PROPHET. One who foretells future events. We have in the Old Testament the writings of sixteen prophets; that is, of four greater prophets, and twelve lesser prophets. The four greater prophets are, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel. The Jews do not place Daniel among the prophets, because (they say) he lived in the splendour of temporal dignities, and a kind of life different from other prophets. The twelve lesser prophets are, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Micah, Jonah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi.
PROPITIATION. (See Covenant of Redemption, Sacrifice, Atonement, Satisfaction, Jesus.) Propitiation is originally a Latin word, and signifies the appeasing of the wrath of God, or doing something whereby he may be rendered propitious, kind, or merciful, to us, notwithstanding that we have provoked him to anger by any sin or offence committed against him. And the original word, ἱλασμὸς, is used by the Greeks exactly in the same sense, as might easily be shown. But that we may fully understand the true notion of the word, as it is here used, our best way will be to consider how it is used in the Greek translation of the Old Testament, made long before St. John’s time; for he, writing to those who were generally accustomed to the words and phrases in that translation, it cannot be supposed but he useth this, as well as other words, in the same sense as it is used there: for otherwise they would not so well have understood him. Now there we find that ἱλάσκεσθαι and ἐξιλάσασθαι all along answer to the כפר, which signifies to appease, to pacify, to reconcile, a person offended, to atone or make him at one again with the offender. So both the Hebrew and the Greek words are used, where it is said, “The wrath of a king is as messengers of death, but a wise man will pacify it.” And also where Jacob, having sent a present before him to his brother Esau, that was offended with him, saith, “I will appease him with the present that goeth before me.” He calls his present מנחה, a word commonly used for offerings to God. That was his propitiation, whereby his brother was reconciled to him. So were the sacrifices of the Levitical law: they were the Ιλασμοhὶ, the expiations, or propitiations, whereby God was atoned or appeased towards him which brought them; or, as it is there expressed, they were accepted for him, to make atonement for him. And when a man had thus brought his offering, and the priest had therewith made atonement for him, for the sin he had committed, then it was forgiven him, as we often read. In all which places, both the Hebrew and Greek words before mentioned are used; the first by Moses himself, the other by the Seventy which translated him. And therefore we cannot doubt but that the Greek word, coming from the same root, is here also used in the same sense for such a propitiation, or propitiatory sacrifice, whereby God is reconciled, or rendered propitious, to us, and our sins are forgiven us; God accepting, as it were, of that sacrifice, instead of the punishment which was due unto us for them.
The same appears also from several words derived from the same Hebrew root, as כפר, which the Seventy sometimes translate λύτρα, or λύτρον, which signifies a ransom, a price paid for the redemption of man’s life, that was forfeited by any capital crime, something given in recompence and satisfaction for the crime whereby it was done away; sometimes ἄλλαγμα, commutation or propitiation, as the vulgar Latin renders it: sometimes περικάθαρμα, “piaculum,” or a sacrifice offered for the purging or expiating some heinous crime; or for the diverting some heavy judgment from one to another, as in Prov. xxi. 18, where the wise man saith, “The wicked shall be a ransom (as we translate it) for the righteous;” that is, as he himself elsewhere explains it, “The righteous is delivered out of trouble, and the wicked cometh in his stead.” Sometimes they translate it Ἰξίλασμα, propitiation, expiation. And so the Jews anciently used this word in their common discourse; for when one of them would show the greatest love he could to another, he would say, כפרי הנני, “Behold, let me be his expiation;” that is, as one of their most learned writers interprets it, “Let his iniquities be upon me, that I may bear the punishments of them,” which will give us great light into the true notion of the word, as we shall see anon.
Another word from the same Hebrew root is כפרים, which is commonly used likewise for a ransom, atonement, expiation, propitiation, or the like. As where we read of the כסף הכפרים, the atonement money, the Seventy render it τὸ ἀργύριον τῆς εἰσφορᾶς, the tribute money that every man was to give for the ransom of his life, when the people were numbered—the sin-offering of atonement, τῆς ἐξιλάσεως, of propitiation, as the Seventy translate it. The ram of the atonement, in the Greek, κριὸς τοῦ ἱλασμοὺ, the ram of propitiation. In all which places we see the word is used to denote something offered or laid down for the pardon of a man’s sins, and so for the redemption of his life that was forfeited by them. But that which is most observable in this case is, that the great day, when the two goats were chosen, the one for a sin-offering, with the blood whereof the high priest made atonement for the people in the most holy place; and the other for the scape-goat, upon the head whereof he confessed and laid the sins of the people, and then sent him away into the wilderness, never to be heard of more: this day, I say, is called יום הכפרים, the day of atonement, or, as the Seventy render it, ἡμέρα τοῦ ἱλασμοῦ, and, which is the same, τοῦ ἐξιλασμοῦ, the day of propitiation. To which we might also add, that the lid or cover of the ark where the law lay, is called כפרת, which the Seventy translate ἱλαστήριον, the propitiatory, we, the mercy-seat.
These things, I confess, may seem something too nice and critical, but I could not but take notice of them for the satisfaction of myself, and of all that understand the original languages, as being of great use to our finding out what the apostle here means by propitiation, according to the common notion of the word he useth in those days, and among those to whom he wrote; for hereby we may perceive, that, by the word propitiation here used, is meant such a sacrifice or offering made to God for the sins of men, which he is pleased to accept of as a sufficient atonement and satisfaction for the dishonour and injury that was done him by them, so as not to require the punishments which were due unto him for them, but to forgive them all, and to become again as kind and propitious to the persons that offended him as if he had never been offended by them. For he is now propitiated, he is pacified, and reconciled to them: he receives them into his love and favour again, and so into the same state they were in before he was displeased with them.—Beveridge.
PROPROCTORS. Two assistants of the proctors in the universities nominated by them.
PROSES. There are hymns in the Roman Church which are called Prosæ, Proses, a title given to composition in rhyme, in which the law of measure and quantity established by the ancient Greeks and Romans are neglected. These being sung after the Gradual or Tracts, were likewise called Sequentiæ. Of this kind is the beautiful Stabat Mater. (See Sequences.) The use of prosing began at the latter end of the ninth century.—See Burney’s History of Music. An uncharitable inference having been drawn from the epithet “beautiful” having been applied to the Stabat Mater, as if the idolatry of that composition, in spite of the contrary principles everywhere prevailing in this dictionary, had been approved, it is necessary to state that the epithet has reference only to the music.
PROTESTANT. The designation of Protestant is used in England as a general term to denote all who protest against Popery. Such, however, was neither the original acceptation of the word, nor is it the sense in which it is still applied on the Continent. It was originally given to those who protested against a certain decree issued by the emperor Charles V. and the Diet of Spires, in 1529.—Mosheim.
On the Continent it is applied as a term to distinguish the Lutheran communions. The Lutherans are called Protestants: the Calvinists, the Reformed. The use of the word among ourselves in a sense different from that adopted by our neighbours abroad, has sometimes led to curious mistakes. The late Mr. Canning, for instance, in his zeal to support the Romanists, and not being sufficiently well instructed in the principles of the Church of England, assumed it as if it were an indisputable fact, that, being Protestants, we must hold the doctrine of consubstantiation. Having consulted, probably, some foreign history of Protestantism, he found that one of the tenets which distinguishes the “Protestant,” i. e. the Lutheran, from the “Reformed,” i. e. the Calvinist, is that the former maintains, the latter denies, the dogma of consubstantiation.
It is evident that in our application of the word it is a mere term of negation. If a man says that he is a Protestant, he only tells us that he is not a Romanist; at the same time he may be, what is worse, a Socinian, or even an infidel, for these are all united under the common principle of protesting against Popery. The appellation is not given to us, as far as the writer knows, in any of our formularies, and has chiefly been employed in political warfare as a watchword to rally in one band all who, whatever may be their religious differences, are prepared to act politically against the aggressions of the Romanists. In this respect it was particularly useful at the time of the Revolution; and as politics intrude themselves into all the considerations of an Englishman, either directly or indirectly, the term is endeared to a powerful and influential party in the state. But on the very ground that it thus keeps out of view distinguishing and vital principles, and unites in apparent agreement those who essentially differ, many of our divines object to the use of the word. They contend, with good reason, that it is quite absurd to speak of the Protestant religion, since a religion must of course be distinguished, not by what it renounces, but by what it professes: they apprehend that it has occasioned a kind of sceptical habit, of inquiring not how much we ought to believe, but how much we may refuse to believe; of looking at what is negative instead of what is positive in our religion; of fearing to inquire after the truth, lest it should lead to something which is held by the Papists in common with ourselves, and which, therefore, as some persons seem to argue, no sound Protestant can hold; forgetting that on this principle we ought to renounce the liturgy, the sacraments, the doctrine of the Trinity, the Divinity and atonement of Christ,—nay, the very Bible itself. It is on these grounds that some writers have scrupled to use the word. But although it is certainly absurd to speak of the Protestant religion, i. e. a negative religion, yet there is no absurdity in speaking of the Church of England, or of the Church of America, as a Protestant Church; the word Church conveys a positive idea, and there can be no reason why we should not have also a negative appellation. If we admit that the Church of Rome is a true, though a corrupt Church, just as a felon is a man, though a bad man, it is well to have a term by which we may always declare that, while we hold in common with her all that she has which is catholic, scriptural, and pure, we protest for ever against her multiplied corruptions. Besides, the word, whether correctly or not, is in general use, and is in a certain sense applicable to the Church of England; it is surely, therefore, better to retain it, only with this understanding, that when we call ourselves Protestants, we mean no more to profess that we hold communion with all parties who are so styled, than the Church of England, when in her creeds and formularies she designates herself not as the Protestant, but as the Catholic Church of this country, intends to hold communion with those Catholic Churches abroad which have infused into their system the principles of the Council of Trent. Protestant is our negative, Catholic our definitive, name. We tell the Papist, that with respect to him we are Protestant; we tell the Protestant Dissenter, that with respect to him we are Catholic; and we may be called Protestant or Protesting Catholics, or, as some of our writers describe us, Anglo-Catholics.