The longtime labors of Fr. Louis-Jacques Bataillon, OP, have been brought to birth by Adriano Oliva and the other workers at the Leonine Commission. Volume 44, 1 is here, and it's jam-packed with fascinating information.
Read MoreThanks to Santiago Argüello we can order up the newly available volume 44, 1 of the Leonine Edition, containing Thomas's individual sermons.
Read MoreThe long awaited volume in the Leonine Edition, containing the sermons of St. Thomas and prepared by the late Fr. Louis-Jacques Bataillon OP, will be presented during a two-day conference at Le Saulchoir in Paris on 5-6 december 2013. The website of the Revue des Sciences philosophiques et théologiques has the program.
The publisher of the Leonine Edition, Cerf, now has a 50% discount on the previous printed volumes of the Leonine Edition.
Mark-Robin Hoogland C.P. (1969), Passionist priest and member of the ‘Thomas Instituut’ in Utrecht has just published his English translation of twenty sermons of Thomas Aquinas at The Catholic University of America Press.
The critical edition of these sermons, prepared by the late Father Bataillon, is about to be published in the Editio Leonina.
Download here the PDF from the Catholic University of America Press.
We thank the Fathers Bataillon and Hoogland for this inestimable service to the Thomistic community!
The people at the Leonine Commission’s website have posted a short article on the life of Fr Louis-Jacques Bataillon, OP, who passed away on February 13th. The article also features a piercing photo of Fr Bataillon in what appears to be the Leonine Commission’s library at Saint-Jacques.
I’ve found some other online references to the death of Fr Louis-Jacques Bataillon, OP, about which I posted on February 14, 2009. In fact, there is a short video of Fr Bataillon presenting regarding biblical exemplum.
Other sites have notices, commentary, and bibliography:
Just in from Adriano Oliva, OP, of the Leonine Commission in Paris. Father Louis-Jacques Bataillon, OP, died last evening, Friday, February 13, 2009, at 6:45 p.m. He was 94 years old. This is a terrible loss for the whole community of medievalists, especially those interested in medieval sermons, for whom Fr Batallion was doyen. But it is especially hard for lovers of the life and works of St. Thomas, as Fr Louis worked assiduously on the Leonine Commission for a half-century.
At the time of his death the Leonine Commission had been working away hard to finish up volume 44 of the Opera Omnia Sancti Thomae Aquinatis, which contains Thomas’s sermons (edited by Fr Bataillon); when I last met with Fr Oliva last October (at Notre Dame and then here in Milwaukee) he told me that the Commission was at that time reviewing the proofs for volume 44 for the fifth time, with the expectation that volume 44 would see the light of day this year, in 2009. There would be some consolation in knowing that volume 44 is published in the same year as Fr Bataillon’s death.
On a personal note, Fr Bataillon was only ever kind and receptive of my inquiries. Last March, when I spent a week in Paris at the Couvent St. Jacques to work at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Fr Bataillon was able to give me an hour—no small chore—to discuss some manuscript questions I had. His giant spirit and knowledge overcame his laboring body, and his eyes twinkled as he sat in a recliner-chair, viewing my binder of manuscript images: “Now this manuscript was probably written in Le Marche, before mid-century (i.e., before the 1250’s).” Wow.
Having worked so hard for so many years Fr Bataillon’s death at 94 cannot have been a surprise, and he has earned his reward. Still, this one really hurts.
The people over at the Dominican History website already have a short article up about Fr Bataillon’s passing. More will follow.
Update
on 2009-02-14 13:22 by Mark Johnson
Already a follow-up. I wrote the above after having gotten a Skype message from Fr Oliva, but before checking my e-mail. Fr Oliva had already sent out the following e-mail:
Hier, 13 février, à 18h45, le P. Bataillon s’est endormi dans la paix.
Hospitalisé le 12 après-midi aux urgences de la Salpêtrière, il avait été transporté hier dans une clinique chirurgicale à Saint-Cloud, où peu de temps après son arrivée, il est décédé paisiblement.
La messe des funérailles sera concélébrée à l’église du Couvent Saint-Jacques, 20 rue des Tanneries, Paris XIIIe, mardi 17 février à 14h30.
Il sera inhumé au cimetière du Montparnasse.
Under the direction of the Sacra Doctrina Project
