A Philosophical Dictionary, Volume 02

BREAD-TREE

The bread-tree grows in the Philippine islands, and principally in those of Guam and Tinian, as the cocoa-tree grows in the Indies. These two trees, alone, if they could be multiplied in our climate, would furnish food and drink sufficient for all mankind.

The bread-tree is taller and more bulky than our common apple-trees; its leaves are black, its fruit is yellow, and equal in dimensions to the largest apple. The rind is hard; and the cuticle is a sort of soft, white paste, which has the taste of the best French rolls; but it must be eaten fresh, as it keeps only twenty-four hours, after which it becomes dry, sour and disagreeable; but, as a compensation, the trees are loaded with them eight months of the year. The natives of the islands have no other food; they are all tall, stout, well made, sufficiently fleshy, and in the vigorous health which is necessarily produced by the use of one wholesome aliment alone: and it is to negroes that nature has made this present.

Corn is assuredly not the food of the greater part of the world. Maize and cassava are the food of all America. We have whole provinces in which the peasants eat none but chestnut bread, which is more nourishing and of better flavor than the rye or barley bread on which so many feed, and is much better than the rations given to the soldiers. Bread is unknown in all southern Africa. The immense Indian Archipelago, Siam, Laos, Pegu, Cochin-China, Tonquin, part of China, the Malabar and Coromandel coasts, and the banks of the Ganges, produce rice, which is easier of cultivation, and for which wheat is neglected. Corn is absolutely unknown for the space of five hundred leagues on the coast of the Icy Sea.

The missionaries have sometimes been in great tribulation, in countries where neither bread nor wine is to be found. The inhabitants told them by interpreters: "You would baptize us with a few drops of water, in a burning climate, where we are obliged to plunge every day into the rivers; you would confess us, yet you understand not our language; you would have us communicate, yet you want the two necessary ingredients, bread and wine. It is therefore evident that your universal religion cannot have been made for us." The missionaries replied, very justly, that good will is the one thing needful; that they should be plunged into the water without any scruple; that bread and wine should be brought from Goa; and that, as for the language, the missionaries would learn it in a few years.

BUFFOONERY – BURLESQUE – LOW COMEDY

He was a very subtle schoolman, who first said that we owe the origin of the word "buffoon" to a little Athenian sacrificer called Bupho, who, being tired of his employment, absconded, and never returned. The Areopagus, as they could not punish the priest, proceeded against his hatchet. This farce, which was played every year in the temple of Jupiter, is said to have been called "buffoonery." This story is not entitled to much credit Buffoon was not a proper name; bouphonos signifies an immolator of oxen. The Greeks never called any jest bouphonia. This ceremony, frivolous as it appears, might have an origin wise and humane, worthy of true Athenians.

Once a year, the subaltern sacrificer, or more properly the holy butcher, when on the point of immolating an ox, fled as if struck with horror, to put men in mind that in wiser and happier times only flowers and fruits were offered to the gods, and that the barbarity of immolating innocent and useful animals was not introduced until there were priests desirous of fattening on their blood and living at the expense of the people. In this idea there is no buffoonery.

This word "buffoon" has long been received among the Italians and the Spaniards, signifying mimus, scurra, joculator– a mimic, a jester, a player of tricks. Ménage, after Salmasius, derives it from bocca infiata– a bloated face; and it is true that a round face and swollen cheeks are requisite in a buffoon. The Italians say bufo magro– a meagre buffoon, to express a poor jester who cannot make you laugh.

Buffoon and buffoonery appertain to low comedy, to mountebanking, to all that can amuse the populace. In this it was – to the shame of the human mind be it spoken – that tragedy had its beginning: Thespis was a buffoon before Sophocles was a great man.

