buildings required for courtiers and officials, the ‘palace’ becomes not a house, but a royal city.

A characteristic feature was a balcony on which the king would show himself to his people.

The Assyrian and Babylonian palaces were large and magnificent. In Babylonia, the palaces, like the temples, were built on the top of artificial mounds of crude bricks; and were groups of buildings forming a great fortress.

PALAL.—The son of Uzal (Neh 3:25).

PALESTINA.—See next art., § 1.

PALESTINE

1. Situation and name.—The land of Palestine is the territory which lies between the Mediterranean Sea and the Arabian Desert as E. and W. boundaries, and whose N. and S. boundaries may be approximately stated at 31° and 33° 20’ N. Lat. respectively. These boundaries have not always been clearly fixed; but the convention is generally agreed upon that Palestine is separated from Egypt by the Wady el-’Arīsh or ‘River of Egypt,’ and from Syria by the Kasmiyeh or Lītani River, the classical Leontes. Biblical writers fixed the limits of the territory by the towns Dan and Beersheba, which are constantly coupled when the author desires to express in a picturesque manner that a certain event affected the whole of the Israelite country (e.g. Jg 20:1). The name ‘Palestine’ [AV in Jl 3:4; in Ex 15:14, Is 14:29, 31 Palestina; RV Philistia], being derived from that of the Philistines, properly belongs only to the strip of coastland south of Carmel, which was the ancient territory of that people. There is no ancient geographical term covering the whole region now known as Palestine: the different provinces— Canaan, Judah, Israel, Moab, Edom, etc.—are enumerated separately when necessary. The extension of the word to include the entire Holy Land, both west and east of the Jordan, is subsequent to the introduction of Christianity.

2. Geology and geography.—The greater part of the country is of a chalky limestone formation, which overlies a layer of red sandstone that appears on the E. shore of the Dead Sea and elsewhere. Under the red sandstone are the archæan granitic rocks which form a large part of the Sinai Peninsula. Above the chalk is a layer of nummulitic limestone, which appears on some mountains. Volcanic rock, the result of ancient eruptions, appears in the Hauran, Galilee

( especially in the neighbourhood of Safed), and elsewhere. For fuller information on the geology of the country, see art. GEOLOGY. With respect to the surface, Palestine divides naturally into a series of narrow strips of country running from north to south, and differing materially from one another in character. (a) The first of these is the Maritime Plain running along the coast of the Mediterranean from the neighbourhood of Sidon and Tyre southward, and disappearing only at the promontory of Carmel. This plain widens southward from Carmel to a maximum breadth of about 20 miles, while to the north of that promontory it develops into the great plain of

Esdraelon, which intersects the mountain region and affords the most easy passage into the heart of the country. This plain is covered with a most fertile alluvial soil. (b) The second strip is the mountainous ridge of Judæa and Samaria, on the summit of which are Hebron, Jerusalem, and other important towns and villages; and which, with the single interruption of the piain of Esdraelon, runs continuously from the south border of the country to join the system of the

Lebanon. (c) The third strip is the deep depression known as the Ghōr, down which runs the Jordan with its lakes. (d) The fourth strip is the great plateau of Bashan, Moab, and Edom, with a lofty and precipitous face towards the west, and running eastward till it is lost in the desert.

3. Water supply, climats, natural products.—There is no conspicuous river in Palestine except the Jordan and its eastern tributaries, and these, being for the greater part of their course in a deep hollow, are of little or no service for irrigation. In consequence, Palestine is dependent as a whole for its water supply on springs, or on artificial means of storage of its winter rains. Countless examples of both exist, the former especially in Galilee, parts of which are abundantly fertile by nature, and would probably repay beyond all expectation a judicious expenditure of capital. The case of Judæa is a little different, for here there are extensive tracts which are nearly or quite waterless, and are more or less desert in consequence.

The climate of Palestine is, on the whole, that of the sub-tropical zone, though, owing to the extraordinary variation of altitudes, there is probably a greater range of average local temperature than in any other region of its size on the world’s surface. On the one hand, the summits of Hermon and of certain peaks of the Lebanon are covered with snow for the greater part of the year; on the other hand, the tremendous depression, in the bottom of which lies the Dead Sea, is practically tropical, both in climate and in vegetation. The mean local temperature is said to range from about 62° F. in the upland district to almost 100° F. in the region of Jericho.

Rainfall is confined to the winter months of the year. Usually in the end of October or November the rainy season is ushered in with a heavy thunderstorm, which softens the hardbaked surface of the land. This part of the rainy season is the ‘former rain’ of the Bible (as in Jl 2:23) . Ploughing commences immediately after the rains have thus begun. The following months have heavy showers, alternating with days of beautiful sunshine, till March or April, when the ‘latter rain’ falls and gives the crops their final fertilization before the commencement of the dry season. During this part of the year, except by the rarest exception, no rain falls: its place is supplied by night dews, which in some years are extraordinarily heavy. Scantiness of the rainfall, however, is invariably succeeded by poverty or even destruction of the crops, and the rain is watched for as anxiously now as it was in the time of Ahab.

Soon after the cessation of the rains, the wild flowers, which in early spring decorate Palestine like a carpet, become rapidly burnt up, and the country assumes an appearance of barrenness that gives no true idea of its actual fertility. The dry summer is rendered further unpleasant by hot east winds, blowing from over the Arabian Desert, which have a depressing and enervating effect. The south wind is also dry, and the west wind damp (cf. 1 K 18:45, Lk 12:54) . The north wind, which blows from over the Lebanon snows, is always cold, often piercingly so.

As already hinted, the flora displays an extraordinary range and richness, owing to the great varieties of the climate at different points. The plants of the S. and of the Jordan Valley resemble those found in Abyssinia or in Nubia: those of the upper levels of Lebanon are of the kinds peculiar to snow-clad regions. Wheat, barley, millet, maize, peas, beans, lentils, olives, figs, mulberries, vines, and other fruit; cotton, nuts of various species; the ordinary vegetables, and some (such as solanum or ‘egg-plant’) that do not, as a rule, find their way to western markets; sesame, and tobacco—which is grown in some districts—are the most characteristic crops produced by the country. The prickly pear and the orange, though of comparatively recent introduction, are now among its staple products. The fauna includes (among wild animals) the bat, hyæna, wolf, jackal, wild cat, ibex, gazelle, wild boar, hare, and other smaller animals. The bear is now confined to Hermon, and possibly one or two places in Lebanon; the cheetah is rare, and the lion (1 S 17:34, 1 K 13:24 etc.) is extinct. So also is the hippopotamus, bones of which have been found in excavations. Among wild birds we may mention the eagle, vulture, stork, and partridge: there is a great variety of smaller birds. Snakes and lizards abouod, and crocodiles are occasionally to be seen in the Nahr ez-Zerka near Cæsarea. The domesticated animals are the camel, cow, buffalo (only in the Jordan Valley), sheep, horse, donkey, swine (only among Christians), and domestic fowl. The dog can scarcely be called domesticated: it is kept by shepherds for their flocks, but otherwise prowls about the streets of towns and villages seeking a living among the rubbish thrown from the houses.

4. History, races, antiquities.—The earliest dawn of history in Palestine has left no trace in the country itself, so far as we can tell from the limited range of excavations hitherto carried out. There was, however, a Babylonian supremacy over the country in the fourth millennium B.C., of which the records left by the kings of Agade speak. These records are as yet only imperfectly known, and their discussion in a short article like the present would be out of place. A very full account of all that is as yet known of these remote waifs of history will be found in L. B. Paton’s excellent History of Syria and Palestine.

About B.C. 3000 we first reach a period where excavation in Palestine has some information to give. It appears that the inhabitants were then still in the neolithic stage of culture, dwelling in caves, natural or artificial. The excavation of Gezer has shown that the site of that city was occupied by an extensive community of this race. They were non-Semitic; but as they practised cremation, the bones were too much destroyed to make it possible to assign them to their proper place among the Mediterranean races. Further discoveries may ultimately lead to this question being settled. It is possible that the Horites of Gn 14:6 and elsewhere may have been the survivors of this race.

About B.C. 2500 the first Semitic settlers seem to have established themselves in the country. These were the people known to Bible students as Canaanites or Amorites. The success of attempts that have been made to distinguish these names, as indicating two separate stocks must be considered doubtful, and it is perhaps safer to treat the two names as synonymous. About B.C. 2000 , as appears by the reference to ‘Amraphel, king of Shinar’ (= Hammurabi), occurred the battle of the four kings and five recorded in Gn 14—the first event on Palestinian soil of which a Palestinian record is preserved.

The dominion of Egypt over S. Palestine, or at least the influence of Egyptian civilization, must early have been felt, though no definite records of Egyptian conquest older than Tabutmes III. (about B.C 1500) have come to light. But scarabs and other objects referable to the Usertesens (about B.C. 2800–2500 , according to the opinions of various chronologists) are not infrequently found in excavations, which speak of close intercourse between the Canaanites and the civilization of the Nile valley. Of the Canaanites very extensive remains yet await the spade of the excavator in the mounds that cover the remains of the ancient cities of Palestine. The modern peasantry of the country closely resemble the ancient Canaanites in physical character, to judge from the remains of the latter that excavation has revealed; indeed, in all probability the substratum of the population has remained unchanged in racial affinities throughout the vicissitudes that the country has suffered. By the conquests of Tahutmes III. (c. 1500), and Amenhotep III. (c. 1450), Palestine became virtually an Egyptian province, its urban communities governed by kings (i.e. local sheiks) answerable to the Pharaoh, but always quarrelling among themselves. The ‘heretic king’ Amenhotep IV. was too busy with his religious innovations to pay attention to his foreign possessions, and, city by city, his rule in Palestine crumbled away before the Aramæan tribes, named in the Tell el-Amarna tablets the Khabiri. This name is identical with that of the Biblical Hebrews; but it has not yet been possible to put the Khabiri and the Hebrews into their proper mutual relations. The Hebrews represent themselves as escaped slaves from Egypt who (about the 13th cent. B.C.) were led as a solid whole under a single leader (Joshua) to the complete conquest of Canaan—this is the account of the Book of Joshua. According to the older tradition preserved in Jg 1, they entered the country without an individual leader, as a number of more or less independent tribes or clans, and effected only a partial conquest, being baffled by the superior strength of certain specified cities. This account is more in accordance with the events as related by the Tell el-Amarna tablets, but further discoveries must be made before the very obscure history of the Israelite immigration can be clearly made out.

The Israelite occupation was only partial. The important Maritime Plain was in the hands of a totally distinct people, the Philistines. The favourite, and most probable, modern theory regarding the Philistines is that they were of Cretan origin; but everything respecting that mysterious race is veiled in obscurity. As above mentioned, it is not likely that the change of ownership affected the peasants—the Gibeonites were probably not the only ‘hewers of wood and drawers of water’ (Jos 9:21) that survived of the older stock. And lastly, we cannot doubt that an extensive Canaanite occupation remained in the towns expressly mentioned in Jg 1, as those from which the various tribes ‘drave not out’ their original inhabitants. So far as we can infer from excavation—an inference thoroughly confirmed by a consideration of the barbarous history of the Judges—the effect of the Israelite entrance into Canaan was a retrogression in civilization, from which the country took centuries to recover.

The history of the development of these incoherent units into a kingdom is one of ever-fresh interest. It is recorded for us in the Books of Judges and 1 Samuel, and the course of events being known to every reader, it is unnecessary to recapitulate them here. It is not unimportant to notice that the split of the short-lived single kingdom into two, after the death of Solomon, was a rupture that had been foreshadowed from time to time—as in the brief reign of Abimelech over the northern province (Jg 9), and the attempt of the northerners to set up Ish-bosheth as king against David (2 S 2. 3), frustrated by Ish-bosheth’s ill-timed insult to Abner (2 S 3:7): Abner’s answer (v. 10) recognizes the dichotomy of Judah and Israel as already existing. This division must have had its roots in the original peopling of the country by the Hebrews, when the children of Judah went southward, and the children of Joseph northward (Jg 1:3–21, 22–28).

Space will not permit us to trace at length the fortunes of the rival kingdoms, to their highest glory under the contemporary kings Uzziah and Jeroboarn II., and their rapid decline and final extinction by the great Mesopotamian empires. We may, however, pause to notice that, as in the case of the Canaanites, many remains of the Israelite dominion await the excavator in such towns as lay within Israelite territory; and the Siloam Tunnel epigraph, and one or two of minor importance, promise the welcome addition of a few inscriptions. On the other hand, the remains of the population are scantier—for it need hardly be said that the modern Jewish inhabitants of Palestine are all more or less recent importations.

The Northern Kingdom fell before Assyria, and was never heard of again. Tangible remains of the Assyrian domination were found at Gezer, in the shape of a couple of contract-tablets written there in the Assyrian language and formulæ about B.C. 650 ; and the modern sect of Samaritans is a living testimony to the story of the re-settling of the Northern Kingdom under Assyrian auspices (2 K 17:24–41).

The Southern Kingdom had a different fate. It was extinguished by Babylon about 135 years later, in B.C. 586. In 538 the captives were permitted to return to their land by Cyrus, after his conquest of Babylon. They re-built Jerusalem and the Temple: the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah are the record of this work of restoration.

In B.C. 333 Syria fell to Alexander the Great after the battle of Issus. After his death followed a distracting and complicated period of conflict between his successors, which, so far as Palestine was concerned, had the effect of opening the country for the first time to the influence of Greek culture, art, and religion. From this time onward we find evidence of the foundation of such buildings as theatres, previously quite unknown, and other novelties of Western origin. Although many of the Jews adopted the Greek tongue, there was a staunch puritan party who rigidly set their faces against all such Gentile contaminations. In this they found themselves opposed to the Seleucid princes of Syria, among whom Antiochus Epiphanes especially set himself deliberately to destroy the religion of Judaism. This led to the great revolt headed by Mattathias the priest and his sons, which secured for the Jews a brief period of independence that lasted during the second half of the 2nd cent. B.C., under John Hyrcanus (grandson of Mattathias) and his successors. The kingdom was weakened by family disputes; in the end Rome stepped in, Pompey captured Jerusalem in B.C. 63 , and henceforth Palestine lay under Roman suzerainty. Several important tombs near Jerusalem, and elsewhere, and a large number of remains of cities and fortresses, survive from the age of the family of Mattathias. The conquest of Joppa, under the auspices of Simon Maccabæus, son of Mattathias (1 Mac 13:11), was the first capture of a seaport in S. Palestine throughout the whole of Israelite history.

The Hasmonæan dynasty gave place to the Idumæan dynasty of the Herods in the middle of the 1st cent. B.C., Herod the Great becoming sole governor of Judæa ( under Roman suzerainty ) in B.C. 40. It was into this political situation that Christ was born B.C. 4. Remains of the building activities of Herod are still to be seen in the sub-structures of the Temple, the Herodian towers of

Jerusalem, and (possibly) a magnificent tomb near Jerusalem traditionally called the Tomb of Mariamme. Herod died shortly after Christ’s birth, and his dominions were subdivided into provinces, each under a separate ruler: but the native rulers rapidly declined in power, and the Roman governors as rapidly advanced. The Jews became more and more embittered against the Roman yoke, and at last a violent rebellion broke out, which was quelled by Titus in A.D. 70, when Jerusalem was destroyed and a large part of the Jews slain or dispersed. A remnant remained, which about 60 years later again essayed to revolt under their leader Bar Cochba: the suppression of this rebellion was the final deathblow to Jewish nationality. After the destruction of Jerusalem many settled in Tiberias, and formed the nucleus of the important Galilæan

Rabbinic schools, remains of which are still to be seen in the shape of the synagogues of Galilee.

These interesting buildings appear to date from the second century A.D.

After the partition of the Roman Empire, Palestine formed part of the Empire of the East, and with it was Christianized. Many ancient settlements, with tombs and small churches—some of them with beautiful mosaic pavements—survive in various parts of the country: these are relics of the Byzantine Christians of the 5th and 6th centuries. The native Christians of Syria, whose families were never absorbed into Islam, are their representatives. These, though Aramæan by race, now habitually speak Arabic, except in Ma‘lula and one or two other places in N. Lebanon, where a Syriac dialect survives.

This early Christianity received a severe blow in 611, when the country was ravaged by Chosroës II., king of Persia. Monastic settlements were massacred and plundered, and the whole country reduced to such a state of weakness that without much resistance it fell to Omar, the second Caliph of Islam. He became master of Syria and Palestine in the second quarter of the seventh century. Palestine thus became a Moslem country, and its population received the Arab element which is still dominant within it. It may be mentioned in passing that coins of Chosroës are occasionally found in Palestine; and that of the early Arab domination many noteworthy buildings survive, chief of which is the glorious dome that occupies the site of the Hebrew Temple at Jerusalem.

The Moslem rule was at first by no means tyrannical; but, as the spirit of intolerance developed, the Christian inhabitants were compelled to undergo many sufferings and indignities. This, and the desire to wrest the holy places of Christendom from the hands of the infidel, were the ostensible reasons for the in vasions of the brigands who called themselves Crusaders, and who established in Jerusalem a kingdom on a feudal basis that lasted throughout the 12th century. An institution so exotic, supported by men morally and physically unfit for life in a subtropical climate, could not outlast the first enthusiasm which called it into being. Worn out by immorality, by leprosy and other diseases, and by mutual dissensions, the unworthy champions of the Cross disappeared before the heroic Saladin, leaving as their legacy to the country a score or so of place names; a quantity of worthless ecclesiastical traditions; a number of castles and churches, few of which possess any special architectural interest, and many of which, by a strange irony, have been converted into mosques; and, among the Arab natives, an unquenchable hatred of Christianity.

We must pass over the barbarous Mongolian invasions, the last of which was under Timur or Tamerlane at the end of the 14th century. But we must not omit to mention the Turkish conquest in 1516, when Syria obtained the place which it still holds in the Ottoman Empire.

R. A. S. MACALISTER.

PALLU.—One of the sons of Reuben (Gn 46:8, Ex 6:14, Nu 26:5, 8, 1 Ch 5:8). The patronymic Palluites occurs in Nu 26:5. We should probably read Pallu for Peleth in Nu 16:1.

PALM TREE (tāmār).—The date palm (Phœnix dactylifera) is a tree essential to existence in the deserts of Arabia, and was therefore held sacred among the Semites from the earliest historic times. It flourishes in Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the oases of Arabia (Ex 15:27, Nu 33:9), but its cultivation has for long been much neglected in Palestine. It is still found in considerable numbers in the Maritime Plain, e.g. at the Bay of ‘Akka and at Gaza; and small scattered groups occur all over the land in the neighbourhood of springs. In the valleys east of the Dead Sea, many sterile, dwarfed palms occur. Both in the OT (Dt 34:3, Jg 1:16, 3:13, 2 Ch 28:15) and in Josephus (BJ IV. viii. 2–3), Jericho is famous for its vast groves of palms; to-day there are but few, and these quite modern trees. Not only are dates a staple diet in Arabia and an important article of export, but the plaited leaves furnish mats and baskets, the bark is made into ropes, and the seeds are ground up for cattle. From the dates is made a kind of syrup, date-honey or dibs, a valuable substitute for sugar. The method of fertilization of the female (pistillate) flowers by the pollen from the male (staminate) flowers was known in very ancient times, and nature was then, as now, assisted by shaking out the pollen over the female flowers. The palm tree is referred to ( Ps 92:12) as a sign of prosperity and (Ca 7:7, 8) of beauty. Figures of palm trees were used to ornament the Temple (1 K 6); at a later period they occur on Jewish coins and in the sculpture of the ancient Jewish synagogues, notably in the recently excavated synagogue at Tell Hūm ( Capernaum). The sacredness of this tree thus persisted from the early Semite to late Jewish times. Palm branches were used at the rejoicings of the Feast of Tabernacles (Lv 23:40, Neh 8:15) , as they are among the modern Jews, who daily, during this feast, wave branches of palms in their synagogues. In 1 Mac 13:51 we read of the bearing of palm branches as the sign of triumphant rejoicing—an idea also implied in their use in Jn 12:13 and Rev 7:9. To-day these branches are used by the Moslems especially at funeral processions, and to decorate graves.

E. W. G. MASTERMAN.

PALMER-WORM.—Old Eng. for ‘caterpillar,’ see LOCUST.

PALSY.—The modern form of this word is ‘paralysis.’ See MEDICINE, p. 599a.

PALTI.—1. The Benjamite spy (Nu 13:9). 2. The man to whom Michal, David’s wife, was given by Saul (1 S 25:44). In 2 S 3:15 he is called Paltiel. See following article under No. 2.

PALTIEL.—1. The prince of Issachar (Nu 34:26). 2. 2 S 3:15, the same as Palti of 1 S 25:44.

PALTITE, THE.—A native of Beth-pelet in the Negeb of Judah (Jos 15:27, Neh 11:26). To this town belonged Helez, one of David’s thirty heroes (2 S 23:26). In the parallel lists (1 Ch 11:27, 27:10) he is described, probably incorrectly, as ‘the Pelonite.’

PAMPHYLIA.—The name of a district on the S. coast of Asia Minor, lying between Lycia and Cilicia. Strictly speaking, it consisted of a plain 80 miles long and (at its widest part) 20 miles broad, lying between Mt. Taurus and the sea. After A.D. 74 the name was applied to a Roman province which included the mountainous country to the N., more properly called Pisidia, but until that time it was used only in the narrower sense. The plain was shut in from all N. winds, but was well watered by springs from the Taurus ranges. Through lack of cultivation it has in modern times become very malarious, and in ancient times, though better cultivated, the district was never favourable to the development of a vigorous population. Moreover, it was very isolated except by sea, for the mountains to the N. had no good roads, and were infested by brigands. Even Alexander had to fight his way through them.

The name is probably derived from the Pamphyli, one of the three Dorian tribes, and it is likely that Dorian settlers entered Pamphylia at the time of the other Dorian migrations. But the Greek element never prevailed, and though Side and Aspendos were half-Greek cities in the 5th cent. B.C., the Greek that they spoke was very corrupt and was written in a corrupt alphabet. Side is said to have earned its prosperity as the market of Cilician pirates. The town of Attalia was founded in the 2nd century. But more important was the native town of Perga, situated inland and having apparently a port of its own on the river Cestrus at a distance of 5 miles. It was a religious centre., where a goddess ‘Artemis of Perga’ was worshipped, her rites corresponding to those associated with Diana of the Ephesians, and being therefore more Asiatic than Greek. The ruins of the city date from the period of the Seleucid kings of Syria. Pamphylia was in turn subject to Persia, Macedonia, Syria, Pergamus, and Rome.

Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey crossed from Cyprus to Perga, but seem to have gone straight on to Antioch without preaching. It was at Perga that John Mark left them ( Ac 13:13). On the return journey, before taking ship at Attalia, they preached at Perga (Ac 14:25), but by this time they had definitely determined to ‘turn to the Gentiles’ (cf. 13:46). Christianity was slow in taking hold of Pamphylia,—there is no mention of it in 1 P 1:1—and this was probably due partly to the absence of Jewish centres, partly to the backwardness of the district. Christianity made way most quickly in the chief centres of thought. See PERGA.

A. E. HILLARD.

PAN.—See HOUSE, § 9.

PANELLED.—See CIELED.

PANNAG.—A word of doubtful genuineness occurring only in Ezk 27:17, in a list of articles which had a place in the commerce of Judah and Israel with Tyre. RV simply transliterates the word, with marg. note,’ perhaps a kind of confection.’ AV had understood the word as a place name, ‘wheat of Minnith and Pannag.’ Of the suggested emendations may be mentioned Cornill’s ‘wax’ (dōnag), and Cheyne’s ‘grape-syrup,’ for which see HONEY.

A. R. S. KENNEDY.

PAPER.—See WRITING, § 6.

PAPER REEDS.—See MEADOW, REED.

PAPHOS was the name of two cities in the W. of Cyprus, Old Paphos about a mile from the sea, New Paphos (now Baffo) about seven miles N.W. of this. The Phœnician origin of the former need not be doubted; the latter was by tradition a Greek settlement, but in both the chief object of worship was the ‘Papbian goddess,’ undoubtedly of Syrian origin, and worshipped under the form of a conical stone, though identified by the Greeks with Aphrodite. Old Paphos was desolate in the time of Jerome. New Paphos was the centre of the Roman administration in Cyprus. It was here that St. Paul encountered the Roman proconsul Sergius Paulus in his first missionary journey—the first presentation of Christianity before Roman authorities (Ac 13:6– 12).

A. B. HILLARD.

PAPYRI AND OSTRACA.—Until almost the end of the 19th cent., the most important records of antiquity, apart from the authors, that had been preserved for literary reasons, were the inscriptions on stone and metal. Published in great collections, and utilized by scholars of all civilized countries, they have given new life to all branches of the study of antiquity, to history in the widest sense of the word, and in particular to the history of States, law, economics, language, and religion. The age of modern epigraphy has been extraordinarily productive of knowledge that never could have been discovered from the authors alone. And the end has not yet come. The researches and excavations of European and American archæological institutes and of special archæological expeditions, in which the Governments of almost all civilized countries and many wealthy individuals have taken part, bring to light innumerable inscribed stones every year. Then there are the engineering enterprises for opening up the countries of the Levant to traffic and commerce. In the construction of railways particularly, but also in other similar undertakings, a quantity of epigraphical material is discovered and made accessible to scholars.

