Volume 4, Slice 1 Part 39 (2/2)
449-462; A. Hildebrand, _Boethius und seine Stellung zum Christentume_ (Regensburg, 1885); G. Schepps, ”Zu Pseudo-Boethius de fide catholica,” in _Zeitschrift fur wissenschaftliche Theologie_, x.x.xviii.
(1895).
BOG (from Ir. and Gael, _bogach, bog_, soft), a tract of soft, spongy, water-logged ground, composed of vegetation, chiefly mosses, in various stages of decomposition. This vegetable matter when partially decomposed forms the substance known as ”peat” (q.v.). When the acc.u.mulation of water is rapidly increased by excessive rainfall, there is a danger of a ”bog-slide,” or ”bog-burst,” which may obliterate the neighbouring cultivated land with a deposit of the contents of the bog. Destructive bog-slides have occurred in Ireland, such as that of the Knocknageeha Bog, Rathmore, Kerry, in 1896, at Castlerea, Roscommon, 1901, and at Kilmore, Galway, 1909.
There is a French game of cards called ”bog,” said to be of Italian origin, played with a piquet pack on a table with six divisions, one of which is known by the name of the game and forms the pool. It was fas.h.i.+onable during the Second Empire.
BOGATZKY, KARL HEINRICH VON (1690-1774), German hymn-writer, was born at Jankowe in Lower Silesia on the 7th of September 1690. At first a page at the ducal court of Saxe-Weissenfels, he next studied law and theology at Jena and Halle; but ill-health preventing his preferment he settled at Glancha in Silesia, where he founded an orphanage. After living for a time at Kostritz, and from 1740 to 1745 at the court of Christian Ernst, duke of Saxe-Coburg, at Saalfeld, he made his home at the Waisenhaus (orphanage) at Halle, where he engaged in spiritual work and in composing hymns and sacred songs, until his death on the 15th of June 1774. Bogatzky's chief works are _Guldenes Schatzkastlein der Kinder Gottes_ (1718), which has reached more than sixty editions; and _ubung der Gottseligkeit in allerlei geistlichen Liedern_ (1750).
See Bogatzky's autobiography--_Lebenslauf von ihm selbst geschrieben_ (Halle, 1801; new ed., Berlin, 1872); and Ledderhose, _Das Leben Bogatzky's_ (Heidelberg, 1846); also Kelly, _C.H. von Bogatzky's Life and Work_ (London, 1889).
BOGHAZ KEUI, a small village in Asia Minor, north-west of Yuzgat in the Angora vilayet, remarkable for the ruins and rock-sculptures in its vicinity. The ruins are those of a ruling city of the oriental type which flourished in the pre-Greek period; and they are generally identified with Pteria (q.v.), a place taken by Croesus after he had crossed the Halys (Herodotus i. 76).
BOGIE, a northern English dialect word of unknown origin, applied to a kind of low truck or ”trolly.” In railway engineering it is applied to an under-truck, most frequently with four wheels, which is often provided at one end of a locomotive or both ends of a carriage. It is pivoted or swivelled on the main frames, so that it can turn relatively to the body of the vehicle or engine, and thus it enables the wheels readily to follow the curves of the line. It has no connexion with the series of words, such as ”bogey” or ”bogy,” ”bogle,” ”boggle,” ”bogart”
(in Shakespeare ”bug,” ”bugs and goblins”), which are probably connected with the Welsh _bwg_, a spectre; hence the verb to ”boggle,” properly applied to a horse which s.h.i.+es at supposed spectres, and so meaning to hesitate, bungle.
BOGNOR, a seaside resort in the Chichester parliamentary division of Suss.e.x, England, 66 m. S.S.W. from London by the London, Brighton & South Coast railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 6180. Besides the parish church there is a Roman Catholic priory and church. The town possesses a pier and promenade, a theatre, a.s.sembly rooms, and numerous convalescent homes, including an establishment belonging to the Merchant Taylors' Company. The church of the mother parish of South Bersted is Norman and Early English, and retains a fresco of the 16th century.
BOGo, a town of the province of Cebu, island of Cebu, Philippine Islands, on Bogo Bay at the mouth of the Bulac river, in the north-east part of the island. Pop. (1903) 14,915. The climate is hot but healthy.
The surrounding country is fertile, producing sugar, Indian corn, and maguay in abundance; rice, cacao and fruits are also produced. Hats, baskets, cloths and rope are woven and are exported to a limited extent; small quant.i.ties of copra are also exported. The fisheries are of considerable local importance. The language is Cebu-Visayan.
