of great importance, twelve of whtr-h had been collated by himself. In constituting the text, he imposed upon himself the singular restriction of not inserting any various reading which had not al ready been printed in some preceding edition of the Greek text. From this rule, however, he deviated in the case of the Apocalypse, where, owing to the corrupt state of the text, he felt himself at liberty to introduce some readings on manuscript authority. In the lower margin of the page he inserted a selection of various read ings, the relative importance of which he denoted by the first five letters of the Greek alphabet in the following manner : a was em ployed to denote the reading which in his judgment was the true one, although he did not venture to place it in the text ; j8, a read ing better than that in the text ; y, one equal to th textual read ing ; 5 and e, readings inferior to those in the text. Stephens s division into verses was retained in the inner margin, but the text was divided into paragraphs. The text was followed by a critical apparatus, the first part of which consisted of an introduction to the criticism of the New Testament, in the thirty-fourth section of which he laid down and explained his celebrated canon, " Proclivi Scriptioni prastat ardua" (" The more difficult reading to be pre ferred to that which is more easy"), the soundness of which, as a general principle, has been recognized by succeeding critics, al though it was objected to by his great opponent Wetstein, who, nevertheless, found " himself ultimately obliged to lay down some thing nearly to the same effect" (Scrivener). The second part of the critical apparatus was devoted to a consideration of the various readings, and here Bengel adopted the plan of stating the evidence both against and in favour of a particular reading, thus placing before the reader the materials for forming a judgment. It is a proof of Bengel s great critical sagacity that he was the first de finitely to propound the theory of families or recensions of MSS. His investigations had led him to see that a certain affinity or re semblance existed amongst many of the authorities for the Greek text MSS., versions, and ecclesiastical writers; that if a peculiar reading, e.g., were found in one of these, it was generally found also in the other members of the same class ; and this general re lationship seemed to point ultimately to a common origin for all the authorities which presented such peculiarities. Although dis posed at first to divide the various documents into three classes, he finally adopted a classification into two the African, or older family of documents, and the Byzantine, or more recent class, to which he attached only a subordinate value. The theory was afterwards adopted by Semler and Griesbach, and worked up into an elaborate system by the latter critic. Bengel s labours on the text of the Greek Testament were received with great disfavour in many quarters. Like Walton and Mill before him, he had to encounter the opposi tion of ignorant and fanatical individuals who believed that the certainty of the Word of God was endangered by the importance attached to the various readings, as if the received text were pos sessed of infallible authority. One of his opponents, Provost Kohl- reif, publicly challenged him to put the enemies of criticism to silence by admitting that even the various readings were given by inspiration, in order to meet the necessities of various classes of readers !_ Wetstein, on the other hand, accused him of excessive caution in not making freer use of his critical materials. In answer to these strictures, Bengel published a Defence of the Greek Text of his New Testament, which he prefixed to his Harmony of the Four Gospels, published in 1736, and which contained a sufficient answer to the misrepresentations, especially of Wetstein, which had been brought against him from so many different quarters. The text of Bengel long enjoyed a high reputation amongst scholars, and was frequently reprinted.
(B.) The other great work of Bengel, and that on which his reputation as an exegete is mainly based, is his Gnomon, or Exe- getical Annotations on the New Testament, published in 1742. It was the fruit of twenty years labour, and exhibits with a pregnant brevity of expression, which, it has been said, " condenses more mat ter into a line than can be extracted from pages of other writers," the results of his study of the sacred volume. He modestly entitled his work a Gnomon or index, his object being rather to guide the reader to ascertain the meaning for himself, than to save him from the trouble of personal investigation. The principles of interpreta tion on which he proceeded were, to import nothing into Scripture, but to draw out of it everything that it really contained, in con formity with grammatico-historical rules ; not to be hampered by dogmatical considerations ; and not to be influenced by the symboli cal books. Bengel s .hope that the Gnomon would help to rekindle a fresh interest in the study of the New Testament was fully rea lized. It has passed through many editions (latest 1850), has been translated into German and into English, and is still one of the books most highly prized by the expositor of the New Testament. It is a striking testimony to its value that John Wesley largely availed himself of it in writing his Expository Notes upon the New Testament, 1755, saying that he "believed he would much better serve the interests of religion by translating from the Gnomon than by writing many volumes "of his own notes." Later commentators nave not failed to follow Wesley s example.