These epigraphical records were reinforced in the last quarter of the 19 th cent. by two quite new groups of records, both of which have ushered in a new epoch in the science of antiquity, viz. the Papyri and the Ostraca. Both have led to the development of entirely new branches of study. In comparison with the inscriptions they not only constitute an enormous quantitative increase of our materials, but also qualitatively they are of quite special importance: they allow us to see into the private life of the men of antiquity—their most private life, in fact—much deeper than we could ever have done by aid of the authors and the inscriptions.

Suppose for a moment that chance excavations in an absolutely dry mound of rubbish were to lead to the discovery of whole bundles of original private letters, contracts, wills, judicial reports, etc., relating to our own ancestors of the 10th cent. A.D.—what a wave of excitement would run through the whole of the learned world! How few are the documents that we do possess of the private life of those times! History preserves the old inscribed stones, the archives of kings, the chanceries of the great churches and municipalities, but suffers the written memorials of peasants, soldiers, women, artizans, to disappear after a few years without a trace. It was exactly the same in antiquity. The tradition that had come down to us was on the whole the tradition preserved in the history of what was great—the history of nations, potentates, the intellectual leaders in art, science, and religion; and that is true in great measure of the inscriptions, which for the most part owe their origin to princes, cities, and wealthy Individuals.

Only those rare inscriptions that originated in the middle and lower classes of ancient society had to some extent counterbalanced the one-sidedness of the materials available as sources. The papyri and ostraca, however, have remedied the defect in a most unexpected manner. Rubbish mounds such as that which we just now assumed hypothetically to be discoverable in our own country, but which in reality, owing to the dampness of our climate, probably do not exist anywhere in the West, occur in large numbers in Egypt. In ancient times the dumping grounds for rubbish and refuse were on the outskirts of the cities, towns, and villages. Whole bundles of documents that were too old to be worth preserving were thrown on these rubbish heaps by the authorities, instead of being burned; and private persons did the same when they wished to get rid of written matter that had accumulated and was considered valueless. The centuries have covered these ancient rubbish-shoots with layers of dust and sand, and this covering has united with the great dryness of the climate to preserve most excellently the old sheets of papyrus and the inscribed fragments of pottery. Of course these texts, when re-discovered in our own day, throw a flood of light upon the upper cultivated class, but for the most part they are documents of the middle and lower classes.

It had long been known that papyrus was in antiquity a very popular writing material. The pith of the papyrus plant, which thrives excellently in the damp levels of the Nile, was cut into strips, and from these strips, laid cross-wise, horizontally and vertically, upon each other, the sheets of papyrus were manufactured by gumming and pressing. Perishable as the material seems, it is in reality excellent. We possess Egyptian papyri of the time of king Assa (c. B.C. 2600 according to Eduard Meyer’s chronology); and most of the papyri now in our museums have lain more than 1500 years in the earth of Egypt. It is therefore not such a fantastic plan that has lately been suggested in Italy, viz., to re-introduce the manufacture of papyrus and establish it as a State monopoly in connexion with the making of bank notes. It is hoped in this way to obtain a material as durable as it would be difficult to counterfeit.

The first discoverers of written papyri must have been Egyptian fellahīn, digging in the old rubbish mounds for good earth and treasure. In the year 1778 a European noticed a number of papyrus documents in the hands of some of these peasants; he bought one, and watched them burn some fifty others in order that they might enjoy the aromatic smoke. The one document came to Europe; it is the Charta Borgiana, the decipherment of which marks the first beginning of papyrology. Though a good number of other papyri reached the European museums in the course of the 19th cent., only a few scholars took any trouble to cultivate papyrology further, until in 1877, a hundred years after the acquisition of the Charta Borgiana, many thousands of papyri came to light from the rubbish mounds near the ‘City of Crocodiles’ or ‘City of the Arsenoites,’ the old capital of the province of el-Fayyum in Middle Egypt.

This was the beginning of a new epoch that has led to a gigantic development of the infant science of papyri. The period of chance discoveries, the harvest of which used from merely financial considerations to be scattered hither and thither, has been succeeded by a period of systematic excavations carried out by highly trained specialists, who keep together the documents they discover and publish them in collected form. British scholars particularly have performed signal services by discovering and publishing papyri. Flinders Petrie has obtained magnificent specimens from mummy-wrappings which had been made by sticking papyri together. Grenfell and Hunt have carried out splendid excavations at Oxyrhynchus and other places, and have published their treasures with a rapidity and accuracy that place them in the front rank of editors, as the world of scholarship acknowledges. Besides these there are many other editors, and every year adds to the army of workers on the texts; philologists and historians, lawyers and theologians, all have found and are finding abundant work. The young and hopeful science has found a centre in the Archiv für Papyrusforschung, a journal edited by the leading German papyrologist, Ulrich Wilcken.

The papyri fall into two great classes according to the nature of their contents, viz. literary texts and non-literary texts.

Literary texts have come to light in large numbers, though generally only in fragments. They comprise not only very ancient MSS of well-known authors, but also a large number of lost authors; and lost writings by known authors have been partially recovered. These finds would suffice to show the extreme importance of the papyrus discoveries. And many scholars have considered these literary finds to be the most valuable.

But for scholarship as a whole the second group, the non-literary texts, is no doubt the more important. As regards their contents, they are as varied as life itself. Legal documents of the most various kinds, e.g. leases, accounts and receipts, contracts of marriage and divorce, wills, denunciations, notes of trials, and tax-papers, are there in innumerable examples; moreover, there are letters and notes, schoolboys’ exercise-books, horoscopes, diaries, petitions, etc. Their value lies in the inimitable fidelity with which they reflect the actual life of ancient society, especially in its middle and lower strata.

The oldest papyri date from c. B.C. 2600 , and are among the most precious Egyptological records. To the 5th cent. B.C. belong the Aramaic papyri from Assuan, published by Sayce and Cowley in 1906, and those from Elephantine, published by Sachau in 1907—documents that have furnished astonishing information relative to the history of Judaism. In the 4th cent. B.C. the main stream, as it were, begins, consisting of Greek papyri, and extending from the time of the Ptolemys till the first centuries of the Arab occupation, i.e. over a period of more than 1000 years. Associated with them there are Latin, Coptic, Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, and other papyri— so that, taken all together, they confer an immense benefit, and at the same time impose an immense obligation, upon the science of antiquity.

What is the importance of the papyri to Biblical science? It is twofold. In the first place, they increase our stock of Biblical MSS in a most gratifying manner; and secondly, they place new sources at the disposal of the philological student of the Greek Bible.

Beginning then with Biblical MSS, and first of all MSS of the Hebrew Bible, we have in the Nash Papyrus a very ancient copy of the Ten Commandments. As regards the Greek Old Testament, we have numerous Septuagint fragments (e.g. the Leipzig fragments of the Psalms, the Heidelberg fragments of the Minor Prophets), together with isolated remains of other translations. For the New Testament we possess an equally fine series of ancient fragments. But besides these we have acquired quite new material, in particular the various remains of lost Gospels and two papyrus fragments and one vellum fragment with sayings of Jesus, some of which are not to be found in the NT. Of course with such finds as these it is always a question how far they contain ancient and genuine material; and the opinions of specialists, e.g. with regard to these sayings of Jesus, are at variance. But in any case, even if, as is not at all likely, they should prove to be of quite secondary importance as regards the history of Jesus, they would be valuable documents in the history of Christianity. Quite a number of the papyri throw fresh light on early Christianity as a whole. Fragments of the Fathers, Apocryphal and Gnostic writings, liturgical texts, homiletic fragments, remains of early Christian poetry, have been recovered in large numbers, both in Greek and Coptic. But to these must be added the large number of non-literary documents, both Jewish and Early Christian, which are to be reckoned among the oldest relics of our religion. From the time of the persecution of the Christians under the Emperor Decius, we possess, for example, no fewer than five libelli issued to libellatici, i.e. official certificates by the authorities responsible for the pagan sacrifices, that the holder of the papyrus had performed the prescribed sacrifices. To the time of the Diocletian persecution belongs probably the letter of Psenosiris, a Christian presbyter in the Great Oasis, relating to a banished Christian woman named Politike. Then comes a long series of other early Christian original letters in Greek and Coptic, from the 3rd cent. until late in the Byzantine period. Centuries that had long been supposed to be knowable only from the folios of Fathers of the Church are made to live again by these original documents—documents of whose complete naïveté and singleness of purpose there can be no doubt.

The direct value of the papyri to Bible scholarship and ecclesiastical history is thus very considerable. Less obvious, however, but none the less great, is the indirect value of the papyri, and chiefly the non-literary documents of private life.

This value is discoverable in two directions. The papyri, as sources of popular, non-literary Late Greek, have placed the linguistic investigation of the Greek Bible on new foundations; and, as autograph memorials of the men of the ancient world from the age of the great religious revolution, they enable us better to understand these men—the public to whom the great worldmission of Primitive Christianity was addressed.

As regards the first, the philological value of the papyri, these new texts have caused more and more the rejection of the old prejudice that the Greek Bible (OT and NT) represents a linguistic entity clearly determinable by scholarship. On the contrary, the habit has arisen more and more of bringing ‘Biblical’ or ‘New Testament’ Greek into relation with popular Late Greek, and it has come to be realized that the Greek Bible is itself the grandest monument of that popular language.

The clearest distinctive features of a living language fall within the province of phonology and accidence. And in the phonology and accidence we see most readily that the assumption of a ‘Biblical’ Greek, capable of being isolated from other Greek for purposes of study, was wrong.

The hundreds of morphological details that strike the philologist accustomed only to classical

Attic, when he begins to read the Greek Bible, are found also in the contemporary records of the ‘profane’ popular language, especially in the papyri and ostraca. The recent Grammars of the NT by Winer-Schmiedel, Blass, and James Hope Moulton, have furnished an extremely copious collection of parallel phenomena. Helbing’s Grammar of the Greek Old Testament ( Septuagint ) does the same. The Septuagint was produced in Egypt, and naturally employed the language of its surroundings; the Egyptian papyri are therefore magnificent as parallel texts, especially as we possess a great abundance of texts from the Ptolemaic period, i.e. the time when the Septuagint itself originated. The correspondence between them goes so far that Mayser’s Grammar of the Greek Papyri of the Ptolemaic Period might in many particulars be used as a Septuagint Grammar.

Questions of Biblical orthography, which seem unimportant to the layman, but cause much worry to an editor of the Biblical text, are of course illumined by the contemporary papyri. The matter is not unimportant to the scientific scholar, who must work with the fidelity of the wise steward.

In the same way problems of syntax and of style are considerably advanced by the papyri. It is possible, for example, to place the whole theory of the prepositions on a new basis. The use of the prepositions in Late Greek is very interesting. To mention but one small point, we are now able to make much more exact statements with regard to those prepositions in the NT which denote a vicarious relation—and how important these are in the Apostles’ personal confessions of faith! The syntactical peculiarities of the NT, which used often to be traced back to Semitic influence, can also as a rule be paralleled from the papyri. The whole question of Semiticisms will now be able to be treated afresh. Formerly, when the NT used to be ‘isolated’ far too much, the question was generally answered in such a way that the influence of the so-called ‘genius’ of the Hebrew or Aramaic language, especially on the Primitive Christians, was greatly exaggerated. Linguistic phenomena that could not be found recorded in the ordinary Greek Grammars were described summarily as Semiticisms. It was forgotten that the NT and the Septuagint are for the most part documents of the popular language, and that the popular language in Greek and in Semitic has much in common. For example, the so-called ‘paratactic’ style of St. John’s Gospel and St. John’s Epistles, which used generally to be pronounced strongly Semitic, is in fact simply popular style, and has its parallels in inscriptions and papyri which certainly are not under Semitic influence. The existence of Semiticisms in the Greek Bible is of course not denied by recent Biblical investigators—in the books translated from Semitic originals they are really numerous—but the number of Semiticisms has been considerably reduced, and in proportion as the Semitic character of the NT recedes, its popular character is made to advance.

It is lexicography, perhaps, that derives most benefit from the new documents. Late Greek is rich in new words and new meanings of old words: the virgin soil of the life of the people is inexhaustible. Grammarians of a later age—the so-called Atticists—lured by Attic Greek of the classical period as by a phantom, fought against these new words and meanings, branded them as ‘bad,’ and tried to root them out. A number of littérateurs suffered themselves to be bound by the rules of the Atticists, as if they had been living in the 5th cent. B.C. This unhistorical, pedantic, and dogmatic tendency left the men of the NT practically untouched. Men of the people themselves, they spoke as the people spoke, and in the Gospels, for example, they for the first time introduced the language of the people with vigour into literature. By reason of its popular character, the language of the first Apostles is pre-eminently a missionary language, and this language it was that really enabled Christianity to rise to a world-religion. All this is confirmed most amply by the new discoveries. Words that we used formerly to regard as specifically ‘Biblical’ or ‘New Testament,’ we find now in the mouth of the people. Besides the papyri the inscriptions are also rich sources. Illustrative quotations from the papyri are for us particularly lifelike, because we can generally date them even to the day. Turn over the pages of the second volume of Oxyrhynchus Papyri published by Grenfell and Hunt, and you find that the non-literary examples are almost exclusively documents of the 1st cent. A.D., i.e. the exact time in which the NT grew up. It will be possible from these and other papyri to enrich very greatly the future Lexicon of the NT.

Thus we see the justification of the statement that the new texts of popular Late Greek have placed the linguistic investigation of the Greek Bible on new foundations. In yet another direction they yield an important harvest to theology. The more we realize the missionary character of Primitive Christianity, the more clearly we grasp the greatness of the Apostle Paul working among the proletariat of the great centres of the world’s commerce—Ephesus, Corinth, etc.—the more we shall feel the necessity of studying the men to whom the gospel was preached, i.e. of obtaining, where possible, insight into their life, not only into their economic position and their family life, but into their very soul. As regards Egypt, we now possess wonderful documents among the papyri, especially in the numerous private letters, which were not intended for publicity, but reflect quite naively the mood of the moment. As they have made clearer to us the nature of the non-literary letters of St. Paul—and this alone constitutes a large part of the value of the papyri to NT study—so they make live again for us the men of the middle and lower classes of the age of the Primitive Christian mission to the world, especially for him who has ears to hear the softer notes between the lines. But we may assume that the civilization of the Imperial age was tolerably uniform throughout the whole range of the Mediterranean lands, and that if we know the Egyptians of the time of St. Paul, we are not far from knowing the Corinthians and the men of Asia Minor of the same period. And thus we possess in the papyri, as also in the inscriptions, excellent materials for the re-construction of the historical background of Primitive Christianity.

In conclusion, reference may be made once more to the fact that recently, in addition to the papyri, a great number of similar ancient texts, written on fragments of pottery, have been discovered in Egypt, viz. the Ostraca. As the potsherd cost nothing (anybody could fetch one from the nearest rubbish heap), it was the writing material of the poor man, and revenue officials were fond of using it in transactions with the poor. The ostraca, which are also numbered by thousands, are on the whole even more ‘vulgar’ than the papyri, but for that very reason valuable to us in all the respects already specified with regard to the papyri. The real founder of the study of ostraca on the great scale is Ulrich Wilcken, who has collected, deciphered, and historically elucidated the Greek ostraca. Next to him W. E. Crum has rendered similar services to the Coptic ostraca. To show that the ostraca, besides their indirect importance, have also a direct value for the history of Christianity, we may refer to the potsherds inscribed with texts from the Gospels, or the early Christian legal documents recently discovered at the town of Menas, but chiefly to the Coptic potsherds containing numerous Christian letters and illustrating particularly the inner history of Egyptian Christianity.

The whole study of papyri and ostraca is still in its infancy. The scholar still sees before him a large portion of the field of work uncultivated. The layman also who loves his Bible may still expect much light from the wonderful texts from the period of the origin of the Septuagint and the NT, and there is no need to fear that the Light of the world (Jn 8:12) will pale before the new lights kindled for us by research. The more we set the NT in its own contemporary world, the more we shall realize, on the one hand, the contact between it and the world, and the more we shall feel, on the other hand, the contrast in which it stands with the world, and for the sake of which it went out to fight with and to conquer that world.

ADOLF DEISSMANN.

PARABLE (IN OT)

1. The word represents Heb. māshāl, which is used with a wide range of meaning, and is very variously tr. both in LXX and in EV. The root means ‘to be like,’ and Oxf. Heb. Lex. refers the word to ‘the sentences constructed in parallelism,’ which are characteristic of Heb. poetry and gnomic literature; i.e. it refers to the literary form in which the sentence is cast, and not to any external comparison implied in the thought. Such a comparison, however, is often found in the māshāl, and, according to many scholars, is the main idea underlying the word. We are concerned here with the cases where the EV tr. ‘parable’; it is important to notice that in OT ‘parable’ has the varying senses of māshāl, and is never used in the narrow technical sense of the

NT. In Nu 23:7 etc. it is used of the figurative discourse of Balaam (cf. Is 14:4 [RV], Mic 2:4 ,

Hab 2:3); in Job 27:1, 29:1 of Job’s sentences of ethical wisdom, differing little from the ‘proverbs’ of 1 K 4:32, Pr 1:1, 10:1 (the same word māshāl) . So in Lk 4:28 (RV) it is used of a proverb. Pr 26:7–9 speaks of ‘a parable in the mouth of fools,’ which halts and is misapplied. In Ps 49:4, 78:2 ‘parable’ is coupled with ‘dark saying’ and implies something of mystery; cf. the quotation in Mt 13:35 and Jn 16:25 AVm, RVm, where it represents a Gr. word usually tr. ‘proverb.’ In Wis 5:3 (AVm, RV), ‘parable’ means ‘by-word,’ a sense which māshāl often has.

In Ezk 17:2 we have ‘the parable’ of the eagle, really an allegory (see below); cf. the use in Jn

10:3 , He 9:9 RV, 11:19 RV, where it represents a figure or allegory. Closely connected is Ezk 24:3, the parabolic narrative of the caldron; the action described was probably not actually performed. Such mysterious figures are characteristic of Ezekiel, and he is reproached as ‘a speaker of parables’ (20:49).

2. The meaning of ‘parable’ in the technical sense.—If Christ did not create the parabolic type of teaching, He at least developed it with high originality, and gave it a deeper spiritual import. His parables stand as a type, and it is convenient to attach a technical sense to the word, as describing this special type. As distinguished from fable (wh. see), it moves on a higher ethical and literary plane. Fables violate probability in introducing speech of animals, etc., in an unnatural way, and their moral is confined to lessons of worldly wisdom. The allegory, again, is more artificial. It represents something ‘other’ than itself (the Gr. word means ‘speaking other’), the language of the spiritual life being translated into the language, e.g., of a battle, or a journey. ‘The qualities and properties of the first are transferred to the last, and the two thus blended together, instead of being kept quite distinct and placed side by side, as is the case in the parable’ (Trench, On Parables, ch. 1). Hence each detail has its meaning, and exists for that meaning, not for the sake of the story. In the parable, particularly in those of the NT, the story is natural and self-sufficient as a story, but is seen to point to a deeper spiritual meaning. The details as a rule are not to be pressed, but are simply the picturesque setting of the story, their value being purely literary. In the allegory, each figure, king or soldier, servant or child, ‘is’ some one else without qualification; each detail, sword or shield, road or tree, ‘means’ something perfectly definite. It is not so in most of the parables; the lesson rests on the true analogy which exists between the natural and the spiritual world. Without requiring any fictitious ‘licence,’ the parable simply assumes that the Divine working in each sphere follows the same law. Like an analogy, it appeals to the reason no less than to the imagination.

3. OT parables.—There are five passages in the OT which are generally quoted as representing the nearest approach to ‘parables’ in the technical sense. It is noticeable that in none of them is the word used; as we have seen, where we have the word, we do not really have the thing; in the same way, where we have the thing, we do not find the word. The first two passages (2 S 12:1–4 [ Nathan’s parable], 14:6 [Joab’s]) are very similar; we have a natural story with an application. The first is exactly parallel to such a parable as ‘the Two Debtors,’ but the second has no deep or spiritual significance. The same is true of 1 K 20:39 [the wounded prophet], where the story is helped out by a piece of acting. In all three cases the object is to convey the actual truth of the story, and by the unguarded comments of the listener to convict him out of his own mouth. The method has perhaps in the last two cases a suspicion of trickery, and was not employed by our Lord; the application of the parable of the Wicked Husbandmen (Mt 21:33) was obvious from the first in the light of Is 5:1–8 . This passage is the fourth of those referred to, and is a true parable, though only slightly developed. It illustrates well the relation between a parable and a metaphor; and a comparison with Ps 80:8 shows how narrow is the border-line between parable and allegory. The last passage is Is 28:24–28, where we have a comparison between the natural and the spiritual world, but no story. It should be noted that post-Biblical Jewish literature makes a wide use of parable, showing sometimes, alike in spirit, form, and language, a remarkable resemblance to the parables of the NT.

C. W. EMMET.

PARABLE (IN NT). 1. Meaning and form.—(1) The constant use of a word, meaning resemblance both in Hebrew and in Greek, makes it evident that an essential feature of the parable lay in the bringing together of two different things so that the one helped to explain and to emphasize the other. In the parables of Christ the usual form is that of a complete story running parallel to the stages and divisions of a totally different subject. Thus in the parable of the Sower (Mt 13:1–8) the kinds of soil in the narrative are related to certain distinctions of character in the interpretation (13:19–28) , The teaching value thus created came from an appeal to the uniformity of nature. In the Oriental thought of the Bible writers this contained a factor or field of illustration often grudgingly conceded by the materialistic provincialism of modern Western science. It was recognized and believed by them that the Lord of all had the right to do as He pleased with His own. Instead of being an element of disruption, this was to them the guarantee of all other sequences. He who gave to the frail grass its form of beauty could be relied upon with regard to higher forms of life. The attention given to the fall of the sparrow would not be withheld from the death of His saints. The conception gave solidarity to all phenomenal sequences, and forced into special notice whatever seemed to be subject to other influences. Such was the parable value of contrast between the behaviour of Israel towards God and the common seotiment of family relationship, and even the grateful instincts of the beasts of burden (Is 1:2, Is 1:3) . Thus also Christ spoke of His own homelessness as a privation unknown to the birds and the foxes (Mt 8:20). This effect of contrasting couples formed a literary feature in some of Christ’s parables where opposing types of character were introduced side by side (Mt 21:28, 25:2 , Lk 18:10).

(2) The use of the word paroimia in LXX and in the Gospel of John indicates that a proverb or parable, being drawn from common objects and incidents, was available and meant for public use. What was once said in any particular case could always be repeated under similar circumstances.

(3) Occasionally the public parable value was reached by making an individual represent all others of the same class. The parable then became an example in the ordinary sense of the term (Lk 14:8, 12, 13). In Jn 10:1–8, 15:1–7 , there is no independent introductory narrative dealing with shepherd life and the care of the vineyard. Certain points are merely selected and dwelt upon as in the interpretation of a parable story previously given. Here there is all the explanatory and persuasive efficiency of the appeal to nature and custom, but, as in this case the reference is to Christ Himself as Head of the Kingdom, the parable has not the general application of those belonging to its citizenship. It is nevertheless a parable, though ‘the Door’ and ‘the Vine’ are usually called emblems or symbols of Christ.

2. Advantages and Disadvantages.—In the parable two different planes of experience were brought together, one familiar, concrete, and definite, the other an area of abstractions, conjectures, and possibilities. At the points of contact it was possible for those who desired to do so to pass from the known to the unknown. Imagination was exercised and the critical faculty appealed to, and sympathy was enlisted according to the merits of the case presented. A moral decision could thus be impartially arrived at without arousing the instinct of self-defence, and when the parallelism was once recognized, the hearer had either to make the desired application or act in contempt of his own judgment (2 S 12:1–4) . In Christ’s parables, as distinct from the ordinary fable which they otherwise completely resembled in form, the illustrations were always drawn from occurrences that were possible, and which might therefore have belonged to the experience of the hearer. When the meaning was perceived, this fact gave to the explanation the persuasive value of something sanctioned, by the actualities of life. But, on the other hand, the meaning might not be understood. Its acceptance was limited by the power to discover it. Only he who could see the prophet’s chariot could use the prophet’s mantle. The transition of responsibility from the speaker to the hearer was sometimes indicated by the words, ‘He that hath ears to hear, let him hear’ (Mt 13:9). Christ’s most solemn utterances were directed towards the insensibility that took its music without dancing, and sat silent where the wail for the dead was raised (Mt 11:17). His last act towards such imperviousness was to pray for it and to die for it (Lk 23:34, 37, Ro 5:8).

