(9) The numbers involved can be gleaned from the
Bollandist publications.
(10) See the earliest extant biography of Fisher, attributed to Richard Hall (+1604) and edited in English and Latin by the
Bollandist Francois Van Ortroy under the title Vie du bienheureux martyr Jean Fisher, cardinal, eveque de Rochester, in Analecta Bollandiana 10 (1891) 121-365 and 12 (1893) 97-287, here [section]7 in 10:208.
Christian scholars, especially those of the
Bollandist and Maurist congregations, adopted the philological approach to the study of religious texts, historicizing them much like Asian evidential scholars later did with Confucian Classics.
Collins ends by casting a brief glance at the hagiography of the post-Reformation period, highlighting in particular its polemical functions and the philological precision and documentary thoroughness that characterized the
Bollandist enterprise.
This Volume contains three lectures given by the great
Bollandist, Hippolyte Delehaye, to the College de France in 1935, that have recently turned up among his papers.
Although much of the story of Rhipsime and the nuns is purely legendary, since the study of the
Bollandist Paul Peeters, many scholars take seriously the possibility that a martyrdom occurred in Valarshapat around 312, not during the reign of Diocletian but in the context of the renewed persecution of Maximinus Daia, who actually went to Armenia and enacted harsher measures against Christians than those of his predecessors.
Moreover, the appearance of Duchesne's work in the Analecta bollandiana and of
Bollandist reviewers in his Bulletin critique gave tangible evidence of cooperative efforts among like-minded critics.
Father Deleheye (misspelt as "Delahaye," 256) is credited with belonging to the nonexistent "
Bollandist Order." We are told that "Flacius enjoyed the friendship of Melanchthon than whom no other German professor has ever been so famous" (instead off "the most famous of all German professors," 42).
Important later sources were the
Bollandist Acta Sanctorum (1643-) and the history of the order compiled by the Franciscan Luke Wadding beginning in 1625.