PROSELYTE, Προσήλυτος, signifies a stranger, a foreigner; the Hebrew word גר, or נכר[נכר], also denotes a stranger, one who comes from abroad, or from another place. In the language נכר of the Jews, those were called by this name who came to dwell in their country, or who embraced their religion, being not Jews by birth. In the New Testament they are called sometimes proselytes, and sometimes Gentiles, fearing God, Acts ii, 5; x, ii, 22; xiii, 16, 50. The Jews distinguish two kinds of proselytes. The first, proselytes of the gate; the others, proselytes of justice or righteousness. The first dwelt in the land of Israel, or even out of that country, and, without obliging themselves to circumcision, or to any other ceremony of the law, feared and worshipped the true God, observing the rules imposed on Noah. These were, according to the rabbins, 1. To abstain from idolatry; 2. From blasphemy; 3. From murder; 4. From adultery; 5. From theft; 6. To appoint just and upright judges; 7. Not to eat the flesh of any animal cut off while it was alive. Maimonides says, that the first six of these precepts were given to Adam, and the seventh to Noah. The privileges of proselytes of the gate were, first, that through holiness they might have hope of eternal life. Secondly, they could dwell in the land of Israel, and share in the outward prosperities of it. It is said they did not dwell in the cities, but only in the suburbs and the villages; but it is certain that the Jews often admitted into their cities, not only proselytes of habitation, but also Gentiles and idolaters, as appears by the reproaches on this account, throughout the Scriptures.
Proselytes of justice or of righteousness were those converted to Judaism, who had engaged themselves to receive circumcision, and to observe the whole law of Moses. Thus were they admitted to all the prerogatives of the people of the Lord. The rabbins inform us that, before circumcision was administered to them, and before they were admitted into the religion of the Hebrews, they were examined about the motives of their conversion; whether the change was voluntary, or whether it proceeded from interest, fear, ambition, &c. When the proselyte was well proved and instructed, they gave him circumcision; and when the wound of his circumcision healed, they gave him baptism, by plunging his whole body into a cistern of water, by only one immersion. Boys under twelve years of age, and girls under thirteen, could not become proselytes till they had obtained the consent of their parents, or, in case of refusal, the concurrence of the officers of justice. Baptism in respect of girls had the same effect as circumcision in respect of boys. Each of them, by means of this, received, as it were, a new birth, so that those who were their parents before were no longer regarded as such after this ceremony, and those who before were slaves now became free.
Many, however, are of opinion that there appears to be no ground whatever in Scripture for this distinction of proselytes of the gate, and proselytes of righteousness. “According to my idea,” says Dr. Tomline, “proselytes were those, and those only, who took upon themselves the obligation of the whole Mosaic law, but retained that name till they were admitted into the congregation of the Lord as adopted children. Gentiles were allowed to worship and offer sacrifices to the God of Israel in the outer court of the temple; and some of them, persuaded of the sole and universal sovereignty of the Lord Jehovah, might renounce idolatry without embracing the Mosaic law; but such persons appear to me never to be called proselytes in Scripture, or in any ancient Christian writer.” He also observes that “the term proselytes of the gate is derived from an expression frequent in the Old Testament; namely, ‘the stranger that is within thy gates;’ but I think it evident that the strangers were those Gentiles who were permitted to live among the Jews under certain restrictions, and whom the Jews were forbidden ‘to vex or oppress,’ so long as they live in a peaceable manner.” Dr. Lardner says, “I do not believe that the notion of two sorts of Jewish proselytes can be found in any Christian writer before the fourteenth century or later.” Dr. Jennings also observes that “there does not appear to be sufficient evidence in the Scripture history of the existence of such proselytes of the gate, as the rabbins mention; nor, indeed, of any who with propriety can be styled proselytes, except such as fully embraced the Jewish religion.”
PROSEUCHÆ. That the Jews had houses, or places for prayer, called ϖροσευχαὶ, appears from a variety of passages in Philo; and, particularly in his oration against Flaccus, he complains that their ϖροσευχαὶ were pulled down, and there was no place left in which they might worship God and pray for Cæsar. Among those who make the synagogues and proseuchæ to be different places, are the learned Mr. Joseph Mede and Dr. Prideaux; and they think the difference consists partly in the form of the edifice; a synagogue, they say, being roofed like our houses or churches; and a proseucha being only encompassed with a wall, or some other mound or enclosure, and open at the top, like our courts. They make them to differ in situation; synagogues being in towns and cities, proseuchæ in the fields, and frequently by the river side. Dr. Prideaux mentions another distinction in respect to the service performed in them. In synagogues, he says, the prayers were offered up in public forms in common for the whole congregation; but in the proseuchæ they prayed, as in the temple, every one apart for himself. And thus our Saviour prayed in the proseucha into which he entered. Yet, after all, the proof in favour of this notion is not so strong, but that it still remains a question with some, whether the synagogues and the proseuchæ were any thing more than two different names for the same place; the one taken from the people’s assembling in them, the other from the service to which they were more immediately appropriated, namely, prayer. Nevertheless, the name proseuchæ will not prove that they were appropriated only to prayer, and therefore were different from synagogues, in which the Scriptures were also read and expounded; since the temple, in which sacrifices were offered, and all the parts of divine service were performed, is called οικος προσευχης, a house of prayer, Matt. xxi, 13.
