A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

BARNABAS, EPISTLE OF. The Epistle of St. Barnabas is published by Archbishop Wake, among his translations of the works of the Apostolical Fathers; and in the preliminary dissertation the reader will find the arguments which are adduced to prove this to be the work of St. Barnabas. By others it is referred to the second century, and is supposed to be the work of a converted Alexandrian Jew. Du Pin speaks of it as a work full of edification for the Church, though not canonical. By Clemens Alexandrinus and Origen, by Eusebius and St. Jerome, the work is attributed to St. Barnabas, though they declare that it ought not to be esteemed of the same authority as the canonical books, “because, although it really belongs to St. Barnabas, yet it is not generally received by the whole Catholic Church.”—Wake. Du Pin.

BARNABAS’ DAY (ST.). 11th of June. This apostle was born in the island of Cyprus, and was descended from parents of the house of Levi. He became a student of the Jewish law, under Gamaliel, who was also the instructor of St. Paul. St. Barnabas was one of those who freely gave up his worldly goods into the common stock, which was voluntarily formed by the earliest converts to Christianity. After the conversion of St. Paul, St. Barnabas had the distinguished honour of introducing him into the society of the apostles; and was afterwards his fellow-labourer in many places, especially at Antioch, where the name of Christian was first assumed by the followers of Jesus. It has been said that St. Barnabas founded the Church of Milan, and that he was stoned to death at Salamis, in Cyprus; but these accounts are very uncertain. For the Epistle ascribed to him, see the preceding article.

BARNABITES. Called canons regular of St. Paul: an order of Romish monks approved by Pope Clement VII. and Pope Paul III. There have been several learned men of the order, and they have several monasteries in France, Italy, and Savoy: they call them by the name of canons of St. Paul, because their first founders had their denomination from their reading St. Paul’s Epistles; and they are named Barnabites for their particular devotion for St. Barnabas.—Du Pin.

BARSANIANS, or SEMIDULITES. Heretics that began to appear in the sixth age; they maintained the errors of the Gradanaites, and made their sacrifices consist in taking wheat flour on the top of their finger, and carrying it to their mouths.

BARTHOLOMEW’S DAY (ST.). 24th of August. The day appointed for the commemoration of this apostle. In the catalogue of the apostles, which is given by the first three of the evangelists, Bartholomew makes one of the number. St. John, however, not mentioning him, and recording several things of another disciple, whom he calls Nathanael, and who is not named by the other evangelists, this has occasioned many to be of the opinion that Bartholomew and Nathanael were the same person. St. Bartholomew is said to have preached the gospel in the Greater Armenia, and to have converted the Lycaonians to Christianity. It is also believed that he carried the gospel into India: and as there is no record of his return, it is not improbable that he suffered martyrdom in that country.

St. Bartholomew’s day is distinguished in history on account of that horrid and atrocious carnage, called the Parisian Massacre. This shocking scene of religious phrensy was marked with such barbarity as would exceed all belief, if it were not attested by authentic evidence. In 1572, in the reign of Charles IX., numbers of the principal Protestants were invited to Paris, under a solemn oath of safety, to celebrate the marriage of the king of Navarre with the sister of the French king. The queen dowager of Navarre, a zealous Protestant, was poisoned by a pair of gloves before the marriage was solemnized. On the 24th of August, being St. Bartholomew’s day, about morning twilight, the massacre commenced on the tolling of a bell of the church of St. Germain l’Auxerrois. The Admiral Coligni was basely murdered in his own house, and then thrown out of a window, to gratify the malice of the Duke of Guise. His head was afterwards cut off, and sent to the king and the queen mother; and his body, after a thousand indignities offered to it, was hung up by the feet upon a gibbet. The murderers then ravaged the whole city of Paris, and put to death more than ten thousand persons of all ranks. “This,” says Thuanus, “was a horrible scene. The very streets and passages resounded with the groans of the dying, and of those who were about to be murdered. The bodies of the slain were thrown out of the windows, and with them the courts and chambers of the houses were filled. The dead bodies of others were dragged through the streets, and the blood flowed down the channels in such torrents, that it seemed to empty itself into the neighbouring river. In short, an innumerable multitude of men, women with child, maidens, and children, were involved in one common destruction; and all the gates and entrances to the king’s palace were besmeared with blood. From Paris, the massacre spread throughout the kingdom. In the city of Meaux, the Papists threw into gaol more than two hundred persons; and after they had ravished and killed a great number of women, and plundered the houses of the Protestants, they executed their fury on those whom they had imprisoned, whom they killed in cold blood, and whose bodies were thrown into ditches, and into the river Maine. At Orleans they murdered more than five hundred men, women, and children, and enriched themselves with the plunder of their property. Similar cruelties were exercised at Angers, Troyes, Bourges, La Charité, and especially at Lyons, where they inhumanly destroyed more than eight hundred Protestants, whose bodies were dragged through the streets and thrown half dead into the river. It would be endless to mention the butcheries committed at Valence, Roanne, Rouen, &c. It is asserted that, on this dreadful occasion, more than thirty thousand persons were put to death. This atrocious massacre met with the deliberate approbation of the pope and the authorities of the Romish Church, and must convince every thinking man that resistance to Popish aggression is a work of Christian charity.

BARUCH (THE PROPHECY OF). One of the apocryphal books, subjoined to the canon of the Old Testament. Baruch was the son of Neriah, who was the disciple and amanuensis of the prophet Jeremiah. It has been reckoned part of Jeremiah’s prophecy, and is often cited by the ancient fathers as such. Josephus tells us, Baruch was descended of a noble family; and it is said, in the book itself, that he wrote this prophecy at Babylon; but at what time is uncertain.—Clem. Alexand. Pædag. ch. 10. Cyprian. de Testimon. ad Quirinum, lib. ii.

The subject of it is an epistle sent, or feigned to be sent, by king Jehoiakim, and the Jews in captivity with him at Babylon, to their brethren the Jews, who were left behind in the land of Judea, and in Jerusalem: there is prefixed an historical Preface, (Pref. to the Book of Baruch,) which relates, that Baruch, being then at Babylon, did, by the appointment of the king and the Jews, and in their name, draw up this epistle, and afterwards read it to them for their approbation; after which it was sent to Jerusalem, with a collection of money, to Joachim the high priest, the son of Hilkiah, the son of Shallum, and to the priests, and to all the people, to buy therewith burnt-offerings, and sin-offerings, and incense, &c.

It is difficult to determine in what language this prophecy was originally written. There are extant three copies of it; one in Greek, the other two in Syriac; but which of these, or whether any one of them, be the original, is uncertain.—Hieron. in Præfat. ad Jerem.

The Jews rejected this book, because it did not appear to have been written in Hebrew; nor is it in the catalogue of sacred books, given us by Origen, Hilary, Ruffinus, and others. But in the Council of Laodicea, in St. Cyril, Epiphanius, and Athanasius, it is joined with the prophecy of Jeremiah.