BRETEUIL. 466 BRETHREN OF THE LORD. BRETEUIL, brc-teV, Louis Auguste Le To.NXELiJiR, Baron de r'reuilly (1733-1807). A French dii)lomat and statesman. He was ap- pointed, in 1758, after several years of military service, envoy to the Elector of (ilo<rne. and Minister to Sweden in 1760. Subsequently he Was also Minister at Vienna and Naples. In 1783-87 he was Minister of State, a steadfast royalist, opposed to all concessions to the Third Instate. In 178(1 he was appointed to succeed Necker, but his ministry was brought speedily to a termination by the capture of the Bastille. Having counseled the King to escape across the frontier and seek foreign aid. he himself with- drew to Solothurn, Switzerland, where he was appointed royal agent to treat with foreign powers regarding the restoration of the mon- archy. In 1802 he was permitted to return to France, but thenceforth took no part in polities. BRETHREN, Bohemiaj,'. The name of a re- ligious society which was first instituted in Bohemia about the middle of the Fifteenth Cen- tury. It was originally composed of remnants of the Hussites. Dissatisfied with the conduct of the Calixtines (see Hussites), they went, in 1453, to the borders of Silesia and Jloravia, where they settled. Here they dwelt in separate communities, and were distinguished by the name of Brothers of the Rule of Christ. Their adversaries often confounded them with the Waldenses and Picards, while, on account of their being compelled during persecutions to hide in eaves and solitary places, they were also called cave-dwellers {(Inihenheimer) . In spite of op- pression, such was the constancy of their faith and purity of their morals, that they became profoiuidly respected, and their numbers greatly increased. The chief peculiarity of their creed was the denial of the Catholic doctrine of tran- substantiation ; but in truth they rejected tra- dition generally, and professed to found their tenets only on" the Bible. Their ecclesiastical constitution and church discipline — of which the Lutheran reformers spoke liighly — was a close imitation of that of the primitive Christian communities. I'nder the impression that reli- gion should consciously penetrate and charac- terize the entire life of men. they extended ec- clesiastical authority over the very details of domestic life. Their chief functionaries were bishops, seniors and conseniors, presbyters or preachers, sediles, and acolytes. The nucleus of the sect was the following of Peter Chelczicky, a layman of the nobility. To them Rokyzana. the iltraquist leader, sent Oregor in 1457, and he led them when persecution broke out to Kun- wald, in Bohemia, near Kiiniggriitz, whence, how- ever, they were driven to the mountains. Gregor died in 1474. Their next great man was Luke of Prague, who brought them into literary contact with the Waldenses. The latter translated some of their writings, and these translations have frequently been taken for original Waldensian works; for the Bohemian Brethren had literary intercourse with the Waldenses, but the difler- enccs between them prevented union. They had also ecclesiastical intercourse, for their bishop, Matthias of Kunwald, was consecrated by a bish- op of the Bohemian Waldenses. It was against their principles to engage in war; and having on several occasions refused to take up arms, they were at last deprived of their religious privi- leges. The result was that in 1548 about a thousand of the Brethren removed to Poland and Prussia. The contract which these exiles entered into with the Polish reformers at Sandomir, April 14. 1570, and still more the religious peace concluded by the Polish States in 1572, secured their toleration; but subsequently, inconsequence of the persecutions of King Sigismund III., they united themselves more closely to the Protestants, though even at the present day they retain some- thing of their old ecclesiastical constitution. The Brethren who remained in Bohemia and Moravia obtained a little freedom under the Enii>eror Maximilian II., and had their chief seat at Ful- nek, in Jloravia. In the Seventeenth Century a number removed into Hungary, but during the reign of ilaria Theresa were coerced into Cathol- icism. The Thirty Years' War, so disastrous to the Bohemian Protestants, entirely broke up the societies of the Bohemian Brethren; but after- wards they united again, though in secrecy. Their exodus about 1722 occasioned the forma- tion, in Lusatia, of the United Brethren, or Herrnhuters. See Moravians. BRETHREN, Plymouth. See Pltmouth Bbetiirkx. BRETHREN, River. See RivEB Brethren;, The. BRETHREN, White. A sect of the Fif- teenth Century, that sprang up in the Italian Alps. Their leader claimed to be Elias the prophet. They were clad in white, and carried crucifixes from which blood a])peared to come. The leader, who apjiears to have left no name, prophesied the destruction of the world, and for a time had great success; but Boniface IX. seized the prophet and burned him at the stake, and within a year the sect passed out of exist- ence. BRETHREN OF THE LORD, The. A term which occurs but once in the New Testament ( I. Cor. ix. 5 : "Have we no right to lead about a wife that is a believer, even as the rest of the apostles and the brethren of the Lord and Cephas?"), though the phrase 'the Lord's brother' is used once of James (Gal. i. 19: "But other of the apostles saw I none, save James, the Lord's brother.") . In view of these and other passages that refer apparently to actual brothers and sisters of Jesus, giving the names of the former as James and .loses (Joseph) and .Judas iuul Simon (Matt. xii. 4()-50; and parallels, .xiii. 55; x.xviii. 10; Mark vi. 3; John ii. 12; vii. 3, 5, 10; xx. 17; -Acts i. 14), there has existed, ever since the Patristic Age, a large controversy regarding the degree of consanguinity involved in the above term. Three views have obtained: ( 1 ) The Helvidian — first asserted by Tertullian (c.208 a.d.) and restated by Helvidius (c.380 A.n.) — that these brethren were later sons of Mary by .Joseph, the reputed father of .Jesus. (2) The Epiphanian — first appearing in the Second Century apocry- phal books, the Gospel of Peter and the Prote- vangclium of James, and chiefly supported by Kpiphanius (c.370 a.d.) — that these brethren were sons of Joseph by a former marriage. (3) The Ilieronj-mian — promulgated by Jerome (c.380 A.D.) — that these brethren were cousins of .Jesus, being sons of Clopas or Alphsus, the husband of a sister of Mary.
