RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
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reviews on classical subjects. His theological works comprise Five Lectures on John's Gospel (1823); Twelve Lectures on the Acts (1828); several collections of sermons; and A Manual of Private and Family Prayers (1824).
Bibliography: A. Blomfield, A Memoir of C. J. Blomfield, with Selections from his Correspondence, 2 vols., London 1863 (by his son); G. E. Biber, Bishop Blomfield and his' Times, London, 1857; DNB. v, 229-230. The British Museum Catalogue devotes five pages to a list of Blomfield's works.
BLOMFIELD, WILLIAM ERNEST: English Baptist; b. at Rayleigh (24 m. s.w. of Colchester), Essex, Oct. 23, 1862. He was educated at Regent's Park College, London (B.A., University of London, 1883), and after being assistant (1884-85) and sole minister (1885-86) of Elm Road Baptist Church, Beckenham, was pastor of Turret Green Church, Ipswich, 1886-95 and of Queen's Road Church, Coventry, 1895-1904. Since 1904 he has been president of the Baptist College, Rawdon, Leeds.
BLOMMAERDINE, blem"mar-di'ne, HADEWICH or HADEWIJCH : A heretical mystic whose religious activity and writings caused great excitement in Brussels early in the 14th century. Her adherents .venerated her as a saint and her writings as divine revelations; her opponents charged her with heretical teaching on the freedom of the spirit, and with mingling religious devotion and sensual passion. During his stay in Brussels (1317-43), Ruysbroeck conducted a strong polemical campaign against her, which, however, did not prevent people from coming after her death to seek the cure of diseases by touching her shroud. The scanty notices which Ruysbroeck's biographer gives of her life and writings have been recently filled out by the scholarly investigations of K. Ruelens and P Fredericq. They have shown it to be extremely probable that the mystic was identical with the important Flemish poetess Hadewijch (erroneously called " Sister Hadewijch "), whose remains in prose and verse, known only in part heretofore, have been published in full by J. Vercoullie (Ghent, 1877). The principal theme of all these writings is love (Minne) for God. The specimens given by Fredericq display the tempestuous, sometimes actually sensual, passion with which she longs for mystical union with him. In describing her numerous visions the poetess boasts of very intimate relations with Christ and the saints, and claims the gift of prophecy and the power of working miracles. She expresses herself bitterly in regard to the persecutions set on foot by her enemies, the vremden, against herself and her adherents, whom she calls vriende, the nuwen or volmaakten der Minne {perfei). In one place she gives the number of her then living followers (principally nuns or Beguines) as ninety-seven, of whom twenty-nine were outside the Netherlands. Apparently the domicella Heilwigis dicta Blommardine, the daughter of William Blommaert, a rich and noble citizen of Brussels, who died about 1336, is the same as the mystic and the poetess. It appears that as late as the beginning of the fifteenth century the Inquisition in Brussels wna still obliged to proceed against
adherents of the heresies promulgated by her, which were not far removed from the views of the Brethren of the Free Spirit (q.v.). (Herman Haupt.)
Bibliography: Henrieus Pomerius, De origine monasterii Viridisvallis, in Analecta Bollandiana, iv, 286, Paris, 1886; H. C. Lea, History of the Inquisition, ii, 377', Philadelphia, 1888; P. Fredericq, Corpus documentorum inquisitionis . . . Neerlandicce, I, 185 sqq., 266 sqq., The Hague, 1889; idem, De geheimzinnige ketterin Blcemcerdinne en de secte der " Nuwe " te Brussel, in Verslagen en Mededeelingen der koninkl. Akademie van Wetenschappen te Amsterdam, series 3, xii (1895), 77 sqq.; W. A. Jonckblcet, Geschiedenis der Nederlandsche letterkunde, ii, 270 sqq., 1889; A. Auger, Etude sur les mystiques ' de's Pays-Bas au moyen dge, in Memoires couronnes . par
Vacademie royale de Belgique, xlvi (1892), 149 sqq., 164.
BLONDEL, DAVID: French Protestant theologian; b. at Chalons-sur-Marne 1590; d. at Amsterdam 1655. He belonged to a noble family of Champagne; studied classics at the College of Sedan and theology at the Academy of Geneva; was called as pastor to Houdan (lie de France), then to Roucy on the estate of La Rochefoucauld. Because of his great knowledge of the Scriptures and of ecclesiastical history, he was chosen more than twenty times secretary of the provincial synod of lie de France. His writings in defense of the Protestants against their Roman Catholic opponents won for him a great reputation for scholarship. In 1631 he was appointed professor of divinity at Saumur, but his parish of Roucy declined to give him up. For his contributions to the history of the Reformation, the National Council of Charenton allowed him an annuity of 1,000 livres, enabling him to devote himself to his studies without fear of want. After the death of Vossius in 1650, he was appointed professor of history at the Ecole Illustre at Amsterdam. Pierre Bayle said of him: " He was a man who had an unbounded knowledge of religious and profane history " He was accused by the orthodox party of Arminianism and of indifference to his church; he also endured much from political opponents on account of an article against Cromwell written during the war between Great Britain and Holland. His works were in part: Modeste declaration de la sinctrite et verite des Eglises reformees de France (Sedan, 1619); Pseudo-Isidorus et Turrianus vapulantes (Geneva, 1628); Eclaircissements familiers de la controverse de V Eucharistie (Quevilly, 1641); De la prim ante en VEglise (Geneva, 1641); Des Sibylles, celebrees tant par I'antiquite payenne que par les Saints- Peres (Charenton, 1649); Actes authentiques des Eglises reformees de France, Germanic, Grande- Bretagne (Amsterdam, 1655).
G. Bonet-Matjry.
BLOOD-BROTHERHOOD. See Comparative Religion, VI, 1, b, § 6.
BLOOD-REVENGE: A custom nearly universal in the tribal or clan stage of society, often surviving later, binding the kin of a murdered man to secure satisfaction for the murder by the death of the slayer or of one of his clan. The custom depends upon two fundamentals of that stage of civilization: (1) the sacredness of life and the solidarity of the clan; (2) the lex talionis. Its essence is execution of the slayer or some of his
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