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Editorial
This article examines the wide range of anonymous and pseudonymous naming practices to be found in West African newspapers between the 1880s and 1930s, and asks about the shape of a West African history of anonymity as compared with recent histories of anonymity in European literature. The article also discusses the ways in which colonial West African uses of anonymity and pseudonyms challenge postcolonial scholarship on agency, subjectivity, resistance, authenticity and identity.

The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints

A >> Alban Butler >> The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints




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, Boaeus,
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 Pichegru. 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.

IX. 8. Another source of information, of which our author availed
himself in the composition of his work, was the _Acts of the
Beatification and Canonization of the Saints_.

The name of _Martyr_ was given by the ancient church to those who had
suffered death for the faith of Christ; the name of _Confessor_ was
applied to those who had made a public profession of their faith before
the persecutors. It was afterwards extended to those who had edified the
church by their heroic virtues. St. Martin of Tours is generally
supposed to have been the first saint to whom the title of confessor was
applied in the last sense.

Originally, every bishop had the privilege of canonizing saints, or
declaring them entitled to the honors which the Catholic church bestows
on her saints. The council of Cologne, cited by Ivo of Chartres, forbids
the faithful to show any public mark of veneration to any modern saint,
without the permission of the diocesan. A capitulary of Charlemagne in
801 is to the same effect.

Pope Alexander III. is supposed to have been the first pope who reserved
the exclusive privilege of canonizing saints to the holy see. It was
recognised by the church of France at a council at Vienne, in which the
bishops, addressing themselves to pope Gregory IX., expressly say, "that
no sanctity, however eminent, authorizes the faithful to honor the
memory of a saint, without the permission of the holy see."

The present mode of proceeding in the canonization of saints,
principally takes its rise from the decree of pope Urban VIII., dated
the 13th of March, 1625. By that he forbade the public veneration of
every new saint, not beatified or baptized; and particularly ordered
that no one, even in private, should paint the image of any person,
whatever might be his reputation for sanctity, with a crown or {}e of
light round his head; or expose his picture in any sacred place, or
publish a history of his life, or a relation of his virtues and
miracles, without the approbation of his diocesan: that if, in a work so
approved of, the person were called saint, or blessed, those words
should only be used to denote the general holiness of his life, but not
to anticipate the general judgment of the church. His holiness adds a
form of protestation to that effect, which he requires the authors to
sign, at the beginning and end of their works. This regulation of pope
Urban is so strictly attended to, that a single proof of the infraction
of it, and even the omission of a definite sentence that there has been
no infraction of it, makes the canonization of the saint impossible, and
invalidates the whole of the proceedings. The only exception is, in
favor of those saints who are proved to have been immemorially venerated
for a hundred years and upwards, before 1634, the year in which pope
Urban's bull was confirmed.

The beatification of a saint is generally considered as a preliminary to
his canonization. It is a kind of provisional permission, authorizing
the faithful to honor {028} the memory of the person beatified; but
qualified as to the place or manner. A decree of pope Alexander VIII. in
1659, prohibits the faithful from carrying those honors farther than the
bull of beatification expressly permits.