3. The special need of Parables in Christ’s teaching.—If the teaching of Christ had been devoted to matters already understood and accepted as authoritative, such as the conventional commentary on the law of Moses, such a presentation of moral and spiritual truth, while

imparting the charm of freshness to things familiar, would not have been actually necessary. The Scribes and Pharisees did not require it. Even if, passing beyond the Jewish ceremonial observance and externalism, He had been content to speak of personal salvation and ethical ideas after the manner so prevalent in the Western Church of to-day, He would not have needed the vehicle of parable instruction. But the subject which, under all circumstances, privately and publicly, directly and indirectly, He sought to explain, commend, and impersonate, was that of a Kingdom that had for its destiny the conquest of the world. Alike in His preaching and in His miraculous works, His constant purpose was to reveal and glorify the Father (Jn 15:8, 16:25) and to unfold the mysteries of the Kingdom of heaven (Mt 4:23, 13:11, Lk 8:10). These mysteries were not in themselves obscure or remote (Mt 16:1–4 , Lk 17:21, 18:16), but its principles and motives and rewards were so opposed to all that had entered the mind of man, that it had to be characterized as a Kingdom that was not of this world (Jn 18:36). It was this Kingdom of Messianic expectation that united Christ with the historic past of the elected nation to which according to the flesh He belonged. Its appearance had been the chief burden of prophecy, and its expansion and attendant blessing to humanity had been dwelt upon as the recompense for the travail of Zion. The Messiah was to be the Prince of Peace in that Kingdom of exploded and exhausted evil, where in symbol the wolf and the lamb were to feed together (Is 65:25). The princes of the people of the earth were to be gathered together to be the people of the God of Abraham (Gn 12:3, Ps 47:9). But the same mysteries of the Kingdom, which connected Christ

with the prophetic utterances and developed history of Israel, also brought Him into a relationship of antagonism towards the religious teaching of His own time. The people recognized in His words the authority that belonged to Moses’ seat, but they saw very clearly that another than Moses was there. The point of distinction between Him and the Pharisees was that in His hands the Law was no longer an end in itself, but became a minister to what was beyond and greater than itself. While the Rabbinical teaching boasted that the world had been created only for the Torah, He taught that the Law had been created for the world. This radical opposition appeared in what He said about the proper use and observance of the Sabbath day, and in His condemnation of those who would neither enter the Kingdom nor allow others to do so. They taught with pride and complacency that the Kingdom of God had reached its final consummation and embodiment in their own exclusive circle, whereas the message of Christ was to be borne over new areas of progress and expansion until it reached and conquered the uttermost parts of the earth. It was a parting at the fountain-head. One teaching meant the extinction of the other. Of this Kingdom and its mysteries Christ spoke in parables. He thereby turned the thoughts of men from the Mosaic succession of Rabbinical precedents and their artificial mediation of the Law of God, and discovered a new source of illumination and

authority in the phenomena of the seasons, the relationships of the family, and the industries of village life. Faith, obedience, and love took the place of technical knowledge and official position. The Kingdom of heaven was at hand, and the King’s invitation to enter was always wider than the willingness to accept it. To His disciples He more intimately explained that it was a Kingdom of relationship to God, and of men’s relationship, in consequence, towards one another. This, along with the story of His own life and ministry and resurrection, was to be the gospel they were to preach, by the power of the Spirit, as the message of God’s salvation to the whole world. In the Sermon on the Mount those mysteries of the Kingdom were indicated in outline, and in the parables the theme was still the same, whether the story started from the initiative of the Teacher in the presence of the multitude, or was suggested by some incident of the hour. In the long warfare of the world’s kingdoms men had grown familiar with the cry, ‘Woe to the vanquished!’ but, in that Kingdom of which He spoke, a new social instinct, created and nourished by its citizenship, was to inflict an intolerable pain on those who could relieve misery and uplift the down-trodden and cheer the despairing, and did it not. It was to take upon itself the world’s estrangement from God and hardness of heart, and make its own the Christless shame of moral defeat, and social discord, and all unloveliness of life. In the citizenship of that Kingdom the sorest impoverishment would not be in the humble byways of the lame and the blind, but in the homes of selfish luxury and privileged exemption. The chief crime of the Kingdom, involving a complete negation of discipleship, would be an evaded cross. ‘I was sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not’ (Mt 25:43). Both from the novelty of the vision thus presented, and from its hostility to the spirit and authority of the religious leaders, it is evident that teaching by parable was the form best adapted to Christ’s purpose and subject, and to the circumstances of the time. It was an efficient and illuminating method of instruction to those who were able to receive it. The petition once presented by two of His disciples indicates what might have become general if the rewards of the Kingdom had been announced to those who had not the true spirit of its service (Mt 20:21). By leaving altogether the traditions and controversies of the exhausted Church of that day, He gave a fresh positive re-statement of the nature and dimension of the Kingdom of God.

4. The following selection from Christ’s parables Indicates some of the points of relationship to the Kingdom. Whatever is stated generally applies also to the individual, and the latter should not regard anything as essential and vital which he cannot share with the whole membership. The humblest service is regarded as done directly to the King. (1) The parable of boundaries, the conditions and environment of the Kingdom: the Sower and the Seed (Mt 13:1–23) ; difficulties and dangers arising from in attention, superficiality, and divided allegiance. Failure abnormal.

(2) Accepted circumstance: Wheat and Tares (Mt 13:24–30); malignity progressively revealed in the advancing stages of the Kingdom; the patience of the Spirit. (3) Continuous development and adaptation: Growing Seed (Mk 4:26–29) ; union in the service of the Kingdom not an artificial pattern commending itself to a particular age, but a new circle of growth around the parent stem which moves onwards and upwards towards flower and fruit. (4) The appointed task: Talents ( Mt 25:14–30), Pounds (Lk 19:12–27) ; faith accepting personal responsibility; the servant of the Kingdom, being relieved from the dangers of success and failure, labours so that he may present his account with joy in the presence of the King, being prepared for that which is prepared for him. (5) The parable of office: The Husbandmen in the Vineyard (Mt 21:33–46, Lk 12:42–46) ; names and claims in the Church that dispossess and dishonour Christ. (6) The King’s interest: Lost Sheep (Lk 15:3–7), Lost Coin (15:8–10), Lost Son (15:11–32) ; forfeited ownership sorrowfully known to the owner; social relationship to the Kingdom indicated by the fact that the sheep was one of a hundred, the coin one of ten, and the son a member of a family. (7) Cost and recompense of citizenship: Hid Treasure (Mt 13:44), Pearl of Great Price (13:45) ; self is eliminated, but ‘all things are yours.’ (8) Fulfilment: The Great Supper (Lk 14:15–24): the King’s purpose must be carried out; if individuals and nations of civilized pre-eminence hold back, others will be made worthy of the honour of the service. (9) Rejected membership and lost opportunity: Rich Fool (Lk 12:16–21), Rich Man and Lazarus (16:19–31). (10) Personality in the

Kingdom: (a) humility (Mt 18:1–4, Lk 18:9–14); (b) sincerity (Mt 7:15–27); (c) usefulness ( Lk 13:3–8); (d) gratitude (Mt 18:28–35, Lk 7:41–43); (e) readiness to help (Lk 10:30–37); (f) assurance of faith (Lk 11:5–13, 18:1–8); (g) patient hope (Mk 13:34–37, Lk 12:35–39).

G. M. MACKIE.

PARACLETE.—See ADVOCATE, PAUL, p. 693a.

PARADISE.—A Persian word for ‘park’ or ‘garden’ (see ORCHARD) , used in later Jewish and Christian thought to represent the abode of the blessed dead.

1. In the OT.—While the word pardēs occurs only 3 times in the OT (Ca 4:12, Ec 2:5, Neh 2:3), and then with no reference to the Garden of Eden, it is unquestionable that Eden serves as the basis for the later conception. The transition from the usage of Genesis to one less literal is to

be seen in Ezk 31, which is doubtless modified to a considerable degree by Babylonian conceptions. These, undoubtedly, are also to be seen in the Genesis picture of Eden. The significance of Ezekiel’s conception is that it shows the anticipation of the apocalyptic conception of Eth. Enoch (chs. 23–28) and other apocalypses both Jewish and Christian.

2. In Jewish apocalyptic literature and in the NT.—In the apocalypses there are elaborate descriptions (particularly Eth. Enoch, Apoc. Bar 4, and 2 Es 8:52) of Paradise as the opposite of Gehenna. In the Rabbinical conception of the universe, Paradise is the abode of the blessed dead. There is the tree of life, and there also the righteous feast. Gehenna and Paradise are, according to the Rabbis, close together, being separated only by a handbreadth. This view, however, is difficult to harmonize with other conceptions, and the adjustment is probably to be made by the other view of a twofold Paradise, one in Sheol and the other in Heaven. Such a view would harmonize with the conception that the righteous would rise from the nether Paradise to the heavenly. The word is never used by Jesus or St. Paul except in Lk 23:43 and 2 Co 12:4. From some points of view it would be more natural to make these two passages refer to the two

Paradises respectively, but a final conclusion is prevented by lack of evidence. The reference of Paul (2 Co 12:4) is undoubtedly to the upper Paradise—that is, the third heaven. Here again, however, it is not safe to derive dogma from what may be a merely conventional expression.

3. In Christian theology the term is commonly used as identical with ‘heaven,’ although in some cases it is distinguished as the ‘temporary abode of the saints, either in some place on earth or above the earth. It has been particularly developed in connexion with the speculation as to the intermediate state as the place where the righteous live between their death and the Parousia. Lack of data, however, makes it impossible to reach certainty in the matter, and the most modern theology maintains an attitude of reverent agnosticism regarding the state of the dead, and uses the term ‘Paradise’ as a symbol rather than with precise definition.

SHAILER MATHEWS.

PARAH.—A city in Benjamin (Jos 18:23). Now the ruin Fārah, near the head of the Valley of Michmash.

PARALYSIS, PARALYTIC.—See MEDICINE, p. 599^a

PARAN.—El Pārān, ‘the oak or terebinth (LXX) of Paran’ (Gn 14:6), is probably identical with Elath, the ancient seaport on the Gulf of Akabah. Perhaps in this region should be sought ‘Paran’ of Dt 33:2, Hab 3:3 (Driver, ‘Deut.’ [ICC], 392). Palmer (Desert of the Exodus, p. 510) identifies it with Jebel Magrah, c. 29 miles S. of ‘Ain Kadīs. If Dt 2:8 refers to a place in Moab, no trace of it has yet been found. A city may be intended in 1 K 11:13, lying between Edom and Egypt, which cannot now be identified. The exiled Ishmael settled in the ‘Wilderness of Paran,’ evidently S. of Beersheba (Gn 21:21). Israel’s first march from Sinai brought them to this wilderness (Nu 10:12). Within it lay Taberah, Kibroth-hattaavah, Mazeroth, Kadesh, and what is called the ‘Wilderness of Zin.’ The spies went from the ‘Wilderness of Zin’ (13:21), in which lay Kadesh (20:1, 27:14, cf. 33:36), and this again is identified with the ‘Wilderness of Paran’ (13:26). It corresponds to the great limestone plateau of et-Tīh, stretching from the S. of Judah to the mountains of Sinai, having the Arabah on the E. and the desert of Shur on the W. Hither David fled after Samuel’s death (1 S 25:1. LXX B here gives Maan = Heb. Ma‘ōn. See Smith, ‘Samuel’ [ICC] , 220 f. ).

W. EWING.

PARBAR.—A term identified with parvārīm (AV ‘suburbs,’ RV ‘precincts’) of 2 K 23:11 and applied to part of the Temple buildings lying on the W., where two Levites were stationed (1 Ch 26:18). The word is supposed to be of Persian origin and to have been taken over into Hebrew to indicate a colonnade or portico open to the light. The pl. form parvārīm (2 K 23:11) describes the situation of the ‘chamber of Nathanmelech,’ and might be translated ‘in the colonnades,’ but it is difficult to understand how a Persian word could occur so early. Either the word is a late explanatory addition to the text, or perhaps we have a different word altogether, describing the office of Nathanmelech. If we read bappĕrādīm instead of bapparvārīm, we get the meaning ‘who was over the mules.’

W. F. BOYD.

PARCHED CORN (qālī, or more fully ’ābīb qālui bā’ēsh [ Lv 2:14], Lv 23:14, Jos 5:11, Ru 2:14 , 1 S 17:17, 25:18, 2 S 17:28) is often made on the harvest field by holding a bundle of ears in a blazing fire or by roasting them over a piece of metal. Cf. FOOD, 2.

E. W. G. MASTEHMAN.

PARCHMENT.—See PEROAMUM, WRITING, § 6.

PARDON.—See FORGIVENESS.

PARENTS.—See FAMILY.

PARLOUR.—See HOUSE, § 5.

PARMASHTA.—The seventh of the sons of Haman, put to death by the Jews (Est 9:3).

PARMENAS.—One of the ‘Seven’ (Ac 6:5).

PARNACH.—The father of Elizaphan (Nu 34:25).

PAROSH.—The name of a post-exilic family (Ezr 2:3 = Neh 7:8) Ezr 8:3, 10:25, Neh 3:25, 10:14. The Gr. form Phoros is adopted in I Es 5:9, 8:30, 9:26.

PAROUSIA.—The ‘appearance,’ Advent, or Second Coming of Christ at the end of ‘this age’ in order to establish His Kingdom.

1. Origin of the expectation.—The Messianic interpretation given to Jesus by the Apostles was essentially eschatological. No one of them understood Him to be engaged in the work of establishing the Kingdom of God during the period culminating in His death. He was the Christ in the sense that (a) He was anointed (empowered) by God to deliver men; (b) He was gathering and preparing men for His Kingdom; (c) He died and rose to manifest the Justice and love of God, and thus save those who accepted Him as Christ; (d) He would return to conquer Satan, judge both the living and the dead, and establish His Kingdom either in heaven or on a renewed earth. How far we are to believe that this view was held or countenanced by Jesus Himself will he determined by the view taken as to the authorship of Mk 13 and other apocalyptic sections of the Synoptic Gospels. At this point Christain scholars are divided into three groups: first, those who believe that Jesus was thoroughly in sympathy with the eschatological views of His contemporaries; second, those who hold that He rejected those views, and that the eschatological sayings attributed to Him are the result of reading back into His word the admitted eschatological expectation of the Apostles and the early Church as a whole. There seems little likelihood at present of agreement between these two groups, for the reason that the second group uses as critical criteria dogmatic or highly subjective presuppositions concerning Jesus. The nearest approach to a compromise view is to be found in the position of the third group, who hold that Jesus to some extent utilized the eschatology of His day, but that His references have been developed and made specific by the Evangelists. However these larger questions may be answered, an impartial criticism and exegesis can hardly deny that Jesus referred to His future in terms which, if interpreted literally, would mean His return in judgment (cf. particularly Mk 14:61–68, Mt 23:37–39). As to the exact time at which He expected His return we have no information, except such sayings as Mk 8:34–38 [Mt 16:24–28, Lk 9:23–27 show influence of Apostolic interpretation] and Lk 17:22.

2. Expectation in the early Church.—The elements in the expectation of the Parousia found in the Gospels and in the Epistles can be formulated without serious difficulty. It was expected within the lifetime of the writers (except 2 P 3:3–9): 1 Th 4:15, 1 Co 15:51f.; or immediately: Ja 5:8, Ph 4:5, Ro 13:11, 1 Co 7:29, 1 P 4:7. The exact day is, however, not known (1 Th 5:2), but will be preceded by sorrows and the appearance of Antichrist (2 Th 2:8) and the conversion of the Jews (Ro 11:25, 26). The order of events awaited is the descent of Jesus with His angels from the upper heavens to the lower; the sounding of the trumpet and the voice of the archangel which will summon the dead from Sheol; the giving to the saints of the body of the resurrection; the catching up of the living saints, who have been changed in the twinkling of an eye, to meet Jesus and the risen saints in the air; the general judgment of both living and dead; the establishment of the Messianic Kingdom, which, after a period of struggle, is to be victorious over the kingdom of Satan; and finally the fixing of the eternal supremacy of God. Among certain Christians this view was further elaborated, so that the appearance of Christ in the sky was followed by the resurrection of the martyrs, a thousand years of peace, during which Satan was to be bound, then the conquest of Satan, the general resurrection, and the establishment of the final conditions of eternity. This latter view, however, although popular in the 2nd cent., does not appear in the NT except in Rev 20:2–7 (see MILLENNIUM) . It easily passed over into the sensuous chiliastic views which were finally rejected from the main current of Christian thought largely through the influence of Augustine, but which have continued to exist among different sects or groups of Christians.

3. Various identifications of the Parousia.—(a) With Christ’s resurrection. Such a view, however, disregards many of the elements of the NT expectation, and has never been widely accepted. (b) The coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost—a view commonly held by those who reject the literalistic interpretation of the apocalyptic elements of the NT, and identify the influence of the risen Jesus in the world with the Holy Spirit. This view makes such passages as Jn 14:23 and 16:7ff. the exegetical point of approach to the entire question. (c) The destruction of Jerusalem. This is generally combined with (b) and said to be forecast in Mk 13 and 14:61–63. (d) The theory of the successive comings of the Christ in judgment. Thus various historical crises, such as the destruction of Jerusalem and the fall of the Roman Empire, are regarded as due to the immediate influence of the Christ and as a part of the new dispensation of the Spirit. (e) The death of the believer—a view exegetically untenable. (f) The historical-critical view sees in the expectations of the NT Christianity survivals of Jewish eschatology. Such a view does not deny an element of truth in the expectation, but regards the belief as due to the attachment to Jesus of Jewish expectations (cf. Eth. Enoch 48) now seen to be impossible of realization.

The view probably most generally held at the present time involves elements from several of these specific explanations, and is to the effect that, while the Apostles doubtless expected the eschatological cataclysm to occur in their day, they saw the future in prophetic rather than historical perspective. As a consequence the Second Coming with its attendant events is still to be expected. At different times men have endeavoured by the interpretation of the Book of Daniel to determine the precise date at which it will occur; but among those who still await a literal appearance of Christ in the air it is usual to regard the Parousia as likely to occur immediately, or at any time during an indefinite future period.

SHAILER MATHEWS.

PARSHANDATHA.—The eldest of the sons of Haman, put to death by the Jews (Est 9:7).

PARTHIANS.—The founders of a powerful dynasty in Persia which overthrew the yoke of the Syrian Seleucidæ B.C. 250, and maintained itself against all external enemies till A.D. 226, defying even the Romans. They came from northern Iran, and their language or dialect greatly affected the cultivated speech of the empire, which was known as Pahlavi during their régime. But the exact form of the language of the Jews or proselytes who came to Jerusalem from Parthia, referred to in Ac 2:9, cannot be ascertained.

J. F. M‘CURDY.

PARTRIDGE (qōrē’, 1 S 26:20, Jer 17:11).—Two kinds of partridge abound in Palestine. The chukar or rock partridge (Caccabis chukar) is the commonest of game birds. Its cry may be heard all over the land, and large coveys may be encountered in the autumn. It is distinguished by its red legs. It is excellent eating. Hey’s sand partridge (Ammoperdix heyi) occurs in enormous numbers around the Dead Sea. It is probably the partridge referred to in I S 26:20: its short flights from place to place when hunted; Its hiding, trusting to its invisibility on account of its colour being so like the environment; its quick run from danger before taking to wing; and its final capture when too wearied to fly—must form a very suitable image of a poor human fugitive remorselessly pursued. The reference in Jer 17:11 is hard to understand; it may perhaps refer to the fact that when disturbed from their nests such birds sometimes never return. In Sir 11:30 the heart of a proud man is compared to a decoy partridge in a cage. It is still customary in Palestine to hunt the red-legged partridge by the aid of such decoys.

E. W. G. MASTERMAN.

PARUAH.—Father or clan of Jehoshaphat, Solomon’s prefect in Issachar (1 K 4:17).

PARVAIM.—A region whence, according to 2 Ch 3:6, the gold was obtained which was used for ornamenting the Temple of Solomon. The name is most plausibly identified with Farwa in Yemen, or S. W. Arabia. It was possibly from this place that the ‘gold of Sheba’ (Ps 72:15 ; cf. Is 60:6) was in part derived.

J. F. M‘CURDY.

PASACH.—An Asherite (1 Ch 7:33).

PAS-DAMMIM.—See EPHES-DAMMIM.

PASEAH.—1. A descendant of Judah (1 Ch 4:12). 2. The father of Joiada (Neh 3:6). 3. The eponym of a family of Nethinim who returned with Zerubbabel (Ezr 2:49 = Neh 7:51); in 1 Es 5:31 Phinoe.

PASHHUR.—1. A son of Malchiah, a prince of Judæa in the time of Jeremiah (Jer 21:1), who was opposed to the prophet (Jer 38:1–13) . Perhaps he is the father of Gedaliah (Jer 38:1), and likely identical with Pashhur, mentioned in 1 Ch 9:12, Neh 11:12, as the ancestor of Adalah. 2. The son of Immer, a Temple official and priest, who caused Jeremiah to be beaten and put in the stocks after he had predicted the fall of Jerusalem. The prophet told him his name was not Pashhur (probably ‘peace,’ lit. ‘staying on every side’) but Magormissabib ( ‘terror [or perhaps wandering] round about’), and added that he would die in Babylon (Jer 20:1–6) . Perhaps he was the father of Gedaliah (Jer 38:1). 3. The father of the Gedaliah mentioned in Jer 38:1, and may be either 1 or 2, or neither. 4. The head of a priestly family, ‘the sons of Pashhur’ mentioned in Ezr 2:38, Neh 7:41, Ezr 10:22, 1 Es 5:25 (Phassurus) 9:22 (Phaisur). 5. A priest who signed the covenant with Nehemiah, probably identical with 4, or used of the clan as a whole (Neh 10:3).

W. F. BOYO.

PASSION.—In Ac 14:15 ‘We also are men of like passions with you,’ ‘passion’ means

‘feeling or emotion.’ But in Ac 1:3’ He showed himself alive after his passion,’ the word means ‘suffering,’ as in Wyclif’s translation of He 2:9 ‘Ihesus for the passioun of deeth, crowned with glorie and honour.’

PASSOVER AND FEAST OF UNLEAVENED BREAD

1 . OT references

(1) Law and Ezekiel.—The allusions in Ex 34:25 and 23:16 are so dubious that they can hardly give any sure ground on which to base a consideration of the Passover festival. The first certain reference to the feast is in Ex 12:21–27. (This is probably an older account than 12:1–13 , and differs from it in details.) We find that ‘the passover’ is assumed as known, and possibly it is the feast referred to in Ex 3:16, 7:16 etc. The characteristic features of the feast in Ex 12:21–27 are: (a) a lamb is to be slain and its blood sprinkled on the lintel and side-posts of the houses; (b) the cause for this observance is found in the slaughter of the Egyptian firstborn.

In Dt 16:1–8 the Passover is directed to be observed in the month Abib (April), in commemoration of the Exodus from Egypt. The sacrifice is not to be offered in private dwellings, but ‘in the place which Jehovah shall choose to place his name there.’ With the Passover meal, and during seven days, no leavened bread was to be eaten. None of the flesh was to be left till morning. After the meal the worshippers were to go to their homes; the seventh day was to be a solemn assembly, and this period (v. 9) was treated as opening the 7 weeks’ ‘joy of harvest,’ commencing from Abib, when the corn would be coming into ear. We may notice here: (a) the Passover is regarded as part of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Mazzoth) , the two being apparently blended into one; (b) the sacrifice, though composed of individual sacrifices, is to be offered only at the Temple in Jerusalem; (c) the offering may be taken from flock or herd.

In Ezk 45:21–24 the date is precisely assigned as 14th Abib. The feast lasts 7 days, and unleavened bread only is to be eaten. The prince is to offer a bullock as a sin-offering for himself and the people, and a he-goat on each of the 7 days, as well as 7 bullocks and 7 rams daily, with other offerings of meal and oil. All takes place at the central sanctuary; there is no mention of a lamb, and the Passover is part of the Unleavened Bread festival.

Lv 23:5–14 ordains the Passover for the evening of 14th Abib. The Feast of Unleavened Bread is treated separately; it lasts 7 days, a holy convocation is to be held on the 1st and 7th days; and ‘on the morrow after the sabbath’ a sheaf of new corn is to be waved before the Lord, a he-lamb is to be offered as a burnt-offering with other offerings; and till this is done, no bread or parched corn or green ears may be eaten.

According to Ex 12:1–13 , the current month of the Exodus is to be regarded as the 1st month of the year. On the 10th day a lamb or a kid is to be taken for each family or combination of families, according to their size. It is to be slain at even on the 14th, and the lintel is to be stained with its blood. It is to be roasted intact, and eaten with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. Nothing of it is to remain till morning. It is to be eaten in haste, the partakers prepared as for a journey; it is a sign of the Lord’s ‘pass-over.’

Ex 12:43–49 forbids any foreigner or hired servant or sojourner to eat the Passover unless he first submits to circumcision.

Nu 9:1–14 deals with a case recorded as arising on the first anniversary of the Exodus. It is declared that anybody who is unclean may celebrate the Passover on the 14th day of the 2nd month.

In Nu 28:15–25 the Passover is distinguished from the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The 1st and 7th days of the latter are to be days of holy convocation. On each of the 7 days two bullocks, a ram, and 7 lambs (with special offerings of meal and oil) are to be sacrificed, and a goat for a sin-offering.

(2) Historical and Prophetical books.—No certain reference is found previous to the date of the discovery of Deuteronomy. Most of the allusions in the prophets are quite general in scope (cf. Hos 2:11, 9:5, 12:9, 10, Am 5:21, 8:10). The observance in 2 K 23:21–23 is stated to have conformed to the regulations of Dt 16 and to have been novel in character. 2 Ch 30, 35:1–19 perhaps reflects the later usages of the writer’s own age. Of post-exilic witnesses Ezr 6:19–22 may be quoted, where the priests and Levites play the prominent part in the sacrifice, and the Feast of Unleavened Bread is distinguished from the Passover.

Many of the Passover rites are undoubtedly very ancient; but Deuteronomy tends to emphasize the historical connexion of the festival with the Exodus. The various regulations and allusions in the OT are not consistent with each other, and different ideas were probably associated with the feast at different periods of the national history. Thus Ezk. lays most stress on its aim as a collective piacular sacrifice. It is likely that the feast was observed during the Exile, and that its commemorative significance was then made more emphatic. This would explain the underlying conception of the account in the Priestly Code. But the Chronicler shows preference for the Deuteronomic version, perhaps owing to the growing centralization of worship at one sanctuary in his time.

2. Origin and primitive significance.—The Passover was in all probability an institution already existing when the Jewish legislation was codified, but taken up and transformed by the Legislator. (a) The most widely accepted theory is that it was in origin the shepherd’s offering of the first-fruits from his flocks, the slaughter of the Egyptian firstborn being Pharaoh’s punishment for hindering this observance. On this theory, later tradition would then have altered the sequence, and have regarded the slaughter of the Egyptians as the reason why the Israelites should offer the firstborn of their flocks. And, finally, the connexion with the pastoral sacrifice would have been forgotten, and the Passover would be treated as instituted in order to save the firstborn of Israel. (b) Another theory finds the central idea of the Passover in the piacular notion. The sacrifice would be offered as a substitute for the firstborn of man, and this conception is a common constituent of primitive spring festivals. (c) Other theories regard the observance as originating from domestic sacrifice to avert harm in times of pestilence, or from an ancient solemnization of a threshold covenant, when Jehovah was welcomed into a private dwelling.

It is quite possible that all these theories represent different parts of the truth. The Passover appears to date from very early times, and may have amalgamated features from an entire series of festivals. Thus it combines the notions of sin-offering (the sprinkling of the blood), of burntoffering (the victim being roasted intact), and of peace-offering (the victim being eaten by the worshippers). Other noticeable features are: its date at the vernal equinox, the fact that the sacrifices were mostly or entirely of firstborn, and that an old tradition connected it with the Israelites’ desire for a religious pilgrimage, which eventually led to the Exodus (cf. Ex 5:1–3). This variety of character suggests the inference that the Passover is the complex amalgamation of different feasts, in which these different elements existed separately. Its association with the Feast of Unleavened Bread is probably accidental, due to contiguity in time. The latter is plainly an agricultural festival, and falls into line with the feasts of Pentecost and Tabernacles.

3. Post-exilic observances.—The Samaritans continue to observe the detailed ordinances of Ex 12. But the Jews learned in time to disregard some of the details, as applicable only to the first or Egyptian Passover. Such details were the choice of the lamb on the 10th day, its slaughter at home, the sprinkling of the blood on the house-door, the admission of the unclean, the posture and attire of the partakers, etc. Various alterations and elaborations were introduced. The month Adar was devoted to a thorough purification of lands and houses, sepulchres being whitened, roads and bridges repaired. On the evening of 13th Abib all leaven was sought out. On the 14th the Passover was offered by indiscriminate companies of 10 to 20 people. It was slain in relays at the Temple, and the blood thrown before the altar by the priests. The lambs were then dressed, and the fat offered, while the Levites chanted the Hallel (Pss 113–118) . The lambs were taken home and roasted; each of the guests brought 4 cups of red wine, and the meal was eaten with bitter herbs and unleavened cakes. The posture at the meal was recumbent (as a token, according to the Pharisees, of the rest which God had given to His people). A blessing was said over the first cup (perhaps implied in Lk 22:17ff.). Then followed the washing of hands and offering a prayer. At the second cup came the son’s question as to the significance of the feast, and the father’s explanation. This was succeeded by the singing of Pss 113 and 114. Grace was said over the third cup, and with the fourth came the singing of Pss 115–118. Large numbers assembled at Jerusalem for this feast, and such occasions were always carefully supervised by the Romans for fear of insurrection. Hence perhaps would come the custom of releasing a selected prisoner; but we have no hint of the origin of the custom.

A. W. F. BLUNT.

PATARA.—A great seaport on the coast of Lycia, a few miles E. of the mouth of the Xanthus. The valley of this river is the best part of Lycia, and doubtless from early times Patara had a local trade, but its importance depended on its convenient position for the trade between the West and the Levant. The prevailing winds in this part of the Mediterranean are from the west (especially in the autumn), and ships sailing from the Ægean or from Italy to Phœnicia or Egypt would often risk the voyage straight across the sea from Patara. Thus we find St. Paul on his last journey to Jerusalem (Ac 21:2), after coasting in a slow vessel along the Ægæan, taking a vessel that was sailing straight from Patara to Tyre. Cf. MYRA.

Lycia was never definitely colonized by Greeks, and the Lycians spoke a non-Aryan language. But Patara had an early culture,—its coins date from B.C. 440, and the chief Lycian god was identified with Apollo, whose celebrated oracle at Patara gave him the title Patareus (Hor. Od. III. lv., 64).

A. E. HILLARD.

PATHEUS (1 Es 9:23) = Ezr 10:23 Pethahiah.

PATHROS (Is 11:11, Jer 44:1, 15, Ezk 29:14, 30:14).—The name of Upper Egypt, in Egyptian Pteres, ‘the South Land,’ comprising both the Thebaid and Middle Egypt from somewhat south of Memphis to Syene at the First Cataract. ‘Mizraim’ was generally limited to Lower Egypt, i.e. the Delta and some distance up the valley to include the home of Memphis. This division of Egypt was very ancient, corresponding, at least roughly, to the two kingdoms before Menes. While Lower Egypt was familiar to both Greeks and Hebrews, Upper Egypt was comparatively unknown, as witness Herodotus’ woeful Ignorance of Egypt above the Fay-yum, and Nahum’s description of No-amon (see NO). Yet there is abundant evidence in papyri of an important settlement of Jews at the southernmost extremity at Syene before 525 B.C. (cf. art. SEVENEH) ; and the passages in which Pathros is mentioned refer to Jews in the Upper Country more than half a century before that, after the destruction of Jerusalem. So also Greek and Phœnician mercenaries had reached Syene, and even Abu Simhel, far south in Nubia, in the 6th or 7th cent. B.C.; soldiers and traders of many nations must have passed frequently up and down the Nile in those days, yet without giving to their fellow-countrymen at home any clear idea of the Upper Country. In Gn 10:14 the Pathrusim are the people of Pathros. They are represented as begotten of Mizraim.

F. LL. GRIFFITH. PATHRUSIM.—See PATHROS.

PATMOS.—An island W, of Caria, now called Patino, with an area of 16 sq. miles and a population of about 4000. In the Middle Ages its palms gained for it the title of Palmosa, but it is no longer fertile. Its Cyclopean remains show that it was very early inhabited. It is the traditional place to which St. John was banished by Domitian, and in which he wrote the Apocalypse (Rev 1:3) . The ‘Cave of the Apocalypse’ is still shown in which the Apostle is said to have seen the visions. The chief remaining interest of the island is the monastery of St. John, founded in the 11 th century. It once contained a valuable library, from which was purchased in 1814 the 9th cent. Plato now in the Bodleian.

A. E. HILLARD.

PATRIARCH.—This term is usually applied to (1) the antediluvian fathers of the human race; (2) the three great progenitors of Israel—Abraham, Isaac, Jacob (see sep. artt.); (3) in the NT it is extended to the sons of Jacob (Ac 7:8, 9), and to David (Ac 2:29).

PATROBAS.—The name of a member of the Roman Church greeted by St. Paul in Ro 16:14.

PATROCLUS.—The father of Nicanor (2 Mac 8:9).

PATTERN.—This word is used to render several Heb. and Gr. terms in OT and NT, some of which denote a model, as in Ex 25:9, 40 of the building model of the Tabernacle shown to Moses on the mount (cf. Nu 8:4—a different original—and ARTS AND CRAFTS, § 3), others a copy of the original model as He 8:5 RV. See, for a full examination of the different passages, Hastings’ DB, s.v.

A. R. S. KENNEDY.

PAU.—See PAI.

PAUL THE APOSTLE

i. THE AUTHORITIES.—Before discussing the life and teaching of St. Paul, we may consider

what material we have at our disposal for determining the facts. We have a history (the Acts of the Apostles) and a collection of Epistles, which have been judged by most or by many scholars to be 1st cent. writings, and to be by St. Luke and St. Paul respectively. Of the Epistles we may, however, set aside the anonymous one to the Hebrews, which the Eastern Fathers generally considered to be St. Paul’s, but which is now recognized by almost all scholars not to be the work of that Apostle himself. It is even denied by many that it belongs to the immediate Pauline circle at all. We may also put aside the Apocryphal Acts of Paul and Thecla, which, though it may include some genuine 1st cent. information, is clearly a romance of a later age. We have thus left the canonical Acts and 13 Epistles. The genuineness of these is considered under the separate articles in this Dictionary, but we may here briefly summarize the results of critical investigation with regard to them.

1. The Tübingen theory.—F. C. Baur, the founder of the Tübingen School (1792–1860) , maintained that only four, called by him ‘principal,’ Epistles were really St. Paul’s (Rom., 1 and 2 Cor., Gal.), and that the rest, as also Acts, were not genuine. From the ‘principal’ Epistles, and from a clue in the 2nd cent. pseudo-Clementine literature, he gathered that there were originally two bitterly opposed factions in the Church, Jewish and Gentile, headed respectively by St. Peter and St. Paul. Mainly because this controversy is not found in the other Epistles, but also from other minor considerations, he held that the rest of the ‘Pauline’ literature and Acts were writings with a purpose or ‘tendency,’ issued in the 2nd cent. in order to promote the idea of a Catholic Church, and to reconcile the contending parties. Baur has few, if any, followers now. It has been seen that it is had criticism to make a theory on insecure grounds, and then to reject all the literature which contradicts it.

2. The Dutch School.—We may thus name a school of writers which has lately arisen, as their chief strength is in Holland. Prof. van Manen has popularized their teaching in Encyc. Bibl.

(e.g. artt. ‘Old-Christian Literature,’ ‘Paul,’ ‘Philemon,’ ‘Philippians’; see also art. ‘Acts’ by Schmiedel). According to this school, all the 13 Epistles and the Acts are ‘pseudepigraphic,’ though some fragments of 1st cent. works, such as ‘Acts of Paul’ and ‘Acts of Peter,’ are embedded in them. The reasons given are that the 13 writings in question are not really epistles intended for definite readers, but are books written in the form of epistles for edification; that there is no trace of the impression which, if genuine, they must have made on those addressed; that St. Paul would not have written to the Romans as be did without knowing them personally; that the large experience and wide field of vision shown in the Epistles were an impossibility at so early a date; that time was required for ‘Paulinism,’ which was a radical reformation of the older Christianity, to spring up; that the problems discussed (the Law and the Gospel,

Justification, Election, etc.) did not belong to the first age; that persecution had already arisen, whereas in St. Paul’s lifetime, so far as we know, there had been none; and that the chapters Ro 9–11 presuppose a date later than the Fall of Jerusalem. In a word, the historical background of the Epistles is said to be that of a later age, perhaps A.D. 125–150 . The ‘Pauline’ literature sprang from the ‘heretical’ circles of Syria or Asia Minor. Marcion was the first (van Manen alleges) to make an authoritative group of Pauline Epistles; and they were not much approved by Irenæus or Tertullian, who, however, used them to vanquish the Gnostics and Marclonites with their own weapons.

One is tempted to ask, Was, then, St. Paul a myth? No, it is replied, he was a historical person, and the little that we know about him can be gathered from the older material (such as the ‘we’ sections of Acts) which is included in our present literature. It is enough to reply to the above reasoning that the objection already made to the Tübingen theory applies here with increased force; no criticism can be more unscientific than that which makes up its mind a priori what St. Paul ought to have done and said, and then judges the genuineness of the literature by that standard. And such a deluge of forgery or ‘pseudepigraphy’ in the 2nd cent. (for the Epistles of Clement, Ignatius, and Polycarp must also, according to this school, go by the board) is absolutely incredible.

3. English and German criticism.—Returning to better-balanced views about the literature, we may remark that scholars in this country are more and more disposed to treat Acts and all the 13 Epistles as genuine, and that in Germany the tendency is in the same direction, though it does not go quite so far. Thus Harnack (Luke the Physician, 1906, Eng. tr. 1907) accepts Acts as Lukan, and Jülicher (Encyc. Bibl.) believes Colossians to be St. Paul’s, though he is uncertain about Ephesians. The Pastoral Epistles and 2 Thessalonians are generally, but not universally, accepted in this country; they are looked on much more doubtfully in Germany, but the former are usually recognized there as containing a Pauline nucleus.

4. The thirteen Epistles.—It appears that St. Paul wrote other letters than these; references to lost ones are found, probably, in 2 Th 3:17 and 1 Co 5:9. The thirteen which remain may be divided into four groups. These are all well attested by early Christian writers, and (as van Manen remarks) the Pastoral Epistles have as good external testimony as the rest. By way of example (to take but a few instances), it may be noted that Ignatius (c. 110 A.D.), Polycarp (c. 111 A.D.), and Justin (c. 150 A.D.) use 2 Thessalonians; Clement of Rome (c. 95 A.D.) uses 1 Corinthians and probably Ephesians; Ignatius certainly uses Ephesians; Polycarp uses almost all the thirteen, including the Pastorals. In fact the external evidence is precise; and it would require convincing arguments indeed from internal evidence to overthrow it. Marcion (c. 140 A.D.) included all these Epistles except the Pastorals in his Apostolicon; but he freely excised what be did not like in them, as Tertullian (adv. Marc., e.g. v. 17 f.) tells us.

(a) First Group (1 and 2 Thess.). These were written from Corinth 52 or 53 A.D.; the early date is seen from the fact that the writer expected the Second Advent to be in his lifetime (1 Th 4:13–18) , and this is a real sign of authenticity, for a forger would never have put into St. Paul’s mouth, after his death, the words ‘we that are alive’ (v. 15) . A possible misconception is rectified by St. Paul in 2 Th 2:2f., for he says that the ‘man of sin’ must be manifested before the Lord comes.

(b) Second Group, Baur’s ‘principal epistles’ (Gal., 1 and 2 Cor., Rom.), marked by the struggle for Gentile liberty and by the assertion of St. Paul’s Apostleship, which the Judaizing Christians denied. The controversy was evidently dying out when Romans was written, for that

Epistle is a calm and reasoned treatise, almost more than a letter (see art. GALATIANS [EP. TO

THE], § 4) . The early date of these four Epistles is seen from the consideration that, as Gentile Churches spread and the converts multiplied, it must have been found impossible to force the yoke of the Law on them. The controversy on both heads was settled by St. Paul’s evangelistic activity; his Apostleship was seen by its fruits.

(c) Third Group, the Epistles of the first Roman captivity (Eph., Ph., Col., Phllem.). No really serious objections have been raised against Philippians and Philemon, for it is hard to take seriously van Manen’s arguments in his articles on these Epistles in Encyc. Bibl. And indeed it is impossible that a forger could have conceived such a gem as the latter Epistle; the writer’s pleading with Philemon for the runaway slave Onesimus bears genuineness on its face. But the authenticity of these two Epistles has a decided bearing on that of Ephesians and Colossians, for all four hang together, especially Philemon and Colossians, which appear to have been written at the same time. It is objected that the phraseology of this group differs from that of the second; that Gnosticism did not rise till the 2nd cent.; that the Christology of these Epistles is derived from the Johannine writings; and that ‘Ephesians is a mere vapid expansion of Colossians.’ These objections appear to be based on the idea that a man must be interested in the same questions and controversies all through his life, and must always use the same vocabulary. The reverse is known to be commonly the case. The controversy with Judaism having died out, it is a mark of genuineness, not the opposite, that that question does not form one of the topics discussed in this group. St. Paul at Rome would learn much; and a certain change in vocabulary is natural enough. Yet the literary connexions between this group and the earlier ones are very real. Bishop Lightfoot has shown that the Colossian heresy is a very incipient form of semiJewish Gnosticism, such as we should expect in the 1st cent. (Colossians, p. 71 ff.). And the argument from the Christology is a pure begging of the question. Note that the doctrine is exactly the same in Colossians (which treats of the glories of the Head of the Church, while Ephesians describes those of the Church itself) as in Ph 2:5ff.

(d) Fourth Group, the Pastoral Epistles (1 and 2 Tim., Tit.), so called because they are concerned mainly with the duties of Christian ministers. These all hang together, and from coincidences of style and subjects are judged to be certainly by one writer. They are quoted by, or were known to, Polycarp, Justin, Hegesippus (see Salmon, Introd. to NT⁸, p. 398), but were rejected by Marcion. Tatian accepted Titus, but rejected the other two, probably because 1 Ti 4:3f., 5:14 , 23 offended his Encratite ideas. In modern times it has been asserted that these Epistles are not St. Paul’s, because of differences of diction (many phrases and words being found in this group which do not occur elsewhere in St. Paul); because the controversies are not the same as in the other Epistles, there being nothing about the Mosaic Law and justification by faith, and Gnosticism being attacked (for the name ‘gnosis,’ i.e. ‘knowledge,’ see 1 Ti 6:20; cf.

Col 2:3, 1 Co 8:1, 12:8), a heresy more Jewish in tone than even that which appears in

Colossians (Tit 1:14); because the ministry is said to be too fully developed for the lifetime of St. Paul; but especially because it is impossible to reconcile these Epistles with Acts. With the last statement almost all scholars entirely agree, though they do not assent to the deduction made from it. This is the really crucial argument, and may be treated first. It is assumed by most of the objectors to these Epistles, that they must be placed somewhere in the history related in Acts, because that book ‘concludes with the end of St. Paul’s ministry’; and, as it is impossible to make the journeys referred to in these Epistles fit in with Acts, it is said that the former cannot be genuine. To this it is answered that St. Paul may have been acquitted, and that the journeys mentioned may have taken place after the acquittal; but the objectors reply that the acquittal is unhistorical. The truth is that history (outside these Epistles) does not explicitly tell us whether St. Paul was acquitted or condemned after the two years’ imprisonment of Ac 28:30; if the acquittal is unhistorical, so also is the condemnation. We may, then, take these Epistles, which have excellent external attestation, and therefore are a priori worthy of credit, as new evidence, and infer from them that St. Paul was released, made journeys to the scenes of his old labours, and was later re-arrested and imprisoned (2 Ti 1:8). Even if these Epistles are not St. Paul’s, they are evidence for an early belief that he was acquitted the first time; this is shown by the fact that the journeys described are quite independent of Acts (cf. also 2 Ti 4:16f.). Further, there was, quite apart from these Epistles, an early tradition that St. Paul went to Spain (Muratorian Fragment, c. A.D. 180), or to ‘the farthest bounds of the West’ (Clem. Rom. Cor. 5; this almost certainly means Spain: see Lightfoot’s note), according to his previous intention (Ro 15:24, 28). This implies a belief in his acquittal whether or not the journey to Spain actually took place (see below, ii. 12). St. Paul himself fully expected to be acquitted (Ph 1:23ff., 2:24, Philem 22). Thus the difficulty that these Epistles cannot be reconciled with Acts entirely vanishes. [For the objection from the presentiment that St. Paul would not re-visit the Ephesians (Ac 20:25) see art.

ACTS OF THE APOSTLES, § 9; but even if the early date of Acts be not accepted, it is quite possible that St. Paul never re-visited Ephesus. We should rather gather from 1 Tim., especially from 1:8, that he had an interview with Timothy elsewhere, probably at Miletus, as he was passing by on his way north; see Prof. Findlay in Hastings’ DB iii. 714b.]—The other considerations, as to diction and subject matter, have little weight when once we agree that the Epistles, if Pauline, must have been written several years after the others; and it is instructive that in these respects the Third Group makes a half-way house between the Second and the Fourth. We must, moreover, note that there are many indications of genuineness; 2 Timothy has all the marks of authenticity, being full of personal allusions which it would be almost impossible for a forger to invent. It is for this reason generally allowed that 2 Ti 1:15–18, 4:9–22 are really Pauline. But it is grossly improbable that real epistles were used only for patching forgeries and then thrown away. It is in personal notices that a forger usually goes wrong; if these are authentic, it is a great argument for the whole writing being authentic (for further details see Salmon, Introd. 6, pp. 397–413) . But as all three Epistles hang together, the marks of genuineness in 2 Timothy are a strong argument for the genuineness of the whole group.

We may briefly sum up what has been said on the difference of subject-matter and style in the thirteen Epistles. At the birth of a Gentile Church the controversy with Judaizing Christians was that which was most likely to arise, as we see in the Second Group. Questions were then asked about the Person of Christ and about the Church as a whole, as we see in the Third Group.

As the communities grew, their organization occupied much attention, as we see in the Fourth

Group. The special interest of the moment colours the diction and style. Sanday-Headlam (Romans, p. liv. ff.) suggest, further, that variations of style are largely due to the nervous temperament of the Apostle, now calm, now fervid; and in a considerable degree also to the employment of different amanuenses. St. Paul did not write his letters himself, but only added postscripts in his own hand. Probably he dictated his Epistles, and they were taken down in shorthand; a difference of scribe would thus mean an appreciable difference of style.

We shall, then, in what follows, without hesitation use the 13 Epistles as genuine. If what has been briefly argued above be not accepted, this article must be taken as describing, at least, the life and teaching of St. Paul as the early Christians believed that he lived and taught.

5. Acts of the Apostles.—For the reasons stated in the article on that book, we may with confidence use Acts as a trustworthy authority for St. Paul’s life. But we may here ask what we are to think of St. Paul’s speeches in Acts, whether they are a true record of what he said, and whether we may use them to determine his teaching. It is not easy to suppose that they were taken down verbatim as they were spoken; and St. Luke himself was not present at all of them (e.g. Ac 13:16ff., 14:15ff., 17:22f.). Yet the speeches agree very well with the circumstances in which they were delivered, and the diction and sentiments coincide largely with the Pauline Epistles. Lukan phrases have been found in some of them, which is natural enough; more so in the speech of Ac 22, which was spoken in Aramaic, and therefore is clearly not the Apostle’s ipsissima verba, than in the Athenian speech (Ac 17:22ff.) which has no Lukan element. The conclusion may be that the speeches were written down, soon after they were delivered, by a hearer—sometimes the bearer was St. Luke himself—and the notes then taken were afterwards used by the author of Acts.

ii. SKETCH OF ST. PAUL’S LIFE

1. Name.—The future Apostle is first made known to us under the name Saul (Ac 7:58). Being of the tribe of Benjamin (Ro 11:1, Ph 3:5), a fact of which he was proud, he doubtless was named directly or indirectly after the king whom that tribe gave to Israel. But while Saul was his Jewish name, he must, as a Roman citizen, have had three Roman names. His praenomen and nomen we do not know, but his cognomen was Paul. After the interview with the proconsul Sergius Paulus in Cyprus (Ac 13:6ff.), the author of Acts uses no other name than this; from the outset of his mission to the Roman Empire it was fitting that he should be known by his Roman name. We must at once dismiss both the conjecture of Augustine that the Apostle on that occasion assumed the name Paul out of compliment to the proconsul, and also the suggestion that the name was personal to himself, denoting that he was small of stature. The existence of alternative names side by side, a Jewish and a Greek or Roman name, was quite a common thing among Jews of the 1st cent., e.g. John-Mark, Jesus-Justus. But here the case is different; we never read of Saul-Paul.

2. Birthplace and family.—St. Paul was not only a native but also a citizen of Tarsus, possessed of full civil rights in that famous University town, the capital of Cilicia (Ac 9:11, 21:39 , 22:8). His family had perhaps been planted there by one of the Seleucid kings (Ramsay ). They were probably Pharisees (Ac 23:6; cf. 2 Ti 1:3); and Aramaic-speaking (Ph 3:5, though here the Apostle may be speaking of his teachers) . Several indications point to the fact that the family was of some importance, and was fairly rich. It is not against this view that the Apostle himself was poor, and that he worked for his livelihood as a tent-maker, as did many Cilicians ( Ac 18:3, 20:33f.; cf. 1 Co 9:15, 1 Th 2:9, 2 Th 3:8); for it is very probable that his family cast him off because of his conversion, and especially because of his attitude to the Gentiles; and moreover, it was the custom for all Jewish boys to be taught a trade. The prosperity of the family is seen from the fact that later St. Paul clearly had money at his command. Perhaps a reconciliation had been effected; his sister’s son saved his life (Ac 23:16); and the whole story of the imprisonment in Palestine and Rome and of the voyage to Italy proves that he was a prisoner of distinction. This could come only from the possession of some wealth and from family influence.

