Part 9

The various spoken dialects, though apparently very unlike each other, are not more dissimilar than are Portuguese, Spanish, French and Italian, and their differences are doubtless attributable to the lack of a literary standard. Even where different words are used, there is evidence of a common stem from which the various branches have sprung. The great difficulty of satisfactory comparison arises from the fact that few of the Beber dialects possess any writings. The _Tawahhid_ (The Unity of God), said to have been written in Moroccan Berber and believed to be the oldest African work in existence, except Egyptian and Ethiopic, was the work of the Muwahhadi leader, Ibn Tumart the Mahdi, at a time when the officials of the Kairawan mosque were dismissed because they could not speak Berber. Most of the writings found, however, have been in the form of inscriptions, chiefly on ornaments. A collection of the various signs of the alphabet has shown thirty-two letters, four more than Arabic. De Slane, in his notes on the Berber historian Ibn Khaldun, shows the following points of similarity to the Semitic class:--its tri-literal roots, the inflections of the verb, the formation of derived verbs, the genders of the second and third persons, the pronominal affixes, the aoristic style of tense, the whole and broken plurals and the construction of the phrase. Among the peculiar grammatical features of Berber may be mentioned two numbers (no dual), two genders and six cases, and verbs with one, two, three and four radicals, and imperative and aorist tense only. As might be expected the Berber tongue is most common in Morocco and the western Sahara--the regions where Arab dominion was least exercised. When Arabic is mentioned as the language of Morocco it is seldom realized how small a proportion of its inhabitants use it as their mother tongue. Berber is the real language of Morocco, Arabic that of its creed and government.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.--General A. Hanoteau and A. Letourneux, _La Kabylie et les coutumes kabyles_ (3 vols., Paris, 1872-1873); D. Randall-MacIver and Antony Wilkin, _Libyan Notes_ (London, 1901); Antony Wilkin, _Among the Berbers of Algeria_ (London, 1900); G. Sergi, _The Mediterranean Race_ (London, 1901), and _Africa, Antropologia della Stirpe Comitica_ (Turin, 1897); Henri Duveyrier, _Exploration du Sahara_ (1864), _Les Progres de la geographie en Algerie_ (1867-1871), _Bull. de la Soc. Khediviale de Geog_. (1876); E. Renan, "La Societe Berbere," _Revue des deux mondes_, vol. for 1873; M.G. Olivier, "Recherches sur l'origine des Berberes," _Bull. de l'Acad. d'Hippone_ (1867-1868); F.G. Rohlfs, _Reise durch Marokko_ (1869); _Quer durch Afrika_ (1874-1875); General Faidherbe, _Collection complete des inscriptions numidiques (lybiques)_ (1870), and _Les Dolmens d'Afrique_ (1873); H.M. Flinders Petrie in _The Academy_, 20th of April 1895; Jules Lionel, _Races berberes_ (1894); Sir H.H. Johnston, "A Journey through the Tunisian Sahara," _Geog. Journal_, vol. xi., 1898; De Slane's translation of Ibn Khaldun, _Hist, des Berberes_ (Algiers, 1852); W.Z. Ripley, _Races of Europe_ (London, 1900); Dr Malbot, "Les Chaouias" in _L'Anthropologie_, 1897 (p. 14); General Faidherbe and Dr Paul Topinard, _Instructions sur l'anthropologie de l'Algerie_ (Paris, 1874); E.T. Hamy, _La Necropole berbere d'Henchir el-'Assel_ (Paris, 1896), and _Cites et necropoles berberes de l'Enfida (Tunisie moyenne) (ib._ 1904).

Berber dictionaries:--_Venture de Paradis_ (Paris, 1844); Brosselard (_ib._ 1844); Delaporte (_ib._ 1844, by order of minister of war); J.B. Creusat, _Essai de dictionnaire francais-kabyle_ (Algiers, 1873); A. Hanoteau, _Essai de grammaire de la langue tamachek, &c._ (Paris, 1860); Minutoli, _Siwah Dialect_ (Berlin, 1827).

Folklore, &c.:--J. Riviere, _Recueil de contes populaires de la Kabylie_ (1882); R. Basset, _Contes populaires berberes_ (1887); P. le Blanc de Prebois, _Essai de contes kabyles, avec traduction en francais_ (Batna, 1897); H. Stumine, _Marchen der Berbern van Tamazratt in Sudtunisien_ (Leipzig, 1900).

