appellation given toward the close of the first century to those Christians who had been admitted into the church by baptism, and instructed in all the mysteries of religion. They had also access to all the parts of divine worship, and were authorized to vote in the ecclesiastical assemblies. They were thus called in contradistinction to the catechumens, who had not been baptized, and were debarred from these privileges.

Belio (anc. geog.), a river of Lusitania, called otherwise Limes, Linus, Limius, and Lethe or the River of Oblivion: the boundary of the expedition of Decimus Brutus. The soldiers refusing out of superstition to cross, he snatched an ensign out of the hands of the bearer, and passed over, by which his army was encouraged to follow (Livy). He was the first Roman who ever proceeded so far, and ventured to cross. The reason of the appellation, according to Strabo, is, that in a military expedition a sedition arising between the Celtici and Turduli after crossing that river, in which the general was slain, they remained dispersed there; and from this circumstance it came to be called the River of Lethe or Oblivion. Now called El Lima, in Portugal, running westward into the Atlantic, to the south of the Minho.