In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Spanish and English tragedies were all degraded by disgusting buffooneries. The courts were still more disgraced by buffoons than the stage. So strong was the rust of barbarism, that men had no taste for more refined pleasures. Boileau says of Molière:

But it must be considered that Raphael condescended to paint grotesque figures. Molière would not have descended so low, if all his spectators had been such men as Louis XIV., Condé, Turenne, La Rochefoucauld, Montausier, Beauvilliers, and such women as Montespan and Thianges; but he had also to please the whole people of Paris, who were yet quite unpolished. The citizen liked broad farce, and he paid for it. Scarron's "Jodelets" were all the rage. We are obliged to place ourselves on the level of our age, before we can rise above it; and, after all, we like to laugh now and then. What is Homer's "Battle of the Frogs and Mice," but a piece of buffoonery – a burlesque poem?

Works of this kind give no reputation, but they may take from that which we already enjoy.

Buffoonery is not always in the burlesque style, "The Physician in Spite of Himself," and the "Rogueries of Scapin," are not in the style of Scarron's "Jodelets." Molière does not, like Scarron, go in search of slang terms; his lowest characters do not play the mountebank. Buffoonery is in the thing, not in the expression.

Boileau's "Lutrin" was at first called a burlesque poem, but it was the subject that was burlesque; the style was pleasing and refined, and sometimes even heroic.

The Italians had another kind of burlesque, much superior to ours – that of Aretin, of Archbishop La Caza, of Berni, Mauro, and Dolce. It often sacrifices decorum to pleasantry, but obscene words are wholly banished from it. The subject of Archbishop La Caza's "Capitolo del Forno" is, indeed, that which sends the Desfontaines to the Bicêtre, and the Deschaufours to the Place de Grève: but there is not one word offensive to the ear of chastity; you have to divine the meaning.

Three or four Englishmen have excelled in this way: Butler, in his "Hudibras," which was the civil war excited by the Puritans turned into ridicule; Dr. Garth, in his "Dispensary"; Prior, in his "Alma," in which he very pleasantly makes a jest of his subject and Phillips, in his "Splendid Shilling."

Butler is as much above Scarron as a man accustomed to good company is above a singer at a pot-house. The hero of "Hudibras" was a real personage, one Sir Samuel Luke, who had been a captain in the armies of Fairfax and Cromwell. See the commencement of the poem, in the article "Prior," "Butler," and "Swift."

Garth's poem on the physicians and apothecaries is not so much in the burlesque style as Boileau's "Lutrin": it has more imagination, variety, and naivete than the "Lutrin"; and, which is rather astonishing, it displays profound erudition, embellished with all the graces of refinement. It begins thus:

Prior, whom we have seen a plenipotentiary in France before the Peace of Utrecht, assumed the office of mediator between the philosophers who dispute about the soul. This poem is in the style of "Hudibras," called doggerel rhyme, which is the stilo Berniesco of the Italians.

The great first question is, whether the soul is all in all, or is lodged behind the nose and eyes in a corner which it never quits. According to the latter system, Prior compares it to the pope, who constantly remains at Rome, whence he sends his nuncios and spies to learn all that is doing in Christendom.

Prior, after making a jest of several systems, proposes his own. He remarks that the two-legged animal, new-born, throws its feet about as much as possible, when its nurse is so stupid as to swaddle it: thence he judges that the soul enters it by the feet; that about fifteen it reaches the middle; then it ascends to the heart; then to the head, which it quits altogether when the animal ceases to live.

At the end of this singular poem, full of ingenious versification, and of ideas alike subtle and pleasing, we find this charming line of Fontenelle: "Il est des hochets pour tout âge." Prior begs of fortune to "Give us play-things for old age."

Yet it is quite certain that Fontenelle did not take this line from Prior, nor Prior from Fontenelle. Prior's work is twenty years anterior, and Fontenelle did not understand English. The poem terminates with this conclusion:

In all these poems, let us distinguish the pleasant, the lively, the natural, the familiar – from the grotesque, the farcical, the low, and, above all, the stiff and forced. These various shades are discriminated by the connoisseurs, who alone, in the end, decide the fate of every work.

