BENOIST (BENOIT), RENÉ: Roman Catholic theologian; b. at Savenières, near Angers, in 1521; d. at Paris Mar. 7, 1608. He accompanied Mary

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Stuart to Scotland as her confessor in 1561; after his return to France was appointed pastor of the church of St. Eustache in Paris in 1569, and played a conspicuous part in the controversies of the Ligue as one of the leaders of the opposition to the Guises and the Ultramontanes. In 1566 he published a translation of the Bible, which, however, was little more than a reprint of the Geneva translation; it has been said that he knew little of either Hebrew or Greek. The translation was condemned by the theological faculty of the University of Paris in 1567 and by Pope Gregory XIII in 1575, and Benoist was expelled from the Sorbonne in 1572. He was reinstated by Henry IV and, to reenter the faculty, subscribed his own condemnation. He exasperated the Ultramontanes still more by maintaining that the king did not forfeit his right to the throne by professing the Protestant faith. He had influence in bringing about Henry's change of faith, and the latter made him his confessor and appointed him bishop of Troyes, but the pope refused confirmation, and in 1604 he had to renounce the office. He was a voluminous writer.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: J. C. F. Hoefer, Biographie générale, v, 395, 46 vols., Paris, 1852-66; C. du Plessis d'Argentré; Collectio judiciorum, II, i, 392-393, 533-534, 3 vols., Paris, 1728-36.

BENRATH, KARL: German Protestant theologian; b. at Düren (22 m. s.w. of Cologne) Aug. 16, 1845. He was educated at the universities of Bonn, Berlin, and Heidelberg (1864-67), and taught in his native city until 1871. From 1871 to 1875 he studied in Italy, chiefly in Rome. In 1876 he became privat-docent at Bonn and associate professor in 1879. In 1890 he was called to Königsberg as professor of church history. He has written Bernardino Ochino von Siena (Leipsic, 1875); Die Quellen der italienischen Reformationsgeschichte (Bonn, 1876); Geschichte der Reformation in Venedig (Halle, 1887); and Julia Gonzaga (1900). He has also edited Die Summa der heiligen Schrift, ein Zeugniss aus dem Zeitalter der Reformation (Leipsic, 1880); Luther's Schrift an den christlichen Adel deutscher Nation (Halle, 1884); and K. R. Hagenbach's Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte (6th ed., Leipsic, 1889).

BENSLY, ROBERT LUBBOCK: Orientalist; b. at Eaton (2 m. s.w. of Norwich), Norfolk, England, Aug. 24,1831; d. at Cambridge Apr. 23, 1893. He was educated at King's College, London, and Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge; studied in Germany; was appointed reader in Hebrew at Gonville and Caius College 1863; elected fellow 1876; became lecturer in Hebrew and Syriac in his college; was made professor of Arabic 1887; examiner is the Hebrew text of the Old Testament in the University of London; was a member of the Old Testament Revision Company; accompanied Mrs. Lewis and Mrs. Gibson on the trip to Sinai on which the palimpsest of the Syriac Gospels was discovered (see BIBLE VERSIONS, A, III, 1, § 2). He has edited The Missing Fragment of the Latin Translation o f the Fourth Book of Ezra, discovered and edited with an Introduction and Notes (Cambridge, 1875); contributed The Harklean Version of Heb. xi, 28-xiii, 25 to the Proceedings of the Congress of Orientalists of 1889; assisted in the editing of the Sinaitic palimpsest; edited IV Maccabees (to which he devoted twenty-seven years of labor), published posthumously (Cambridge, 1895); wrote Our Journey to Sinai, Visit to the Convent of St. Catarina, with a chapter on the Sinai Palimpsest (London, 1896); edited St. Clement's Epistles to the Corinthians in Syriac (London, 1899).

BIBLIOGRAPHY: H. T. Francis, In Memoriam R. L. Bensly, Cambridge, 1893; DNB; Supplement, vol. i, 171.