PROTESTANT. The Emperor Charles V. called a diet at Spire, in 1529, to request aid from the German princes against the Turks, and to devise the most effectual means for allaying the religious disputes which then raged in consequence of Luther’s opposition to the established religion. In this diet it was decreed by Ferdinand, archduke of Austria, and other popish princes, that in the countries which had embraced the new religion it should be lawful to continue in it till the meeting of a council; but that no Roman Catholic should be allowed to turn Lutheran, and that the reformers should deliver nothing in their sermons contrary to the received doctrine of the church. Against this decree, six Lutheran princes, namely, John and George, the electors of Saxony and Brandenburg, Ernest and Francis, the two dukes of Lunenburg, the landgrave of Hesse, and the prince of Anhalt, with the deputies of thirteen imperial towns, namely, Strasburg, Ulm, Nuremberg, Constance, Rottingen, Windsheim, Memmingen, Nortlingen, Lindaw, Kempten, Hailbron, Wissemburg, and St. Gall, formally and solemnly protested and declared that they appealed to a general council; and hence the name of Protestants, by which the followers of Luther have ever since been known. Nor was it confined to them; for it soon after included the Calvinists, and has now of a long time been applied generally to the Christian sects, of whatever denomination, and in whatever country they may be found, which have separated from the see of Rome.
Mr. Chillingworth, addressing himself to a writer in favour of the church of Rome, speaks of the religion of the Protestants in the following excellent terms: “Know then, sir, that when I say the religion of Protestants is in prudence to be preferred before yours, on the one side, I do not understand by your religion the doctrine of Bellarmine, or Baronius, or any other private man among you, nor the doctrine of the Sorbonne, of the Jesuits, or of the Dominicans, or of any other particular company among you, but that wherein you all agree, or profess to agree, the doctrine of the council of Trent; so, accordingly, on the other side, by the religion of Protestants, I do not understand the doctrine of Luther, or Calvin, or Melancthon, nor the confession of Augsburg, or Geneva, nor the catechism of Heidelberg, nor the articles of the church of England; no, nor the harmony of Protestant confessions; but that in which they all agree, and which they all subscribe with a greater harmony, as a perfect rule of faith and action; that is, the Bible. The Bible, I say, the Bible only, is the religion of Protestants. Whatsoever else they believe beside it, and the plain, irrefragable, indubitable consequences of it, well may they hold it as a matter of opinion; but as a matter of faith and religion, neither can they with coherence to their own grounds believe it themselves, nor require belief of it of others, without most high and most schismatical presumption. I, for my part, after a long, and, as I verily believe and hope, impartial, search of the true way to eternal happiness, do profess plainly that I cannot find any rest for the sole of my foot but upon this rock only. I see plainly, and with my own eyes, that there are popes against popes, and councils against councils; some fathers against other fathers, the same fathers against themselves; a consent of fathers of one age against a consent of fathers of another age; traditive interpretations of Scripture are pretended, but there are few or none to be found; no tradition but that of Scripture can derive itself from the fountain, but may be plainly proved either to have been brought in in such an age after Christ, or that in such an age it was not in. In a word, there is no sufficient certainty but of Scripture only for any considering man to build upon. This, therefore, and this only, I have reason to believe. This I will profess; according to this I will live; and for this, if there be occasion, I will not only willingly, but even gladly, lose my life, though I should be sorry that Christians should take it from me. Propose me any thing out of this book, and require whether I believe or no, and, seem it never so incomprehensible to human reason, I will subscribe it with hand and heart, as knowing no demonstration can be stronger than this, God hath said so, therefore it is true. In other things, I will take no man’s liberty of judging from him; neither shall any man take mine from me.”
Under such views the Bible is held as the only sure foundation upon which all true Protestants build every article of the faith which they profess, and every point of doctrine which they teach; and all other foundations, whether they be the decisions of councils, the confessions of churches, the prescripts of popes, or the expositions of private men, are considered by them as sandy and unsafe, or as in nowise to be ultimately relied on. Yet, on the other hand, they by no means fastidiously reject them as of no use; for while they admit the Bible, or the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament, to be the only infallible rule by which we must measure the truth or falsehood of every religious opinion, they are sensible that all men are not equally fitted to understand or to apply this rule; and that the wisest men want, on many occasions, all the helps afforded by the learning and research of others to enable them to understand its precise nature, and to define its certain extent. These helps are great and numerous, having been supplied, in every age of the church, by the united labours of learned men in every country, and by none in greater abundance than by those in Protestant communions.
