A church dictionary

by Walter Farquhar Hook

PARACLETE. A comforter and advocate; a title applied to God the Holy Ghost. (John xv. 26.)—See Holy Ghost.

PARACLETICE, (Gr.,) among the Greek Christians, is a book of anthems, or hymns, so called, because they chiefly tend to comfort the sinner, or because they are partly invocatory, consisting of pious addresses to God and the saints.

The hymns or anthems in this book are not appropriated to particular days, but contain something proper to be recited every day, in the mass, vespers, matins, and other offices.

Allatius finds great fault with this book, and says there are many things in it disrespectful to the Virgin Mary, and many things ascribed to her against all reason and equity; that it affirms that John the Baptist, after his death, preached Christ in hell; and that Christ himself, when he descended into hell, freed all mankind from the punishments of that place and the power of the devil.

PARAPET. A low wall protecting the gutter in the roof of churches or other buildings. Early parapets are universally plain, but, with the Decorated style, they begin to be panelled, and sometimes pierced with various patterns, and in the Perpendicular they are very frequently crenellated.

PARAPHRASE. (Chaldaic.) It is commonly believed that the first translation of the holy Bible was in Chaldee, and that the ignorance of the Jews in the Hebrew tongue, after the Babylonish captivity, was the occasion of that version, called the Targum, or Chaldee paraphrase, which was neither done by one author, nor at the same time, nor made upon all the books of the Old Testament. The first upon the Pentateuch was done by Onkelos, a proselyte, who lived about the time of our Saviour, if we believe the Hebrew authors; the second upon the Pentateuch is attributed to Jonathan, the son of Uzziel, who is not the same with the Theodotion, which in Greek has the same signification as Jonathan in Hebrew; that is, the gift of God. The third upon the same book is called the Targum Hierosolymitanum, or the Jerusalem paraphrase; the author of which is not certainly known, nor the time when it was composed. Schikard believes it to bear the same date as the Targum of Jerusalem, which was written about 300 years after the last destruction of the temple, burnt in the seventieth year after our Lord’s incarnation. There are, besides these, three paraphrases upon the books of Moses; another upon the Psalms, Job, and Proverbs; there is also one upon the Canticles, Ruth, Lamentations, Ecclesiastes, and Esther, but the author not known; and we have a Chaldee paraphrase upon Joshua, Judges, Kings, and the Prophets, by Jonathan, the son of Uzziel, who, according to the Jews, had before written the paraphrase upon the Pentateuch.

Several learned men believe that all the rabbins say concerning the Chaldee paraphrase is fabulous, and that the oldest of all the translations is that of the Septuagint: it is also added that they are later than St. Jerome, who, having great acquaintance with the most learned rabbins, and having written so much upon that subject, could not fail of speaking of the Chaldee paraphrases, if there had been any such in his time. The Jews affirm they were composed in the time of the prophets, and they have them in so great veneration, that they are obliged to read in their synagogue a section of Onkelos’ paraphrase, when they have read a Hebrew text in the Bible.

PARCLOSE. Screens separating chapels, especially those at the east end of the aisles, from the body of the church, are called parcloses.

PARDONS. (See Indulgences.) In the Romish Church, pardons or indulgences are releasement from the temporal punishment of sin; the power of granting which is supposed to be lodged in the pope, to be dispensed by him to the bishops and inferior clergy, for the benefit of penitents throughout the Church. In the theory of pardons, the point is assumed, that holy men may accomplish more than is strictly required of them by the Divine law; that there is a meritorious value in this overplus; that such value is transferable, and that it is deposited in the spiritual treasury of the Church, subject to the disposal of the pope, to be, on certain conditions, applied to the benefit of those whose deficiencies stand in need of such a compensation. A distinction is then drawn between the temporal and the eternal punishment of sin; the former of which not only embraces penances, and all satisfactions for sin in the present life, but also the pains of purgatory in the next. These are supposed to be within the control and jurisdiction of the Church; and, in the case of any individual, may be ameliorated or terminated by the imputation of so much of the overabundant merits of the saints, &c., as may be necessary to balance the deficiencies of the sufferer.

The privilege of selling pardons, it is well known, was frequently granted by the pope to monastic bodies in every part of the Church; and the scandals and disorders consequent upon them, was one of the first moving causes of the Reformation. Against these most pernicious and soul-destroying errors, the Church of England protests in her twenty-second Article: “The Romish doctrine concerning purgatory, pardons, worshipping, and adoration, as well of images as of relics, and also of invocation of saints, is a fond thing, vainly invented, and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture, but rather repugnant to the word of God.”