B E H
B E K
bf foul- leaves, fome broader, and others narrower ; the other kind, which produces the embryo fruit, is of the rofaceous fort, and "is compos'd of feveral petals, arrang'd in a circular form, and plac'd on a foliated cup, which finally becomes a trigonal alated fruit, divided into three cells, and containing fmall feeds.
The fpecies of begonia enumerated by M. Tourne- fort, are thefe. i- The great purple begonia, with auri- culated leaves. 2. The fmall fmooth begonia, with auricu- lated leaves, and rofe colour'd flowers. 3. The fmall hairy begonia, with auriculated leaves, and rofe-colnur'd flowers. 4. The begonia-, with ro(e-colour'd flowers, and with fharp- pomted auriculated and ferrated leaves. 5. The round-leav'd begonia, with rofe colour'd flowers. 6. The great begonia, with auriculated leaves, and fnow -white flowers. Town. Inft. Bot. p. 660. BEGU1NAGE fignifies a houfe, or convent of beguins, living in community. See 1>eguins, Cycl.
There were formerly magnificent beguinages at Amiens, and ether cities of the low countries, as well as in Picardy, and at Paris; but moll of them are gone to ruin, and their effedts fallen into other hands. The moft noted of thefe remaining is the beguinage of Mechlin, which is as large as a little town ; and faid to contain 1 5 or 16 hundred of thefe beguins, befides three times the number of boarders. Trcv. Diet. Univ. T. 1. P 9 01 - . e
The beguins pretend to derive their origin from St. Begha, or Begga, dutchefs of Brabant ; but the pretenfion feems only founded on the refemblance of name : Tho. Van Hoftum has a trcatife exprefs to fupport it a . Others derive the ap- pellation beguin from that of the veil wore on the head, called begga ; but this feems more probable to have been denomi- nated from them. — Others deduce the word from beghinen, to begin, as being the firft beginning or ftep towards a monadic Jife : others from a prieft, called Lambert le Begue, the real founder of the inftitute b . — [ a Le Long, Bib!. Hift. 1.2. e.g. Art. 7. p. 284. b Du Cange, Gloff. Lat. T. 1. p. 519. Cajenen. Orig. p. 27.] BEHEADING, a capital punifhment, wherein the head is fe- vered from the body by the stroke of an ax, fword, or other cutting inflrument.
Beheading was a military punifhment among the Romans, known by the names of decollare, decoltatio a . Among them the head was laid on a cippus or block, placed in a pit dug for thepurpofe; in the army, without the vallum ; in the city, without the walls, at a place near the porta decumana. Prepa- ratory to the ftroke, the criminal was tied to a ftake, and whipped with rods ; In the early ages the blow was given with an ax ; but in after-times with a fword, which was thought the more reputable manner of dying. The execution was but clumfily performed in the firft times; but afterwards they grew more expert, and took the head off clean, with one cir- cular ftroke b . — [ a Calv. Lex Jur. p. 263. b Aquln. Lex. Milit. T. 2. p. 286. Pitifc. Lex. Ant. T. r. p. 637.] In England and France, beheading is the punifhment of no- bles ; being reputed not to derogate from nobility, as hang- ing does. Trcv. Di£t. Univ. T. z. p. 529. In" Scotland they do not behead with an ax, as in England ; nor a fword, as in Holland and France; but with an edged in- ilrument called a maid, a piece of fteel a foot fquare, fharp on the lower fide, and loaden above with a heavy weight of lead, fcarce to be lifted, which is let fall, or Aide down be- tween the two cheeks, or mouldings of a frame, ten foot high, on the criminal's neck. Chamber/, Prefent State Brit.
P. 2. 1. 3. C 7. p. 447.
BEHEM, in the materia medica, the name given by the A- rabians to the root call'd afterwards behen ; and thence, by corruption and abbreviation, been and ben ; and, in confe- quence of that, confounded with the ben nut, or glans unguen- taria ; and by fome with the hermodactyl, call'd alfo behen by fome authors. The modern Greeks have call'd this pechem ; and divided, according to the cuftom of the Arabians, into white and red, and gave it the fame virtues.
BEHMISTS, Bohmenists, or Bohmists, a kind of myftic philofophcrs and followers of Jacob Behmen, commonly called the teutonic philofopher.
The bohmenijls are attached to that motley fpecies of philofo- phy firft introduced by Paracelfus, under the name of Theo- fophia, Schmid, Supp. ad Sagit. §. 1. p. 671. Behmen, or Bohmen, from whom the feet takes its denomi- nation, was born in 1575 near Gorlitz, and bred up to coun- try labour, having juft learning enough to read and write a little, which he acquired at ten years of age. In r6oo he was feized with a fp'iritual rapture, and ten years after began to compofe a book on the light he there received, entitled aurora, being a mixture of astrology, philofophy, chemiftry and divinity, written in a quaint obfeure style ; feven years after he wrote divers others on the fame model ; the chief is the myjlerium magnum. He died in 1624. All his works have been publifhed together at Amfterdam in 1682, 8vo. His tenets are, that there is a great darknefs among the ftars, where the devil holds his principality; that all arts and fciences flow from the fiderial fpirit of this world; that the fe- ven liberal arts proceeded from feven fpirits of nature ± that all
human things are compofed of the four firft properties, bitter*
four, heat, and pain, (Angore.J Gentzk. Hift. Philof. p-.
