DENIFLE
719
DENIFLE
he visited the Chippcwayans of Ile-i-la-Crosse, which
locality was soon to become the centre of far-reaching
missionary operations. That very year there arrived
at St. Boniface the first two representatives of the Ob-
late Order, which has since had charge of the evangel-
ization of all Northern D(5ne tribes. In 18-47 Father
(afterwards Arclibishop) Tach^ visited Lake Atha-
liasca, where he was kindly received and accom-
]ilishcd mvich good. Year after year the sphere of
n lii;i<ius activity was enlarged, new missions being
f >i:il)lished, until that of Our Lady of Good Hope was
I'uiideil by Father GroUicr, 31 Aug., 1859, within the
A rrt ic ( 'ircle. Thence apostolic excursions were made
into Alaska, first by Father Petitot in 1870, and then
l.y Bisho|i I. Glut in 1872. But the Western Lou-
( hcux, rendered hostile to Catholicism by itinerant
I'mtcstant ministers and fanatical traders, proved
t;< norally reliellious. Serious Protestant missionary
ilTorts among the D6n& date from 1858. The Rev. J.
I lunter then made a reconnoitring visit to the Mack-
■n/ie, and as a result a mission was established on that
stream at Fort Simpson. After this work was under-
taken among the Loiicheux of the Yukon with some
iiuasure of success. However, in spite of the asser-
ii'm of the late Anglican bishop, W. C. Bompas, that
I lie numbers under instruction of each Church may
not greatly differ" (Dioce.se,of Mackenzie, liOndon,
!sxs, p. 108) among the Northern D^nes, taken as a
whole, the number of Protestant Denes is insignificant
coinijared with those who have embraced the Catholic
r.iith. In British Columbia they are practically all
I itholic, and east of the Rocky Mountains there is
ii"t one Protestant among the natives who repair to
Slime fifteen of the Hud.son Bay Company's fur-
tr:iditig posts. Even at Fort Simpson, the head-
luarters of the Church of England in the Mackenzie,
' 1 !' of the aboriginal population is Catholic.
I'l TiTOT. Monographic des Dcne-Dindjii {Paris, 1876); Idem, ■lilions indiennfs du Canada nord-ouest (Paris, 1883); Idem, ■ire an^ sous Ic cerde polaire (Paris, 1889); Idem, Autour du ' '/ lac des Esclavcs (Paris, 1891); Idem, Exploration dr la '■'H du grand lac des Ours (Paris, 1893), and m.in.v other 1 1.3. MoiucE, The Western Denis (Toronto, 1SS9); Idem. ' ; oil the Western Dines (Toronto. 1894); Idem, Au pays de
- s noir {Paris, 1897); Idem, The History of the Norlhcm
•■ior of British Columbia (Toronto, 1904); Idem, The Great ■-■<' Race (2 vols.. Vienna, Austria), and about a dozen mono-
- r.iplis on tile D<5n<*s.
A. G. MoRicE.
Denifle, Heinrich Seuse (baptized Jcseph), pate- oyraphcr and hi.storian, born at Imst in the Austrian Tyrol, K; Jan., 1844; d. at Munich, 10 June, 1905. His father, who was the village schoolmaster and church organist, had him educated in the episcopal seminary of Brixen. On his reception, at Graz, 22 Sept., 1861, into the Dominican Order, he took the name of Heinrich. His studies of Aristotle and St. Thomas were begun in Graz and continued in Rome and Marseilles, .\fter his return to Graz, Father Denifle taught philo.sophy and theology for ten years (1870-1880), and during this period also he was one of the best preachers in .\iistria. A course of apologetic sermon.s delivered in Graz cathedral, "Die katholische Kirche imd das Ziel der Menschheit" was printed in 1872. Denifle, who had loved music from his lioyhood and composed pieces at fifteen, also published in 1872, as his first literarj' e.s,say, an article on the (iregorian Chant: "Schiinheit imd Wijrde des Chorals". That even then his mind was occupied with a subject about which his last and perhaps his greatest work was des- tined to be written, is e\'ident from a series of articles entitled "Tetzel und Luther", which appeared in 187.3. From that time onward, though he preached occasionally, the biography of Denifle is the descrip- tion of his literary achievements. His life therefore may be divided into four periods characterized respec- tively by work on theology and mysticism, medieval universities, the Hundred Years War between France
and England with its consequences to the Church, and
Luther and Lutheranism.
