Part of a Series on Vincentian Heritage Places

Sainte-Geneviève Library

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As early as 1832, Ozanam proposed engaging in a massive historical study of the ancient origins of religion that would require knowledge of numerous fields and perhaps as many as twelve languages in order to read original sources. The intention of this study was to demonstrate “the perpetuity, the Catholicism of religious ideas, the truth, the excellence, the beauty of Christianity.” Although such a project was nearly impossible, especially given Ozanam’s short lifetime, nevertheless he remained faithful to the essential purpose.

Certain German scholars, such as Hegel, Goethe, David Friedrich Strauss, Christian Lassen, and Georg Gottfried Gervinus, had proposed that the essence of German genius and character was rooted in its pagan heritage, and that Christianity had been an enormous obstacle to Germanic progress. This thesis naturally caught Ozanam’s attention. In a letter to François Lallier, he explained the intent of the research he had been conducting, in particular at Sainte-Geneviève Library: “I am showing that Germany owes its genius and civilization almost entirely to the Christian education which was given it; that its grandeur was in proportion to its union with Christianity; that it has power, light, and poetry only by fraternal communication with the other European nations; that for her as for all, there is not, there cannot be, true destinies except by oneness with Rome, depository of all the temporal traditions of humanity as well as the eternal designs of Providence.”

Source: Antoine Frédéric Ozanam by Raymond L. Sickinger, University of Notre Dame Press

From Wikipedia: Sainte-Geneviève Library is a university library of the universities of Paris, located at 10, place du Panthéon, across the square from the Panthéon, in the 5th arrondissement of Paris. It is based on the collection of the Abbey of St Genevieve, which was founded in the 6th century by Clovis I, the King of the Franks. The collection of the library was saved from destruction during the French Revolution. A new reading room for the library was built between 1838 and 1851 by architect Henri Labrouste.

Illustration of the
Sainte-Geneviève Library’s reading room in 1859

Sainte Geneviève Library as it looks today

All Vincentian Places in this Series

Red = Vincent de Paul, Blue = Frederic Ozanam

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