The proceedings of beatification or canonization are long, rigorous, and
expensive. 1st, The bishop of the diocese institutes a process, in the
nature of an information, to inquire into the public belief of the
virtues and miracles of the proposed, and to ascertain that the decree
we have mentioned of pope Urban VIII. has been complied with: this
proceeding begins and ends with the bishop, his sentence being
conclusive. 2dly, The acts of this proceeding, with the bishop's
sentence, are sealed up, then taken to the congregation of rites: and
deposited with the notary. 3dly, The solicitors for the congregation
petition for publication of the proceedings. 4thly, This is granted; and
the proceedings, being first legally verified, are opened before the
cardinal-president of the congregation, 5thly, The pope is then
requested to refer the business to a particular cardinal to report upon
it. 6thly, This being granted, the writings of the proposed, if he be
the author of any, are laid before the cardinal-reporter. 7thly, He
appoints a commission to assist him, and, with their assistance, makes
his report. If one formal error against faith, one direct opinion
contrary to morals, be round in them, it puts a total end to the
proceedings, unless the author, in his life, expressly retracted it. "A
general protestation;" says Benedict XIV., "the most sincere submission
of all opinions to the authority of the Catholic church, saves the
author from criminality, but does not prevent the effect of this
rigorous escalation." 8thly, Hitherto the proceedings are not in
strictness before the pope; but, from this sage of the business, the
affair wholly devolves on his holiness. He signs a commission to the
congregation of rites to institute and prosecute the process of
beatification; but, before this commission is granted, ten years must
have expired, from the time when the acts of the diocesan were first
lodged with the congregation of rites. 9thly; The congregation of rites
appoints commissaries, whom the pope delegates, to inform themselves of
the virtues and miracles are the proposed. The commissaries usually are
bishops, and the bishop of the diocese where the proposed is buried is
usually one of them; but laymen are never employed. The proceedings of
the commissaries are secret, and carried on and subscribed with the
strictest order and regularity, and in great form; the last step in
their proceedings is to visit the tomb of the deceased, and to draw out
a verbal process of the state in which his remains are found. The
original of the proceedings is left with the bishops; a legalized copy
is taken of them, and returned by a sworn courier to the congregation of
rites. 10thly, The solicitors for the congregation then pray for what is
called a decree of attribution, or that an inquiry may be made into each
particular virtue and miracle attributed to the proposed: 11thly, Upon
this, they proceed to make the inquiry, beginning with the virtues and
ending with the miracles; but of the former they can take on notice in
this stage of the business, till fifty years from the time of the
proposed's decease: in the case of a martyr, his martyrdom alone, with
proof both of the heroism with which it was suffered, and of its having
been suffered purely and absolutely in the cause of Christ, is supposed
to make an inquiry into his virtues unnecessary. 12thly, The final
determination of the cause is settled in three extraordinary
congregations, called the antepreparatory, the preparatory, and the
general. The virtues to be approved of must be of the most heroic kind:
the number of miracles is, in strictness, limited to two. The pope
collects the vows of the assembly; and two-thirds of it, at least, must
agree in opinion, before they come to a resolution. He then pronounces
what is called a private sentence, before the promoter and the secretary
of the congregation of St. Peter. 13thly, A general congregation is then
held, to determine whether it be advisable to proceed to the
beatification of the proposed. 14thly, Three consistories are afterwards
held. l5thly, The pope then signs the brief of beatification. The
publication of it is performed in the church of the Vatican. The
solicitor for the beatification presents the brief to the
cardinal-prefect; he remits it to the cardinal-archpriest of the church
where the ceremony is held. The cardinal-archpriest reads it aloud; the
Te Deum is sung, a collect in honor of the beatified is read, and mass
is solemnized in his honor. 16thly, When the proceedings for the
beatification are completed, the proceedings for the canonization begin.
But it is necessary that, before any thing be done in them, new miracles
should be wrought. When the solicitor for the canonization is satisfied
that he can prove by judicial evidence the existence of these miracles,
he presents a petition for resuming the {029} cause. 17thly, Three
congregations extraordinary, a general assembly, and three consistories,
are held for the purpose of pronouncing on the new miracles, and
determining whether it be prudent to proceed to canonization. 18thly,
This being determined upon, the pope issues the brief of canonization,
and, soon after, the ceremonial follows. It begins by a solemn
procession: an image of the saint is painted on several banners. When
the procession arrives at the church where the ceremony is performed,
the pope seats himself on his throne, and receives the usual homage of
the court. The solicitor for the cause and the consistorial advocate
place themselves at the feet of his holiness, and request the
canonization; the litanies are sung; the request is made a second time;
the _Veni Creator_ is sung; the request is made a third time; the
secretary announces that it is the will of the pope to proceed
immediately upon the canonization; the solicitor requests that the
letters of canonization may be delivered in due form; his holiness
delivers them, and the first prothonotary calls on all the assembly to
witness the delivery. The _Te Deum_ is sung, and high mass is
solemnized.

The decree of canonization is usually worded in these terms: "To the
glory of the Holy Trinity, for the exaltation of the Catholic faith, and
the increase of the Christian religion: In virtue of the authority of
Jesus Christ, of the holy apostles St. Peter and St. Paul, and our own,
after due deliberation and frequent invocations of the heavenly light,
with consent of our venerable brethren, the cardinals, patriarchs,
archbishops, and bishops, present at Rome, we declare the blessed N. to
be a saint, and we inscribe him as such in the catalogue of the saints.
In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen."

Such is the outline of the process of canonization. It must be added,
that the strictest evidence is required of every thing offered in proof.
It is laid down as a universal rule, which admits of no exception, that
the same evidence shall be required, through the whole of the process,
as in criminal cases is required to convict an offender of a capital
crime; and that no evidence of any fact shall be received, if a higher
degree of evidence of the same fact can possibly be obtained. Hence, a
copy of no instrument is admitted, if the original be in existence; no
hearsay witness is received, if ocular testimony can be produced. The
rigorous examination of every circumstance offered to be proved has
excited the surprise of intelligent Protestants. Miracles, which to them
seemed proved to the utmost degree of demonstration, have, to their
surprise, been rejected. Whatever there is most awful in religion, most
sacred in an oath, or most tremendous in the censures of the church, is
employed in the process of canonization to elicit truth and detect
falsehood. Every check and countercheck is used, which slowness of
proceeding, or a repetition of it in other stages and under different
forms, can effect. The persons employed in it are the members of the
Roman Catholic church, the most exalted by their rank, and the most
renowned for their virtues and talents. When the proceedings are
concluded, they are printed and exposed to the examination of the whole
world. The sixth volume of the celebrated treatise of Benedict XIV. on
the beatification and canonization of saints, contains the acts of the
saints canonized by himself.