3. Roman citizenship.—Of this position St. Paul was justly proud. He was not a Roman citizen merely because he had the freedom of Tarsus, for Tarsus was not a Roman Colony; probably his father or grandfather had rendered some service to the State, and had been thus rewarded. In any case St. Paul was freeborn (Ac 22:28). He had not, like so many under

Claudius, bought the citizenship through the infamous favourites of the Court. He appealed to his privilege to prevent illegal treatment at Philippi and Jerusalem (Ac 16:37, 22:25). And more than once in the Epistles he alludes to citizenship, transferring the term from the earthly to the heavenly sphere—an allusion which would come home especially to the Philippians, who were so proud of their city being a Colony, and of their therefore being Roman citizens (Ac 16:12, 21) ; see Ph 1:27 [RVm] 3:20, Eph 2:19, and St. Paul’s speech in Ac 23:1 where the phrase ‘I have lived’ is literally ‘I have exercised my citizenship.’ It was no doubt this citizenship which gave St. Paul such an advantage as the Apostle of the Gentiles, and which inspired him with his great plan of utilizing the civilization of the Roman State to spread the gospel along its lines of communication (see artt. ACTS OF THE APOSTLES, § 7, and GALATIANS [EP. TO THE] § 2) . It is noteworthy that he seems to have laid much stress on evangelizing Roman Colonies like Corinth, Pisidian Antioch, Lystra, and Philippi.

4. Early life.—St. Paul was educated, no doubt, partly at Tarsus ( Ac 26:4), where he would be influenced by Stoic teachers (see (§ iv.), but chiefly at Jerusalem under the Pharisee Gamaliel ( Ac 22:3, 26:4; cf. 5:34ff.); he did not, however, see our Lord (cf. 1 Co 9:1 with 15:8), though he would be there in Jesus’ lifetime on earth. Probably this period of education was over before our Lord’s ministry began. He was brought up a strict Pharisee (Ac 23:6, 26:5, Gal 1:14, Ph 3:5), and long after his conversion he retained a certain pride in his Jewish hirth and a great affection for his own people (Ro 4:1, 9:3, 10:1, 11:1, 2 Co 11:22). Though born outside Palestine, he was brought up, not as a Greek-speaking Jew or Hellenist, but as a Hebrew; for this last term denotes a difference of language and manners (Ph 3:5; see Lightfoot’s note). Accordingly we find him speaking Aramaic fluently (Ac 21:40, 22:2).

The result of this education, in spite of Gamaliel’s liberality of thought, was to make St. Paul a zealous and bigoted Jew, determined with all the ardour of youth to uphold the traditions of his fathers. We first meet with him as a young man ‘consenting unto’ Stephen’s death, holding the clothes of those who stoned the first martyr (Ac 7:58, 8:1), and persecuting the Christians in Jerusalem (26:10). Thereafter he secured authority from the high priest to go to Damascus in order to arrest all the disciples, and to bring them bound to Jerusalem (9:1f.).—[In the following paragraphs the numbers in square brackets denote the dates A.D. as given by Ramsay. Lightfoot’s dates are mostly a year or two later; Harnack’s earlier. Turner’s (in Hastings’ DB, art.

‘Chronology of NT’) nearly agree with Ramsay’s, except that he puts the Conversion at least two years later because of a difficulty about Aretas (see artt. ARETAS, CHRONOLOGY OF NT), and the Martyrdom about two years earlier].

5. Conversion [33].—The journey to Damascus was the great turning-point of Saul’s life ( Ac 9:3ff.), and is often referred to by him (Ac 22:5ff., 26:12ff., 1 Co 9:1, 15:8, Ph 3:7 etc. ).

When approaching Damascus he saw a strong light, and Jesus appearing to him (so explicitly 1 Co 9:1), saying, ‘Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?’ The voice was unintelligible to his companions (Ac 22:9), though they saw the light (ib.) and heard a sound (9:7). Saul was blinded by the vision and led into Damascus, where he was instructed and baptized by one Ananias. Immediately he confesses Christ in the synagogues at Damascus (9:20), and then retires into Arabia (perhaps the Sinaitic peninsula, see Lightfoot’s Galatians 6 , p. 87 ff.), doubtless for spiritual preparation (Gal 1:17). He ever recognizes his conversion as being his call to Apostleship, which was neither of human origin nor received by human mediation, i.e. not through the Twelve (Gal 1:1, 12, 17; cf. Ro 1:1, 5, 1 Co 1:1, 4:1, 9:1f., 15:9). The Lord Himself designates his work as being among the Gentiles (Ac 9:15; cf. 22:21, 26:17, Ro 11:13, 15:16, Gal 2:7, Eph 3:8, 1 Ti 2:7, 2 Ti 1:11 AV). The question arises, therefore, What is the meaning of the laying on of hands by the prophets and teachers of Antioch (Ac 13:1ff.; Saul was one of them, 13:1)? This has been regarded by some as an ordination by the Church, which thus put an outward seal on the inward call to Apostleship (Gore, Lightfoot); by others, as an appointment, not to the Apostleship, but to the definite work which lay immediately before Barnabas and Paul (Ramsay).—Returning from Arabia, Saul comes to Damascus (Gal 1:17) while the deputy ( ethnarch) of the Nabatæan king Aretas holds the city (2 Co 11:32f.), and is persecuted there, but escapes by night, being let down in a basket through the city wall (Ac 9:23ff.). He makes his first visit to Jerusalem [35] three years after his conversion—for this is the probable meaning of Gal 1:18—and is presented by Barnabas to Peter and James (ib. and Ac 9:27). Here he is told, in a vision in the Temple, to escape because of the opposition of the Jews (Ac 22:17ff.) [unless the vision belongs to the Second visit, as Ramsay maintains, St. Paul the Traveller 6 , p. 61 f.], and goes to Tarsus (9:30), preaching in the united province Syria-Cilicia, in which Tarsus was situated (Gal 1:21f.). After several years, no doubt of preparation on Saul’s part, Barnabas goes to Tarsus to bring him to the Syrian Antioch [43], where the disciples were first called

Christians, and they spend a year there (Ac 11:26). The Gentiles had already been addressed at

Antioch by Cypriots and Cyrenians after the persecution which arose on Stephen’s death

(11:19ff.) . Henceforward this became a great missionary centre. From Antioch Paul made with Barnabas the second visit to Jerusalem, taking alms for those suffering from the famine (11:30) ; and if this is the visit of Gal 2:1 (see art. GALATIANS [EP. TO THE], § 3) , it originated in a Divine revelation, and Titus, a Gentile, accompanied them [45 or 46]. They returned thence to Antioch ( Ac 12:25), taking Mark with them [46 or 47].

6. First Missionary Journey, Ac 13:4–14:26 [47 to 49].—Sent forth from Antioch, Paul and Barnabas with Mark sail to Cyprus and preach there; at Salamis, the capital, on the west side of the island, they for the first time address a Roman governor. Henceforward Saul is always in NT called by his Roman name. Opposed by the ‘magician’ Elymas (or Etoimas), Paul rebuked him, and predicted his blindness; the magus was immediately deprived of sight, and the proconsul ‘believed.’ This can hardly mean that he actually became a Christian; but, having been under the influence of Elymas, his eyes are now opened, and he listens to the gospel message favourably.—From Cyprus they sail to the mainland of Pamphylia, and reach Perga, where Mark leaves them and returns to Jerusalem. The reason of this defection is not obvious, but it may be that St. Paul now made a plan for the further extension of Christianity among the Gentiles of the interior of Asia Minor, which Mark, whose view had not yet been sufficiently enlarged, disapproved. It is not unlikely that St. Paul was struck down with malaria in the low-lying littoral of Pamphylia, and that this favoured the idea of a journey to the mountainous interior, where he would recover his health. Ramsay takes malaria to be the thorn or stake in the flesh (2 Co 12:7) , and this would agree with the statement that St. Paul first visited Galatia owing to an infirmity of the flesh (Gal 4:13). On the S. Galatian theory (here assumed; see the discussion in art. GALATIANS [EP. TO THE], § 2) the Church in Galatia was now founded; the journey Included visits to the South Galatian cities of Pisidian Antioch (a Roman Colony), Iconium (where the Apostles were stoned, and whence they fled into the Lycaonian district of Galatia), Lystra (also a Roman Colony, where they were taken for gods, and where the people spoke Lycaonian), and

Derbe. Thence they returned, reversing their route, confirming souls and ordaining presbyters.

Persecutions in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra are mentioned in 2 Ti 3:11. From the port of

Attalia they sailed to Antioch, and spent a long time there. In these journeys it was the custom of

St. Paul to preach to the Jews first (Ac 17:2 etc.), and when they would not hear, to turn to the Gentiles.—At this time perhaps occurred the incident of St. Peter at Antioch (Gal 2:11ff.). He at first ate with the Gentiles, but, persuaded by Judaizers who professed to come ‘from James,’ he drew back; and even Barnabas was influenced by them. But Paul ‘resisted’ Peter ‘to the face,’ and his expostulation clearly was successful, as we see from the conduct of the latter at the Council (Ac 15:7ff.).

7. The Apostolic Council, Ac 15:1–29 [49 or 50].—As soon as Gentiles were admitted into the Church, the question whether they must obey the Mosaic law became urgent. Judaizers having come to Antioch preaching the necessity of circumcision, Paul and Barnabas with others were sent to Jerusalem to confer with the Apostles and elders. This is the third visit to Jerusalem. The Council decided that the Gentiles need not be subject to the Law, but enjoined them to abstain from things sacrificed to idols, from blood, from things strangled, and from fornication, by which marriage within the prohibited degrees is perhaps intended. Paul and Barnabas, with Judas and Silas, were sent to Antioch with the decrees, and the two latter probably then returned to Jerusalem, though there is some doubt about the movements of Silas.

8. Second Missionary Journey. Ac 15:36–18:22 [50 to 53].—Paul and Barnabas had a dissension, the former refusing and the latter wishing to take Mark with them; they therefore separated, and Paul took Silas (sent for from Jerusalem?). These two went through Syria and Cilicia and (by the Cilician gates) to Derbe and Lystra and delivered the Council’s decrees. At Lystra they find Timothy, son of a Greek father and of a Jewish mother named Eunice. He had been carefully brought up by his mother and by his grandmother Lois (2 Ti 1:5, 3:15). St. Paul, wishing to take him with him, first, for fear of giving offence to the Judaizers (as he was half a Jew), caused him to be circumcised. They then go through the ‘Phrygo-Galatic region’ of the province Galatia (see art. GALATIANS [EP. TO THE], § 2) , not being allowed by God to evangelize the province Asia (i.e. the western sea-board of Asia Minor) or to enter Bithynia (the northern sea-board), and come to Troas, where they meet St. Luke. [On the N. Galatian theory they made a very long detour before entering the province Asia, to Galatia proper, founding Churches there and returning almost to the point in the journey which they had left.] At Troas, St. Paul sees in a dream ‘a certain Macedonian,’ saying ‘Come over into Macedonia and help us’ (Ac 16:9; see art.

ACTS OF THE APOSTLES, § 3). This induces him to sail over to that province, and they come to

Philippi, a Roman colony, where they lodge with one Lydia of Thyatira, a seller of purple. St. Paul casts out a ‘spirit of divination’ (ventriloquism?) from ‘a certain maid,’ and, owing to the opposition of the girl’s masters, he and Silas are cast into prison. An earthquake looses their bonds and the jailor is converted. In the morning the magistrates send to release them, and then Paul and Silas assert their Roman citizenship. Leaving Luke behind at Philippi, they pass on to Thessalonica; and this mission seems to be the limit of which the Apostle speaks when he says to the Romans (Ro 15:10) that he had preached from Jerusalem even unto Illyricum [= Dalmatia], the Illyrian frontier being not far off. At Thessalonica they spent a long time (1 Th 1:9, 2:1, 9ff.), and had much success; many of the ‘chief women’ were converted. Paul worked for his livelihood (2 Th 3:8), but gifts were twice sent to him here from Philippi (Ph 4:15f.; cf. 2 Co 8:1f., 11:9). The missionary zeal of the Thessalonians is commended in 1 Th 1:8. The opposition again came from the Jews (cf. 2 Co 11:24), who accused St. Paul’s host, Jason, of disloyalty to Rome; ball was taken from Jason, and the Apostle was thus injured through his friend. This seems to have been the ‘hindrance of Satan’ which prevented his return (1 Th 2:14, 18, 2 Th

1:4) . They then went to Berœa, where they met with much success; but the Thessalonian Jews stirring up trouble there, Paul went on to Athens, leaving Siias and Timothy behind, probably to bring news as to the possibility of returning to Macedonia. At Athens the Apostie spent much time, and addressed the Court of the Areopagus in a philosophic style; but not many, save Dionysius the Areopagite and Damaris, were converted. Timothy returned to Athens and was sent back again to Thessalonica; and Silas and Timothy later joined St. Paul at Corinth (1 Th 3:1f., 6, Ac 18:5). From Corinth were sent 1 Thessalonians, and, a little later, 2 Thessalonians. At Corinth St. Paul changed his method, and preached the Cross, simply, without regard to philosophy (1 Co 1:23, 2:2–6 , 2 Co 4:5); here he had great success, chiefly in the lower social ranks (1 Co 1:26). Here also he met Aquila and Priscilla, who had been expelled from Rome; and they all worked as tentmakers. The Jews being deaf to his persuasions, Paul left the synagogue and went to the house of Titus Justus close by; Crispus, the ruler of the synagogue, was converted with all his house, as well as others, among whom was perhaps Sosthenes (Crispus’ successor in the synagogue? Ac 18:17, 1 Co 1:1). Encouraged by a vision, St. Paul spent eighteen months in Corinth; the Jews opposed him, and brought him before the proconsul Gallio, who, however, dismissed the case. Here we read of the Apostle taking a vow, after the manner of his countrymen, and shaving his head in Cenchreæ. He then sailed with Priscilia and Aquila, and, leaving them at Ephesus, landed at Cæsarea, whence he made his fourth visit to Jerusalem [53] , and so passed to the Syrian Antioch. It is probable that from Ephesus Timothy was sent to his home at Lystra, and that he met St. Paul again at Antioch, bringing news that the Galatians were under the influence of Judaizers, who taught that circumcision was, if not essential to salvation, at least essential to perfection[see art. GALATIANS [EP. TO THE], § 4] . St. Paul in haste wrote Galatians to expostulate, sending Timothy back with it, and intending himself to follow shortly.

[On the N. Galatian theory, this Epistle was written later, from Ephesus or from Macedonia.]

9. Third Missionary Journey, Ac 18:23–21:16 [53 to 57].—St. Paul, after ‘some time’ at

Antioch, went again, probably by the Cilician Gates, to the ‘Galatic Region’ and the ‘Phrygian

Region’ (see art. GALATIANS [EP. TO THE], § 2) , and so came to Ephesus by the upper road, not passing along the valley of the Lycus (Ac 19:1; see Col 2:1). [On the N. Galatian theory another long digression to Galatia proper is here necessary.] At Ephesus he found twelve persons who had known only John’s baptism. St. Paul caused them to be ‘baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus,’ and when he ‘had laid his hands upon’ them, the Holy Ghost came on them, and they spake with tongues and prophesied.’ At Ephesus the Apostle spent 2¹/₄years and converted many who had practised magic. Hence he proposed to go to Macedonia, Greece, Jerusalem, Rome (Ac 19:21, Ro 1:10ff.), and Spain (Ro 15:24, 28); he sent Timothy to Macedonia, with Erastus as a companion so far (Ac 19:22), and then on to Corinth (1 Co 4:17 , 16:10), while he kept Sosthenes with him (1:1). After Timothy’s departure (4:17) he sent off 1 Corinthians, which he wrote after he had heard of divisions at Corinth (1:10ff.), of the success of Apollos (1:12, 3:4ff., 16:12), who had gone there from Ephesus (Ac 18:27f.), of a case of incest and abuses in respect to litigation and to the Eucharist (1 Co 5, 6, 11). This letter was in answer to one from Corinth asking for directions on marriage, etc. The Apostle announces his intention of going to Corinth himself by way of Macedonia after Pentecost (16:5ff.). and Lightfoot thinks that he did pay this visit to Corinth from Ephesus (cf. 2 Co 13:1 ‘the third time’), but Ramsay puts the visit somewhat later. In 2 Co 1:16, 23 St. Paul says that he had Intended to go by way of Corinth to Macedonia, and back to Corinth again, and so to Judæa, but that he had changed his plan. At Ephesus there were many persecutions (2 Co 1:8; cf. 4:8, 6:4f.), and Onesiphorus was very useful to him there (2 Ti 1:16ff.). The stay at Ephesus was suddenly brought to an end by a riot instigated by Demetrius, a maker of silver shrines of Artemis. St. Paul went to Macedonia by Troas, where he had expected to meet Titus coming from Corinth, though he was disappointed in this. At Troas he preached with success; ‘a door was opened’ (2 Co 2:12). From Macedonia he wrote 2 Corinthians urging the forgiveness of the incestuous Corinthian. [Some modification of the above is required if this Epistle, as many think, is an amalgamation of two or more separate ones. Some think that the person referred to in 2 Cor. is not the offender of 1 Co 5 at all.] Titus joined St. Paul in Macedonia, and gave a good account of Corinth (2 Co 7:8ff.), but troubles arose in Macedonia itself (7:6). Titus was sent back to Corinth with two others (8:6, 17f., 22), taking the letter and announcing St. Paul’s own coming (2 Co 13:1). All this time the Apostle was developing his great scheme of a collection for the poor Christians of Judæa, which was responded to so liberally in Galatia, Asia, Macedonia, and Achaia (1 Co 16:1f., 2 Co 8:1–7 , 9:2, Ro 15:25), and which prompted that journey to Jerusalem which is the last recorded in Acts (Ac 24:17). He claimed the right to live of the gospel himself (1 Co 9:6ff.); yet he would not usually do so, but instead asked offerings for the ‘poor saints.’ From Macedonia he went to’ Greece’ (Ac 20:2), i.e. to Corinth, for three months, and here wrote Romans [57] , which he sent by Phœbe, a deaconess at Cenchreæ, the port of Corinth (Ro 16:1). At Corinth he heard of a plot against his life; he had intended to sail direct to Syria, and the plot seems to have been to murder him on the ship; he therefore took the land journey by way of Macedonia, but sent on several friends to join him at Troas: Sopater of Berœa, Aristarchus and Secundus (both of Thessalonica), Timothy, Tychicus and Trophimus (both probably of Ephesus), and Gaius of Derbe, who was perhaps his host at Corinth (Ro 16:23, 1 Co 1:14; if so he must have come to Corinth to stay. The Macedonian Gaius of Ac 19:29 was probably a different man). St. Paul spent the Passover at Philippi, and then, with Luke (Ac 20:5f.). set sail for Troas. Here, at an all-night service which ends with the Eucharist, occurs the incident of the young man Eutychus, who being asleep falls down from the third storey and is taken up dead; but the Apostle restores him alive to his friends. From Troas the party sail along the west coast of Asia Minor, calling at Miletus. Here St. Paul has a visit from the presbyters of Ephesus, for whom he had sent, and hids them farewell, saying that they would see his face no more (see above i. 4 (d)) . At Cæsarea (in Palestine) they land, and stay with Philip the evangelist; and here Agabus, taking Paul’s girdle and binding his own feet and hands, prophesies that the Jews will do the same to the owner of the girdle, and will deliver him to the Gentiles.

10. Fifth visit to Jerusalem, Ac 21:17–23:30 [57].—St. Paul is received at an apparently formal council by James, the Jerusalem presbyters being present; and he tells them of the success of his ministry to the Gentiles. They advise him to conciliate the Christians of Jerusalem, who thought that he persuaded Jews not to keep the Law, and to undertake the Temple charges for four men who were under a vow, and to ‘purify’ himself with them. This he does, showing, as in many other instances, that he is still a Jew (Ac 18:18, 20:6, 16, 27:9). But his presence in the Temple is the occasion of a riot, the Jews believing that he had brought within the precincts Trophimus, the Gentile of Ephesus, whom they had seen with him in the city. He is saved only by the intervention of the Roman soldiers, who take him to the ‘Castle.’ He is allowed to address the people, on the way, in Aramaic; but when he speaks of his mission to the Gentiles, they are greatly incensed and the chief captain (chiliarch), Claudius Lysias, has him brought into the Castle and orders him to be examined by scourging; but Paul asserts his Roman citizenship. Next day he is brought before the Jewish Sanhedrin, of whom some were Pharisees, some Sadducees, and when he affirms his belief in ‘the hope and resurrection of the dead,’ the former favour him. In the night he is encouraged by a vision of the Lord telling him that he must bear witness in Rome (Ac 23:11). A plot of the Jews against him, revealed by his nephew, is the cause of his being sent down guarded to Cæsarea to the governor Felix. The Jews go down there to accuse him, and Felix and his wife Drusilla, a Jewess, hear him often; but he is left a prisoner for two years, and Felix, when he is recalled, does not release him, hoping to please the Jews. He had expected a bribe from Paul (24:26). Festus, his successor, is asked by the Jews to send Paul to Jerusalem, there being a secret plot to kill him on the road; but Paul appeals to Cæsar. While he is at Cæsarea, Agrippa and Bernice come down to visit Festus, and Paul narrates to them his conversion (Ac 25:13–26:32).

11. Roman imprisonment.—From Cæsarea the Apostle is sent, with the two companions allowed to accompany him (Luke and Aristarchus), on a voyage to Italy [59], under the charge of Julius, centurion of the Augustan Band or Cohort. They sail first, after touching at Zidon, under the lee (to the east) of Cyprus, the usual winds in the Levant in summer being westerly, and coast along Asia Minor. St. Paul is treated kindly and as a prisoner of distinction, and his advice is often asked. At Myra they tranship and embark in what is apparently a Government vessel taking corn from Egypt to Italy. Sailing south of Crete they reach Fair Havens, and spend at least some few days there; then, though the season of the year is late, they set sail again, hoping to reach Italy safely. But being caught in a storm, they drift for many days, and finally are shipwrecked on the coast of Malta, where the people receive them kindly. St. Paul heals the father of the ‘first man,’ Publius, of fever and dysentery. Next spring [60] they sail for Italy by way of Sicily, and land at Puteoli, whence they reach Rome by land. Here Paul is allowed to live in a hired house, guarded by a soldier, and he remains there ‘two whole years,’ doing evangelistic work [60, 61]. From Rome, while a prisoner (Ph 1:7, 13, Col 4:3, 18, Eph 3:1, 4:1, 6:20, Philem 1), he wrote

Ephssians, probably a circular letter to the Churches of Asia (the ‘Epistle from Laodicea’ of Col

4:16). At the same time he seems to have sent Colossians and Philemon by Tychicus and Onesimus. The Colossians had not seen Paul (Col 2:1), but, having heard of errors at Colossæ, he writes to exhort them and Archippus (4:17; cf. Philem 2), who seems to have been their chief minister. The short letter to Philemon is a touching appeal from’ Paul the aged’ (v. 9) to a master to receive back a fugitive slave Onesimus; the master formerly, and now the slave, owed their Christianity to St. Paul. At this time the Apostle has with him Epaphras of Colossæ (who had come to Rome and was a ‘fellow prisoner’ with Paul, Philem 23), Aristarchus, Mark, Jesus,

Justus, Luke, and Demas. About the same date Philippians was written, and sent by

Epaphroditus of Philippi (Ph 2:25ff.), who had been sick nigh to death, but had recovered; he had been sent by the Philippians with alms to Rome (Ph 4:10, 18). St. Paul exhorts his ‘true yokefellow’ (whom Lightfoot takes to be Epaphroditus, but who is more probably the chief minister of the Philippian Church) to appease a quarrel between two Church workers, Euodia and Syntychs (4:2f.); the ‘Clement’ there mentioned seems to have been a Philippian convert. St. Paul hopes soon to send Timothy to Philippi (2:19), and to be free to come soon to them himself (2:24 ; cf. Philem 22).

12. Later life [end of 61 to 67].—This we can in part construct from the Pastoral Epistles; those who reject them will take their own view of the account which follows. We may first ask whether St. Paul went to Spain. As we have seen, he meant to do so (Ro 15:24, 28), and early tradition affirmed that he did go (above, 1.4 (d)) . This tradition, however, may have been based only on his recorded intention; and it is a difficulty that no trace is left of a Spanish visit, and that no Church in Spain claims to have been founded by him. Journeys to the East are better attested; he certainly intended to go from Rome eastwards (Ph 2:24). We read that he went to Corinth and left Erastus there (2 Ti 4:20); that he sailed along the west coast of Asia Minor, leaving

Trophimus sick at Miletus (ib.) , and Timothy at Ephesus to rule the Church there for a time (1 Ti

1:3 etc.); that he called at Troas and left some things there (2 Ti 4:13); and that he went to Macedonia (1 Ti 1:3). But these events need not have happened on the same journey. At Ephesus we read of various heretics—of Hymenæus and Alexander whom Paul ‘delivered unto Satan’ (1 Ti 1:20)—Alexander is perhaps the coppersmith who opposed Paul, probably at Ephesus, not Troas (2 Ti 4:14),—of Hymenæus (perhaps the same as in 1 Tim.) and Philetus, who explained the resurrection of the dead in a figurative sense as an event already past (2 Ti 2:18) , and of Phygelus and Hermogenes, who, with ‘all that are in Asia’ (1:15), deserted the Apostle; but it is uncertain whether the references are to a time before or after the first imprisonment at Rome. Another journey was to Crete, where St. Paul left Titus to rule the Church for a time (Tit 1:5); thereafter the Apostle went to Nicopolis, on the west coast of Achaia, opposite Italy, where he Intended to winter (Tit 3:12). Before reaching Nicopolis he wrote 1 Timothy ( probably) and Titus; he asked Titus to come to him whenever another could be sent to take his place (3:12).