La Fontaine would sometimes descend to the burlesque style – Phædrus never; but the latter has not the grace and unaffected softness of La Fontaine, though he has greater precision and purity.

BULGARIANS

These people were originally Huns, who settled near the Volga; and Volgarians was easily changed into Bulgarians.

About the end of the seventh century, they, like all the other nations inhabiting Sarmatia, made irruptions towards the Danube, and inundated the Roman Empire. They passed through Moldavia and Wallachia, whither their old fellow-countrymen, the Russians, carried their victorious arms in 1769, under the Empress Catherine II.

Having crossed the Danube, they settled in part of Dacia and Moesia, giving their name to the countries which are still called Bulgaria. Their dominion extended to Mount Hæmus and the Euxine Sea.

In Charlemagne's time, the Emperor Nicephorus, successor to Irene, was so imprudent as to march against them after being vanquished by the Saracens; and he was in like manner defeated by the Bulgarians. Their king, named Krom, cut off his head, and made use of his skull as a drinking-cup at his table, according to the custom of that people in common with all the northern nations.

It is related that, in the ninth century, one Bogoris, who was making war upon the Princess Theodora, mother and guardian to the Emperor Michael, was so charmed with that empress's noble answer to his declaration of war, that he turned Christian.

The Bulgarians, who were less complaisant, revolted against him; but Bogoris, having shown them a crucifix, they all immediately received baptism. So say the Greek writers of the lower empire, and so say our compilers after them: "Et voilà justement comme on écrit l'histoire."

Theodora, say they, was a very religious princess, even passing her latter years in a convent. Such was her love for the Greek Catholic religion that she put to death in various ways a hundred thousand men accused of Manichæism – "this being," says the modest continuator of Echard, "the most impious, the most detestable, the most dangerous, the most abominable of all heresies, for ecclesiastical censures were weapons of no avail against men who acknowledged not the church."

It is said that the Bulgarians, seeing that all the Manichæans suffered death, immediately conceived an inclination for their religion, and thought it the best, since it was the most persecuted one: but this, for Bulgarians, would be extraordinarily acute.

At that time, the great schism broke out more violently than ever between the Greek church, under the Patriarch Photius, and the Latin church, under Pope Nicholas I. The Bulgarians took part with the Greek church; and from that time, probably, it was that they were treated in the west as heretics, with the addition of that fine epithet, which has clung to them to the present day.

In 871, the Emperor Basil sent them a preacher, named Peter of Sicily, to save them from the heresy of Manichæism; and it is added, that they no sooner heard him than they turned Manichæans. It is not very surprising that the Bulgarians, who drank out of the skulls of their enemies, were not extraordinary theologians any more than Peter of Sicily.

It is singular that these barbarians, who could neither write nor read, should have been regarded as very knowing heretics, with whom it was dangerous to dispute. They certainly had other things to think of than controversy, since they carried on a sanguinary war against the emperors of Constantinople for four successive centuries, and even besieged the capital of the empire.

At the commencement of the thirteenth century, the Emperor Alexis, wishing to make himself recognized by the Bulgarians, their king, Joannic, replied, that he would never be his vassal. Pope Innocent III. was careful to seize this opportunity of attaching the kingdom of Bulgaria to himself: he sent a legate to Joannic, to anoint him king; and pretended that he had conferred the kingdom upon him, and that he could never more hold it but from the holy see.

This was the most violent period of the crusades. The indignant Bulgarians entered into an alliance with the Turks, declared war against the pope and his crusaders, took the pretended Emperor Baldwin prisoner, had his head cut off, and made a bowl of his skull, after the manner of Krom. This was quite enough to make the Bulgarians abhorred by all Europe. It was no longer necessary to call them Manichæans, a name which was at that time given to every class of heretics: for Manichæan, Patarin, and Vaudois were the same thing. These terms were lavished upon whosoever would not submit to the Roman church.

