Beatific Vision, a theological expression used to, signify the vision of God in heaven permitt3d to the blessed.
Beating. See Bastinado.
Beatitudes, the name frequently given to the first clauses of our Saviour's Sermon on the Mount (q. v.), beginning with the phrase " Blessed," etc. (Matt, v, 3-11). The present "Mount of th'. Beatitudes" on which they are said to have been delivered is the hill called Kurun Hnttin, or "Horns of Hattin," on the road from Nazareth to Tiberias — a not unlikely posi- tion (Hackett, Illustr. of Script, p. 313).
Beaton, Beatoun, or Bethune, Cardinal Da- vid, archbishop of St. Andrew's, notorious as a perse- cutor, was born in 1491, and educated at the Univer- sity of Glasgow. He studied the canon law at Paris. In 1523 he was made abbot of Arbroath, and in 1525 lord privy seal. His life was now devoted to politics, which he endeavored to make subservient to the uses of the Papal Church. In 1537 he was promoted to the see of St. Andrew's, and in 1538 was made cardinal by Pope Paul III. In 1543 he obtained the great seal of Scotland, and was also made legate a latere ly the pope, thus combining civil and ecclesiastical domin- ion in his own person. In the beginning of 1545 46 he held a visitation of his diocese, and had great num- bers brought before him, under the act which had pass- ed the Parliament in 1542-43, forbidding the lieges to argue or dispute concerning the sense of the Holy Scriptures. Convictions were quickly obtained; and of those convicted, five men were hanged and one wom- an drowned ; some were imprisoned, and others were banished. He next proceeded to Edinburgh, and there called a council for the affairs of the Church ; and hear- ing that George Wishart, an eminent reformer, was at the house of Cockburn of Ormiston, Beaton caused Wishart to be apprehended, carried over to St. An- drew's, and shut up in the tower there. The cardinal called a convention of the clergy at St. Andrew's, at which Wishart was condemned for heresy, and ad- judged to be burnt — a sentence which was passed and put in force by the cardinal and his clergy, in defiance of the regent, and without the aid of the civil power. The cardinal afterward proceeded to the abbey of Ar- broath, to the marriage of his eldest daughter by Mrs. Marion Ogilvv of the house of Airly, with whom he had long lived in concubinage, and there gave her in marriage to the eldest son of the Earl of Crawford, and with her 1000 mcrks of dowry. He then returned to St. Andrew's, where, on Saturday, May 29, 1546, he was put to death in his own chamber by a party of Reformers, headed by Norman Leslie, heir of the noble house of Rothes, who, we find, had on the 24th of April, 1545, given the cardinal a bond of " manrent" (or ad- mission of feudal homage and fealty), and who had
a personal quarrel with the cardinal. The death of Cardinal Beaton was fatal to the ecclesiastical oli- garchy which under him trampled alike on law and liberty. Three works of the cardinal's are named: De Legationibus Suis, De Primatu Petri, and Epidolm ad Diverscs. See Engl. Cyclopaedia; Burnet, Hist, of Engl. Reformation, i, 491-540; Hetherington, Church of Scot- land, i, 42-52.
Beatrix or Beatrice, St., sister of Simplicius and Faustinus, who were beheaded in 303, and their bodies thrown into the Tiber. Beatrix rescued the bodies from the water and buried them, for which she was condemned ; but for seven months she escaped the fury of her persecutors. She was eventually ar- rested and strangled in prison. The Poman Church honors these martyrs on the 29th of July. — Landon, Eccl. Diet, ii, 105 ; ^Butler, Lives of Saints', July 29.
Beattie, James, poet and moralist, was the son of a small farmer, and was born at Laurencekirk, in Kin- cardineshire, 5th December, 1735. After pursuing Lis studies with brilliant success at Marischal College, Aberdeen, he was appointed usher to the Grammar School of that city, 1758, where he enjoyed the society of many distinguished men, by whose aid he was ap- pointed professor of moral philosophy in Marischal College in 17G0. In the same year he made his first public appearance as a poet in a volume of original poems and translations. With these poems he was afterward dissatisfied, and he endeavored to suppress them. His Essay on Truth, written avowedly to con- fute Hume, and published in 1770, became highly pop- ular, and procured him the degree of LL.D. from the University of Oxford, and a private interview and a pension from George III. Solicitations were also made to him to enter the Church of England; but he ■ declined, in the fear that his motives might be misrep- I resented. In the same year he gave to the world the ; first book of the Minstrel, and the second book in 1774. This work gained him reputation as a poet. He sub- sequently produced Dissertations, Moral and Critical I (1783, 4to ; 1787, 2 vols. 8vo) -.—Evidences rf the ( hr >- ! tian Religion (1786 ; 4th ed. 1795, 2 vols. 12mo) :— Ele- ments of Moral Science (3d ed. with Index, 1817, 2 vols. |8vo); and An Account of the Life and Writings rf his [eldest Sen. He died at Aberdeen, Aug. 18, 1803. His Life and Letters, by Sir William Forbes, appeared in 1807 (3 vols. 8vo). It is honorable to Beattie that, long before the abolition of the slave-trade was brought before Parliament, he was active in protesting against that iniquitous traffic ; and he introduced the subject into his academical course, with the express hope that such of his pupils as might be called to reside in the West In- dies would recollect the lessons of humanity which he inculcated. Of his writings, the Minstrel is that \\ hich probably is now most read. It is not a work of any very high order of genius; but it exhibits a strong feeling for the beauties of nature ; and it will probably long continue to hold an honorable place in the collec- tions of minor poetry. Bcattie's metaphysical writings have the reputation of being clear, lively, and attrac- tive, but not profound. The Essay on Truth was much read and admired at the time of its publication. — Engl. Cyclopadia, s. v. ; Allibone, Diet, of Authors, i, 147.