to such works in his " Lives of eminent Monks" and his " Catalogue of celebrated Church Teachers." Pope Gelasius thought good to prohibit or to re- Btrict the church reading of the Acts of the Saints, because the names of the authors were unknown, and superfluous and incongruous additions by heretics or uneducated persons {idiotis) might be introduced. Gregory the Great speaks of a martyrology in use in Rome and elsewhere, which is perhaps the same afterward ascribed to Jerome and widely spread. Tlie present Martyrologium Romanum, which embraces the saints of all countries, is an expansion of this, and was edited by Baronius with a learned commentary at the command of Gregory XIII. and Sixtus Y. in 1586, and afterward enlarged by the Jesuit lleribert Hosweyd.
yia, are simply the lists of the martyrs in monthly order, with short biographical notices. The Mencea, ij.r]va7a, are intended for the public worship, and comprise twelve foho volumes, corresponding to the twelve months, with the officia of the saints for every day, and the proper legends and hymns.
448 THIKD PEKIOD. A.D. 311-590.
Rusweyd (f 1629) also sketched, toward the close of the sixteenth century, the plan fur the celebrated " ^c/a Sanctorum, quotqiiot toto orhe coluntur," which Dr. John van Bolland (t 16G5) and his companions and continnators, called Bollandists (Ilenschen, f 1681 ; Papenhroek, f 1714 ; Sollier, f 1740 ; Stiltinck, f 1762, and others of inferior merit), published at Antwerp in fifty -three folio volumes, between the years 1643 and 1794 (including the two volumes of the second series), under the direction of the Jesuits, and witli the richest and rarest literary aids.' This work contains, in the order of the days of the year, the biography of every saint in the Catholic calendar, as composed by the BoUandists, down to the fifteenth 3f October, together with all the acts of canonization, papal bulls, and other ancient documents belonging thereto, with learned treatises and notes ; and that not in the style of popular .egends, but in the tone of thorough historical investigation and free criticism, so far as a general accordance with the Roman Catholic system of faith would allow.' It was interrupted in 1773 by the abolition of the order of the Jesuits, then again in 1794, after a brief resumption of labor and the publication of two more volumes (the fifty -second and fifty-third), by the French Revolution and invasion of the Netherlands and the partial destruction of the literary material ; but since 1845 (or properly since 1837) it has been resumed at Brussels under tlie
' When Eofiweyd's prospectus, which contemplated only 17 volumes, was showii to Cardinal Bellarmine, he asked : " What is the man's age ? " " Perhaps forty." "Does he expect to live two hundred years?" More than 250 years have passed Bince, and still the work is unfinished. The relation of the principal authors ia indicated in the following verse :
" Quod Rosweydus pra?pararat,
Quod Bollandus inchoarat,
Quod llenschenius forniarat,
Perfecit (?) Papenbroekius." ' The work was even violently persecuted at times in the Romish Church. Pa penbroek, for proving that the prophet Elijah was not the founder of the Carmelite order, was stigmatized as a heretic, and the Acta condemned by the Spanish Inquisition, but the condemnation was removed by papal interference in 1715. The Bollandists took holy revenge of the Carmelites )>y a most elaborate biography and vindication of St. Theresa, the glory of that ortlcr, in the fifty-fourth volume (the first of the new scries), 1845, sub Oct. 15th, pp. 109-776.