The Bollandist Society (Latin: Societas Bollandistarum French: Société des Bollandistes) are an association of scholars, philologists, and historians (originally all Jesuits, but now including non-Jesuits) who since the early seventeenth century have studied hagiography and the cult of the saints in Christianity. Their most important publication has been the Acta Sanctorum (The Lives of the Saints). They are named after the Flemish Jesuit Jean Bollandus (1596–1665). The idea of the Acta Sanctorum was first conceived by the Dutch Jesuit Heribert Rosweyde (1569–1629), who was a lecturer at the Jesuit college of Douai. Rosweyde used his leisure time to collect information about the lives of the saints. His principal work, the 1615 Vitae Patrum, became the foundation of the Acta Sanctorum. Rosweyde contracted a contagious disease while ministering to a dying man, and died himself on October 5, 1629, at the age of sixty. More information...
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