240
BALANUS
BALTHERE
tiou, but that of forming matrimonia. Mgage-meuts with forbidden races; it was not* the lessan infraction of the Mosaic law (Lev. xviii.), tobe repudiated for its consequences and results.To a 7 ropvela capable of being cloked with a kindof legitimacy, but incapable of honest andChristian results, the churches of Pergamus andThyatira were in danger of being seduced. Theabstinence recommended in the decree of thechurch at Jerusalem (Acts xv.), was to bewi'ested into tolerating elbco\6Qvra and tt opveia.Men would allege themselves able to indulgetheir sin, and themselves continue sinless.
Such miserable imposture was denounced withan earnestness and eloquence worthy of Moses orElijah. These “Apostles” are “liars;” “theyare not Jews, but the synagogue of Satan,”“ their doctrine the depths of Satanto yield tothem is to forfeit the hitherto glorious praise of“holding fast the name and not denying thefaith of the Lord: ” to resist them and overcomethem is to be rewarded “ with the food of thehidden manna, and a knowledge of the newname which no man knoweth.”
For the literature upon this subject seeNicolaitans. [J. M. F.]
BALANUS (BALLOIN, BALLONUS)—Sept. 3. Given in the Table of Mart. Doneg.,, byMar. O’Gorm., Oath. Maguire, &c. He is said byColgan (Adi SS. p. 602, n. 5 ) to have been brotherof St. Gerald (March 13), and one of the four sonsof Cusperius, king of England (unknown). WhenColman, bishop of Lindisfarne, resigned his seeafter the Synod of Whitby in 664, Balanus andhis brothers accompanied him to Iona, and re-tired with him into Connaught in Ireland.Balanus took up his residence at Techsaxon—“ the house of the Saxons,” named probablyfrom himself and brothers—in the parish ofAth-na-riogh (Athenry and diocese of Tuam).(Grub, Eccl. Hist. Scot. i. 88-97; Bede, E. H.iii. c. 27; iv. 4.) He flourished in the close ofthe seventh and beginning of the eighth centuries(see Colgan’s Life of St. Gerald (March 13) in ActaSS. p. 599 sq. and notes). [A. P. F.]
BALDRED (BALTHERUS), H.—March 6,a.d. 608. After the translation of St. Iventigernto the society of angels, in a.d. 530, at the re-puted age of 183 [see Kentigern], St. Baldredwho had been his suffragan, became famous inLaudonia. He betook himself to the eremiticlife in remote desert places and islands of thesea, among which is one termed Bass, where hefor a long time dwelt upon the memory of hismodel St. Kentigert, and above all meditated onthe bitter passion of Christ, in tasting, and weep-ing, and wailing. He also taught the faith inthe three parochial churches of Aldhame, Tyning-hame, and Prestoune, which had been subjectedto him by St. Mungo. Here he performed somemiracles of healing, and according to the tradition,a rock which impeded the navigation moved be-neath him to the shore. It is still called theTumba or Scapha of St. Baldred. At length,worn out by extreme old age, he died in thehouse of the parish priest of Aldhame. Histhree churches each demanded his body; andwhen the people could not agree, being advisedto pray to God to give them a sign, on themorrow they found three bodies laid out, eachwith the same exequial pomp, and each congre-
gation carried off one to its own church, whereit is kept with great honour unto this day.(Breo. Aberd. pars hyem., fol. lxiii. and Ixiv.)A similar legend as to the triplication of his bodyis narrated of the great Welsh saint, Theliaus.(See Capgrave’s Leg. Aur . fol. cclxxxi. verso.)Two bodies of St. Patrick and of St. Monennawere also under similar circumstances produced.Camerarius, who makes the day the 29th ofMarch, refers to John Major, In quart. Seiii.Distinct. 10, quaest. 4, where, in treating of theHoly Eucharist, he seeks to prove, by the exampleof the body of St. Baldred, that the same bodycan be in divevse places, simul et semcl. He iscalled St. Kentigern’s suffragan in the Martvr-ology of Aberdeen, but Bower is the first to givehim this title. The church of St. Baldred ofTyninghame had the right of sanctuary (charterof Malcolm the Maiden, Robertson’s Stat. Eccl.Scot. vol. ii. p. 261). At Preston Kirk, someplaces adjoining the church still bear the nameof the ancient tutelar saint, as Baldred’s Welland Baldred’s Whill, a poor or eddy in the river.( O. S. A. vol. xi. p. 87; A. S. A. vol. vi. “Had-dington,” pp. 21, 58.) His cave is also shownon the coast near Aldhame (Gordon’s Scoti-chronicon. i. p. 52). St. Baldred appears asSt. Baltherus in a Eragmentum Historiae dePontificibus Eboracensibus , given in Mabillon(Acta Sand. Ord. Ben. pars 2 dR , p. 208), wheretwo miracles are attributed to him. He walkedon the sea like St. Peter, and obtained thepardon of the soul of a deacon, who before deathhad fallen into carnal sin. Simeon of Durhamgives his date at a.d. 756, if he be not referringto what appears to be another Baltherus, whowas anchoret of Durham, and of whom at theabove date Roger Hoveden says in his Annals,—“In the same year Balthere the Anchoret,having followed the life of the saints, departedto the Lord: ” this last died and was buried atLindisfarne; but after being translated to Dur-ham cathedral, the relics were stolen along withthose of Venerable Bede and others. (See BishopForbes, Kal. of Scott. Sain ts, pp. 273-4; Colgan,Acta SS. p. 687, c. 64, and p. 694, n. 32 ; Bede,Eccl. Hist. Pref. pp. xxi-xxii., Bohn’s ed.) AlbanButler (vol. iii. p. 55) calls Baldrede immediatesuccessor of St. Mungo, and puts his obit in a.d.608. [A. P. F.]
BALSAMUS, a mythological name amongthe Spanish Priscillianists, according to Jerome[Barbelo]. It is evidently Beel-Samin , “theLord of Heaven,” a well-known divinity of thePhoenicians, Carthaginians, Mesopotamians, &e.See Chwolsohn, Ssabier, ii. 158 f. [II.]
BALTHERE (1) A famous anchoret wholived at Tynningham in East Lothian. He diedin 756, on the 6th of March (Sim. Dun. Chron.ad 756, Hist. Dun. ii. 2). Alcuin commemo-rates his sanctity and his victory over evil spirits(De Pontiff, et Sanctis Ebor. vv. 1318-86). Hischurch at Tynningham was destroyed by theDanes in 941 (Sim. Dun. ad ann.); it possessedextensive estates, which afterwards belonged tothe patrimony of S. Cuthbert. Mabillon statesthat his name occurs in the Benedictine calendarson the 27th of November, and that his relicswere removed to Durham in the 11th century(AA. SS. O. S. B. Saec. iii. pt. 2, 509), and refersto an article on the subject in the Bollandist