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great period of his literary activity. By a careful economy of time, he was able to discharge his official duties, and yet to possess sufficient leisure for theological study. Of the various productions of his pen, which appeared during his residence at Gotha, the following are specially worthy of note. In 1820 was published his treatise on the gospel of St John, entitled Probabilia de Evanyelii et Epistolarum Joannis Apostoll indole et origine eruditorum judiciis modeste subjecit K. G. Bretschneider. The sensation which this work produced was immense. In it he collected together with great fulness, and discussed with marked moderation of tone, the various arguments which seem to prove the non-Johanniue authorship of the gospel. As might have been expected, it called forth a host of replies, several of which proceeded from some of the ablest scholars and divines of the day. To the astonishment of every one, Bretschneider announced in the preface to the second edition of his Dogmatik in 1822, that he had never believed iu the non-authenticity of tho gospel, that he had only published his Probabilia to draw attention to the subject, aud to call forth a more complete defence of its genuine ness, an object which he considered had now been fully accomplished. Whatever may have been the effect pro duced on the mind of Bretschneider himself by the various replies which appeared, they certainly did not remove the doubts of others, for the controversy still appears as far from being definitely settled as it was when the Probabilia appeared more than half a century ago. Bretschneider remarks in his autobiography that the publication of this work had the effect of preventing his appointment as suc cessor to Tittmann in Dresden, the minister Von Einsiedel violently opposing the proposal of the city council to call Bretschneider to the office, and denouncing him as the

" slanderer of John" (Der Johannis Schdnder).

The work by which Bretschneider conferred the greatest service upon the science of exegesis was his Lexicon Manuale Grceco-Latinum in libros Novi Testamenti, which appeared in 1824, and which attained a third edition in 1840. This work is valuable for the use which its author made of the Greek of the Septuagint, of the Old and New Testament Apocrypha, of Josephus, and of the apostolic fathers in illustration of the language of the New Testament.

Bretschneider s dogmatic writings were very numerous, and many of them passed through several editions. The only one which has been translated into English is his Manual of the Religion and History of the Christian Church, which appeared in 1857.

The dogmatic position of Bretschneider seems to be intermediate between the extreme school of naturalists, such as Paulus, Bohr, and Wegscheider on the one hand, and that of Strauss and Baur on the other. Recognizing a supernatural element in Scripture, he nevertheless allowed to the full the critical exercise of reason in the interpreta tion of its dogmas. As a theologian he was deficient in speculative power, and his writings are marked by a cortain dryness. His mental strength lay in the possession of a clear, cool judgment, which he never allowed to be influenced by feeling, and in the faculty of untiring industry.


For further information the reader is referred to his autobiography, Aus Meinen Leben : Selbstbiographie von Karl Gottlieb Bretschneider, Gotha, 1851, of which a translation, with notes, by Professor George E. Day, appeared in the Bibliotheca Sacra and American Biblical llepo.sitory, Nos. 36 and 38, 1852, 1853.

(f. c.)

BREUGHEL, Jan, a Flemish painter, son of Peeter Breughel, was born at Brussels about the year 1569. He first applied himself to painting flowers and fruits, and afterwards acquired considerable reputation by his land scapes and sea-pieces. After residing long at Cologne he travelled into Italy, where his landscapes, adorned with small figures, were greatly admired. He left a large number of pictures, chiefly landscapes, which are executed with great skill. Rubens made use of Breughel s hand in the landscape part of several of his small pictures, such as his Vertumnus and Pomona, the Satyr viewing the Sleeping Nymph, and the Terrestrial Paradise, which by some is regarded as the masterpiece of that great artist. Breughel died in 1642.

BREUGHEL, Peeter, a Flemish painter, was the son of a peasant residing in the village of Breughel near Breda. After receiving instruction in painting from Koek, whose daughter he married, he spent some time in France and Italy, and then went to Antwerp, where he was elected into the Academy in 1551. He finally settled at Brussels and died there. The subjects of his pictures are chiefly humo rous figures, like those of D. Teniers ; and if he wants the delicate touch and silvery clearness of that master, he has abundant spirit and comic power. He is said to have died about the year 1570 at the age of 60; other accounts give 1590 as the date of his death. Several other painters of the name Breughel attained to some distinction.

BREVIARIUM ALARICANUM, a collection of Roman

law, compiled by order of Alaric II., king of the Visigoths, with the advice of his bishops and nobles, in the twenty- second year of his reign (506 A.D.) It comprises sixteen books of the Theodosian code ; the Novells of Theodosius II., Valentinianus III., Marcianus, Majorianus, aud Se- verus ; the Institutes of Gaius ; five books of the Sentential Receptor of Julius Paulus ; thirteen titles of the Gregorian code ; two titles of the Hermogenian code ; and a fragment of the first book of the Responsa Papiani. It is termed a code (codex) in the certificate of Anianus, the king s referendary, but unlike the code of Justinian, from which the writings of jurists were excluded, it comprises both imperial constitutions (leges) and juridical treatises (Jura). From the circumstance that the Breviarium has prefixed to it a royal rescript (commonitoriuin) directing that copies of it, certified under the hand of Anianus, should be received exclusively as law throughout the kingdom of the Visigoths, the compilation of the code has been attributed to Anianus by many writers, and it is frequently designated the Breviary of Anianus (Breviarium Aniani). The code, however, appears to have been known amongst the Visi goths by the title of " Lex Romana," or " Lex Theodosii," and it was not until the 16fch century that the title of "Breviarium" was introduced to distinguish it from a recast of the code, which was introduced into Northern Italy in the 9th century for the use of the Romans in Lombardy. This recast of the Visigothic code has been preserved in a MS. known as the Codex Utinensis, which was formerly kept in the archives of the cathedral of Udine, but is now lost ; and it was published in the last century for the first time by Canciani in his collection of ancient laws entitled Barbaromm Leges Antique. It has been published in the present century by Walter in his Corpus Juris Germanici, Berolini, 1824. Another MS. of this Lombard recast of the Visigothic code has lately been discovered by Hanel in the library of St Gall. Neither of these MSS. comprises the whole of the Visigothic code, and it is the opinion of very competent scholars that the Lex Romana of the Lombards did not contain any portion of the Gregorian or Hemogenian code, nor the fragment of the Responsa Papiani. The chief value of the Visigothic code consists in the fact, that it is the only collection of Roman Law in which the five first books of the Theodosian code aud five books of the Sentential Rccepta; of Julius Paulus have been preserved, and until the discovery of a MS. in the chapter library in Verona, which contained the greater part of the Institutes of Gaius, it was the only work in which

any portion of the institutional writings of that great jurist