GROSJEAN, PAUL

Jesuit, Bollandist, and Celtic scholar; b. Uccle, Belgium, May 26, 1900; d. Brussels, June 13, 1964. After brilliant studies at the College of St. Michael, Brussels, Grosjean entered the Society of Jesus (Sept. 23, 1917). He was selected by Hippolyte delehaye for training as a Bollandist in 1921. Grosjean studied at Oxford under C. Plummer and E. A. Lowe, returned to Belgium for military service, and spent two years perfecting his knowledge of Celtic in Dublin. Ordained in 1932, he returned to the College of St. Michael, Brussels, for the rest of his career. He prepared the life of St. Benignus of Armagh for the November 4 volume of the Acta Sanctorum and published many unedited vitae of Celtic saints in the Analecta Bollandiana and the Irish Texts series. Grosjean had a gift for solving complicated problems of chronology and enigmas. He contributed numerous articles to the principal journals of history and philology. His studies on the problem of St. Patrick's life and works, the Celtic paschal controversy, the sources of Bede's Ecclesiastical History, the Hisperica famina, and the Roman Martyrology revealed a tireless and conscientious scholar with a flair for humanist Latin and great generosity in aiding other scholars. He served as chaplain to the Royal Union of St. Raphael and spiritual adviser to the officers of the Belgian Grand Quartier Général. Grosjean was a member of the British and Irish Academies and received a doctorate honoris causa from the National University of Dublin.

Bibliography: m. coens, Revue d'histoire ecclésiastique 59 (1964) 1025–26; Analecta Bollandiana 82 (1964) 289–318, life and bibliog.

[f. x. murphy]