X.

With these helps our author sat down to his work. We may suppose him
addressing to the saints, whose lives he was about to write, a prayer
similar to the beautiful prayer addressed to them by Bollandus at the
end of his general preface, and which may be thus abridged: "Hail, ye
citizens of heaven! courageous warriors! triumphant over the world! from
the blessed scenes of your everlasting glory, look on a low mortal, who
searches everywhere for the memorials of your virtues and triumphs. Show
your favor to him; give him to discover the valuable monuments of former
times; to distinguish the spurious from the legitimate; to digest his
work in proper order and method; to explain and illustrate whatever is
obscure. Take under your protection all who have patronized or assisted
him in his undertakings: obtain for all who read his work, that they
imitate the examples of virtue which it places before their eyes; and
that they experience how sweet, how useful, and how glorious it is to
walk in your steps."

In the preface to the French translation, the work is said to have cost
our author the labor of thirty years. It was his practice, when he began
to write the life of any saint, to read over and digest the whole of his
materials, before he committed any thing to paper. His work evidently
shows, that his mind was full of its subject, {030} and that what he
wrote was the result of much previous information and reflection. On
many occasions he must have written on subjects which were new to him;
but, such is the mutual connection and dependence of every branch of
literature, that a mind stored like his was already in possession of
that kind of knowledge, which would make him apprehend, with great ease,
whatever he had to learn; and would instruct him, though the subject
were new to him, where he might express himself decisively, and where he
should doubt. How extensive and profound his general knowledge was,
appears from this, that a person who happens to have made any subject,
treated of by him, his particular study, will seldom read what our
author has written upon it without finding in it something original, or,
at least, so happily expressed or illustrated as to have the merit of
originality. In some instances, as in his account of the Manichaens, in
the life of St. Augustine, and of the crusades, in the life of St.
Lewis, he shows such extent and minuteness of investigation, as could
only be required from works confined to those subjects. In other
instances, where his materials are scanty, so that he writes chiefly
from his own mind, as in the lives of St. Zita or St. Isidore of
Pelusium, he pours an unpremeditated stream of piety, which nothing but
an intimate acquaintance with the best spiritual writers could produce.

The sameness of a great number of the most edifying actions which our
author had to relate, made it difficult for him to avoid a tiresome
uniformity of narrative: but he has happily surmounted this difficulty.
Another difficulty he met with, was the flat and inanimate style of the
generality of the writers from whom his work was composed. Happy he must
have been, when the authors he had to consult were St. Jerome, Scipio,
Maffei, Bouhours, or Marsollier. But most commonly they were such as
might edify but could not delight. He had then to trust to his own
resources for that style, that arrangement, those reflections, which
were to engage his reader's attention. In this he has certainly
succeeded. Few authors on holy subject have possessed, in a higher
degree, that indescribable charm of style which rivets the reader's
attention to the book, which never places the writer between the book
and the reader, but insensibly leads him to the conclusion, sometimes
delighted, but always attentive and always pleased.

His style is peculiar to himself; it partakes more of the style of the
writers of the last century than of the style of the present age. It
possesses great merit, but sometimes is negligent and loose. Mr. Gibbon
mentioned it to the editor in warm terms of commendation; and was
astonished when he heard how much of our author's life had been spent
abroad. Speaking of our author's Lives of the Saints, (vol. iv. 457,) he
calls it "a work of merit,--the sense and learning belong to the
author--his prejudices are those of his profession." As it is known what
prejudice means in Mr. Gibbon's vocabulary, our author's relatives
accept the character.

Having lived so long in the schools, he must have had a strong
predilection for some of the opinions agitated in them; and frequent
opportunities of expressing it occurred in his work. He seems to have
cautiously avoided them: a single instance, perhaps, is not to be found,
where any thing of the kind is discoverable in any of his writings. He
has carefully brought before the reader every circumstance arising from
his subject, that could be offered in proof or illustration of the
particular tenets of the Roman Catholic church; but he does it without
affectation, and rather leaves the reader to draw his own conclusions,
than suggests them to him. Those expressions which good manners and good
taste reject, are never to be found in his works.

But the chief merit of his works is, that they make virtue and devotion
amiable: he preaches penance, but he shows its rewards; he exhorts to
compunction, but he shows the sweetness of pious sorrow; he enforces
humility, but he shows the blessedness of a humble heart; he recommends
solitude, but he shows that God _is_ where the world is not. No one
reads his work who does not perceive the happiness, even in this world,
of a holy life, or who does not wish to die the death of a saint. Most
readers of it will acknowledge that, sometimes at least, when they have
read it, every worldly emotion has died within them, and they have felt
themselves in a disposition of mind suited to receive the finest
impressions of religion.