BERCEUSE (Fr. for a "lullaby," from _berceau_, a cradle), a cradle-song, the German _Wiegenlied_, a musical composition with a quiet rocking accompaniment.

BERCHEM (or BERGHEM), NICOLAAS (1620-1683), Dutch painter, was born at Haarlem. He received instruction from his father (Pieter Claasz van Haarlem) and from the painters Van Goyen, Jan Wils and Weenix. It is not known why he called himself Berchem (or Berighem, and other variants). His pictures, of which he produced an immense number, were in great demand, as were also his etchings and drawings. His landscapes are highly esteemed; and many of them have been finely engraved by John Visscher. His finest pictures are at the Amsterdam Museum and at the Hermitage, St Petersburg.

BERCHTA (English Bertha), a fairy in South German mythology. She was at first a benevolent spirit, the counterpart of Hulda in North German myth. Later her character changed and she came to be regarded as a witch. In Pagan times Berchta had the rank of a minor deity.

BERCHTESGADEN, a town of Germany, beautifully situated on the south-eastern confines of the kingdom of Bavaria, 1700 ft. above the sea on the southern declivity of the Untersberg, 6 m. S.S.E. from Reichenhall by rail. Pop. (1900) 10,046. It is celebrated for its extensive mines of rock-salt, which were worked as early as 1174. The town contains three old churches, of which the early Gothic abbey church with its Romanesque cloister is most notable, and some good houses. Apart from the salt-mines, its industries include toys and other small articles of wood, horn and ivory, for which the place has long been famous. The district of Berchtesgaden was formerly an independent spiritual principality, founded in 1100 and secularized in 1803. The abbey is now a royal castle, and in the neighbourhood a hunting-lodge was built by King Maximilian II. in 1852.

BERCK, a bathing resort of northern France, in the department of Pas-de-Calais, 25 m. S. of Boulogne by rail. Pop. (1906) 7638. It comprises two parts--Berck-Ville, 1-1/2 m. from the shore, and Berck-Plage, the latter with a fine sandy beach. There are two children's hospitals, the climate proving peculiarly beneficial in the treatment of scrofulous affections. About 150 boats are employed in the fisheries, and herrings form the staple of an active trade. Boat-building and fish-curing are carried on.

BERDICHEV, a town of W. Russia, in the government of Kiev, 116 m. S.W. of Kiev by rail and not far from the borders of Volhynia. The cathedral of the Assumption, finished in 1832, is the principal place of worship. The fortified Carmelite monastery, founded in 1627, was captured and plundered by Chmielnicki, chief of the Zaporogian Cossacks, in 1647, and disestablished in 1864. An extensive trade is carried on in peltry, silk goods, iron and wooden wares, salt fish, grain, cattle and horses. Four fairs are held yearly, the most important being on the 12th of June and the 15th of August. The numerous minor industries include the manufacture of tobacco, soap, candles, oil, bricks and leather. Pop. (1867) 52,563; (1897) 53,728, Jews forming about 80%. In the treaty of demarcation between the Lithuanians and the Poles in 1546 Berdichev was assigned to the former. In 1768 Pulaski, leader of the confederacy of Bar, fled, after the capture of that city, to Berdichev, and there maintained himself during a siege of twenty-five days. The town belongs to the Radziwill family.

BERDYANSK, a seaport town of Russia, in the government of Taurida, on the north coast of the Sea of Azov, in 46 deg. 45' N. lat. and 36 deg. 40' E. long. The principal industries are in bricks and tiles, tallow and macaroni. The roads are protected from every wind except the south, which occasions a heavy surf; but against this a mole was constructed in 1863. The chief articles of export are cereals, flour, wool, hemp, skins and fish; and the imports include hardwares, fruits, oil and petroleum. In the immediate neighbourhood are salt-lagoons. Pop. (1867) 12,223; (1900) 29,168.

