[3] Janninck said of his colleague, "What Rosweyde had laid the groundwork for, what Bolland had initiated, what Henschenius had given shape to, Papebroch brought to completion.

"[7] Papebroch prefixed a Propylaeum antiquarium, an attempt to formulate rules for the discernment of spurious from genuine documents, to the second volume (1675) of the Acta Sanctorum.

Dom Jean Mabillon was appointed to draw up a defense of these documents, and was provoked into another statement of the principles of documentary criticism, his De re diplomatica (1681).

In writing a commentary on Albert of Vercelli, credited with the Carmelite Rule, Papebroch said that the tradition that the origin of the order dated back to the prophet Elias, as its founder, was insufficiently grounded.

The Carmelites appealed to the tribunal of the Spanish Inquisition, which in November, 1695, issued a decree condemning the fourteen volumes of the Acta Sanctorum published up to that time and branding it heretical.

[2] Another controversy Papebroch had was with the Dominican friar, Jean-Antoine d'Aubermont, over some major liturgical texts traditionally attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas.