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Beatus

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BEATUS, of Valcavado, Spanish theologian and geographer, was born about 73o, and died in 798. He took a prominent part in the Adoptionist controversy, and wrote against the views of Felix of Urgel, and his followers. About 776, he produced his Commentaria in Apocalypsin to which was attached one of the oldest Christian world-maps. This original map, which was prob ably intended to illustrate the distribution of the apostolic mis sions throughout the world (depicting the head of Peter at Rome, of Andrew in Greece, of Thomas in India, of James in Spain, and so forth) has survived only in 1 o copies, varying in date from the 9th to the 13th century, the most valuable being that of "St. Sever" now at Paris, dating from c.1030.

There is only one complete edition of the

Commentaria in Apoca lypsin, that by Florez (1770). The text of the Apocalypse used by Beatus has been edited by E. S. Buchanan (1915) ; see also Konrad Miller Die Weltkarte des Beatus; Heft I. of Mappaemundi: die altesten Weltkarten (Stuttgart, 1895) ; d'Avezac in Annales de . . . geographee (June, 1870) ; Beazley, Dawn of Modern Geography (1897-1901).

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