A subject to which in early years he devoted much of his attention was the relation existing between scholastic theology and medieval mysticism. It was comparatively unknown, and had in fact been grossly misrepresented by some flippant writers according to whom the German mystics were the precursors of the German Reformers. Denifle's researches put the mat- ter in its true light. He discovered in various libra- ries of Austria, Germany, and Switzerland copious materials in fourteenth-century manuscripts, and a se- lection of 2500 texts was given to the public in his book " Das gelstliche Lebcn. Eine Bhmienlese aus den deutschen Mystikern des 14. Jahrhunderts" (Graz, 1873) . Ho also began a critical edit ion of Blessed Henry Suso's works (the first and only volume of Denifle's edition appeared in 1880 — another edition is in prog- ress 1908), and on Suso and other myst ics he wrote sev- eral articles (fifteen in all with apjiendices) published in various periodicals from 1873 to 1889. His fame as a paliEographer, German philologist, and textual critic arose from these investigations and especially from his studies on Tauler, Eclchart, and Blessed Henry Suso. Up to 1875 the most disputed problem in the history of German mysticism was that of the "Gottesfreund" and his marvellous influence. Denifle solved it simply by showing that the " Gottesfreund " was a myth. This discovery, which created quite a sensation, and several others brought him into controversy with Preger and Schmidt, who had till then been looked up to as au- thorities on the history of mysticism, and also into controversy with Jundt. He proved and demon- strated that Catholic mysticism rests on scientific theology. Denifle's remarks were often sharp, but there could be no doubt that his arguments and his destructive criticism were tinanswerable. Catholic and non-Catholic savants alike, as Schrors, Kirsch, MilUer, Schonbach, etc., have recognized that he was immeasurably superior to his adversaries. This was owing to his intimate knowledge of the Fathers, of theology — both scholastic and mystic — of medieval history, and lastly of Middle-High German with its dialects.
In 1880 Denifle was made socius, or assistant, to the general of his order, and summoned to Rome, where a new field of inquiry awaited him. Leo XIII had commanded that a critical edition of the works of St. Thomas Aquinas should be begtm, and Denifle was commissioned to search for the best manuscripts. He visited the libraries in Italy, Austria, Germany, Ba- varia, Holland, England, France, Spain, and Portu- gal. Nothing escaped his eagle eye, and while pre- paring for the new edition, before his return to Italy in 1883, he had also gathered abundant materials for his own special study. In the autumn of 1880 Leo XIII had opened the secret archives of the Vatican to schol- ars; he had in 1789 appointed as archivist Cardinal Hergenrother. On the hitter's recommendation the pope now (1 Dec, 1883) made Denifle sub-archivist, a post which he held till his death. Since the beginning of his residence in Rome, Denifle, who found nothing there for his contemplated history of mysticism, h.ad been investigating the career of a celebrated prophet, i. I', the Abi)ot Joachim, and the reasons of the con- demnation of his "Evangelium Sternum" by the University of Paris. This led him to study the con- troversy between the university and the mendicant orders. As he found dti Boulay's history of the uni- versity inaccurate, Denifle, who was a foe to adven- turous statements and hasty generalizations, resolved to write a history based on original documents, and as an introduction to it, to commence with a volume on the origin of the medieval university system, for which he already ha<l prepared copious transcripts and notes. His leading idea was that to appreciate the mystics one should understand not only the theology they ha4