The last scene of the Apostle’s life is at Rome. He is now a second time a prisoner (2 Ti 2:9), conscious that his life is near its end (4:6f.). He writes 2 Timothy to his faithful disciple, who is apparently at Ephesus [Prisca and Aquila and the household of Onesiphorus are mentioned as being with Timothy (1:16, 4:19), and he himself is in a position of authority; these considerations point to Ephesus, where he was before]. When St. Paul writes, he is, save for Luke’s attendance, alone; Demas has forsaken him; Crescens, Titus, and Tychicus have been sent on missions (Titus to Dalmatla, not to Crete); and Timothy is pressed to bring Mark and to come to Rome with the things left behind at Troas. Tychicus seems to have been sent as his substitute to Ephesus (4:9– 13) . In this letter St. Paul speaks of Onesiphorus having helped him, not only at Ephesus on a former occasion, but when he was a prisoner in Rome, perhaps at the first imprisonment, for he seems to have died before 2 Tim. was written (1:16–18) . It is disputed whether the ‘first defence’ (first, not former) of 2 Ti 4:10, when ‘all forsook him,’ refers to a preliminary examination in the second imprisonment, or, as seems more likely (Zahn), to the first imprisonment; the Apostle speaks of his being delivered out of the mouth of the lion, that through him ‘the message might be fully proclaimed, and that all the Gentiles might hear.’ This seems to refer to the further travels of the Apostle after his first imprisonment, whereas when writing 2 Tim. he knew that he was near his end.

13. By universal tradition the martyrdom of St. Paul was at Rome [Harnack 64, Turner 64– 65, Ramsay and Lightfoot 67]. Clement of Rome (Cor. 5), c. A.D. 95, says that having borne witness before rulers he departed from this world. At the end of the 2nd cent. Tertullian gives details: ‘Paul is beheaded … At Rome Nero was the first who stained with blood the rising faith.

Then does Paul obtain a birth suited to Roman citizenship … there’ (Scorp. 15, Patr. Lat. li. 174

f.); ‘Rome … where Paul wins his crown in a death like John’s’ (de Prœse. Hær. 36, Patr. Lat. li. 59). In the 3rd cent. Origen (Com. in Gen. iii., see Eusebius, HE iii. 1) says that St. Paul suffered martyrdom in Rome under Nero [Nero died A.D. 68]. As there is no conflicting tradition, we may with confidence accept this account. More modern traditions make the death to have taken place at Tre Fontane, 3 miles from Rome, and the burial at S. Paolo fuori le Mura, nearer the city.

14. Appearance.—The following is the description in the Acts of Paul and Thecla ( Armen. vers. § 3, Conybeare’s Monuments, p. 62), which may go back, in this matter, to the 1st cent.: ‘Onesiphorus … saw Paul coming along, a man of moderate stature, with curly hair … scanty, crooked legs, with blue eyes and large knit brows, long nose; and he was full of the grace and pity of the Lord, sometimes having the appearance of a man, but sometimes looking like an angel.’ The ‘blue eyes’ are peculiar to the Armenian. The other versions say that he was bowlegged, with meeting eyebrows, and bald-headed. This unflattering description does not agree badly with that of St. Paul’s detractors in 2 Co 10:10, 11:6, who said that though his letters were weighty and strong, his bodily presence was weak, and his speech of no account; he was ‘rude in speech.’ The appearance of the Apostle would be made worse by the permanent marks of persecution, the ‘marks of Jesus,’ as most moderns interpret Gal 6:17, which branded Paul as the slave of Christ.

iii. ST. PAUL’S TEACHING.—It would be a mistake to look on the Pauline Epistles as

constituting a Summa Theologica, a compendium of Christian doctrine. The writer always assumes that his readers have in their possession the Christian tradition. We have no record of the method by which Paul preached the gospel, but he takes it for granted that it is known by those to whom he writes, and he repeats his teaching only when some special circumstances call for repetition. Doctrines like the Godhead of our Lord and of the Holy Spirit, the Atonement, and the Sacraments, are not stated as in a theological manual, but assumed (cf. 2 Th 2:15 , 3:6, 1 Co 11:2) . Even the Epistle to the Romans, addressed to those who had not heard the Pauline presentation of the gospel, and partaking more of the nature of a treatise than do any of the rest, assumes the substratum of Christian dogma; note, for example, the way in which the Atonement is alluded to in Ro 3:25, 5:17. It follows that it would be extremely unsafe to build any argument as to St. Paul’s teaching upon his silence. The paragraphs which here follow are an attempt to bring together references in the Epistles to some of the more important points of Christian doctrine. But we may first ask whether St. Paul used a creed in his instructions. In 1 Co 15:3f. he seems to be quoting something of this nature; and a verse from a creed-like hymn is given in 1 Ti 3:16 . Yet the earliest known creed (the Apostles’) cannot be traced back in any form beyond the second quarter of the 2nd cent., and the existence of anything like a creed in the Apostle’s times is therefore a matter of conjecture only.

1. The Fatherhood of God.—Christianity inherited this doctrine from the OT. Yet it was fully revealed to us only by our Lord, for the Jews had hardly got beyond the truth that God was the Father of Israel. The Apostle develops this truth. God is the Father of Jesus (2 Co 1:3, Eph 1:3 etc.), who is ‘the Son of God’ (Gal 2:20, Ro 1:4, 2 Co 1:19, Eph 4:13; cf. 1 Th 1:10)—His ‘own Son’ (i.e. partaker of His nature), whom He did not spare (Ro 8:3, 32, passages which recall both Mk 1:11 and Jn 3:16).—But, further, God is the father of all creatures (Eph 4:6), from Him ‘every fatherhood’ (i.e. family) in heaven and earth is named (Eph 3:14f.); He is ‘the

Father’ (Gal 1:1 etc.), the ‘Father of glory’ (Eph 1:17).—In a special sense He is the Father of all Christians, who are His sons by adoption (Ro 8:15f., Gal 3:28, 4:5f., Eph 1:5 etc.). St. Paul never confuses the relation of the Father to the Son with that of the Father to mankind, but keeps the distinction of Jn 20:17 (‘my Father and your Father’).

2. The Fall of Man.—The universality of sin is the most prominent theme in Rom., among both Gentiles (1:18ff.) and Jews (2:9ff.); all are ‘under sin’ (3:10ff.). Sin is due to Adam’s fall, and is punished by death; yet each man is responsible (5:12). ‘Sin’ does not mean mere error, as it was understood by the heathen, but moral wrong (cf. Ps 51:4; so frequently in OT). From Adam came a taint which is called the ‘law of sin’ in the members (Ro 7:23); it is a moral weakness which makes man inclined to sin. It is noticeable that Genesis says nothing of the penalty and taint as inherited from Adam upon which St. Paul insists; we find it first in Wis 2:23 f., and probably in Sir 25:24. The Rabbinical teaching varied; some Jewish teachers emphasized the inherited taint and penalty, others the responsibility of each man. For the first cf. 2 Es 4:30f., 7:118 [7:48]; for the second cf. 2 Es 9:11 (freedom of choice) and Apocalypse of Baruch 54:15–19 ; 2 Es 3:20ff. combines both views. These two works are probably of the 1st cent. A.D., and parts of 2 Esdras (but not those quoted) seem to have been added by a Christian hand (see Thackeray, St. Paul and Jewish Thought, ch. ii. and p. 21f.; a most suggestive book).— St. Paul traces the universality of sin to the Instigation of Satan, the personal power of evil (1 Co 7:6 etc.), and of his evil angels (Eph 6:12).

3. The Incarnation.—The remedy for universal sin is provided by the love of the Father (Ro 8:32) and of the Son (Gal 2:20), in the Incarnation. That St. Paul uses the title ‘Son of God’ in no mere ethical sense is seen by the language in which he describes the pre-existence of our Lord. The Manhood and the Godhead are both spoken of in Ro 1:8f. (‘of the seed of David according to the flesh,’ ‘declared to be the Son of God’) and 8:3 (‘God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh’). The Christ is of the fathers as concerning the flesh, but is over all, God blessed for ever (Ro 9:5; so EV and Sanday-Headlam, who in an exhaustive note uphold this interpretation; those mentioned in RVm as of ‘some modern interpreters’ seem to suit neither NT usage nor the context). With these passages cf. Ph 2:6ff., with Lightfoot’s notes. Christ Jesus, being originally in the form of God, having (that is) the essential attributes of God (Lightfoot), did not think equality with God a thing to be jealously guarded [as a robber guards what is not his], but emptied Himself [of the insignia of majesty] by taking the form of a slave. His position was no uncertain one that it should need to be asserted. It was this fact that made the condescension so great; Christ, being rich, became poor for our sakes (2 Co 8:9). The preexistence of our Lord is implied by the fact that He was the Father’s instrument in Creation (1 Co 8:6, Col 1:16f.; cf. Jn 1:3). He ‘is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation … and he is before all things’ (Col 1:15, 17). Lightfoot remarks that the first of these phrases expresses Christ’s relation to Deity (cf. Wis 7:26, 2 Co 4:4, He 1:3),—He is the manifestation of the unseen Father; while the second denotes His relation to created things,—it implies priority to all creation (for the Arian gloss that it means that Christ was the first creature is absolutely excluded by v. 16f.), and implies also sovereignty over creation, for the firstborn is the ruler of God’s family (Ps 89:27; so in He 12:23 the ‘church of the firstborn’ probably means ‘heirs of the Kingdom’; cf. also Ro 8:29). The Pastoral Epistles also teach the pre-existence of our Lord; the words ‘manifested in the flesh’ in 1 Ti 3:16 (where ‘God’ must be omitted from the text) necessitate this; and in Tit 2:13, according to the most probable interpretation (RV text), Jesus is called ‘our great God and Saviour’ (see Dean Bernard’s note).—It would, however, he misleading to suggest that St. Paul’s belief in the Divinity of his Master depends only on the Interpretation of a few controverted texts, however great their combined force. The whole language of the Pauline Epistles, the devoted submission of Paul the ‘slave’ (Ro 1:1 and passim) to Jesus, are inexplicable on any other hypothesis (see also the next paragraph).

4. The Atonement.—‘As in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.’ ‘The last

Adam became a life-giving spirit’ (1 Co 15:22, 45; cf. Ro 5:14–17) . Our Lord is the ‘second’ or ‘last’ Adam, thus re-establishing what the first Adam destroyed. It has been thought that ‘the second Adam’ was a common Rabbinic title for the Messiah, but this seems doubtful. The term ‘first Adam’ is found, but is used in contradistinction to other men (‘Adam’ = ‘man’), not as opposed to Messiah (Thackeray, op. cit. p. 41). Others have thought that St. Paul got his contrast between Adam and Christ from Philo and the Alexandrian Jewish school. However this may be, St. Paul teaches that our Lord came to be the Second Adam ‘from heaven’ (1 Co 15:47), to restore all things, to be the representative man, and to recapitulate or sum up the human species in Himself (cf. Eph 1:10), to show to fallen humanity what God meant man to be.

This restoration was to be by the death of Jesus, by a sacrifice. Christ was set forth by God to be a propitiation, or (as we should perhaps translate) to be propitiatory (Ro 3:25; cf. 1 Jn 2:2, 4:10). The word is used in LXX as a substantive meaning ‘the place of propitiation’ or ‘the mercy seat,’ the top of the ark, so called because it was sprinkled with the blood of the sacrifices; but this can hardly be the meaning in Rom., as the metaphor would be confused, Christ being at once the priest, victim, and place of sprinkling; and the second translation is therefore preferable (so Sanday-Headlam, Romans, p. 87 f.). But to understand the meaning we must notice (a) that here as elsewhere (Ro 5:9, Eph 1:7, 2:13, Col 1:14, 20) the blood of our Lord, shed for the forgiveness of sins, is emphasized; and (b) that in Ro 5:10 Jesus’ death is said to be a ‘reconciliation’ or ‘atonement.’ Man is reconciled to, made ‘at one’ with, God; his attitude to God is changed (cf. 2 Co 5:18). God is not here said to be reconciled to man, because it is man, not God, who must change if there is to be reconciliation, as is said in Col 1:21 (where see Lightfoot’s note). Yet there is another side of the same truth, alluded to in the Anglican Article ii.

(‘to reconcile his Father to us’). The word ‘propitiatory’ of Ro 3:25 can only mean that by

Christ’s death, God is propitiated, that is, God’s just anger is taken away from us. [In 2 Mac 1:5, 7:33 , 8:29 God is said ‘to be reconciled’ to man. ]

This reconciliation is effected by a vicarious sacrifice. In ordinary life vicarious suffering is common, and is usually involuntary. But Christ freely offered Himself (Gal 2:20, 1 Ti 2:6, Tit 2:14), the sinless for the guilty. He was ‘made sin in our behalf’ (2 Co 5:21; cf. 1 Co 5:7, 15:3, Gal 3:13).

This sacrifice was for all men (2 Co 5:14f.). And here we notice that St. Paul does not attempt to reconcile the Divine sovereignty with man’s choice, God’s predestination with human freewill. He sometimes states the former (e.g. Ro 9), sometimes the latter (e.g. Ro 10), looking sometimes at one side of the truth, sometimes at the other. On the one hand, God is the potter with power over the clay (Ro 9:21), foreordaining and calling before the foundation of the world (Ro 8:29f., 9:23f., Eph 1:4f.), purposing that all men shall be saved (Ro 11:32, 1 Ti 2:4, 4:10) , sending His Son to the world not only to save mankind generally, as a body, but to save each individual (cf. Gal 2:20). On the other hand, man can exercise his free will to thwart God’s purpose, as all Israel except a remnant did (Ro 9:27, 11:1, 5), and the call does not necessitate salvation (1 Co 9:27). The election is therefore to ‘privilege,’ as it is called; God has chosen certain men to receive privileges in this world, as Jews in the Old Covenant, Christians in the New. Yet there is also an election to life; the ‘glory’ of Ro 9:22f. is not of this world only. Here St. Paul leaves the question, and we may do well to avoid theorizing on it, whether in the direction of the Arminian view (named from van Harmen, A.D. 1560–1609) , which was that God knows who will and who will not respond to His call, and therefore predestinates the former to life; or of the Calvinist or ultra-Augustinian view, which is that predestination is arbitrary, and that Christ died only for those predestined to life (‘particular redemption’). The paradox is insoluble with our present knowledge, and we must patiently wait for its solution in the fuller light of the world to come. It may be remarked that St. Paul, while dwelling on both the goodness and the severity of God (Ro 2:4, 11:22), never speaks of predestination to condemnation.

By another metaphor the atoning work of our Lord is called by St. Paul a ‘ransom’ or

‘redemption.’ We are ‘bought with a price’ (1 Co 6:20, 7:23; cf. Gal 3:10, 4:5, Tit 2:14 etc., and 2 P 2:1). In his charge to the presbyters of Ephesus, St. Paul speaks of ‘the church of God which he purchased with his own blood’ (Ac 20:28). Without stopping to discuss the other difficulties of this verse (for we cannot be sure that we have St. Paul’s ipsissima verba) , we may remark that the metaphor of purchase or ransom must not be pressed too far. There need be no question of the person to whom the price is paid, whether it be God the Father, or Satan, who is supposed by some to have acquired a right to man by the Fall. The force of the metaphor lies, not in the person recompensed, but in the price paid. It is the immensity of the sacrifice that is emphasized, and the figure must not be carried further than this.

5. Resurrection and Ascension of our Lord.—The former event is made by St. Paul the great foundation of his teaching. In 1 Co 15:1–11 he explains the gospel which he preached as he had received it, that Christ died, was buried, and was raised on the third day (the ‘scriptures’ referred to seem to be Is 53:5ff., Ps 16:8ff.); the historical fact of the resurrection was, he says, witnessed by Cephas, ‘the twelve,’ the 500 brethren [in Galilee?] of whom most still survived, James [not in Gospels or Acts], ‘all the apostles’ [at the Ascension?], and lastly by himself as ‘one born out of due time.’ The appearance of Christ at his conversion he took to be as real and as little a hallucination as the appearances before the Ascension. So far from the fact of the appearance to St. Paul and those to the rest being put on a par showing that in St. Paul’s view the latter were pure hallucinations, it shows that he was convinced of the reality of both alike (cf. esp. 1 Co 9:1). The criterion of Apostleship was that a man had seen Jesus, not merely dreamt that he had seen Him. In a word, if Christ’s resurrection be false, Paul’s preaching is vain, our faith is vain (1 Co 15:14; cf. 1 Th 1:10, 4:14, 2 Ti 2:8 etc.). The historical fact is treated as fundamental in the sermons at Pisidian Antioch (Ac 13:30ff.), at Athens (17:31), and before Agrippa (26:23); and the salient point of Paul’s teaching seized on by Festus was that he affirmed Jesus, who was dead [‘had died’], to be alive (25:19) . It is this fact that is the great power of the Christian life (Ph 3:10).

The Ascension and Future Return of our Lord are often alluded to by St. Paul (see also 10 below). It is explicitly stated in Eph 4:8 that Jesus ascended to give ‘gifts unto men,’ and Ps 68:18 is quoted. Jesus is exalted in glory (Ph 2:9, 1 Ti 3:16), or, in the symbolic language found also elsewhere in NT, expressing the same fact, is seated on the right hand of God (Ro 8:34, Eph 1:20, Col 3:1, from Ps 110:1); so the believer is made to sit in heavenly places (Eph 2:8). Jesus is expected to return ‘from heaven’ (1 Th 1:10, 4:10, Ph 3:20), to judge the world (2 Co 5:10, 2 Ti 4:8, Ac 17:31; cf. Jn 5:22, 27).—It is said, however, by Prof. Harnack that the Ascension had no separate place in primitive Christian tradition, and that the Resurrection and Session were thought of as one act. As regards St. Paul, his silence in 1 Co 15:3ff., Ro 8:34 as to the

Ascension is alleged. In the former place reference to the Ascension would have no point, for the Apostle is proving the truth of the Resurrection. In the latter we have the sequence ‘died’—‘was raised’—‘is at the right hand of God’—‘maketh intercession.’ If we are to take the second and third phrases as denoting one act, why not the first and second? [For a full discussion on this point, see Swete, The Apostles’ Creed, p. 64 ff.]

6. The Holy Ghost.—In Ro 8:1–27 St. Paul gives a great exposition of the work of the

Spirit, which closely approximates to the description of the Paraclete (Helper, Comforter,

Advocate) in Jn., though the name itself is not used. The ‘Spirit of life’ dwells in us (cf. 1 Co 3:16, 6:19) to quicken us [at the same time we read of this as ‘Christ’ being ‘in us,’ Ro 8:9–11] , to lead us, and to help us to pray. He makes intercession for us [to the Father]—words in which St. Paul indicates what the technical language of Christianity calls the ‘personality’ of the Holy

Spirit, distinct from the Father. So in Eph 4:30 the Holy Ghost can be grieved. He is the ‘Spirit of

Christ’ (Ro 8:9). In 1 Co 12 the Apostle describes the varying work of the Spirit in man,

‘dividing … as he will’ (v. 11; note the indication of personality). We live by the Spirit (Gal 5:25). In 2 Co 3:17 the Spirit is at first sight identified with Christ—‘the Lord is the Spirit’; the gift of the Spirit is the gift of Christ. Here again we recall our Lord’s words in Jn., where the coming of the Spirit and the coming of Christ are identified (Jn 14:16–23) . So also are reconciled the apparently contradictory sayings, ‘I will be with you alway’ (Mt 28:20) and ‘I go away … I will send him unto you’ (Jn 16:7). It is the work of the Spirit to make Christ’s presence real to us. Hence also the Spirit works within us; we are united to Christ by Him, and from the beginning of our Christian life we are all baptized in one Spirit into one body (1 Co 12:13). The Spirit is also spoken of as being given to us (Gal 3:5, Tit 3:6, Ac 19:2, 6 etc.). Lastly, we notice that the Father, Son, and Spirit are joined together in the Apostolic benediction (2 Co 13:14), but in a striking order, our Lord coming first. Perhaps the Apostle’s thought is that it is only by the grace of the Son that we can come to the love of the Father, and that the outpouring of the gifts of the Spirit applies that grace and love to us.

7. Justification by faith.—The Jewish teachers who bad preceded St. Paul had taught that man is always laying up a treasure of good and had deeds (cf. Ro 2:5); and according as either preponderate at any given time, he is declared righteous or is condemned; while if the good and evil deeds are equal, God gives man the benefit of the doubt; and moreover, a man’s good deeds may be supplemented by those of the patriarchs. [An echo of this may be seen in Ro 11:23; see Thackeray, op. cit. p. 83f.] It was taught that the whole transaction was a matter of contract, God owing a debt to man for goodness. St. Paul adopts the forensic metaphor of judge and verdict; man is ‘justified,’ or accounted righteous, by God, though he is not righteous. ‘The Christian life,’ it has been said, ‘is made to have its beginning in a fiction’ (Sanday-Headlam, Romans, p. 36) . But this is merely another way of saying that God does not exact the debt to the utmost; He forgives freely (Ro 3:24, 8:33). Man is given a fresh start, with a clear record. The great difference between St. Paul and the Jewish teachers lies in the place assigned by him to faith (Ro 1:17 , 4:3, Gal 3:6, 11), in his denying the merits of works of the Law (Gal 2:16, 3:21), and in the gift of justification being free. The Jews recognized faith only as one of the works, and with them it was no more than obedience to the Law.

The forgiveness of man is described by St. Paul as a manifestation of the righteousness (or ‘a righteousness’) of God (2 Co 5:21, Ro 1:17, Ph 3:8), which is regarded as being diffused among men, as in the second Isaiah (Is 45:23 RVm, 46:13, 51:6, 56:1). But the condition of forgiveness is faith, which for the Christian is a real belief in Christ—that conviction which the Apostle himself attained at his conversion, an active and enthusiastic belief Influencing his whole life. Abraham was justified because he believed the promises; the Christian will be justified if he believes the revelation of Jesus Christ (Ro 1:5, 3:22, 10:9, 17 etc.); this is ‘the faith’ (2 Ti 4:7 etc.).

In this connexion we may glance at St. Paul’s view of the Mosaic Law. He was no Marcionite, rejecting the OT. In his view the Law was useful as a guardian, a tutor, having charge of the world in its childhood (Gal 3:23f.). It is proved, however, to have been subsidiary and transitory, (a) by the fact that the promise was given to Abraham, before the Law (Gal 3:17)—and in this place St. Paul uses a Rabbinical argument from the grammatical form of the word ‘seed,’ which he applies to Christ; and (b) by the fact that it was given not direct from God, as was the promise to Abraham, but by the hands of angel ministers (Gal 3:19; the reference is perhaps to Dt 33:2, Ps 68:17; cf. Ac 7:38), and by a mediator, Moses (cf. Dt 5:5). The Law affixes a penalty to sin, but does not provide the way to escape from it; thus those who are under the Law are under a curse, which is removed by the gospel (Gal 3:10ff.). In another passage St. Paul draws an allegory from the story of Moses veil, put on his face that the people might not see the glory passing away from it. For the Lawgiver veiled himself, not because they could not bear to look on his face, but because he knew that the Law was transitory, and wished to hide the fact from the people. This seems to be the Apostle’s meaning in 2 Co 3:13ff. (see Thackeray, op. cit. p. 75).

In teaching free forgiveness St. Paul does not teach lawlessness (Ro 6:1f.; see 8). But it was perhaps a distorted account of his early teaching that caused St. James to write the famous passage on works which occurs in his Epistle (Ja 2:14ff.). There is no real contradiction between the two Apostles; as so often in religious controversy, an apparent difference comes from words being used in diverse senses. St. James speaks of an empty faith which does not produce a holy life, that is, which is no real faith at all; while St. Paul speaks of barren works that are a mere mechanical obedience to the Law, as opposed to a faith which necessarily produces active obedience to the commands of the Master.

8. Sanctification and Sacraments.—As has been said, St. Paul dwells on the necessity, not only of forgiveness, but of holiness. The two are inextricably interwoven. We must ‘become the righteousness of God’ (2 Co 5:21) and be ‘conformed to the image of his Son’ (Ro 8:29) as the Son is the image of the Father (see above, 3) . Sanctification is described as an implanting in the Christian of the life of Christ (Gal 2:20), for the risen life must begin in a very real sense here below if it is to be perfected hereafter (Col 3:1). By a slightly different figure we are said in Ro 6:5 (see RV) to be united by growth [with Christ], in respect of, or by, the likeness of (i.e. by partaking in) His death and resurrection ( cf. Ph 3:10); the language closely resembles our Lord’s words at Capernaum (Jn 6:53–57) , and His parable of the Vine (Jn 15:1ff.). Of this union baptism is at once a symbol and an instrument; we are immersed and submerged, then emerge from the font—the reference is to the custom of baptism by immersion—and so we die, are burled, and rise with Christ to a new life (Ro 6:3f.; cf. Col 2:12, Tit 3:6); by baptism we are incorporated with Him (Ro 6:3; cf. Gal 3:27, 1 Co 1:13, 15 RV, Mt 28:19 RV, Ac 8:16 RV, 19:5 RV). The phrase ‘baptized into’ or ‘unto’ denotes either the purpose of baptism (e.g. remission of sins) or the person to whom the baptized is united. [In 1 Co 10:2 the words are used in an inferior sense, of the obedience of the Israelites to Moses.] It has been objected to this interpretation that our Lord gave the command to baptize (Mt 28:19) in Aramaic, and that the phrase used in that language could only mean ‘to baptize under the authority of’ (Dean Robinson). But whatever the phrase ‘in the name of might formerly have meant among the Jews, St. Paul’s language seems to show that the Apostles understood our Lord’s words, even in Aramaic, to convey the new truth that baptism is an incorporation into the Name of Jesus, or of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (Bp. Chase). For a full discussion on both sides see JThSt vi. 481, vii. 186, viii. 161.

