Analecta Bollandiana

• Summary: In this contribution, two Egyptian survivals in the Coptic hagiographic literature are highlighted. In the first case, the bad image of the dog will be of crucial importance. The phenomenon can be demonstrated by one Coptic and three Egyptian text passages. In the second case, the rudder as metaphor for leading persons is tackled. 

• Summary: The article presents a new edition of the homily On Martyrs preserved in Armenian, in its long recension discovered in MS. Yerevan, Matenadaran 2680; the edition takes into account three MSS of the short recension, not known by its first editor in 1922. The introduction is devoted to a study of the attribution of the text to a certain “bishop Zenob”, of its possible links with the corpus of Georgian and Armenian homilies transmitted under the name of Meletius of Antioch, and of the peculiar syntax of the Armenian text, which betrays an early translation from Syriac. We also demonstrate the preacher’s reliance on the Peshitta and the Lucianic version in his quotations from the Old Testament. An English translation accompanies the critical edition.

• Summary: The MS. published here, written at the end of the 13th cent., contains the oldest narrative of the Life of the two Veronese saints Teuteria and Tosca, commemorated on May 5, and of St Oswald, believed to be Teuteria’s persecutor.  It is a luxury hagiographic libellus, formerly in the library of the female monastery of Santa Maria delle Vergini in Campomarzio in Verona, and is an important document for the history of Veronese illumination, as well as an interesting testimony to the circulation and diffusion of the Historia ecclesiastica of Venerable Bede.

• Summary: This article examines the evolution of the hagiographic dossier of St Theodulf of Trier at the end of the Middle Ages. Unfortunately, the manuscripts from Trier containing texts dedicated to this saint have disappeared, leaving only modern editions for study. From the discovery of the saint’s body in the 13th cent. to the promotion of his relics in the early 16th cent. during the introduction of a great pilgrimage in Trier, the analysis of the dossier reveals various attempts by the Dominican community of the city to revitalise the cult of St Theodulf, the latter having gradually become associated with a namesake from Reims.

• Summary: Manuscript Sl. 307 of the Library of the Romanian Academy in Bucharest, which is in very poor material condition, contains the text of the Synaxarion of Nicephorus Callistus Xanthopulus, with a full text of the Synodikon of Orthodoxy. Subsequently, I discovered a Vita of St Gregory Decapolita. The text of the Vita is extensively damaged and barely legible, but it is obvious that this is not one of the known Vitae of the saint. In a previous article, I proposed the hypothesis that this text might be the only known copy of the Slavic translation of a heavily abridged version of Gregory’s Vita by Ignatius the Deacon. In this study, I offer the edition of the available text of this unique copy, accompanied by an interpretation of the work in its historical and literary contexts.

• Summary: As soon as it was reestablished in 1837, the Bollandist Society received an annual subsidy from the Belgian government: it was a “national” high-quality work. But very soon, voices were raised, particularly within the liberal political world, against this subsidy: was it necessary for the government to support such a Jesuit-run enterprise ? Often called into question, the grant was finally abolished in 1869. Though costing the state very little, this affair reflected, among other things, the opposition between the two major political tendencies of the time – Catholics and Liberals –, which, over the decades, put an end to the unionism of 1830. Not to mention the “fear of the Jesuits”.

François Dolbeau.  Catalogues de manuscrits latins. Inventaire hagiographique (quarantième série)