From 92 Pages to More Than 60,000: How the Bollandists Created the “Science of the Saints”
Free and Open to the Public. This event is co-presented with the Bollandist Society. 2:00 PM CDT (GMT -5) | 21:00 (Brussels) For many centuries the Church has been venerating the saints. During Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, thousands of Lives have been written in Greek, in Latin and in the languages of the Christian East. Very soon wonderful and imaginary elements were mixed with historical ones, creating “legends”. If the awareness appeared quite early that all Lives of saints were not equally trustworthy, it is only at the beginning of the 17th century that scientific criteria were applied for the first time to...