Again, of this union with Christ St. Paul makes the Eucharist at once a symbol and an instrument. That Sacrament is not only a union of Christians among themselves ( ‘one bread, one body’), but also a ‘participation in’ or ‘communion of’ the body and blood of Christ (1 Co 10:16f.) . It is this feature of the Sacrament that made the Corinthian abuses so heinous, and that makes an unworthy reception by the communicant so serious, ‘if he discern not the body’ (1 Co 11:23–32).

This union with Christ cannot be effected by man’s own unaided power, but requires grace. It is impossible here to describe all the shades of meaning which St. Paul gives to this word. But we may say in brief that it is God’s good favour towards us, not only as a Divine attribute, but as actively operating and as freely given to man through the Incarnation (Ro 5:21, 1 Co 1:4). Hence it is the ‘grace of Jesus Christ’ (2 Co 8:9, 13:14). It is at once God’s good favour towards us and the active help or power which God gives to man to enable him to overcome (Eph 4:7), and is ‘sufficient’ for him (2 Co 12:9). Emphasis is laid on the fact that grace is not earned, and it is opposed to a ‘debt’ (Ro 4:4) and to meritorious deeds (‘works,’ Ro 11:5). The word is especially used in connexion with the preaching of the gospel to the Gentiles, of the help given both to the evangelizer (1 Co 3:10 etc.) and to the evangelized (2 Co 6:1, Ac 13:43 etc.). But in St. Paul the use of it is somewhat more fluid than in Latin theological language, in which ‘Divine help’ became the crystallized sense.

9. The Catholic Church and Universality of the Gospel.—The large subject of the Church can here be referred to only very briefly. St. Paul maintains in Rom. and Gal. the universality of the Church, a society for all the world, which need not be entered through Judaism. Christ has broken down the wall between Jew and Gentile (Eph 2:14, 3:5). His Church is a visible society ( Eph 4:11f.); one (1 Co 10:17, 12:13) because God is one (Eph 4:4ff.); holy because all Christians are called to be saints (1 Co 1:2), and it is ‘cleansed by the laver of water with the word’ (Eph 5:26), though it contains some wicked men (cf. 1 Co 5); catholic, because for every man (Col 1:28: there is no ‘inner circle’ of the initiated), and for all nations and ages, and containing all truth (Gal 3:28 etc., 1 Ti 3:15, 2 Ti 2:15; cf. Jn 16:13: the name itself is not found before Ignatius); and apostolic (Eph 2:20). The last thought is the same as that of Jn 20:21, for Christians are not a self-constituted body, but are ‘sent’ by God; that is, they are ‘apostolic’ St.

Paul describes the Church under various metaphors. It is the body of Christ (1 Co 12:27, Eph 4:12 , 5:30, Col 1:18, 24) because its members are united to Christ (see 8 above), and Christ is its head (Eph 1:22f.); the idea is led up to by Ro 12:5 (‘one body in Christ’), 1 Co 12:12 (‘the body is one’). Also the Church is the bride of Christ; the title is implied in Eph 5:25ff. (cf. Rev 21:2). It is the house of God (1 Ti 3:15), a common metaphor which still gives us the double meaning of ‘church’ and the phrase ‘to be edified’ (Ro 15:2 etc.); the building, foundation, and cornerstone are described in Eph 2:20ff., where ‘each several building’ of RV means ‘each stone that is built into the one building.’ The metaphors of’ body’ and ‘house’ are joined in Eph 4:12. In another figure the Church is an olive tree, being regarded as a continuation of the old dispensation, new branches (the Gentiles) having been grafted in, and the old ones (the Jews) broken off, though they too may again be grafted in (Ro 11:13–24). See GRAFTING.

In this Church St. Paul describes a regular ministry; Apostles like himself; apostolic delegates such as Timothy and Titus, whose work, like that of the Apostles, was mainly itinerant; settled or local officers, called bishops (overseers) and deacons (ministers) at Philippi (Ph 1:1) and in the Pastoral Epistles (no deacons are mentioned in Tit.). Presbyters (elders) are also mentioned in the Pastoral Epistles (cf. also Ac 11:30, 15:2ff., 16:4, 21:18 for those at Jerusalem, 14:23, 20:17 for those elsewhere); and the identity of these with ‘bishops’ in the Apostolic age seems to be shown by a comparison of these pairs of passages: Ac 20:17, 28, 1 Ti 3:1, 5:1, Tit 1:5, 7, 1 P 5:1, 2, though this inference is denied by some. The appointment is by laying on of hands (1 Ti 5:22; cf. Ac 6:6). Timothy is said to have been ordained ‘with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery’ (1 Ti 4:14; probably the body of presbyters is intended), and ‘through the laying on’ of St. Paul’s hands (2 Ti 1:6) . Nothing is said in the Pauline Epistles of the method of choosing ministers (see Ac 6:5f.).—In 1 Co 12:28 St. Paul seems to enumerate not so much names of officials as various works done by the ministry (Apostles, prophets, teachers, miracles, gifts of healings, helps, governments, tongues); so in Eph 4:11 (Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers—the last two denote the same persons). In any case the regular ministry did not exclude the existence side by side with it of a ‘charismatic’ ministry, gifts of prophecy, tongues, healings, and other miracles being exercised by many outside the official ministry (Ro

12:3ff., 1 Co 12–14; see also art. TONGUES [GIFT OF]).

The power of exercising discipline in the Church is recognized by St. Paul in 1 Co 5:6, 1 Ti 1:20 , though the exact force of the phrase ‘to deliver unto Satan’ is uncertain. It may denote either simple excommunication or the miraculous infliction of some punishment; but the former seems to be the more probable explanation.

10. Eschatology.—As St. Paul makes the Resurrection of our Lord the foundation of his teaching, so he insists on the resurrection of the body at the Last Day as a cardinal truth. But in the Epistles he does not always deal with the same side of eschatological doctrine. (a) In the earliest of his extant Epistles (1 Th 4:13ff.) his language is so deeply coloured by his expectation of the Immediate return of our Lord, that he says nothing of the time between death and the Judgment, but thinks only of Jesus coming with His saints (3:13), at the sound of the trump (4:16; cf. also 1 Co 15:52, 2 Es 6:23), to awaken the sleeping dead (cf. 1 Co 15:20, 51)—all common Jewish figures; for the phrase ‘we that are left’ cf. 2 Es 7:28, 13:24, 26. Perhaps the supposed nearness of the Second Advent is reflected in Maran atha, ‘The Lord cometh’ (1 Co 16:22), but the phrase may mean ‘The Lord hath come.’ Lest misapprehension of his language should arise, St. Paul adds in 2 Th 2:3ff. the caution that the ‘man of sin’ must first come, and persecution must arise (so 1 Co 7:26 if we translate ‘the imminent distress’). The idea of trouble before the End is common in the Jewish apocalypses. The one thing certain is that the Coming will be unexpected (1 Th 5:2).—(b) In these earliest Epistles nothing is said of the transformation of the body. But in 1 Co 15:35ff. this is insisted on (so Ph 3:21; cf. Ro 8:23). As the Resurrection of Christ is an assured fact, so that of all men is certain (1 Co 15:12ff.); the resurrection body is at once the same and not the same as the terrestrial body; there is an identity, and yet a change. The resurrection body is a spiritual body, the necessary result of the terrestrial body, just as a particular seed must result in a particular plant, and yet the seed is changed to become the plant (cf. our Lord’s similar metaphor in Jn 12:24). In the Apocalypse of Baruch (1st cent. A.D.) there is the thought of the transformation, but as taking place after the Judgment; the dead in this book rise as they were, in order that they may be recognized (cf. also 4 Mac 9:22 ‘as though transformed by fire into immortality, he nobly endured the rackings’). St. Paul says that this transformation is necessary, because in our present state we cannot see God; for this seems to be the meaning of the saying that flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God (1 Co 15:50, cf. also Ph 3:21). In this discussion St. Paul does not speak of the resurrection of the wicked; but elsewhere he re-echoes the teaching of Dn 12:2 that the righteous and the evil rise together for judgment (Ac 24:15, Ro 2:5ff., 14:10–12 , 2 Co 5:10). It is therefore not probable that in 1 Co 15:28 f. a resurrection first of the righteous, and then, after an interval, of the wicked, is intended; the righteous alone are here considered, and they rise at Christ’s coming, and ‘then’ (at Christ’s coming) is the end. Those who see in this passage a millennium, and an interval between the rising of the good and of the wicked, are influenced greatly by Rev 20:4–6 ; but the ‘thousand years’ there seems to be a symbolical phrase for the interval between the first Advent and the last conflict, in which the baptized share in Christ’s resurrection (cf. Col 3:1, a paradox of obvious meaning). See Swete’s Apocalypse of St. John, p. 260 ff.—(c) In yet another passage, 2 Co 4:16– 5:10 , the Apostle looks only at the state of the departed immediately after death. Here the metaphor of sleep is dropped, and the nearness to Christ of the faithful dead is dwelt on; they are ‘with Christ,’ whereas in 1 Th 4 ‘we that are left’ shall meet the Lord only at the sound of the trump at the Last Day, and the ‘dead in Christ’ will meet Him at the same time. An excessive literalism has suggested to some that St. Paul changed his mind about the resurrection of the body and gave up the belief in it in favour of a belief in the immortality of the soul only, perhaps under the influence of Alexandrian theology (Wis 9:15 is cited as showing that the latter had no doctrine of the resurrection of the body.) But this supposition, which is very unlikely in itself when we consider the short interval between the two Corinthian Epistles, is decisively negatived by Ph 3:21. In 2 Ti 4:8, written in daily expectation of imminent death, he yet looks beyond the intermediate state to the Day of Judgment, ‘that day,’ ‘the day of the Lord,’ when he shall receive the crown of righteousness.

11. Marriage and virginity.—St. Paul writes no treatise on marriage, but he often alludes to it. Both Jews and Gentiles had been accustomed to divorce being easily obtained. But St. Paul says that a Christian woman is to be bound to her husband for life, though a widow may marry again (Ro 7:1ff.). Marriage is not to be forbidden (1 Ti 4:3; cf. 1 Co 9:6). In 1 Co 7, according to the usual interpretation, the Corinthians having asked whether among Christians marriage should be discouraged, St. Paul answers that marriage is permissible for all, though the unmarried state is the better one because of the present (or imminent) distress (v. 26); the thought is of the nearness of Christ’s coming, and of the persecutions which would precede it. But Ramsay thinks that such a question is not to be expected from either Jews or Gentiles of that time, seeing that the Jews for many ages had looked on marriage as a universal duty, and that the Roman law greatly encouraged it; he supposes, therefore, that the Corinthians had asked whether marriage ought to be made obligatory for Christians, and that St. Paul pleaded for a permissible celibacy.—In Eph 5:22ff. the Apostle emphatically treats marriage as holy, symbolizing the union between Christ and His Church.

In 1 Ti 3:2, 12, Tit 1:6 a bishop (presbyter) or deacon must be ‘the husband of one wife.’ This need not necessarily imply compulsory marriage for the clergy. It has, however, been variously interpreted as forbidding (a) bigamy—but that was forbidden to all Christians; or (b) digamy, i.e. marrying again after the death of the first wife, as in a later ecclesiastical discipline; or (c) divorce: i.e. the bishop must be one who, in his pre-Christian days, had not divorced his wife and taken another. [The last two explanations are not exclusive.] So in 1 Ti 5:2 a ‘widow’ on the roll must have been ‘the wife of one man.’

iv. PREDECESSORS AND TEACHERS.—In the Apostle of the Gentiles all will recognize one of

the most original of thinkers; but originality does not necessarily mean having no predecessors in one’s line of thought. It lies rather in new organization and arrangement, in the employment of old terminology in a higher and wider sense, or in the re-construction of old material so as to make a nobler whole. Again, the fact that the Christian Church believes that St. Paul was an inspired Apostle does not preclude the idea of human preparation for his life-work. And he undoubtedly gleaned from many fields.

1. Jewish official teachers.—St. Paul had been a pupil of Gamaliel in Jerusalem (Ac 22:3). This Rabbi, whom we may take to be the famous grandson of Hillel (Ac 5:34ff.), was of that liberal school of the Pharisees which encouraged the study of Greek literature. It has been objected by Baur that the statement in Ac 22:8 cannot be historical, because Paul before his conversion was such a zealot, so blindly bigoted, so unlike Gamaliel. But pupils do not always follow their masters, and we cannot doubt that in God’s providence Gamaliel’s moderation had its influence on the Apostle in the end, and eventually contributed much to his well-balanced character.

2. Influence of popular Jewish writings.—The Jewish apocalypses have greatly influenced St. Paul (for examples see § iii.); the Alexandrian writings not so much. But the Book of Wisdom is clearly used in the descriptions of heathen corruption in Ro 1:18–32 , and of the power of the Creator in Ro 9:19ff., The influence of contemporary Jewish thought is also seen in St. Paul’s method of treating the OT. His running commentaries (Ro 10:5ff., Gal 4:22ff., Eph 4:7ff.), the making of a cento of OT passages to prove a point, thought to be due to the use of a Jewish anthology (Ro 3:10ff., 2 Co 6:15ff.), his mystical interpretations of OT such as those of 1 Ti 5:18 , 1 Co 9:9f. (‘for our sake it was written’; cf. Ro 15:4, 2 Ti 3:13, 2 P 1:20f.), 1 Co 10:1ff.

(the passage of the Red Sea a ‘Baptism,’ the manna and the water from the rock an ‘Eucharist’), Gal 4:21ff. (Hagar, note v. 24), are all thoroughly Jewish; and so is the adoption by the Apostle, for purposes of illustration, of some legendary stories added by the Jews to the OT, such as the references to the Rock which was said to have followed the Israelites in the wilderness (1 Co 10:4) , the persecution of Isaac by Ishmael (Gal 4:29), and Jannes and Jambres (2 Ti 3:8f.). For these and some other possible instances of the use of legends see Thackeray, op. cit. pp. 180, 204 , 50, 159 ff.

3. Greek philosophy.—This influence, to be expected in a pupil of Gamaliel, is certainly noticeable in St. Paul’s speeches and writings. Stoicism especially seems to have left a mark on them. Here we may remark on the undoubted connexion which exists between St. Paul and the Stoic philosopher Seneca (see Lightfoot’s essay in his Philippians, p. 270 ff.). Seneca’s writings have very numerous coincidences with the Pauline Epistles, with the Gospels, and even with the other books of NT. He and the Apostle were contemporaries. Could either have influenced the other? There are difficulties in the way of supposing that Seneca was influenced by NT. Chronology forbids us to think that he knew the Johannine writings or Hebrews, as he died in Nero’s reign; yet he has many coincidences with these books also. Again, Seneca quotes many of the phrases common to him and NT from older writers; these, then, are not due to NT. Further, the coincidences are often verbal rather than real; the sense is often quite dissimilar, the Stoic pantheism and materialism and the absence in that philosophy of any real consciousness of sin making an absolute separation from Christianity. Yet many striking coincidences remain,—more between NT and Seneca than between NT and Epictetus or any other Stoic writer. Thus we are surprised to find that the phrase ‘to spend and be spent’ (2 Co 12:15) is common to St. Paul and Seneca; and this is only one out of many parallels. The connexion, however, is probably not between the two writers directly; nor yet (as has been suggested) through Seneca’s brother Gallio, the proconsul of Achaia, who was the last person likely to have been interested in St. Paul’s doctrine (Ac 18:17). But probably the Apostle, educated partly at Tarsus, a great Stoic centre, imbibed in his youth many Stoic phrases which we find repeated in the Hispano-Latin Seneca, who derived his Stoicism from the East. If so, we notice that St. Paul often assigned quite a new and a much higher meaning to these phrases. In the same way St. John drew on Alexandrian Judaism for the word Logos, but assigned to it a higher sense than it ever had before. The influence of Stoic philosophy on St. Paul may be seen in the speech at Athens (where many Stoics were present), containing as it does a quotation from the Stoic Aratus (Ac

17:28 ; also found in the Stoic Cleanthes). An example of a striking word which comes into Christianity from Stoicism is ‘conscience.’—We are not here concerned with the coincidences mentioned above between Seneca and the other NT writers; but the explanation in their case is probably similar to that just given.

4. Influence of the Roman Empire.—It has already been remarked (2:3) that St. Paul was greatly influenced by his position as a Roman citizen, to which he owed his great plan of evangelization. The same thing may be incidentally seen from the allusions to the law of the Empire in the special form in which it was in force in the particular province to which he was writing. The Greek law was left in possession by the Romans in those provinces where it had formerly been in force. Accordingly in Gal. 3:15 the reference is to the form of testamentary disposition known to the Greek (and to the older but obsolete Roman) law, the irrevocable will. In Gal 4:1ff. the adoption of an heir, like the making of a will, is irrevocable, the adopted heir becoming necessarily a son, and the terms ‘heir’ and ‘son’ becoming interchangeable. In the existing Roman law wills were revocable and heirs could be disinherited; accordingly, writing to Rome (Ro 8:15 ff.), St. Paul puts the truth of which he had written to the Galatians in a different way. Heirship is now deduced from sonship, whereas in Galatians sonship is deduced from heirship; for at Rome a son must be an heir, but an heir need not be a son (cf. He 9:15ff. which presupposes Roman law and the revocability of a will).—So in Gal 3:24, 1 Co 4:15 the ‘pedagogue’ or ‘tutor’ (not ‘schoolmaster’) is a reference to a Greek institution adopted by the Romans; this person was the guardian of the child, often one of the upper slaves, who took him to school. The guardian of the child’s property (Gal 4:2) was a different person. On the whole subject see Ramsay, Galatians, pp. 337–393.

5. Christian teachers.—In Gal. St. Paul insists so much on his Apostleship being Divine, not only in its source but in the channel by which it is conveyed (esp. 1:1), and on his not having received anything from the Twelve (2:8), that at first sight it seems as if he describes himself as having become a fully instructed Christian in a moment, on his conversion. Yet he must have learned much from Christians both before and after that great change. He was clearly much influenced by Stephen, with whom he had perhaps had arguments (Ac 6:9; note ‘Cilicia,’ Paul’s province). After his conversion he must have learned the facts of Christianity from Christian teachers such as Ananias at Damascus, and the prophets and teachers (especially Barnabas) at Antioch (Ac 13:1), and no doubt also at Tarsus. Of this instruction there are some traces in the Pauline Epistles; the facts of the Last Supper, though ‘received of the Lord’ (1 Co 11:23), must have come by a human channel; and so the account of the Resurrection appearances (1 Co 15:3). On the other band, St. Paul ascribes to direct revelation from God his knowledge of the spiritual meaning of the facts (Gal 1:12); his visions are frequently referred to (Ac 9:3ff., 16:6f., 9, 18:9, 22:3 ff., 17, 23:9, 11, 26:13ff., 1 Co 9:1, 15:8, 2 Co 12:1ff., Gal 2:2, Eph 3:3); he was directly ‘taught of God.’

In such ways was St. Paul prepared for his work. His education was manifold. Partly the Jew, partly the Greek, partly the Roman citizen, but wholly the Christian, he went forth equipped for his many labours as the Apostle of the Gentiles.

A. J. MACLEAN.

PAULUS, SERGIUS.—Proconsul of Cyprus at the time of the visit of Paul and Barnabas in the first missionary journey (Ac 14:7). The translators of the AV always use the term ‘deputy’ when speaking of a proconsul. The provinces of the Roman Empire were divided into two classes, governed respectively by ‘proprætors’ and ‘proconsuls.’ Strabo describes Cyprus as governed by a proprætor, and hence some have impugned the accuracy of the author of the Acts; but there is ample evidence to show that it was sometimes under one and sometimes under the other. A coin has been discovered in Cyprus bearing the inscription ‘in the time of Paulus, proconsul.’ This inscription may probably be dated A.D. 55, when its subject would be the proconsul of Acts. Pliny in his Natural History gives Sergius Paulus as his authority for certain facts, and among these are two specially connected with Cyprus.

MORLEY STEVENSON. PAVEMENT.—See GABBATHA.

PAVILION is formed (through Fr. pavilion) from Lat. papilio, which meant a ‘butterfly,’ and also (from the resemblance to a butterfly’s outspread wings) a ‘tent.’ ‘Pavilion’ is the tr. in AV of sōk in Ps 27:5, and of sukkah in 2 S 22:12, 1 K 20:12, 15, Ps 18:11, 31:20 (to which RV adds Job 36:29 and Is 4:5 for AV ‘tabernacle’). sukkah is of frequent occurrence, and is often rendered ‘booth’ or ‘tabernacle,’ once ‘tent’ (2 S 11:11). Besides these, shaphrur in its single occurrence (Jer 43:10) is tr. ‘royal pavilion’ (RVm ‘glittering pavilion’). RV has also given ‘pavilion’ in Nu 25:8, with mg. ‘alcove’ for AV ‘tent.’ It is possible that the Heb. qubbah in this passage is a mistake for chuppah, ‘nuptial tent.’

PE.—The seventeenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and as such employed in the 119th Psalm to designate the 17th part, each verse of which begins with this letter.

PEACE.—From Latin pax, through French.—1. Except in Dn 8:25, 11:21, 24 (where RV corrects to ‘security’), the OT ‘peace’ represents uniformly the Heb. shālōm (Eastern salaam) , the fundamental sense of which—always more or less distinctly implied—is welfare ( as in Gn 43:27, Ps 73:3 etc.); of well-being, in the old turbulent times, peace was the prime condition. The word has the following specific religious uses: (1) it is the common formula of courteous wellwishing, employed both at meeting and at parting (see Gn 43:23, 1 S 1:17, Ps 122:7f.; cf. Mt 10:12f.) ; (2) ‘peace’ constituted the most conspicuous blessing of the Messianic Kingdom of God (wh. see; cf. Ps 72:3, 7, Is 2:4, 9:5–7, 11:5–9 , Hag 2:9, Zec 9:10); and (3) it signified a sound and settled understanding between J″ and His people (Nu 6:26, Ps 29:11, 85:8ff., 122:6, Jer 16:5 etc.)—hence J″’s ‘covenant of peace’ is lodged with His priests (Nu 25:12, Mal 2:4f.). In this last and richest use the word approximates to its subjective NT signification, implying tranquillity of heart, as in Ps 4:8, 119:155, Is 48:18, 22.

2. The transition, from OT to NT usage strikingly illustrates the inwardness of Christianity. Out of some 90 NT instances of ‘peace’ there are not more than 8 or 9 which do not refer to heart-peace. The Greek eirēnē in its proper sense signified peace strictly, as the opposite of conflict; but it took over, first in the LXX and then in the NT, the broader import of shālōm, which is conspicuous in the (Hebraistic) Benedictions (see Mk 5:34, Lk 7:30, 24:36, Jn 14:27, Ja 2:16 etc.) and in the epistolary Salutations. In the latter formulæ, ‘peace’ comprehends the sum of blessing experienced, as ‘grace’ the sum of blessing bestowed, from God in Christ. The Messianic peace (1 (2), above) reappears in Lk 1:79, 2:14, Mt 10:34; and the peace of harmony with God (1 (3)) in Jn 16:33, Ac 10:36, Ro 8:6, 15:33, Ph 4:7 etc. The uses just named are gathered up, with a deepened sense, into the specific NT doctrine of peace, of which Paul is the exponent, and Ro 5:1 the classical text (cf. v. 10, also 2 Co 5:18–21, Eph 2:13–18 , Col 1:20; see article on JUSTIFICATION): ‘peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ’ is the state and the experience of those who have been ‘reconciled’ to the Father through the sacrifice offered by the Son of His love, whose ‘trespasses’ are ‘forgiven’ and in whose heart ‘the spirit of adoption’ dwells. Reconciled to God, men are reconciled to life and the world; by His cross Christ ‘has slain’ at a blow ‘the enmity’ between God and man and between race and race (Eph 2:18).

‘Peace on earth’ is to flow from ‘the peace of Christ’ that ‘rules in’ Christian ‘hearts’ (Col 3:15).

G. G. FINDLAY.

PEACE-OFFERING.—See SACRIFICE AND OFFERING, 12.

PEACOCKS.—1. tūkkīyyīm, 1 K 10:22, 2 Ch 9:21. The word may he from the Tamil tokei meaning ‘peacock,’ but from the fact that the LXX has in 1 K 10:22 ‘carved stones,’ and that in 2 Ch 9:21 the word is omitted, the tr. is doubtful. The peacock (Pavo cristatus) is a native of India. 2. rĕnānīm, AV tr. in Job 39:13 ‘peacock.’ See OSTRICH.