BEREA, a town of Madison county, Kentucky, U.S.A., 131 m. by rail S. of Cincinnati. Pop. (1900) 762. Berea is served by the Louisville & Nashville railway. It is pleasantly situated on the border between the Blue Grass and the Mountain regions. The town is widely known as the seat of Berea College, which has done an important work among the mountaineers of Kentucky and of Tennessee. The college has about 70 acres of ground (and about 4000 acres of mountain land for forestry study), with a large recitation hall, a library, a chapel (seating 1400 persons), a science hall, an industrial hall, a brick-making plant, a woodwork building, a printing building, a tabernacle for commencement exercises and other buildings. In 1908 Berea had 65 instructors and 1150 students; and it paid the tuition of 141 negro students in Fisk University (Nashville, Tennessee) and in other institutions. The school out of which Berea College has developed was founded in the anti-slavery interests in 1855. An attempt was made to procure for it a college charter in 1859, but the slavery interests caused it to be closed before the end of that year and it was not reopened until 1865, the charter having then been obtained, as Berea College. Negroes as well as whites were admitted until 1904, when education of the two races at the same institution was prohibited by an act of the state legislature (upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1908). This act did not, however, prohibit an institution from maintaining separate schools for the two races, provided these schools were at least 25 m. apart, and a separate school for the negroes was at once projected by Berea.

BEREKHIAH NAQDAN, Jewish fabulist, author of a collection of _Fox Fables_, written in Hebrew. As his title implies (Naqdan=punctuator of the Biblical text), Berekhiah was also a grammarian. He further wrote an ethical treatise and was the author of various translations. His date is disputed. Most authorities place him in the 13th century, but J. Jacobs has identified him with Benedictus le Puncteur, an English Jew of the 12th century.

BERENGARIUS [BERENGAR] (d. 1088), medieval theologian, was born at Tours early in the 11th century; he was educated in the famous school of Fulbert of Chartres, but even in early life seems to have exhibited great independence of judgment. Appointed superintendent of the cathedral school of his native city, he taught with such success as to attract pupils from all parts of France, and powerfully contributed to diffuse an interest in the study of logic and metaphysics, and to introduce that dialectic development of theology which is designated the scholastic. The earliest of his writings of which we have any record is an _Exhortatory Discourse_ to the hermits of his district, written at their own request and for their spiritual edification. It shows a clear discernment of the dangers of the ascetic life, and a deep insight into the significance of the Augustinian doctrine of grace. Sometime before 1040 Berengar was made archdeacon of Angers. It was shortly after this that rumours began to spread of his holding heretical views regarding the sacrament of the eucharist. He had submitted the doctrine of transubstantiation (already generally received both by priests and people, although in the west it had been first unequivocally taught and reduced to a regular theory by Paschasius Radbert in 831) to an independent examination, and had come to the conclusion that it was contrary to reason, unwarranted by Scripture, and inconsistent with the teaching of men like Ambrose, Jerome and Augustine. He did not conceal this conviction from his scholars and friends, and through them the report spread widely that he denied the common doctrine respecting the eucharist. His early friend and school companion, Adelmann, archdeacon of Liege, wrote to him letters of expostulation on the subject of this report in 1046 and 1048; and a bishop, Hugo of Langres, wrote (about 1049) a refutation of the views which he had himself heard Berengar express in conversation. Berengar's belief was not shaken by their arguments and exhortations, and hearing that Lanfranc, the most celebrated theologian of that age, strongly approved the doctrine of Paschasius and condemned that of "Scotus" (really Ratramnus), he wrote to him a letter expressing his surprise and urging him to reconsider the question. The letter, arriving at Bec when Lanfranc was absent at Rome (1050), was sent after him, but was opened before it reached him, and Lanfranc, fearing the scandal, brought it under the notice of Pope Leo IX. Because of it Berengar was condemned as a heretic without being heard, by a synod at Rome and another at Vercelli, both held in 1050. His enemies in France cast him into prison; but the bishop of Angers and other powerful friends, of whom he had a considerable number, had sufficient influence to procure his release. At the council of Tours (1054) he found a protector in the papal legate, the famous Hildebrand, who, satisfied himself with the fact that Berengar did not deny the real presence of Christ in the sacramental elements, succeeded in persuading the assembly to be content with a general confession from him that the bread and wine, after consecration, were the body and blood of the Lord, without requiring him to define how. Trusting in Hildebrand's support, and in the justice of his own cause, he presented himself at the synod of Rome in 1059, but found himself surrounded by zealots, who forced him by the fear of death to signify his acceptance of the doctrine "that the bread and wine, after consecration, are not merely a sacrament, but the true body and the true blood of Christ, and that this body is touched and broken by the hands of the priests, and ground by the teeth of the faithful, not merely in a sacramental but in a real manner." He had no sooner done so than he bitterly repented his weakness; and acting, as he himself says, on the principle that "to take an oath which never ought to have been taken is to estrange one's self from God, but to retract what one has wrongfully sworn to, is to return back to God," when he got safe again into France he attacked the transubstantiation theory more vehemently than ever. He continued for about sixteen years to disseminate his views by writing and teaching, without being directly interfered with by either his civil or ecclesiastical superiors, greatly to the scandal of the multitude and of the zealots, in whose eyes Berengar was "ille apostolus Satanae," and the academy of Tours the "Babylon nostri temporis." An attempt was made at the council of Poitiers in 1076 to allay the agitation caused by the controversy, but it failed, and Berengar narrowly escaped death in a tumult. Hildebrand, now pope as Gregory VII., next summoned him to Rome, and, in a synod held there in 1078, tried once more to obtain a declaration of his orthodoxy by means of a confession of faith drawn up in general terms; but even this strong-minded and strong-willed pontiff was at length forced to yield to the demands of the multitude and its leaders; and in another synod at Rome (1079), finding that he was only endangering his own position and reputation, he turned unexpectedly upon Berengar and commanded him to confess that he had erred in not teaching a change _as to substantial reality_ of the sacramental bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. "Then," says Berengar, "confounded by the sudden madness of the pope, and because God in punishment for my sins did not give me a steadfast heart, I threw myself on the ground, and confessed with impious voice that I had erred, fearing the pope would instantly pronounce against me the sentence of condemnation, and, as a necessary consequence, that the populace would hurry me to the worst of deaths." He was kindly dismissed by the pope not long after, with a letter recommending him to the protection of the bishops of Tours and Angers, and another pronouncing anathema on all who should do him any injury or call him a heretic. He returned home overwhelmed with shame and bowed down with sorrow for having a second time been guilty of a great impiety. He immediately recalled his forced confession, and besought all Christian men "to pray for him, so that his tears might secure the pity of the Almighty." He now saw, however, that the spirit of the age was against him, and hopelessly given over to the belief of what he had combated as a delusion. He withdrew, therefore, into solitude, and passed the rest of his life in retirement and prayer on the island of St Come near Tours. He died there in 1088.

