Dom Henri Quentin (7 October 1872, Saint-Thierry - 4 February 1935,

Rome Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...

) was a French

Benedictine The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict (, abbreviated as O.S.B. or OSB), are a mainly contemplative monastic order of the Catholic Church for men and for women who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. Initiated in 529, th ...

abbot. A

philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also defined as the study of ...

specializing in biblical texts and martyrologies, he was the creator of an original method of

textual criticism Textual criticism is a branch of textual scholarship, philology, and literary criticism that is concerned with the identification of textual variants, or different versions, of either manuscripts (mss) or of printed books. Such texts may rang ...

(sometimes called the neo-Lachmannian method). He pioneered techniques to compare texts and produce trees of relationships between version and editions in order to study their origins and variations.

Life

After studying theology at the seminary of

Rheims Reims ( ; ; also spelled Rheims in English) is the most populous city in the French department of Marne, and the 12th most populous city in France. The city lies northeast of Paris on the Vesle river, a tributary of the Aisne. Founded by ...

, he joined in 1892 Maredsous Abbey and in 1897 Solesmes Abbey. He was ordained priest in 1902. In 1907, he was called to Rome to direct the work of the Pontifical Commission for the Revision of the Vulgate, newly created by Pope Pius X and entrusted to the Order of St Benedict. It was during this time that he was faced with a wide range of versions of texts with differences. This forced him to explore the editions systematically using quantitative approaches. In March 1914, he was appointed consultant to the liturgical section of the

Sacred Congregation of Rites The Sacred Congregation of Rites was a Congregation (Roman Curia), congregation of the Roman Curia, erected on 22 January 1588 by Pope Sixtus V by ''Immensa Aeterni Dei''; it was divided into two separate congregations by Pope Paul VI on 8 May 196 ...

. The Commission for the Revision of the Vulgate was transformed in 1933 into the Pontifical Abbey of St Jerome-in-the-City, where he became the first abbot.

Method

Faced with the enormous mass of manuscripts of the Bible, and the special relationship of copyists with this text, Dom Quentin was obliged to change the approach he had adopted for martyrologies and criticize the methods traditionally applied in the establishment of a '' stemma codicum''. The method of Dom Quentin has been much discussed and often criticized, but has attracted interest because of its arithmetical character and its capacity for automation. Quentin's method is identical to what is used in phylogenetic analysis for the study of evolution to produce unrooted trees.

Publications

* '' Jean-Dominique Mansi et les grandes collections conciliaires'', Paris, Ernest Leroux, 1900. * ''Les martyrologes historiques du Moyen Âge : étude sur la formation du Martyrologe romain'', Paris, 1908. *
Mémoire sur l'établissement du texte de la Vulgate
'. 1^ère partie : '' Octateuque'', Paris, Gabalda, 1922 (Collectanea biblica latina VI). * ''Essais de critique textuelle ( Ecdotique)'', Paris, Picard, 1926. *

Hippolyte Delehaye Hippolyte Delehaye, S.J., (19 August 1859 – 1 April 1941) was a Belgian Jesuit who was a hagiographical scholar and an outstanding member of the Society of Bollandists. Biography Born in 1859 in Antwerp, Delehaye joined the Society of Jesu ...

(S.J.) et Henri Quentin (O.S.B.), '' Acta sanctorum novembris'', tomi II pars posterior, qua continetur Hippolyti Delehaye commentarius perpetuus in

Martyrologium Hieronymianum The ''Martyrologium Hieronymianum'' (meaning "martyrology of Jerome") or ''Martyrologium sancti Hieronymi'' (meaning "martyrology of Saint Jerome") is an ancient martyrology or list of Christian martyrs in calendar order, one of the most used and ...

ad recensionem Henrici Quentin, Bruxelles, Société des Bollandistes, 1931.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Quentin, Henri Benedictine biblical scholars Benedictine abbots French philologists 1872 births 1935 deaths 20th-century Christian abbots

Life

Method

Publications

Further reading

References