252.
Quirinus, Kuhlman, and Abr. a Franckenberg;, are the moft
diftinguifhed among the belmenifls. Gilbert Ifchcfchius, *nd
AntagnofTus, were great oppofers of behmenifin. Sagittar.
Introd. Hift. Ecclef. c. 39. §. 19.
Dr. Henry More has alfo a piece exprefs againft behmenifnh
Cenfura Philofophias Teutonics, printed in his works, pt
520.
3EHEMOTH, a huge animal mentioned in fcripture. con- cerning which interpreters are much divided. Job, c. 405 v -5> '5-
Franzius, Junius, Calvin, and others, take it for the ele- phant ; Bochart for the hippopotamus, or fea-horfe ; others for the ox; the fathers forthe devil. Grew, Muf. P. 1. §. 2. c. 1. p. 74. Phil. Tranf. N° 326. p. ^7. The word is Hebrew, where it literally signifies beaft in ge- neral, particularly the larger kind, fit for fervice. Calm. DicT Bibl. T. 1. p. 274.
I'EHEN, {Cyci.) in the materia medica, the name of a root kept in the fhops in fome places, but little ufed any where ; there are two kinds of it, the white and the red ; the red is the root of a fpecies of limoniuni or fea lavender, and the white of a fort of faw-wort, the ferratula? affinis capi- tulo fquammofo luteo, id et fore of Cafpar Bauhine. Potnefs Hift. of Drugs, p. 5c.
SEIBENL^E Stellar, a name given by fome aftronomers to the principal fixed itars in each conftellation. Vital. Lex. Math, p. ^4. Wolf. Lex. Math. p. 255, feq. The appellation is more particularly given to the ftars of the firft magnitude, otherwife called the hearts, tarda, of the fe- veral conftellations ; tho' fome would diftinguifh between corda t and bcibenits fella, restraining the former to ftars only of the firft magnitude, and extending the latter to feveral of the fecond, or even third. Vital. I.e.
Hermes has a treatife exprefs de Jlellis beibeniis, publifhed by Junctinus, in his fpeculum ajirologicum, and alfo in his com- mentaries upon Jo. de Sacrobofco's book defphara. Id. ibid.
BEIDELSAR, in botany, a name by which fome authors call the Syrian dogs bane, or apocynum fyriacum, a poifonous plant. Alpimts, ^Egypt. p. 85.
BEISSKER, in ichthyology, a name given by Gefner and o- thers to the fifh commonly called mujlda fojfilis : This is a fpecies of the cobitis, diftinguifhed by Artedi by the name of the blucifh cobitis, with fine black longitudinal lines on each fide. Schonefeldt calls this the pcecilia, and Jonfton the pifcis fojfilis. See Cobitis.
BETZA or Beizath, in Jewifli antiquity, a certain meafure irt ufe among the Jews j they fay that the beiza contains the fixth part of a log.
The beiza is alfo a fort of gold coin common among the Per- fians; it weighs forty drachma's, and from this word, not: from the city Byzantium, the bezam was formed. A bezam is worth two dinars, and every dinar twenty or five and twenty drachma's. Calm. Diet:. Bibl. in voc.
BEKKERANISM, or Bekkerianifm, the fyftem or fentiments of Balth. Bekker, who denied that fpirits can act: or operate ort bodies. Pfrjf- I ]1 fE Theol. p. 190.
The author of this fyftem was a Dutch divine, towards the clofeofthe 17th century, ftrongly impreffed with the Carte - fian principle, that the effence of fpirit confifts in thinkino- - hence he was led to conclude, that fpirits cannot act:, either on bodies, or on other fpirits ; he afferted, that it has not been proved, nor can it be proved by reafon, that any other fpirits exift befide the human mind : but he allows it may be proved from fcripture ; and it being from this alone we leam the ex- istence of fuch fpirits, 'tis from the fame we are to form our notions concerning their nature, and the meafure of their powers : that what the fcripture delivers concerning the ope- rations both of good and evil fpirits, is generally wrono- un- dcrftood, being not to be taken literally, but in a metaphori- cal fen fe; for that which God himfelf does, either immedi- ately, or by natural caufes, is in fcripture attributed to an- gels ; and this partly in order to accommodate himfelf to hu- man conception, and partly to raife and magnify our ideas of the divine majesty among men. Hence all the partakes in fcripture concerning the guardianfhip of angels, and their in- tercourfes with men, he interprets fo, as that by angels are understood other men, or other creatures, whofe agency God makes ufe of to avert mifchiefs, or procure good to men ; more particularly, that when God is faid to have notified, or revealed any thing to men by angels, it was effected only by making fome change in the matter, or manner of human vi-* fion ; particularly, that by the angels which appeared to A- braham, are to be understood men ; by thofe faid to have at- tended God, when he gave the law to the Jews, are to be un- derstood thunder, lightening, and other natural phenomena ; that by the angel, who went before the Ifraelites in the wil- dernefs, is to be understood a cloud. That by devils are fometimes meant wicked men, enemies to us, who either by open force or cunning endeavour to ruin us ; at other times our own corrupt defires, which fpur us on to the commission of divers crimes. On thefe principles he accounts for what is 9, faid
