RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Beza Bianchini
named his edition of Calvin's Bpistolai et responsa
' But all these humanistic and historical studies are surpassed by his theological productions (contained in Tractationes theological). In these Beza appears the perfect pupil or the alter ii. Theo- ego of Calvin. His view of life is logical deterministic and the basis of his Works, religious thinking is the predestinate recognition of the necessity of all temporal existence as an effect of the absolute, eternal, and immutable will of God, so that even the fall of the human race appears to him essential to the divine plan of the world. In most lucid manner Beza shows in tabular form the connection of the religious views which emanated from this fundamental supralapsarian mode of thought. This he added to his highly instructive treatise Summa totius Christianismi.
Of no less importance are the contributions of Beza to Biblical science. In 1565 he issued an edition of the Greek New Testament, accompanied in parallel columns by the text of the Vulgate and a translation of his own (already published as early as 1556). Annotations were added, also previously published, but now he greatly enriched and enlarged them. In the preparation of 12. Beza's this edition of the Greek text, but much Greek New more in the preparation of the second Testament, edition which he brought out in 1582, Beza may have availed himself of the help of two very valuable manuscripts. One is known as the Codex Bezce or Cantabrigensis, and was later presented by Beza to the University of Cambridge; the second is the Codex Claromontanus, which Beza had found in Clermont (now in the National Library at Paris). It was not, however, to these sources that Beza was chiefly indebted, but rather to the previous edition of the eminent Robert Stephens (1550), itself based in great measure upon one of the later editions of Erasmus. Beza's labors in this direction were exceedingly helpful to those who came after. The same thing may be asserted with equal truth of his Latin version and of the copious notes with which it was accompanied. The former is said to have been published over a hundred times. It is to be regretted that the author's view of the doctrine of predestination exercised upon the interpretation of Scripture too preponderating an influence. However, there is no question that Beza added much to a clear understanding of the New Testament. Eugene Choisy.
Bibliography: J. W. Baum, T. Beza nach handschriftlichen und anderen gleichzeitigen Quellen, Leipsic, 1843-52 (masterly, but extends only to 1563); his life by Heppe is in vol. vi of Leben und ausgewahlte Schriften der Voter der reformierten Kirche, Elberfeld, 1861 (complete and excellent, inferior only to Baum); A. de la Faye, De vita et obitu T. Bezce, Geneva, 1606 (by a favorite pupil of Beza); Jerome Bolsec, Histoire de la vie, masurs, doctrine et dibordements de T. de Beze, Paris, 1582, republished Geneva, 1835 (Roman Catholic, a scurrilous and malignant libel); P C. Schlosser, Leben des Theodor Beza und des Peter Martyr Vermigli, Heidelberg, 1809; E. and E. Haag, La France protestante, 2d ed. by Bordier, ii, 520-540, Paris, 1879; H. M. McCracken, Lives of the Leaders of Our Church Universal, from the Germ, of F. Piper, pp. 352-362, Philadelphia, 1879; Schaff, Christian Church, vol. vii, pas-
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sim, especially chap, xix; Moeller, Christian Church, . ol. iii, passim; C. v. Proosdij, T. Beza medearbeiter en opvolger van Calvijn, Leyden, 1895; H. M. Baird, Theodore Beza, the Counsellor of the French Reformation, New York, 1899 (the one book in English, and a worthy treatment of the subject), cf. his Rise of the Huguenots, passim, ib. 1879; A. Bernus, T. de Beze a Lausanne, Lausanne, 1900; E. Choisy, L'Etat chretien calviniste a Geneve au temps de T. de Beze, Geneva, 1902; Cambridge Modern History, vol. ii, The Reformation, passim, vol. iii, London, 1904; A Theodore de Beze (1605-1905). Geneva, 1906.
BEZOLD, be"zold', CARL ERNST CHRISTIAN: German Orientalist; b. at Donauworth (25 m. n.n.w. of Augsburg), Bavaria, May 18, 1859. He was educated at the universities of Munich (1876-79), Leipsic (1879-80; Ph.D., 1881), and Strasburg (1881), and became privat-docent at Munich in 1883. He continued his studies at Rome in the spring of 1884 and at London in the summer of 1882 and 1887, while from 1888 to 1894 he was employed in the British Museum. Since the latter year he has been professor of Oriental philology and director of the Oriental seminar at the University of Heidelberg. In 1884 he founded, at Leipsic, the Zeitschrift filr Keilschriftforschung, which was continued in the following year as the Zeitschrift fiir Assyriologie, and which he has edited to the present time. He likewise edited the second edition of C. F. A. Dillmann's Grammatik der athiopischen Sprache (Leipsic, 1899) and the Orientalische Studien in honor of the seventieth birthday of T. Noldeke (2 vols., Giessen, 1906), and was the founder and editor of the Semitistische Studien (Berlin, 1894 sqq.). In 1904 he became one of the editors of the Archiv filr Religionswissenschaft. He has also written Die grosse Dariusinschrift am Felsen von Behistun (Leipsic, 1881); Die Achdmenideninschriften (1882); Die Schatzhohle, syrisch und deutsch (2 vols., 1883-88); The Ordinary Canon of the Mass according to the Use of the Coptic Church, in C. A. Swainson's Greek Liturgies (London, 1884); Kurzgefasster Ueberblick iiber die babylonisch-assyrische Literatur (Leipsic, 1886); Catalogue of the Cuneiform Tablets in the Kouyunjik Collection of the British Museum (5 vols., London, 1889-99); The T ell-el- Amarna Tablets in the British Museum (1892); Oriental Diplomacy (1893); Ninive und Babylon (Bielefeld, 1903) ; Die babylonisch-assyrischen Keilinschriften und ihre Bedeutung fur das Alte Testament (Tubingen, 1904); Babylonisch-Assyrische Texte ubersetzt : i. Die Schopfungslegende (Bonn, 1904); and Kebra Nagast, die Herrlichkeit der Konige (Ethiopic text and German translation, Munich, 1905).
BIANCHINI, bi"an-ki'ni (BLANCHINUS), GIU- SEPPE: Italian Biblical scholar; b. at Verona Sept. 9, 1704; d. after 1760. He was a member of the Congregation of the Oratory, and the author of two works bearing on the history of the Itala: Psalterium duplex juxta antig'uam italicam versionem (Rome, 1740) and Evangeliarium quadruplex Latinos versionis antiquce seu veteris Italicm (2 vols., 1749). The detailed statements in the first volume are valuable, but the text is inferior to Sabatier's Bibliorum sacrorum Latino: versionis antiquce (Reims, 1739 sqq.). The second, containing some older codices, supplements Sabatier.
K. Benrath.
Bible