PROVERBS, short aphorisms, and sententious moral and prudential maxims, usually expressed in numbers, or rhythm, or antithesis, as being more easily remembered, and of more use, than abstruse and methodical discourses. This method of instruction appears to be peculiarly suited to the disposition and genius of the Asiatics, among whom it has prevailed from the earliest ages. The Gymnosophists of India delivered their philosophy in brief enigmatical sentences; a practice adopted and carried to a great extent by the ancient Egyptians. The mode of conveying instruction by compendious maxims obtained among the Jews, from the first dawn of their literature, to its final extinction in the east through the power of the Mohammedan arms; and it was familiar to the inhabitants of Syria and Palestine, as we learn from the testimony of St. Jerom. The eloquence of Arabia was mostly exhibited in detached and unconnected sentences, which, like so many loose gems, attracted attention by the fulness of the periods, the elegance of the phraseology, and the acuteness of proverbial sayings. Nor do the Asiatics at present differ, in this respect[respect], from their ancestors, as numerous amthâl, or moral sentences, are in circulation throughout the regions of the east, some of which have been published by Hottinger, Erpenius, the younger Schultens, and others who have distinguished themselves by the pursuit of oriental learning. “The moralists of the east,” says Sir William Jones, “have, in general, chosen to deliver their precepts in short sententious maxims, to illustrate them by sprightly comparisons, or to inculcate them in the very ancient forms of agreeable apologues: there are, indeed, both in Arabic and Persian, philosophical tracts on ethics, written with sound ratiocination and elegant perspicuity; but in every part of the eastern world, from Pekin to Damascus, the popular teachers of moral wisdom have immemorially been poets; and there would be no end of enumerating their works, which are still extant in the five principal languages of Asia.” The ingenious but ever disputing and loquacious Greeks were indebted to the same means for their earliest instruction in wisdom. The sayings of the seven wise men, the golden verses of Pythagoras, the remains of Theognis and Phocylides, if genuine, and the gnomai of the older poets, testify the prevalence of aphorisms in ancient Greece. Had no specimens remained of Hellenic proverbs, we might have concluded this to have been the case; for the Greeks borrowed the rudiments, if not the principal part, of their knowledge from those whom they arrogantly termed barbarians; and it is only through the medium of compendious maxims and brief sentences that traditionary knowledge can be preserved. This mode of communicating moral and practical wisdom accorded with the sedate and deliberative character of the Romans; and, in truth, from its influence over the mind, and its fitness for popular instruction, proverbial expressions exist in all ages and in all languages.
Proverbs, in the Hebrew language, are called meshalim, which is derived from a verb signifying both “to rule,” “to have dominion,” and “to compare,” “to liken,” “to assimilate:” hence the term denotes the highly figurative and poetical style in general, and likewise those compendious and authoritative sentences in particular which are commonly denominated proverbs. This term, which our translators have adopted after the Vulgate, denotes, according to our great lexicographer, “a short sentence frequently repeated by the people, a saw, an adage;” and no other word can, perhaps, be substituted more accurately expressing the force of the Hebrew; or, if there could, it has been so long familiarized by constant use, that a change is totally inadmissible.
The Meshalim, or Proverbs of Solomon, on account of their intrinsic merit, as well as of the rank and renown of their author, would be received with submissive deference; in consequence of which, they would rapidly spread through every part of the Jewish territories. The pious instructions of the king would be listened to with the attention and respect they deserve, and, no doubt, would be carefully recorded by a people attached to his person, and holding his wisdom in the highest admiration. These, either preserved in writing, or handed down by oral communication, were subsequently collected into one volume, and constitute the book in the sacred canon, entitled, “The Proverbs of Solomon, the son of David, king of Israel.” The genuineness and authenticity of this title, and those in chap. x, 1, and xxv, 1, cannot be disputed; not the smallest reason appears for calling them in question. One portion of the book, from the twenty-fifth chapter to the end of the twenty-ninth, was compiled by the men of Hezekiah, as appears from the title prefixed to it. Eliakim, Shebna, Joah, Isaiah, Hosea, and Micah, personages of eminence and worth, were contemporary with Hezekiah; but whether these or others executed the compilation, it is now impossible to determine. They were persons, however, as we may reasonably suppose, well qualified for the undertaking, who collected what were known to be the genuine proverbs of Solomon from the various writings in which they were dispersed, and arranged them in their present order. Whether the preceding twenty-four chapters, which, doubtless, existed in a combined form previous to the additional collection, were compiled by the author, or some other person, is quite uncertain. Both collections, however, being made at so early a period, is a satisfactory evidence that the Proverbs are the genuine production of Solomon, to whom they are ascribed; for, from the death of Solomon to the reign of Hezekiah, according to the Bible chronology, was a period of two hundred and forty-nine years, or, according to Dr. Hales, two hundred and sixty-five years; too short a space to admit of any forgery or material error, as either must have been immediately detected by the worthies who flourished during the virtuous reign of Hezekiah.