Besides the two works already described, Bengel was the editor or author of many others, classical, patristic, ecclesiastical, and expository, which our limits do not allow us to discuss. We can only name two, viz., Ordo Temporum, a treatise on the chronology of Scripture, in which he enters upon speculations regarding the end of the world, and an Exposition of the Apocalypse, which en joyed for a time extraordinary popularity in Germany, and was translated into several foreign languages.
For full details regarding Bengel the reader is referred to the Memoir of his Life and Writings, by J. C. F. Burk, translated into English by Eev. R. F. Walker, London, 1837.
BENGUELA, a country on the western coast of Africa, situated to the south of Angola, between 10 and 17 S. lat., and extending from the River Coanza to the Cunene, which is otherwise known as Nourse, Rio das Trombas, Rio dos Elephantes. The country rises from the coast inwards till it attains a decidedly mountainous character. There is great abundance both of vegetable and animal life ; and the higher regions contain mines of copper, silver, iron, and salt. The inhabitants belong to the Congo race and speak the Bunda language. In 1G17 the Portuguese under ManoelCerveiraPereira founded the town of S. Felipe de Benguela near the mouth of the Cavaco, on the Bahia das Vacas (Santo Antonio, or Cone s Bay), in 12 34 S. lat. and 13 20 E. long. It was long the centre of an important trade, especially in slaves, but has now greatly declined. There is but little traffic, and no manufactures. Besides the churches of S. Felipe and S. Antonio, the hospital, and the fortress, there are only a few stone-built houses. The negro town of Catombela, about 8 miles distant, is in a more nourishing condition. A short way below Benguela is Bahia Tarta, where salt is manufactured and sulphur excavated. The town of Old Benguela is situated about 130 miles to the N". ; and about 80 miles in that direction lies the Presidio of Novo Redondo, where fortifications were erected in 17G9. Among the more important inland towns are Bihe, Bai- limdo, and Caconda, in the last of which the Portuguese have long had a fortress. The southern portion of Ben guela forms the separate government of Mossamedes, of which the capital of the same name is situated on the Bay of Mossamedes at the mouth of the River Bero (Rio das Mortes). The bay was formerly called Angra do Negro, and received its present designation in honour of Baron Mossamedes about 1785. The town, which is known to the natives as Mossongo-Bittolo, was not founded till 1840. The population of the whole territory of Ben guela is estimated at about 140,000.
BENICARLO, a city of Spain, in the province of Cas- tellon, on the coast of the Mediterranean. It is surrounded by ancient walls, and has a ruined castle. The manufacture of brandy is carried on, and the town is celebrated for its red wine, which is annually exported to Bordeaux for mixing with clarets and other French wines. The value of wine exported in 1869 was 9500. Population, 7000.
to the west of the main channel of the Niger. The name was formerly applied to the whole stretch of coast from the Volta, in 40 E. long., to the Rio del Rey or Riumbi, in 8 40 E. long., including what is now known as the Slave Coast, the whole delta of the Niger, and a small portion of the country to the eastward ; and some trace of this earlier application remains in the name of Bight of Benin, still given to that part of the sea which washes the Slave Coast. The kingdom of Benin seems at one time to have been one of the most powerful of Western Africa, and was known to Europeans in the 17th century as the Great Benin. Budagry and Lagos, now British posses sions, are both Beninese colonies. Benin has now been long in a state of decline, and the territory is broken up into independent states of no individual importance. Such
coherence, indeed, as still exists is rather ethnographical
