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Pagi, Anthony

Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature

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a noted French ecclesiastical writer, was born at Rogua, a small town in Provence, in 1624. He took the monk's habit in the convent of the Cordeliers at Arles in 1641. After he had finished the usual course of studies in philosophy and divinity, he preached a while, and was at length made four successive times provincial of his order. These occupations did not hinder him from devoting time to the study of chronology and ecclesiastical history, branches of learning in which he excelled., His most considerable work is entitled, Critica historico-chronologica in Annales ecclesiasticos Baronii, in which, following that learned cardinal year by year, he has rectified a great number of mistakes, both in chronology and in facts. Pagi published the first volume of this work, containing the four first centuries, at Paris in 1689, with a dedication to the clergy of Francs, who allowed him a pension. The whole work was printed after his death in four volumes folio, at Anvers, or rather at Geneva, in 1705, by the care of his nephew, Francis Pagi, of the same order. It is carried to the year 1198, where Baronius ends. Pagi was greatly assisted in it by the abbe Longuerue, who also wrote the eulogy of our author which is prefixed to the Geneva edition. This Critique is of great utility; but the author, too fond of striking out something new, has given a chronology of the popes of the first three centuries which is not approved by the critics, and more or less impeaches his reliability as a historian. His style is simple, but his matter evinces study and care. Pagi was in correspondence with the learned of his time in France and in England. Among his friends were Stillingfleet, Spanheim, Dodwell, cardinal Noris, etc. He died in 1699. See Niceron, Memoires, vol. 1 and 17; Ersch u. Guber, Encyklo. s.v. (J. H.W.)