Charles De Smedt

Charles De Smedt S.J. (6 April 1833, Ghent, Belgium – 4 March 1911, Brussels) was a Belgian Jesuit priest and hagiographer. He was a Bollandist, and is noted for having introduced critical historical methods into Catholic hagiography, so that it became a collection of accounts of the accretion of legends, as well as the compilation of original materials.[1]

Life

Charles De Smedt was born in Ghent, Belgium on 6 April 1833. He studied at the College of St. Barbara in Ghent, and then at the College of Our Lady of Peace in Namur, continuing his studies at Tronchiennes. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1851.[2]

De Smedt was a professor of literature and mathematics at Tronchiennes; he was ordained in 1862. He became a professor of Church History and of dogmatic theology at Louvain. In 1870 he joined the staff of the Acta Sanctorum in Brussels. He revived the Bollandist Society and founded it scholarly journal, the Analecta Bollandiana in 1882 with G. van Hooff and Joseph de Backer.[3] From 1899 to 1902 De Smedt served as the acting rector at St. Michael's College in Brussels.

He is best known for his contribution to hagiography but also to history and metaphysics. His contribution to the development of a critical approach to History is epitomized in his masterpiece: Principes de la critique historique, which greatly influenced Friedrich von Hügel.[4]

Works
  • Introductio generalis ad historiam ecclesiasticam critice tractandam (1876)
  • L'Église et la science (1877), early reply to the conflict thesis
  • Gesta episcoporum Cameracensium, Paris, 1880
  • Principes de la critique historique, Bruxelles, 1883.

Honors

Notes
  1. Coudeyrette, Jean-Paul. "Compilhistoire ; toute reproduction à but non lucratif est autorisée" (in French). A partir de 1876, le père Charles de Smedt (1831–1911) fait appliquer les principes de la critique moderne. Tous les textes concernant les saints sont édités avec leurs variantes et leurs remaniements de manière à permettre de faire non seulement l’histoire des saints, mais aussi celle de leur légende.
  2. "De Smedt, Reverend Charles", The Catholic Encyclopedia and Its Makers, Encyclopedia Press, Incorporated, 1917, p. 42 This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
  3. Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Bollandists" . Encyclopædia Britannica. 4 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 178.
  4. Barmann, Lawrence F., Baron Friedrich Von Hügel and the Modernist Crisis in England, CUP Archive, 1972 ISBN 9780521081788

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