BULL

A quadruped, armed with horns, having cloven feet, strong legs, a slow pace, a thick body, a hard skin, a tail not quite so long as that of the horse, with some long hairs at the end. Its blood has been looked upon as a poison, but it is no more so than that of other animals; and the ancients, who wrote that Themistocles and others poisoned themselves with bull's blood, were false both to nature and to history. Lucian, who reproaches Jupiter with having placed the bull's horns above his eyes, reproaches him unjustly; for the eye of a bull being large, round, and open, he sees very well where he strikes; and if his eyes had been placed higher than his horns, he could not have seen the grass which he crops.

Phalaris's bull, or the Brazen Bull, was a bull of cast metal, found in Sicily, and supposed to have been used by Phalaris to enclose and burn such as he chose to punish – a very unlikely species of cruelty. The bulls of Medea guarded the Golden Fleece. The bull of Marathon was tamed by Hercules.

Then there were the bull which carried off Europa, the bull of Mithras, and the bull of Osiris; there are the Bull, a sign of the zodiac, and the Bull's Eye, a star of the first magnitude, and lastly, there are bull-fights, common in Spain.

BULL (PAPAL)

This word designates the bull, or seal of gold, silver, wax, or lead, attached to any instrument or charter. The lead hanging to the rescripts despatched in the Roman court bears on one side the head of St. Peter on the right, and that of St. Paul on the left; and, on the reverse, the name of the reigning pope, with the year of his pontificate. The bull is written on parchment. In the greeting, the pope takes no title but that of "Servant of the Servants of God," according to the holy words of Jesus to His Disciples – "Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant."

Some heretics assert that, by this formula, humble in appearance, the popes mean to express a sort of feudal system, of which God is chief; whose high vassals, Peter and Paul, are represented by their servant the pontiff; while the lesser vassals are all secular princes, whether emperors, kings, or dukes.

They doubtless found this assertion on the famous bull In cœna Domini, which is publicly read at Rome by a cardinal-deacon every year, on Holy Thursday, in the presence of the pope, attended by the rest of the cardinals and bishops. After the ceremony, his holiness casts a lighted torch into the public square in token of anathema.

This bull is, to be found in Tome i., p. 714 of the Bullaire, published at Lyons in 1673, and at page 118 of the edition of 1727. The oldest is dated 1536. Paul III., without noticing the origin of the ceremony, here says that it is an ancient custom of the sovereign pontiffs to publish this excommunication on Holy Thursday, in order to preserve the purity of the Christian religion, and maintain union among the faithful. It contains twenty-four paragraphs, in which the pope excommunicates:

1. Heretics, all who favor them, and all who read their books.

2. Pirates, especially such as dare to cruise on the seas belonging to the sovereign pontiff.

3. Those who impose fresh tolls on their lands.

10. Those who, in any way whatsoever, prevent the execution of the apostolical letters, whether they grant pardons or inflict penalties.

11. All lay judges who judge ecclesiastics, and bring them before their tribunal, whether that tribunal is called an audience, a chancery, a council, or a parliament.

12. All chancellors, counsellors, ordinary or extraordinary, of any king or prince whatsoever, all presidents of chanceries, councils, or parliaments, as also all attorneys-general, who call ecclesiastical causes before them, or prevent the execution of the apostolical letters, even though it be on pretext of preventing some violence.

In the same paragraph, the pope reserves to himself alone the power of absolving the said chancellors, counsellors, attorneys-general, and the rest of the excommunicated; who cannot receive absolution until they have publicly revoked their acts, and have erased them from the records.

20. Lastly, the pope excommunicates all such as shall presume to give absolution to the excommunicated as aforesaid: and, in order that no one may plead ignorance, he orders:

21. That this bull be published, and posted on the gate of the basilic of the Prince of the Apostles, and on that of St. John of Lateran.

22. That all patriarchs, primates, archbishops, and bishops, by virtue of their holy obedience, shall have this bull solemnly published at least once a year.

