Beryllus, bishop of Bostra, in Arabia, 3d century. Our only definite knowledge of him is derived from a passage in Eusebius (Hist. Eccl. vi, 33), which says that he held that "our Lord did not exist, in the proper sense of existence, before he dwelt among men ; neither had he a proper divinity, only that divinity which dwelt in him from the Father." Eusebius goes on to say that Origen, by discussion with Beryllus, brought him back to the faith. There has been much discussion of late as to the real nature of the heresy of Beryllus. See an article of Schleiermacher, trans- lated in the Biblical Repository, vi, 14 ; see also Nean- der, Ch. History, i, 593 sq. ; Domer, Doctrine of the Per- son of Christ, div. i, vol. ii, p. 35.
Berytus (Bjjpurot), a town of Phoenicia (Dionys. Per. v, 911; Pomp. Mela, i, 12, § 5; Amm. Marc, xiv, 8, § 9 ; Tacit. Hist, ii, 81 ; Anton. Itin. and Peut. Tab.), which has been (apparently without good foundation) identified with the Berothah (q. v.) or Berothai of Scrip- ture (2 Sam. viii, 8 ; Ezek. xlvii, 16 ; comp. 2 Chron. viii, 3). It lay on the sea-shore, about twenty-five miles north of iSidon (comp. Ptolem. v, 15; Strabo, xvi, 755; Mannerr, VI, i, 378 sq.). After its destruction by Tryphon, B.C. 140 (Strabo, xvi, 756), it was reduced by the Roman Agrippa, and colonized by the veterans of the fifth '-Macedonian legion," and seventh "Au- gustan," and hence became a Roman colonia (Pliny, v, 17), under the name of Julia Felix (Orelli, /user. n. 514 ; Eckhel, Num. iii, 356 ; Marquardt, IJandb. d. Ram. Alt. p. 199), and was afterward endowed with the rights of an Italian city (Ulpian, Dig. xv, 1, § 1 ; Pliny, v, 10). It was at this city that Herod the Great held the pre- tended trial of his two sons (Josephus, Ant. xvi, 11, 1-6). The elder Agrippa greatly favored the city, and adorn- ed it with a splendid theatre and amphitheatre, besides baths and porticoes, inaugurating them with games and spectacles of every kind, including shows of glad- iators (Josephus, Ant. xix, 7, 5). Here, too, Titus cel- ebrated the birthday of his father Vespasian by the ex- hibition of similar spectacles, in which many of the
('..in ..I' Berytus. captive Jews perished (Josephus, liar, vii, 3, 1 ; comp.
BERYTUS 7G9
5, 1). Coins of the imperial period, both Roman and native, are not uncommon (see Rasche, Lex. Num. i, 1492). Afterward Berytus became renowned as a school of Greek learning, particularly of law, to which scholars repaired from a distance. Its splendor may
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in the rock outside the south-western wall. The city lies on a gradual slope, so that the streets have a de- scent toward the sea ; but back of the town the ground toward the south rises, with more rapidity, to a consid- erable elevation. Here, and indeed all around the city, is a succession of gardens and orchards of fruit and of countless mulberry - trees, sometimes sur- rounded by hedges of prickly-pear, and giving to the gardens of Beirut an aspect of great verdure and beauty, though the soil is perhapsless rich and the fruits less fine than in the vicinity of Sidon."
Berze'lus (fccrjj&X- SaloQ v. r. Zop^iWcuog, Vulg. Phargefcri), the fa- ther of "Augia," who was married to the pseu- do-priest Addns (1 Esdr. v, 38 ) ; evidently the Barzillai (q. v.) of the Heb. text (Ezra ii, CI).
Ee'sai (Heb. Besay", hCS, subjugator, from 613 ; or, according to Bohlen, from Sanscrit bagaya, victory, Sept. Batri, and Bijal v. r. 13>/<rfi), one of the family- heads of the Nethinim whose posterity returned from Babylon (Ezra ii, 49 ; Neh. vii, 52). B.C. ante 536.
Besam; Besem. See Balm.
Besodei'ah (Heb. Besodyah' ', il^i&Sl, in the council of Jehovah ; according to Fiirst, son of trust in Jehovah; Sept. Batrw&'a), the father of Meshullam, which latter repaired "the old gate" of Jerusalem (Neh. iii, 6). B.C. ante 446.
Besoigne, Jerome, a French Jansenist theolo- gian, was born in Paris in 1686, and became profcfsi r of theology at the college Dn Plessis. He was one < f
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be computed to have lasted from the third to the mid- dle of the sixth century (Milman's Gibbon, iii, 51). Eusebius relates that the martyr Appian resided lure some time to pursue Greek secular learning {De Mart. Palcest. c. 4), and Gregory Thaumaturgus repaired to Berytus to perfect himself in civil law (Socrates, Hist. Pecks, iv, 27). A later Greek poet describes it in this respect as " the nurse of tranquil life" (Xonnus, Dionys. xli, fin.). Under the reign of Justinian, it was laid in ruins by an earthquake, and the school removed to Si- don, A.D. 551 (Milman's Gibbon, vii, 420). During the Crusades, under the name of Baurim (Alb. A q. v, 40 ; x, 8), it was an object of great contention between the Christians and Moslems, and fell successively into the hands of both. In A.D. 1110 it was captured by
Baldwin I (Wilken, Kreuz. ii, 212), and in A.D. 1187 j the appellants (q. v.) against the bull Unigenitus, and by Salah-ed-din (ib. Ill, ii, 295). It was in the neigh- borhood of Berytus that the scene of the combat be- tween St. George (who was so highly honored in Syria) and the dragon is laid. The place is now called Beirut (Abulfeda, Syr. p. 48, 94), and is commercially the most important place in Syria (Niebuhr, Rtisen, ii, 469 sq. ; Joliff'e, p. 5). It is the centre of operations of the American missionaries in Palestine, and altogether the most pleasant residence for Franks in all Syria, be- ing accessible by a regular line of steamers from Alex- andria (see M'Culloch's Geogr. Diet. s. v. Beyrout). The population is nearly 80,000 souls (Biideker, Pal- estine and Syria, p. 441). In the middle of September, 1840, it was bombarded by the combined English and Austrian fleets for the ejectment of the troops of Mc- hemet Ali from Syria ; but it has now recovered from the effects of this devastation (Wilson, Bible Lands, ii, 205 sq.).