Berengar left behind him a considerable number of followers. All those who in the middle ages denied the substantial presence of the body and blood of Christ in the eucharist were commonly designated Berengarians. They differed, of course, in many respects, even in regard to the nature of the supper. Berengar's own views on the subject may be thus summed up:--1. That bread and wine should become flesh and blood and yet not lose the properties of bread and wine was, he held, contradictory to reason, and therefore irreconcilable with the truthfulness of God. 2. He admitted a change (_conversio_) of the bread and wine into the body of Christ, in the sense that to those who receive them they are transformed by grace into higher powers and influences--into the true, the intellectual or spiritual body of Christ. The unbelieving receive the external sign or _sacramentum_; but the believing receive in addition, although invisibly, the reality represented by the sign, the _res sacramenti_. 3. He rejected the notion that the sacrament of the altar was a constantly renewed sacrifice, and held it to be merely a commemoration of the one sacrifice of Christ. 4. He dwelt strongly on the importance of men looking away from the externals of the sacrament to the spirit of love and piety. The transubstantiation doctrine seemed to him full of evil, from its tendency to lead men to overvalue what was sensuous and transitory. 5. He rejected with indignation the miraculous stories told to confirm the doctrine of transubstantiation. 6. Reason and Scripture seemed to him the only grounds on which a true doctrine of the Lord's supper could be rested. He attached little importance to mere ecclesiastical tradition or authority, and none to the voice of majorities, even when sanctioned by the decree of a pope. In this, as in other respects, he was a precursor of Protestantism.

