BERTHOLD OF RORBACH: Heretical mystic; d. 1356. He appears first in Würzburg, where he was tried on a charge of teaching heresy, but saved himself by recantation of the doctrines attributed to him. He was again brought to trial at Speyer in 1356, but this time refused to recant and was burned. The accounts of his teaching show him as an adherent of the quietistic mysticism of the

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Brothers of the Free Spirit, sharing their disbelief in the meritoriousness of prayer and asceticism; those who are "enlightened by God," laymen as well as priests, may preach the Gospel and change bread and wine into the divine substance. The strange and shocking views attributed to him on the passion of Christ can scarcely be reconciled with his other teachings, and have probably come down in a distorted form.

(HERMAN HAUPT.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY: A. Jundt, Histoire du panthéisme populaire du moyen âge, p. 105, Paris, 1875; H. Haupt, Die religiösen Sekten in Franken, p. 8, Würzburg, 1882.

BERTHOLD THE CARMELITE. See CARMELITES.

BERTHOLDT, LEONHARD: Professor at Erlangen; b. at Emskirchen (14 m. w.n.w. of Nuremberg), Bavaria, May 8, 1774; d. at Erlangen Mar. 22, 1822. He studied at Erlangen and became professor extraordinary on the philosophical faculty 1805; full professor of theology 1810, in recognition of his work upon Daniel (2 vols., Erlangen, 1806-08). His principal work was the Historischkritische Einleitung in die sämmtlichern kanonischen und apokryphischen Schriften des Alten und Neuen Testaments (6 vols., 1812). Of less interest is his Einleitung in die theologischen Wissenschaften (2 vols., 1821-22); and of still less, his Handbuch der Dogmengeschichte (2 vols., 1822-23). As a teacher, however, and as editor of the Kritisches Journal der neuesten theologischen Litteratur, one of the principal organs of the rationalistic party, his activity was stimulating in many ways.

BERTHOLET, bär"tö"lê', ALFRED: Swiss Protestant; b. at Basel Nov. 9, 1868. He was educated at the universities of his native city, Strasburg, and Berlin, and, after being FrancoGerman pastor at Leghorn, in 1892-93, became privet-docent for Old Testament exegesis in the university of his native city in 1896. In 1899 he was appointed associate professor of the same subject, and in 1905 was promoted to his present position of full professor. He was general secretary of the Second International Congress for the History of Religion held at Basel in 1904, and has prepared the commentaries on Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Ruth, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Ezekiel in K. Marti's Kurzer Handkommentar zum Alten Testament (5 vols., Freiburg and Tübingen, 1897-1902), and has written Der Verfassungsgesetzentwurf des Hesekiel in seiner religionsgeschichtlichen Bedeutung (Freiburg, 1896); Die Stellung der Israeliten und der Juden zu den Fremden (1896); Zu Jesaja 53 (1899); Die israelitischen Vorstellungen vom Zustand nach dem Tode (Tübingen, 1899); Buddhismus und Christentum (1902); Die Gefilde der Seligen (1903); Seelenwanderung (Halle, 1904); Der Buddhismus und seine Bedeutung für unser Geistesleben (Tübingen, 1904); and the section on the Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha in K. Budde's Geschichte der althebräischen Literatur (Leipsice,1906).