BOG.o.dUKHOV, a town of Russia, in the government of Kharkov, 45 m. by rail N.W. of the city of that name, in 49 58' N. lat. and 36 9' E.
long., was formerly fortified. Pop. (1860) 10,522; (1897) 11,928. There seems to have been a settlement on this site as early as 1571. In 1709, at the time of the Russo-Swedish War, BoG.o.dukhov was taken by Mens.h.i.+kov and the emperor Alexius. It contains a cathedral, built in 1793. Boots, caps and furred gowns are manufactured, and gardening and tanning are carried on. The trade is princ.i.p.ally in grain, cattle and fish.
BOGOMILS, the name of an ancient religious community which had its origin in Bulgaria. It is difficult to ascertain whether the name was taken from the reputed founder of that sect, a certain pope Bogumil or Bogomil, or whether he a.s.sumed that name after it had been given to the whole sect. The word is a direct translation into Slavonic of _Ma.s.saliani_, the Syrian name of the sect corresponding to the Greek Euchites. The Bogomils are identified with the Ma.s.saliani in Slavonic doc.u.ments of the 13th century. They are also known as _Pavlikeni_, i.e.
Paulicians. It is a complicated task to determine the true character and the tenets of any ancient sect, considering that almost all the information that has reached us has come from the opponents. The heretical literature has to a great extent either perished or been completely changed; but much has also survived in a modified written form or through oral tradition. Concerning the Bogomils something can be gathered from the information collected by Euthymius Zygadenus in the 12th century, and from the polemic _Against the Heretics_ written in Slavonic by St Kozma during the 10th century. The old Slavonic lists of forbidden books of the 15th and 16th centuries also give us a clue to the discovery of this heretical literature and of the means the Bogomils employed to carry on their propaganda. Much may also be learnt from the doctrines of the numerous heretical sects which arose in Russia after the 11th century.
The Bogomils were without doubt the connecting link between the so-called heretical sects of the East and those of the West. They were, moreover, the most active agents in disseminating such teachings in Russia and among all the nations of Europe. They may have found in some places a soil already prepared by more ancient tenets which had been preserved in spite of the persecution of the official Church, and handed down from the period of primitive Christianity. In the 12th and 13th centuries the Bogomils were already known in the West as ”Bulgari.” In 1207 the _Bulgarornm heresis_ is mentioned. In 1223 the Albigenses are declared to be the local _Bougres_, and at the same period mention is made of the ”Pope of the Albigenses who resided within the confines of Bulgaria.” The Cathars and Patarenes, the Waldenses, the Anabaptists, and in Russia the Strigolniki, Molokani and Dukhobortsi, have all at different times been either identified with the Bogomils or closely connected with them.
_Doctrine._--From the imperfect and conflicting data which are alone available one positive result can be gathered, viz. that the Bogomils were both Adoptionists and Manichaeans. They had accepted the teaching of Paul of Samosata, though at a later period the name of Paul was believed to be that of the Apostle; and they were not quite free from the Dualistic principle of the Gnostics, at a later period too much identified with the teaching of Mani. They rejected the pneumatic Christianity of the orthodox churches and did not accept the docetic teaching of some of the other sects. Taking as our starting-point the teaching of the heretical sects in Russia, notably those of the 14th century, which are a direct continuation of the doctrines held by the Bogomils, we find that they denied the divine birth of Christ, the personal coexistence of the Son with the Father and Holy Ghost, and the validity of sacraments and ceremonies. The miracles performed by Jesus were interpreted in a spiritual sense, not as real material occurrences; the Church was the interior spiritual church in which all held equal share. Baptism was only to be practised on grown men and women. The Bogomils repudiated infant baptism, and considered the baptismal rite to be of a spiritual character neither by water nor by oil but by self-abnegation, prayers and chanting of hymns. Carp Strigolnik, who in the 14th century preached this doctrine in Novgorod, explained that St Paul had taught that simple-minded men should instruct one another; therefore they elected their ”teachers” from among themselves to be their spiritual guides, and had no special priests. Prayers were to be said in private houses, not in separate buildings such as churches.
Ordination was conferred by the congregation and not by any specially appointed minister. The congregation were the ”elect,” and each member could obtain the perfection of Christ and become a Christ or ”Chlist.”
Marriage was not a sacrament. The Bogomils refused to fast on Mondays and Fridays. They rejected monachism. They declared Christ to be the Son of G.o.d only through grace like other prophets, and that the bread and wine of the eucharist were not transformed into flesh and blood; that the last judgment would be executed by G.o.d and not by Jesus; that the images and the cross were idols and the wors.h.i.+p of saints and relics idolatry.