The opinions of Berengar are to be ascertained from the works written in refutation of them by Adelmann, Lanfranc, Guitmund, &c.; from the fragments of the _De sacr. coena adv. Lanfr. liber_, edited by Staudlin (1820-1829); and from the _Liber posterior_, edited by A.F. and F.T. Vischer (1834). See the collection of texts by Sudendorf (1850); the _Church Histories_ of Gieseler, ii. 396-411 (Eng. trans.), and Neander, vi. 221-260 (Eng. trans.); A. Harnack's _History of Dogma_, Haureau's _Histoire de la philosophie scolastique_, i. 225-238; Hermann Reuter, _Geschichte der religiosen Aufklarung des Mittelalters_, vol. i. (Berlin, 1875); L. Schwabe, _Studien zur Geschichte des Zweilen Abendmahlstreits_ (1887); and W. Broecking, "Bruno von Angers und Berengar von Tours," in _Deutsche Zeitichrift fur Geschichtewissenschaft_ (vol. xii., 1895).

BERENGER, ALPHONSE MARIE MARCELLIN THOMAS (1785-1866), known as Berenger de la Drome, French lawyer and politician, son of a deputy of the third estate of Dauphine to the Constituent Assembly, was born at Valence on the 31st of May 1785. He entered the magistracy and became _procureur general_ at Grenoble, but resigned this office on the restoration of the Bourbons. He now devoted himself mainly to the study of criminal law, and in 1818 published _La Justice criminelle en France_, in which with great courage he attacked the special tribunals, provosts' courts or military commissions which were the main instruments of the Reaction, and advocated a return to the old common law and trial by jury. The book had a considerable effect in discrediting the reactionary policy of the government; but it was not until 1828, when Berenger was elected to the chamber, that he had an opportunity of exercising a personal influence on affairs as a member of the group known as that of constitutional opposition. His courage, as well as his moderation, was again displayed during the revolution of 1830, when, as president of the parliamentary commission for the trial of the ministers of Charles X., he braved the fury of the mob and secured a sentence of imprisonment in place of the death penalty for which they clamoured.

His position in the chamber was now one of much influence, and he had a large share in the modelling of the new constitution, though his effort to secure a hereditary peerage failed. Above all he was instrumental in framing the new criminal code, based on more humanitarian principles, which was issued in 1835. It was due to him that, in 1832, the right, so important in actual French practice, was given to juries to find "extenuating circumstances" in cases when guilt involved the death penalty. In 1831 he had been made a member of the court of appeal (_cour de cassation_), and the same year was nominated a member of the academy of moral and political sciences. He was raised to the peerage in 1839. This dignity he lost owing to the revolution of 1848; and as a politician his career now ended. As a judge, however, his activity continued. He was president of the high courts of Bourges and Versailles in 1840. Having been appointed president of one of the chambers of the court of cassation, he devoted himself entirely to judicial work until his retirement, under the age limit, on the 31st of May 1860. He now withdrew to his native town, and occupied himself with his favourite work of reform of criminal law. In 1833 he had shared in the foundation of a society for the reclamation of young criminals, in which he continued to be actively interested to the end. In 1851 and 1852, on the commission of the academy of moral sciences, he had travelled in France and England for the purpose of examining and comparing the penal systems in the two countries. The result was published in 1855 under the title _La Repression penale, comparaison du systeme penitentiaire en France et en Angleterre._ He died on the 15th of May 1866.

His son, RENE BERENGER (1830- ), continued the work of his father, and at the outbreak of the revolution of 1870 was _avocat general_ of Lyons. He served as a volunteer in the Franco-German War, being wounded at Nuits on the 28th of December. Returned to the National Assembly by the department of Drome, he was for a few days in 1873 minister of public works under Thiers. He then entered the senate, of which he was vice-president from 1894 to 1897. He founded in 1871 a society for the reclamation of discharged prisoners, and presided over various bodies formed to secure improvement of the public morals. He succeeded Charles Lucas in 1890 at the Academy of Moral and Political Science.

BERENICE, or BERNICE, the Macedonian forms of the Greek Pherenice, the name of (A) five Egyptian and (B) two Jewish princesses.

(A) 1. BERENICE, daughter of Lagus, wife of an obscure Macedonian soldier and subsequently of Ptolemy Soter, with whose bride Eurydice she came to Egypt as a lady-in-waiting. Her son, Ptolemy Philadelphus, was recognized as heir over the heads of Eurydice's children. So great was her ability and her influence that Pyrrhus of Epirus gave the name Berenicis to a new city. Her son Philadelphus decreed divine honours to her on her death. (See Theocritus, _Idylls_ xv. and xvii.)