24. He declares that whosoever dares to go against the provisions of this bull, must know that he is incurring the displeasure of Almighty God and of the blessed apostles Peter and Paul.

The other subsequent bulls, called also In cœna Domini, are only duplicates of the first. For instance, the article 21 of that of Pius V., dated 1567, adds to the paragraph 3 of the one that we have quoted, that all princes who lay new impositions on their states, of what nature soever, or increase the old ones, without obtaining permission from the Holy See, are excommunicated ipso facto. The third bull In cœna Domini of 1610, contains thirty paragraphs, in which Paul V. renews the provisions of the two preceding.

The fourth and last bull In cœna Domini which we find in the Bullaire, is dated April 1, 1672. In it Urban VIII. announces that, after the example of his predecessors, in order inviolably to maintain the integrity of the faith, and public justice and tranquillity, he wields the spiritual sword of ecclesiastical discipline to excommunicate, on the day which is the anniversary of the Supper of our Lord:

1. Heretics.

2. Such as appeal from the pope to a future council; and the rest as in the three former.

It is said that the one which is read now, is of a more recent date, and contains some additions.

The History of Naples, by Giannone, shows us what disorders the ecclesiastics stirred up in that kingdom, and what vexations they exercised against the king's subjects, even refusing them absolution and the sacraments, in order to effect the reception of this bull, which has at last been solemnly proscribed there, as well as in Austrian Lombardy, in the states of the empress-queen, in those of the Duke of Parma, and elsewhere.

In 1580, the French clergy chose the time between the sessions of the parliament of Paris, to have the same bull In cœna Domini published. But it was opposed by the procureur-general; and the Chambre des Vacations, under the presidency of the celebrated and unfortunate Brisson, on October 4, passed a decree, enjoining all governors to inform themselves, if possible, what archbishops, bishops, or grand-vicars, had received either this bull or a copy of it entitled Litteræ processus, and who had sent it to them to be published; to prevent the publication, if it had not yet taken place; to obtain the copies and send them to the chamber; or, if they had been published, to summon the archbishops, the bishops, or their grand-vicars, to appear on a certain day before the chamber, to answer to the suit of the procureur-general; and, in the meantime, to seize their temporal possessions and place them in the hands of the king; to forbid all persons obstructing the execution of this decree, on pain of punishment as traitors and enemies to the state; with orders that the decree be printed and that the copies, collated by notaries, have the full force of the original.

In doing this, the parliament did but feebly imitate Philip the Fair. The bull Ausculta Fili, of Dec. 5, 1301, was addressed to him by Boniface VIII., who, after exhorting the king to listen with docility, says to him: "God has established us over all kings and all kingdoms, to root up, and destroy, and throw down, to build, and to plant, in His name and by His doctrine. Do not, then, suffer yourself to be persuaded that you have no superior, and that you are not subject to the head of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Whosoever thinks this, is a madman; and whosoever obstinately maintains it, is an infidel, separated from the flock of the Good Shepherd." The pope then enters into long details respecting the government of France, even reproaching the king for having altered the coin.

Philip the Fair had this bull burned at Paris, and its execution published on sound of trumpet throughout the city, by Sunday, Feb. 11, 1302. The pope, in a council which he held at Rome the same year, made a great noise, and broke out into threats against Philip the Fair; but he did no more than threaten. The famous decretal, Unam Sanctam is, however, considered as the work of his council; it is, in substance, as follows:

"We believe and confess a holy, catholic, and apostolic church, out of which there is no salvation; we also acknowledge its unity, that it is one only body, with one only head, and not with two, like a monster. This only head is Jesus Christ, and St. Peter his vicar, and the successor of St. Peter. Therefore, the Greeks, or others, who say that they are not subject to that successor, must acknowledge that they are not of the flock of Christ, since He himself has said (John, x, 16) 'that there is but one fold and one shepherd.'