Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/603

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BER—BER
585

the removal of the wharves from time to time nearer to the sea. The chief articles of export are wheat, barley, linseed, rapeseed, rye, and oats; and the imports include hardwares, fruits, oil, and petroleum, the last-named being used for the lighting of the town. Large deposits of coal exist in the basin of the Azoff, and Berdiansk would afford the greatest facilities for its exportation. In the immediate neighbour hood aro valuable salt-lagoons. Population in 1867,

12,223.

BERDICHEFF, a town of Russian-Poland, in the gov ernment of Kieff, 24 miles from Jitomir, on the Gnilopyat, and not far from the borders of Volhynia, to which it historically belongs. It consists of about a dozen main streets and a large number of cross lanes, by far the largest proportion of the houses being built of wood or brick. Besides the cathedral of the Assumption, finished in 1832, there are three or four other Greek churches, several syna gogues, and places of worship for Roman Catholics and others, besides a Carmelite convent. The market, the ex change, the theatre, the Jewish almshouse, and the Elizabeth hospital, are among the most important secular buildings. A large number of schools are maintained An extensive trade is carried on, both with the surrounding country and with Germany, in peltry, silk goods, iron and wooden wares, salt-fish, grain, cattle, and horses. Five great markets are held yearly, the most important being on 12th June and 15th August. Among numerous minor industries may be mentioned the manufacture of tobacco, soap, candles, oil, bricks, and leather. The population amounted in 1867 to 52,563, the Jews forming about 50,000 of the whole number.


Berdicheff is a place of some antiquity. In the treaty of demar cation between the Lithuanians and the Poles in 154G, it is assigned to the former. In the 16th century the Kievan waiwode, Yanut Tecshkevitch, built a castle in the village ; and in 1627 he founded a monastery for Carmelite monks, to which he shortly afterwards presented the castle. The monks built themselves a crypt, and, as Berdicheff was subject to the incursions of Cossacks and Tatars, surrounded their monastery with rampart and ditch. In 1647, however, it was taken and plundered by Chmclnetzlci, and the monks who had escaped did not return till 1663, and only obtained possession of their former property in 1717. In 1765 Stanislas Augustus, at the request of Prince Uadzevil, allowed the city to hold ten yearly markets, and from that date its commercial prosperity began. In 1768 Casimir Pulavski, leader of the confederacy of Barr, fled, after the capture of that city, to Berdicheff, and there, with 700 men, maintained himself during a siege of 25 days. During the Polish domination, Berdicheff was in the Vratislau vaiwodeship ; after its annexation to Russia it was assigned to Jitomir and Volhynia ; and in 1845 it was raised to be capital of a circle. In the beginning of the 18th century it had passed from the Teeshkevitch to the Zavpsh family, and from them was transferred by a marriage settlement to the Radzevils.

BERENGARIUS, a celebrated mediaeval theologian,

was born at Tours, 998 A.r>. He was educated in the famous school of Fulbert of Chartres, and early acquired a great reputation for learning, ability, and piety. Appointed in 1031 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 Exlwrtatory 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. About 1040 Berengar was made arch deacon of Angers. It was shortly after this that rumours began to spread of his holding heretical views regarding the sacrament of the supper. He had .submitted the doc trine of transubstantiation (already generally received both by priests and people, although it had been first unequivo cally taught and reduced to a regular theory by Paschasius Radbert only 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 teach ing 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, arch deacon of Lie"ge, 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 Ratramnus, he wrote to him a letter expressing his surprise, and urging him to reconsider the question. The letter arriving at Bee when Lanfranc was absent at Rome, was sent after him, but was opened before it reached him, and brought 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 influ ence 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 fierce and superstitious 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 sacra ment, 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 act ing, 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 wrong fully 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 Satanas," and the academy of Tours the " Babylon nostri temporis." An attempt was made at the Council of Poitiers in 1075 to allay the agitation caused by the controversy, but it failed, and Berengar narrowly escaped death in a tumult raised by fanatics. Hildebrand, now 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 con fession of faith drawn up in general terms ; but even this strong-minded and strong-willed Pontiff, although sincerely anxious to befriend the persecuted theologian, and fully alive to the monstrous character of the dogma of transub

stantiation as propounded by Pope Nicholas II. and