These Paulician doctrines have survived in the great Russian sects, and can be traced back to the teachings and practice of the Bogomils. But in addition to these doctrines of an adoptionist origin, they held the Manichaean dualistic conception of the origin of the world. This has been partly preserved in some of their literary remains, and has taken deep root in the beliefs and traditions of the Bulgarians and other nations with whom they had come into close contact. The chief literature of all the heretical sects throughout the ages has been that of apocryphal Biblical narratives, and the popes Jeremiah or Bogumil are directly mentioned as authors of such forbidden books ”which no orthodox dare read.” Though these writings are mostly the same in origin as are known from the older lists of apocryphal books, they underwent in this case a certain modification at the hands of their Bogomil editors, so as to be used for the propagation of their own specific doctrines. In its most simple and attractive form--one at the same time invested with the authority of the reputed holy author--their account of the creation of the world and of man; the origin of sin and redemption, the history of the Cross, and the disputes between body and soul, right and wrong, heaven and h.e.l.l, were embodied either in ”Historiated Bibles”
(Paleya[1]) or in special dialogues held between Christ and his disciples, or between renowned Fathers of the Church who expounded these views in a simple manner adapted to the understanding of the people (Lucidaria). The Bogomils taught that G.o.d had two sons, the elder Satanail and the younger Michael. The elder son rebelled against the father and became the evil spirit. After his fall he created the lower heavens and the earth and tried in vain to create man; in the end he had to appeal to G.o.d for the Spirit. After creation Adam was allowed to till the ground on condition that he sold himself and his posterity to the owner of the earth. Then Michael was sent in the form of a man; he became identified with Jesus, and was ”elected” by G.o.d after the baptism in the Jordan. When the Holy Ghost (Michael) appeared in the shape of the dove, Jesus received power to break the covenant in the form of a clay tablet (_hierographon_) held by Satanail from Adam. He had now become the angel Michael in a human form; as such he vanquished Satanail, and deprived him of the termination _-il_ = G.o.d, in which his power resided. Satanail was thus transformed into Satan. Through his machinations the crucifixion took place, and Satan was the originator of the whole Orthodox community with its churches, vestments, ceremonies, sacraments and fasts, with its monks and priests. This world being the work of Satan, the perfect must eschew any and every excess of its pleasure. But the Bogomils did not go as far as to recommend asceticism.
They held the ”Lord's Prayer” in high respect as the most potent weapon against Satan, and had a number of conjurations against ”evil spirits.”
Each community had its own twelve ”apostles,” and women could be raised to the rank of ”elect.” The Bogomils wore garments like mendicant friars and were known as keen missionaries, travelling far and wide to propagate their doctrines. Healing the sick and conjuring the evil spirit, they traversed different countries and spread their apocryphal literature along with some of the books of the Old Testament, deeply influencing the religious spirit of the nations, and preparing them for the Reformation. They sowed the seeds of a rich religious popular literature in the East as well as in the West. The Historiated Bible, the Letter from Heaven, the Wanderings through Heaven and h.e.l.l, the numerous Adam and Cross legends, the religious poems of the ”Kaleki perehozhie” and other similar productions owe their dissemination to a large extent to the activity of the Bogomils of Bulgaria, and their successors in other lands.
_History._--The Bogomil propaganda follows the mountain chains of central Europe, starting from the Balkans and continuing along the Carpathian Mountains, the Alps and the Pyrenees, with ramifications north and south (Germany, England and Spain). In the middle of the 8th century the emperor Constantine Cop.r.o.nymus settled a number of Armenian Paulicians in Thracia. These were noted heretics and were persecuted by the Greek Church with fire and sword. The empress Theodora killed, drowned or hanged no fewer than 100,000. In the 10th century the emperor John Zimisces, himself of Armenian origin, transplanted no less than 200,000 Armenian Paulicians to Europe and settled them in the neighbourhood of Philippopolis, which henceforth became the centre of a far-reaching propaganda. Settled along the Balkans as a kind of bulwark against the invading Bulgars, the Armenians on the contrary soon fraternized with the newcomers, whom they converted to their own views; even a prince of the Bulgarians adopted their teaching. According to Slavonic doc.u.ments the founder of this sect was a certain priest Bogumil, who ”imbibed the Manichaean teaching and flourished at the time of the Bulgarian emperor Peter” (927-968). According to another source the founder was called Jeremiah (or there was another priest a.s.sociated with him by the name of Jeremiah). The Slavonic sources are unanimous on the point that his teaching was Manichaean. A Synodikon from the year 1210 adds the names of his pupils or ”apostles,” Mihail, Todur, Dobri, Stefan, Vasilie and Peter, all thoroughly Slavonic names. Zealous missionaries carried their doctrines far and wide. In 1004, scarcely 15 years after the introduction of Christianity into Russia, we hear of a priest Adrian teaching the same doctrines as the Bogomils. He was imprisoned by Leontie, bishop of Kiev. In 1125 the Church in the south of Russia had to combat another heresiarch named Dmitri. The Church in Bulgaria also tried to extirpate Bogomilism. The popes in Rome whilst leading the Crusade against the Albigenses did not forget their counterpart in the Balkans and recommended the annihilation of the heretics.
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