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Daniel Papebroch, ,Daniel van Papenbroeck, Papebrock, Papebrochius. (17 March 1628 – 28 June 1714) was a Flemish people Jesuit hagiographer, one of the Bollandists. He was a leading revisionist figure, bringing historical criticism to bear on traditions of saints of the Catholic Church.
In 1659 Papebroch began his work with Bolland, in the scholarly study of the hagiography of the Catholic saints. About this time, the Jesuit superiors of the order relieved those involved with the work of every other regular occupation, in order that they might thenceforth devote their entire time to the hagiographical work. He was assigned to work on the records of those saints celebrated in the month of March. In July of that year, Bolland sent the 32-year-old Papebroch to Italy, along with Godfrey Henschen, to collect documents, but by the time he returned Bolland had died. Paperbroch, together with Henschen, then continued the work in the tradition of the Bollandists. He continued this work until his death in 1714.
Janninck said of his colleague, "What Rosweyde had laid the groundwork for, what Bolland had initiated, what Henschenius had given shape to, Papebroch brought to completion." "Bollandists", Encyclopedia of Library and Information Science Volume 38 - Supplement 3, (Allen Kent, ed.) CRC Press, 1985, p. 41
Around 1681 Papebroch found himself in a lengthy dispute with the Carmelites. In writing a commentary on Albert of Vercelli, credited with the Carmelite Rule, Papebroch said that the tradition that the origin of the order dated back to the prophet Elias, as its founder, was insufficiently grounded. The Carmelites took exception. There followed a long pamphlet campaign, during which Papebroch's orthodoxy was challenged. Papebroch was defended by his colleague, Conrad Janninck. The Carmelites appealed to the tribunal of the Spanish Inquisition, which in November, 1695, issued a decree condemning the fourteen volumes of the Acta Sanctorum published up to that time and branding it heretical. Rome did not confirm the condemnation in Spain. In November 1698, Pope Innocent XII issued a brief that ended the controversy by imposing silence on both parties.
Another controversy Papebroch had was with the Dominican Order friar, Jean-Antoine d'Aubermont, over some major liturgy texts traditionally attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas.
Scholarship
Herbert Thurston considered Pabenbroch "the ablest of all the early Bollandists." According to Friedrich Heer, Pabenbroch "...by dint of hard work established the laws of historical criticism, the methodology of the study of sources and of the historical auxiliary sciences. Hippolyte Delehaye called Papebroch "the Bollandist par excellence".
Controversies
Papebroch prefixed a Propylaeum antiquarium, an attempt to formulate rules for the discernment of spurious from genuine documents, to the second volume (1675) of the Acta Sanctorum. He instanced in it as spurious some charters of the Abbey of St-Denis. Dom Jean Mabillon was appointed to draw up a defense of these documents, and was provoked into another statement of the principles of documentary criticism, his De re diplomatica (1681).
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