RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Bel Bellamy
is the synod, of which the permanent executive body is the Comiti Administrateur. The clergy are trained chiefly in Switzerland and are subordinate to the synod. This Church possesses few schools of its own, but in public schools of one class with twenty Protestant children and in those of several classes with forty children it is entitled to give religious instruction through its own clergy. It has now about 11,000 members. There are English churches at Antwerp, Bruges, Brussels, and Ostend, and at Antwerp and Brussels there are Presbyterian congregations; in the first-named city an agent of the American Seamen's Friend Society is also active. The Dutch Reformed and the Swedish Lutherans have small congregations in Brussels and Antwerp respectively.
The Roman Catholic Church of Belgium was organized in 1561, when the authority of the foreign bishops was abrogated, and in 1839 the system was readjusted to harmonize with the new boundaries. The most of the clergy receive their training at the episcopal seminaries and a small proportion at the University of Lou vain. The State has no control over the appointment of priests, who are subject only to their bishops. The Roman Catholic Church, however, Roman receives from the State an annual Catholic stipend of more than 4,800,000 francs, Church, although it does not enjoy any ecclesiastical prerogative. Its influence on the life of the people is exerted chiefly through the monasteries, of which there are more than 220 for monks, with some 5,000 members, and about 1,500 nunneries, with over 27,000 sisters. The members are employed in large numbers in the public schools, the right being given the communities by the law of 1884 to " adopt " private schools, or schools conducted by the religious organizations. A number of intermediate schools are also under ecclesiastical control, as well as the University of Louvain. Academic training is also provided for by the state universities of Ghent and Liege, and by the free university of Brussels.
In its hierarchic organization, Belgium constitutes the province of Mechlin, and its dioceses are divided according to the political boundaries of the country. The archdiocese of Mechlin on the Dyle was created by a papal enactment of 1559, which first came into full operation in 1561. It contains fifty-five parishes and over 600 chapels of ease in the provinces of Brabant and Antwerp. The suffragan bishoprics are those of Bruges, Ghent, Liege, Namur, and Tournai (Doomik). Bruges, founded in 1559, has forty parishes and 245 chapels of ease; Ghent, established in the same year, also has forty parishes Diocesan and 310 chapels of ease; Liege, dating Organiza- from the fourth century, has an equal tion. number of parishes and 570 chapels of ease; Namur, created in 1559 (1561), has the same number of parishes and 700 chapels of ease; and Doomik, the seat of a bishop since 1146, controls thirty-three parishes and 445 chapels of ease, its see comprising the Hennegau, with the exception of five parishes belonging to the French diocese of Cambrai TL— 3
The Jews of Belgium, who number about 5,000, are divided into twelve rabbinical districts.
WlLHELM GOETZ.
Bibliography: Balan, Histoire contemporaine de la Belgique, Lyons, 1891; Archives Beiges, revue critique d'historiographie nationale, Liittich, 1899 sqq.; La Belgique et le Vatican. Locuments et travaux legislatifs, 3 vols., Brussels, 1S80-S1; G. Verspeyen, Le Parti catholique beige, Ghent, 1893; J. Hoyois, La Politique catholique en Belgique depuis 1814, Louvain, 1895; O. Coppin, L'Union sacerdotale, son histoire, son esprit et ses constitutions, Namur, 1896; U. Berliere, Monasticon beige, vol. i, Paris, 1897; La Beige ecclesiastique (an annual).
BELIAL, bi'li-al ("worthlessness"): A word which occurs once in the New Testament (II Cor. vi, 15; better reading Beliar) as the name of Satan, hardly as that of Antichrist; the Peshito has " Satan." In the Old Testament beliyya'al is not used as a designation of Satan, or of a bad angel; it is an appellation, " worthlessness " or "wickedness" in an ethical sense, and is almost always found in connection with a word denoting the person or thing whose worthlessness or wickedness is spoken of; as, " man of Belial," " son of Belial," " daughter of Belial," " thoughts of Belial," etc. In a few instances beliyya'al denotes physical destruction; so probably Ps. xviii, 4 (II Sam. xxii, 5), " floods of destruction" (A. V " ungodly men " ; R. V "ungodliness"). To understand this passage to refer to the prince of hell is against Old Testament usage. Occasionally the adjunct is omitted, as in II Sam. xxiii, 6; Job xxxiv, 18; Nahum i, 15, where the word means the " bad," the " destroyer," the " wicked." Although thus originally not a proper name, but an appellation, in the later Jewish and Christian literature it passed over into a name for Satan, not as the " worthless," but as the " destroyer." It is so used in II Cor. vi, 15, where Paul asks: " What harmony is there between Christ and Belial ? " "Belial 'stands for " Satan " also in Jewish epigrapha and apocalyptic writings, such as the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Book of Jubilees, and the Jewish interpolations in the Sibylline Oracles.
Bibliography: J. Hamburger, s.v., in Real-Encyklopadie filr Bibel und Talmud, vol. i., Leipsic, 1891; W. Bousset, Der Antichrist, pp. 86-87, 99-101, Gottingen, 1895; T. K. Cheyne, in Expositor, 1895, pp. 435-439; F. Hommel, in Expository Times, viii. 472; EB, i, 525-527.
BELL, WILLIAM M'lLVIN: United Brethren; b. in Whitley Co., Ind., Nov. 12, 1860; entered the ministry 1879; elected bishop 1905.
BELLAMY, JOSEPH: Congregationalist; b. at New Cheshire, Conn., Feb. 20, 1719; d. at Bethlehem, Conn., Mar. 6, 1790. He was graduated at Yale, 1735, and was licensed to preach at the age of eighteen; was ordained pastor of the church at Bethlehem Apr. 2, 1740. During the Great Awakening he preached as an itinerating evangelist; later he established a divinity school in his house, where many prominent New England clergymen were trained. He was a disciple and personal friend of Jonathan Edwards, and the most gifted preacher among his followers, being thought by some to be equal to Whitefield. In his True Religion Delineated (Bos-
Bellarmine Bells