At the finishing of his work he gave a very edifying instance of
humility. The manuscript of the first volume having been submitted to
Mr. Challoner, the vicar-apostolic of the London district, he
recommended the omission of all the notes, not {031} excepting that
beautiful note which gave an account of the writings of St. John
Chrysostom. His motive was, that, by being made less bulky, the work
might be made less expensive, and, consequently, more generally useful.
It is easy to suppose what it must have cost our author to consign to
oblivion the fruit of so much labor and so many vigils. He obeyed,
however, and to this circumstance it is owing that, in the first
edition, the notes in question were omitted.

XI.

XI. 1. It has been objected to our author's work on the Lives of the
Saints, _that the system of devotion which is recommended by it, is, at
best, suited to the cloister_. But no work has ever appeared, in which
the difference between the duties of a man of the world and the duties
of a religious is more strongly pointed out. Whenever the author has
occasion to mention any action of any saint, which is extraordinary or
singular in its nature he always observes, that it is of a kind rather
to be admired than imitated.

XI. 2. It has been objected, _that the piety which it inculcates is of
the ascetic kind_, and that the spirit of penance, voluntary
mortification, and contempt of the world, which it breathes everywhere,
is neither required nor recommended by the gospel. But no difference can
be found between the spirit of piety inculcated by our author, and that
inculcated by the most approved authors of the Roman Catholic church.
Less of penance, of voluntary mortification, or of contempt of the
world, is not recommended by Rodriguez, by Thomas of Kempis, by St.
Francis of Sales, by Bourdaloue, or Massillon, than is recommended by
our author. Speaking of those "who confound nature with grace, and who
look on the cross of Jesus Christ as an object foreign to faith and
piety;--It was not thus," says Massillon, in his sermon on the
Incarnation, "it was not thus that the apostles announced the gospel to
our ancestors. _The spirit of the gospel is a holy eagerness of
suffering, an incessant attention to mortify self-love, to do violence
to the will, to restrain the desires, to deprive the senses of useless
gratifications; this is the essence of Christianity, the soul of piety_.
If you have not this spirit, you belong not, says the apostle, to Jesus
Christ; it is of no consequence that you are not of the number of the
impure or sacrilegious of whom the apostle speaks, and who will not be
admitted into the kingdom of Christ. You are equally strangers to him;
your sentiments are not his; you still live according to nature; you
belong not to the grace of our Saviour; you will therefore perish, for
it is on him alone, says the apostle, that the Father has placed our
salvation. A complaint is sometimes made that we render piety disgusting
and impracticable, by prohibiting many pleasures which the world
authorizes. But, my brethren, what is it we tell you? allow yourselves
all the pleasures which Christ would have allowed himself; faith allows
you no other; mix with your piety all the gratifications which Jesus
Christ would have mixed in his; the gospel allows no greater
indulgence--O my God, how the decisions of the world will one day be
strangely reversed! when worldly probity and worldly regularity, which,
by a false appearance of virtue, give a deceitful confidence to so many
souls, will be placed by the side of the crucified Jesus, and will be
judged by that model! To be always renouncing yourselves, rejecting what
pleases, regulating the most innocent wishes of the heart by the
rigorous rules of the spirit of the gospel, is difficult, is a state of
violence. But if the pleasures of the senses leave the soul sorrowful,
empty, and uneasy, the rigors of the cross make her happy. Penance heals
the wounds made by herself; like the mysterious bush in the scripture,
while man sees only its thorns and briers, the glory of the Lord is
within it, and the soul that possesses him possesses all. Sweet tears
of penance! divine secret of grace! O that you were better known to the
sinner!" "The pretended esprits forts," says Bourdaloue, in his sermon
on the scandal of the cross, and the humiliations of Jesus Christ, the
noblest of all his sermons, in the opinion of the cardinal de Maury, "do
not relish the rigorous doctrines announced by the Son of God in his
gospel; self-hatred, self-denial, severity to one's self. But when
Christ established a religion for men, who were to acknowledge
themselves sinners and criminals, ought he, as St. Jerome asks, to have
published other laws? What is so proper for sin as penance? what is more
of the nature of penance, than the sinner's harshness and severity to
himself? Is there any thing in this contrary to reason? They are
astonished at his ranking poverty among the beatitudes; that he held up
the cross as an attraction to his disciples to follow him; that he
declared a love of {032} contempt was preferable to the honors of the
world. In all this I see the depth of his divine counsels." Such is the
language of Bourdaloue and Massillon, preaching before a luxurious
court, to the best-informed and most polished audience in the Christian
world. It is apprehended that no other language is found in our author's
Lives of the Saints.

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