THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
change of faith, etc. Vacation as a penalty may occur through deprivation or remotion; this includes the transfer of a priest, as a disciplinary measure, to a smaller charge.
[The technical use of the word benefice in Protestant Churches is largely confined to the Church of England, where a great part Of the prescriptions given above is still in force. In the statute law of England the term is practically restricted to a benefice with cure of souls, as distinct from cathedral preferment. . In the State Churches of Germany also the distinction between beneficium and ofjicium is still maintained, and the erection and alteration of benefices is a matter concerning jointly the ecclesiastical and secular authorities. Here the ordinary collator to a benefice is the consistory. The tendency of the most modern legislation is toward giving the congregation a voice in the selection of the pastor.
(E. Friedberg.)
Bibliography: Bingham, Orivines, book v; L. Thomassin, Vetus et nova ecclesice discipiina, II, iii, 13, § 5, Paris, 1698; C. Gross, Das Recht an der PfriXnde, Graz, 1887; Galante, II beneficio ecclesiastico, Milan, 1895; U. Stutz, Geschichte des kirchlichen Beneflzialwesens von seinen Anfangen bis auf die Zeit Alexanders III, Berlin, 1895.
BENEFICIUM COMPETENTLY : The privilege by which a condemned debtor is allowed to retain so much of his income as is absolutely necessary to his maintenance. Such a privilege exists in many places, in the interest of the public service, for officials and also for clerics. For the latter the custom is usually referred to the decree of Gregory IX (1271-76) De solutionibus (iii, 23). This passage, however, only establishes the principle that an unbeneficed clerical debtor can not be forced to pay by spiritual penalties, and that the creditors are to be content with sufficient security for payment when the debtor's circumstances improve. The glosses, and common practise following them, base the privilege upon the decree, and statute law has confirmed it, restricting any levy upon the salary or other income of such a cleric so that a certain sum is left to him as congrua (sustentatio). This privilege can not be pleaded in the case of debts arising from unlawful transactions or of public taxes. (E. Friedberg.)
BENEFIT OF CLERGY : A privilege claimed by the medieval Church,' as part of its general plea of immunity from secular interference. It allowed members of the clergy to have their trial for offenses with which they were charged, not before any secular tribunal, but in the bishop's court. In England this covered practically all cases of felony except treason against the king, and by the reign of Henry II it had given rise to great abuses. In many cases grossly criminal acts of clerics escaped unpunished, and other criminals eluded the penalty of their acts by declaring themselves clerics. The question was one of those on which the quarrel between the king and Bccket reached its acute stage; and by the Constitutions of Clarendon (1104; see Becket, Thomas) Henry attempted to deal with it by decreeing that clerics accused of crime were to be first arraigned in the king's court, which might at its dis-
cretion send them to an ecclesiastical court. If convicted here and degraded (see Degradation), the clerk was to lose his benefit of clergy and be amenable to lay justice. Edward III extended the privilege in 1330 to include all persons who could read (see Clerk); and it was not until the fifteenth century that any very definite regulation of this dangerous latitude was arrived at. Later statutes guarded against the evasion of their provisions by expressly declaring that their operation was " without benefit of clergy," and the privilege was finally abolished in 1827. There are a few early cases of its use in the American colonies, but Congress put an end to it here in 1790.
BENEZET, ben"e-zet', ANTHONY: Quaker philanthropist; b. at St. Quentin, France, Jan. 31, 1714; d. at Philadelphia May 3, 17S4. He belonged to a Huguenot family which settled in England in 1715, joined the Quakers there, and came to Philadelphia in 1731. He was a cooper by trade, but gave his life after coming to America to teaching and to philanthropic efforts, against slavery and war, in behalf of the American Indians, and the total abstinence cause. In 1742 he became English master in the Friends' School at Philadelphia and in 1755 established a girls' school there. In 1750 he undertook an evening school for slaves. Besides many tracts against the slave-trade, he published A Short Account of the People Called Quakers (Philadelphia, 1780); The Plainness and Innocent Simplicity of the Christian Religion (1782); Some Observations on the Situation, Disposition, and Character of the Indian Natives of this Continent (1784).
Bibliography: R. Vaux, Memoir of Anthony Benezet, Philadelphia, 1817, revised by W. Armistead, London, 1859.
BENGEL, ERNST GOTTLIEB. See Tuebingem School, The Older.
BENGEL, JOHANN ALBRECHT: German Lutheran; b. at Winnenden (12 m. n.e. of Stuttgart), Wurttemberg, June 24, 1687; d. at Stuttgart Nov. 2, 1752. He studied at Tubingen, and devoted himself especially to the sacred text; he was also intent upon philosophy, paying particular attention to Spinoza. After a year in the ministry as vicar at Metzingen, he became theological repetent at Tubingen in 1708; and in 1713 was appointed professor at the cloister-school at Denkendorf, a seminary for the early training of candidates for the ministry. During this year he traveled through Germany, visiting the schools, including those of the Jesuits, to learn their methods. At Denkendorf he published in 1719 his first work, an edition of the Epistola Ciceronis ad familiares, with notes; then Gregorii panegyricus grcece et latim (1722), and Chrysostomi libri vi de sacerdotio (1725), to which he added Prodromus Novi Testamenti recte cauteque ordinandi. His chief work, however, was upon the New Testament. While a student, he was much perplexed by the various readings in the text, and with characteristic energy and perseverance he immediately began to investigate the subject. He procured all the editions, manuscripts, and translations possible, and in 1734 published his text and an Apparatus criticus, which became