E. W. G. MASTERMAN.

PEARL.—References in OT are uncertain. In Job 28:10 gābīsh is in AV tr. ‘pearls,’ but in RV ‘crystal,’ while pĕnīnīm in same verse is in AV tr. ‘rubies,’ hut in RVm ‘pearls.’ In Est 1:6 dar should perhaps he rendered ‘pearl’ or ‘mother-of-pearl.’ In NT pearls (Gr. margaritai) are mentioned in Mt 7:8, 13:45f., 1 Ti 2:9, Rev 21:21. The last ref. must be to mother-of-pearl. Pearls are a pathological production of the mollusc Avicula. margaritifera.

E. W. G. MASTERMAN.

PEDAHEL.—The prince of Naphtall (Nu 34:28).

PEDAHZUR.—The father of the prince of the tribe of Manasseh (Nu 1:10, 2:20, 7:54, 59, 10:22).

PEDAIAH (‘J″ has redeemed’).—1 . Father of Joel, ruler of Manasseh, west of the Jordan, in the time of David (1 Ch 27:20). 2. ‘Of Rumah,’ father of Zehudah the mother of Jehoiakim (2 K 23:35). 3 . Son of Jeconiah (1 Ch 3:15), in 1 Ch 3:19 called the father of Zerubhabel, who, however, is otherwise represented as the son of Pedaiah’s brother Shealtiel. 4. A man of the family of Parosh, who repaired the wall of Jerusalem (Neh 3:25). 5. One of those who stood by Ezra when he read the Law to the people (Neh 8:4; 1 Es 9:44 Phaldeus) , perhaps identical with 4. 6. A Levite (Neh 13:18). 7. A Benjamite (Neh 11:7).

W. F. BOYD.

PEDIAS (1 Es 9:34) = Ezr 10:35 Bedeiah.

PEEP.—To ‘peep’ (Is 8:10, 10:14) is to ‘cheep’ as nestlings do. RV mistakenly has ‘chirp.’

PEKAH was one of the last kings of Israel. The country was unsettled, and there was great discontent on account of the heavy tribute paid to Assyria. Pekah made himself the organ of the dissatisfaction, and murdered his king Pekahiah (2 K 15:25). He needed the help of only fifty soldiers or bravos to accomplish his purpose. Once on the throne he set on foot a movement against the Assyrians in which all the kingdoms of Syria were to unite. When the king of Judah held out against it, Pekah and Rezin invaded that country, as is set forth in the art. AHAZ. The Assyrians were prompt in meeting the coalition, and the issue can hardly have been doubtful, except to those who were blinded by patriotism. The fall of Damascus was followed by the ravaging of the districts of Israel north and east of Samaria, and the transportation of their inhabitants to remote portions of the empire. The capital would no doubt have been besieged had not the party friendly to Assyria got the upper hand and removed Pekah by the usual method of assassination (v. 30). The leader in this movement, Hoshea by name, had an understanding with the Assyrian king, and was perhaps from the first a creature of his. Abject submission on his part saved Samaria for the time being. The length of Pekah’s reign is given as twenty years, which is difficult to reconcile with other data at our command. The true period cannot have been more than five years.

H. P. SMITH.

PEKAHIAH, son of Menahem, was king of Israel for a short time in the troubled period which preceded the fall of Samaria. The record tells us nothing about him except that he displeased Jahweh by walking in the sins of Jeroboam I., and that he was assassinated by Pekah, one of his officers (2 K 15:23–28).

H. P. SMITH.

PEKOD.—Probably the Bab. Pukūdu, a people settled in Lower Babylonia, possibly of Aramæan race (Ezk 23:23, Jer 50:21). Their seat was near the mouth of the Uknu River.

C. H. W. JOHNS.

PELAIAH.—1 . A son of Elioenai (1 Ch 3:24). 2. A Levite who helped Ezra to expound the Law (Neh 8:7 [1 Es 9:48 Phalias]) , and sealed the covenant (Neh 10:10).

PELALIAH.—A priest (Neh 11:12).

PELATIAH.—1. A ‘prince of the people’ (Ezk 11:1); he died as the prophet delivered his message (v. 13). It is difficult to decide whether Pelatiah’s death is to be understood as actual or merely symbolical. 2. A grandson of Zerubbabel (1 Ch 3:21). 3. A Simeonite (1 Ch 4:42). 4 . A signatory to the covenant (Neh 10:22).

PELEG.—A descendant of Shem in the fourth generation, according to the table of peoples given in Gn 10. In Lk 3:35 he stands a generation further off through the interpolation of Cainan from the LXX. The etymology of the name is uncertain. Its reference may be geographical, or racial, or, as the word means ordinarily ‘a water-course,’ it may denote a land cut up by streams.

W. F. COBB.

PELET.—1 . A son of Jahdai (1 Ch 2:47). 2. A Benjamite chief who joined David at Ziklag (1 Ch 12:3).

PELETH.—1. See PALLU. 2. A Jerahmeelite (1 Ch 2:33).

PELETHITES.—See CHERETHITES AND PELETHITES.

PELICAN (qā’ath, prob. from root ‘to vomit’).—One of the ‘unclean’ birds (Lv 11:18, Dt

14:17) inhabiting the ruins of Nineveh (Zeph 2:14, where AV has ‘cormorant’), and desolate Idumæa (Is 34:11). ‘A pelican in the wilderness’ is referred to in Ps 102:3. If in these two last gā’ath is really ‘pelican,’ It is a poetical and conventional reference, for this bird’s habitat is always near pools of water or the sea; the creature’s attitude after a plentiful gorge, when he sits with his head sunk on his breast, is supposed to suggest melancholy. In Palestine two species are known, of which the white pelican (Pelicanus onocrotalus) is plentiful in the more retired parts of the Jordan lakes, especially in the Huleh. It is nearly 6 feet from heak to end of tail, and is remarkable chiefly for its pouch, in which it collects fish for feeding itself and its young. The other species is P. crispus, the Dalmatian pelican.

E. W. G. MASTERMAN.

PELONITE.—A designation applied to two of David’s heroes (1 Ch 11:27, 35). For the former see PALTITE. In the second case ‘Pelonite’ is prob. a scribal error for ‘Gilonite.’

PEN.—See WRITING, 6.

PENCIL.—See ARTS AND CRAFTS, 1; LINE, 6.

PENDANTS.—See AMULETS, ORNAMENTS, § 2.

PENIEL.—See PENUEL.

PENINNAH.—The second wife of Elkanah (1 S 1:2f.).

PENKNIFE.—Mentioned only in Jer 36:23. Orientals use a reed pen in writing, and always carry a knife for the purpose of mending it.

PENNY.—See MONEY, §§ 6, 7.

PENSION.—Only AV of 1 Es 4:56 (AVm ‘portions of land,’ RV ‘lands’). This archaism is first found in the Geneva version, and is used in the original sense of ‘payment’ (Lat. pensio).

PENTATEUCH.—See HEXATEUCH.

PENTECOST, FEAST OF

1. In the OT.—The offering of a barley-sheaf during the Feast of Unleavened Bread opened the reaping season, which lasted officially for 49 days, a week of weeks. On the 50th day took place the Feast of Pentecost, also called the Feast of Weeks (Ex 34:22, Dt 16:10), the Feast of Harvest (Ex 23:16), and the Day of First-fruits ( Nu 28:26). It thus took place at the end of the reaping season, when all the wheat and barley had been cut and gathered, and marked especially the termination of the wheat harvest (wheat being the last of the cereals to ripen in Palestine). The festival was held at the central sanctuary (Dt 16:11), whither the people were expected to repair for the celebration; it cannot, therefore, have existed before the settlement in Canaan.

The proper method by which to compute the date of Pentecost was a matter of controversy. In Lv 23:11 the terminus a quo is given as the day after the Sabbath during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. In Christ’s time the Jews understood this to mean 16th Nisan, treating the first day of Unleavened Bread as a Sabbath, since it was a day of holy convocation. On this computation Pentecost would fall on 6th Sivan (June). But some theorists maintained that the Sabbath referred to was the ordinary Sabbath during the days of Unleavened Bread, whenever it chanced to fall. The objection to this view was that if 14th or 21st Nisan was a Sabbath, the sheaf-waving would occur outside the Unleavened Bread festival, of which it certainly appears to form a part. Anyhow, whatever be the correct interpretation of the disputed passage in Lev., the Jews usually celebrated the sheaf-waving on 16th Nisan and Pentecost on 6th Sivan.

The feast was probably originally a nature-festival, fixed in later times at a specified date. It always retained its agricultural character in Biblical ages, but some later Rabbinical writers treated it also as a commemoration of the delivery of the Law on Sinai—an event which was supposed to have taken place 50 days after the Exodus (Ex 19:1), though this idea is not found in Philo or Josephus; and the fact that the reading of the Law in the Sabbatical year took place at the Feast of Tabernacles and not at Pentecost, points to the late origin of this tradition.

The festival lasted for one day (though the later Jews allowed two days for it, because in the Dispersion it was difficult to determine accurately the Palestinian month); it was a day of holy convocation, and no servile work might be done. Two leavened loaves of wheaten flour were waved before the Lord; two yearling lambs were also waved as a peace-offering; seven lambs, one bullock, and two rams were offered as a burnt-offering, and one kid of the goats as a sinoffering (Lv 23:17–21). In Nu 28:27 the burnt-offerings are given as two bullocks, one ram, and seven lambs. These, perhaps, were supplementary to the offerings prescribed in Lv 23, where possibly only the sacrifices connected with the loaves are specified. Lv 23:22 also prescribes freewill offerings for the poor and the stranger, whilst Dt 16:10, 11 ordains a freewill offering for the sanctuary, and states that the festal joy is to be shared by all classes. It is probable that this latter offering is referred to in Dt 26:2–11 , and the form of confession and thanksgiving there dictated was so used at this period.

2. In the Christian Church Pentecost was the occasion on which the outpouring of the Holy Spirit occurred (Ac 2). The presence of multitudes at Jerusalem shows the generality of the observance which the Jews paid to this feast. It became one of the Church’s great festivals, as the anniversary of the spiritual first-fruits procured through Jesus Christ’s sacrifice. By the close of the 2nd cent. it was established as an occasion of Christian rejoicing. No fasting or kneeling in prayer was allowed during its duration, and it was especially used as a season for baptisms. Under the old dispensation Pentecost had been distinctly connected with the Feast of Unleavened Bread. So in Christian times its dependence on the Passover sacrifice of Christ, which led to the gift of the Holy Ghost, is unmistakable.

A. W. F. BLUNT.

PENUEL (once, Gn 32:30, Peniel).—A place E. of Jordan, and near the Jabbok, at which Jacob wrestled with the angel (Gn 32:24ff.), and said (v. 30) to be called Peniel (or Penuel), i.e.

‘Face of God,’ because Jacob said, ‘I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.’ ( The mention of the ‘face of God’ in 33:10 makes it possible that another explanation of the origin of the name is there alluded to.) There was, however, in Phœnicia, a little S. of Tripolis, a headland called Theou prosōpon, ‘God’s face’; and it is thought by some scholars that ‘Penuel’ really derived its name from some projecting rock in whose contour a face was seen. Penuel is mentioned also in the history of Gideon, as a place with a strong tower or castle which Gideon destroyed (Jg 8:8, 9, 17); it may be inferred from this passage that Penuel was a little E. of Succoth ( v. 6), and also on a higher elevation (‘went up,’ v. 8). Many years later, Penuel was fortified by Jeroboam (1 K 12:25); so that it must have been a place of some strategic importance. The site is not more certain than that of Succoth; see under SUCCOTH some account of the data upon which its settlement depends, and a suggestion for it. Merrill identifies Penuel with Tulūl edh-Dhahab (‘the hills of gold,’ so called from the yellow metalliferous sandstone of which they are composed), two conical hills, about 250 ft. high, round which the Jabbok winds, about 6 miles E. of Deir ‘Allā (which Merrill identifies with Succoth), up the valley, with ancient ruins on the top; and Conder Identifies it with Jebel Osha, a mountain 3597 ft. high, with a fine view, 8 miles S. of the Jabbok. But to each of these identifications there are grave objections: as regards Merrill’s site, it is expressly declared by other travellers that the banks of the Jabbok for many miles above Tulūl edh-Dhahab are on both sides so lofty and precipitous as to afford no way for either the Midianites or Gideon to pass along them (see ExpT. xiii. [1902] 457 ff., or more briefly the writer’s Genesis, p. 300 ff.).

S. R. DRIVER.

PEOPLE.—This is the translation used in AV for a large number of Hebrew and Greek terms. In some cases ambiguity occurs, as the pl. ‘peoples’ is not used in AV except in Rev 10:11, 17:15. Thus ‘people’ is used sometimes of the people of Israel, and often of heathen nations. RV uses ‘peoples’ freely, and this makes the meaning much clearer in such passages as Ps 67:4, Is 55:4, 60:2 etc. (see art. NATIONS, also preface to RV).

A special phrase ‘the people of the land’ occurs frequently in the OT, especially in

Jeremiah, Ezeklel, 2 K., and 2 Ch. In most of these cases it means the general body of the people, the common people as opposed to the courtiers or the ruling class. In Gn 23:7, 12, 13, Nu 14:9 the term is applied to non-Israelites. In the Books of Ezra and Nehemiah the ‘people of the land’ are the half-heathen, half-Jewish population with whom the less scrupulous Jews intermarried, but who were avoided by the stricter party represented by Ezra and Nehemiah (Ezr 10:2, 11, Neh 10:30 , 31; cf. 9:1, Neh 9:30). The same phrase was used by the Rabbis to describe the common people, who were lax in observing the Mosaic law (Jn 7:49).

W. F. BOYD.

PEOR.—1 . A mountain E. of the Jordan to which Balak led Balaam (Nu 23:28). It looked down upon the desert. The Onomasticon (s.v. ‘Fogor’) places it 7 miles from Heshbon, above Livias, one of the heights of the Nebo group. Conder suggests for it the peak above ’Ain elMinyeh, about 5 miles W. of Ma‘īn. Buhl (GAP) thinks it may be et-Mushakkar, flanked by

Wādy Hesbān and Wādy ’Ayūn Mūsa. 2. In Nu 25:18, 31:16, Jos 22:17, Peor is the god BaalPeor. 3. LXX places a Peor (Phagor) in Judah not far from Bethlehem, which is evidently the modern Khirbel Faghūr, to the S. of the town.

W. EWING.

PERÆA.—The district called by Josephus ‘the Peræa’ is referred to in NT as ‘beyond

Jordan’ (Mt 4:16 etc.). When Josephus says that it stretches from Machærus to Pella, and from

Philadelphia (’Ammān) to the Jordan, he probably gives political boundaries, excluding

Decapolis (BJ III. iii. 3), since (IV. vii. 3, 6) Gadara is called the capital of the Peræa. The name seems to have covered the ancient ‘Land of Gilead,’ what is now known as Jebel ‘Ajlūn and etBetkā. It is perhaps the most picturesque and beautiful part of Palestine. Rough mountain heights rise from the midst of wooded slopes, while rich fields stretch between; anon romantic vales break down into mighty gorges, where the sound of running water makes music all the year. The olive and vine flourish, and good harvests reward the husbandman’s toil.

The removal of the Jews from the Peræa by Judas (1 Mac 5:45) left it in Gentile hands. Later, the Jews resumed possession and control. Alexander Jannæus held sway from the Dead Sea to the roots of Hermon. Peræa was given as a tetrarchy to Pheroras, the brother of Herod (Ant. XV.

x. 3, etc.), and later to Herod Antipas (XVII. viii. 1). From Peræa, Simon made his ill-starred raid upon Jericho (XVII. x. 6). It was part of the jurisdiction of Felix (BJ II. xii. 8). Manasseh was made governor after the disaster to Cestius (II. xx. 4). Placidus effected its final subjugation to the Romans (IV. vii. 3, 6). It was attached by the Moslems to the province of Damascus, Subsequently it was under Kerak.

The Mishna recognizes the Peræa—the land beyond Jordan—as a province of the land of Israel, ranking with Judæa and Galilee on the west. On the border of the Peræa probably Jesus was baptized. It was the scene of happy and profitable intercourse with His disciples (Mt 19:1 etc.). It furnished the retreat from Jewish enmity, whence He was summoned by the distress at Bethany (Jn 10:40 etc.). The most horrible story connected with the siege of Jerusalem is that of Mary, a native of the Peræa (BJ VI. iii. 4). In the Peræa to-day the Jew is represented only by the travelling tinsmith and the pedlar. Colonies of Circassians are turning the soil to good account,

e.g. at Jerash. At es-Salt the natives pursue a profitable trade in raisins, while in the barrīyeh, the uncultivated parts, the nomads find good pasture for their flocks.

W. EWING.

PERAZIM (Is 28:21) prob. = Baal-perazim.

PERDITION.—The word is used several times in the NT in the ordinary sense of

‘destruction,’ with special reference to the destruction of the soul (Ph 1:28, 1 Ti 6:9, He 10:39, 2 P 3:7, Rev 17:8, 11). It is found twice in the phrase son of perdition—a Heb. expression denoting close connexion between product and producer (cf. ‘sons of thunder,’ ‘sons of light,’ etc.). In Jn 17:12 the phrase is applied to Judas Iscariot, while in 2 Th 2:3 it is used of the ‘man of sin,’ or Antichrist. In the latter context a great deal of discussion has centred round the meaning of the reference (see art. ANTICHRIST) . It will suffice here to point out that the phrase in 2 Th 2:3, ‘the son of perdition,’ combined with certain passages in the Apocalypse (ch. 13), points to a constant tradition in the Christian Church of the Apostolic Age, which appears, from the passages alluded to, to have conceived not of a foreign potentate alien to the Church, but rather of a false Messiah who should be ‘sent to them that are perishing’ (namely, the Jews), and was expected to make his appearance at Jerusalem. The phrase ‘son of perdition’ suggest not so much the power of destruction exerted upon those coming under the sphere of the evil influence, as the effect of wickedness upon the soul of the individual to whom the phrase in each case, is applied.

T. A. MOXON.

PERESH.—A ‘son’ of Machir (1 Ch 7:16).

PEREZ.—Son of Judah and Tamar, and twin-brother of Zarah (Gn 38:29; in 1 Es 5:5

Phares; patronymic Perezites, Nu 26:20). His importance consists in his being the ancestor of David through Boaz and Ruth, and then of Jesus Christ. His descendants were in all probability the most numerous among the families of Judah; hence the blessing of the elders on Boaz; ‘Let thy house be like the house of Perez’ (Ru 4:12). According to Gn 46:12, Perez had two sons, Hezron and Hamul. From Hezron, according to 1 Ch 2, came Jerahmeel and Ram and Caleb, and through Ram was traced the line of the royal house of David.

W. F. COBB.

PEREZITES.—See PEREZ.

PEREZ-UZZA(H).—See UZZA, 3.

PERFECTION.—The various Biblical terms connoting ‘perfection’ differ in shade of meaning between wholeness, the attaining of an end or ideal, complete adjustment, full equipment in fitness for an appointed task. They are sparingly applied to God; In OT His way, work, knowledge, law are ‘perfect’ (Ps 18:30, Dt 32:4, Job 37:16, Ps 19:7); in NT the same term is used of His will, His gifts, His law (Ro 12:2, Ja 1:17, 25), while Christ describes the Father in heaven as ‘perfect,’ and therefore as the source and pattern of moral ideals (Mt 5:48). The sense in which perfection is attributed to or urged upon men must naturally vary according to the moral conceptions of the time.

1. In OT.—In the sharp moral contrasts which are presented in the successive kings of

Judah, right doing and loyalty to Jehovah are expressed in the phrase ‘a perfect heart’ (e.g. 1 K 8:61; cf. 11:4, 15:3, 5). It is clear from what is contrasted with the ‘perfect heart’—idolatry, abominable sin—that the phrase has regard only to general tendencies of religious attitude and moral conduct, and its ethical depth is not perhaps greatly increased by the addition ‘with the Lord his God,’ for in the case of Amaziah a contrast is drawn between the two phrases; ‘he did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, but not with a perfect heart’ (2 Ch 25:2). In a similar sense the term ‘perfect’ is applied to Noah, Abraham, and Job: its meaning is to be gathered from the synonyms which are linked with it—‘righteous and perfect,’ ‘perfect and upright,’ ‘fearing God and eschewing evil’ (Gn 6:9, 17:1, Job 1:1, 8, 2:8; cf. Pr 2:21, 11:5). It is noteworthy that in a number of passages in RV ‘perfect’ has displaced AV ‘upright,’ with greater fidelity of translation but little difference of meaning (e.g. Ps 18:23, 25, 19:13, 37:18).

2. In NT.—The idea of moral perfection is carried up to an immeasurably higher level by the saying of Christ—the climax of His contrast between evangelical and Pharisaic righteousness— ‘Ye therefore shall be (imperatival future) perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect’ (Mt 5:48). This may be regarded as our Lord’s re-statement of the OT law, ‘Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy’ (Lv 19:2, cf. 11:44), but the immediate context of the two passages is sufficient to indicate the infinite difference between the old law and the new. Infinite, because in place of precepts of ritual purity there is now set up an absolute moral ideal in the perfect love of God.

Moral conduct may indeed involve observance of prohibitions and positive commands, but the morality does not consist in the observance: it must come first, as the spring of action, and will issue in an obedience very different from that of the current ethical code. It is the disposition that counts: all duty springs from a love to God, working from within outwards, seeking to realize itself in free and boundless aspiration after His perfection. Hence the characteristic ‘thou shalt not’ of the Jewish law, with its possibility of evasion under seeming compliance, gives place to a positive ‘thou shalt’ of limitless content, because inspired by a limitless ideal (Mt 5:17–48 , 7:12, 18:21, 22). When the man came to Christ with his eager question about ‘eternal life,’ though he could claim to have kept all the commandments from his youth, he is bidden, if he would be ‘perfect,’ strip himself of all worldly possessions and follow Christ; doubtless because only through such sacrifice could he come to discern and attain the moral realities revealed by simple dependence on God (Mt 19:21; cf. Mk 10:17–31, Lk 18:18–30) . The similar question of the lawyer is met with the same teaching of love to God as the one source of that ‘doing’ in which is life Lk 10:28).

In the teaching of St. Paul the moral life of the Christian is often dwelt upon, and in some passages is summarized in glowing ideals (e.g. Ro 12, 1 Co 13, Gal 5:22, Eph 3:14–19, Ph 4:4–9 ,

Col 1:9–23, 1 Th 5:14–23) . Once the ideal is compressed into a phrase which reminds us of Mt 5:48, ‘Be ye imitators of God’ (Eph 5:1). There is constant insistence on love as the supreme source and manifestation of the moral life (Ro 12:9, 13:8–19, 1 Co 13); it is the bond which binds all other virtues into ‘perfection’ (Col 3:14); the motive power is to be found in faith in Christ, and in the energies of the indwelling Spirit of God (Ro 8:9, 2 Co 5:17, Gal 5:24, 25, Eph 3:20).

But though St. Paul often uses the word ‘perfect,’ he hardly connects it with the attainment of the moral ideal in the sense of Mt 5:48. He avails himself of a meaning of the Greek term as applied to men, ‘full-grown,’ ‘mature,’ and uses it to mark advance from the earlier stage of Christian life and experience, at which, in contrast, he describes men as ‘babes.’ To his immature Corinthian converts he writes, ‘we speak wisdom among the perfect’; complains, ‘I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, as unto babes in Christ’; and bids them ‘be not children in mind: howbeit in malice be ye babes, but in mind be perfect’ (1 Co 2:6, 3:1, 14:20). The same metaphor is used by the author of Hebrews (5:11–6:1) , where ‘perfect’ and ‘perfection’ connote a Christian manhood which can receive and assimilate advanced Christian teaching. In the later Pauline Epistles the word implies a similar stress on intellectual maturity, possibly with a side glance at the technical meaning of ‘fully initiated’ into the Greek

‘mysteries.’ In protest against the Colossian gnosis, arrogated by a few, St. Paul, by unrestricted teaching of the whole gospel to every man, would present every man ‘perfect in Christ’ (Col 1:28, 4:12). So, too, the attainment of the ideal corporate unity of all Christians is expressed in the ‘phrase’ unto a perfect (i.e. full-grown) man’ (Eph 4:18). It is characteristic of St. Paul’s thought that this unity exists (Eph 4:3–5), yet is to be attained; similarly, without sense of contradiction, he can write of himself as ‘perfect’ (Ph 3:15), and in the same context as not ‘perfected’ (3:12).

The great Christian verities themselves, and also their implication for the lives of all who believe, are conceived by him as equally real, yet his assertion of them is joined with an appeal for their realization (e.g. Ro 5:12–21, 6:1–11) . The facts are there, whatever contradictions may seem to be given to them by the imperfect lives which, if indeed real, they might be supposed to fashion into more complete accord. It follows that he is able without misgiving to set before his converts so lofty an Ideal of moral perfection as that contained in the passages already cited, the gulf between ideal and visible attainment being bridged by his faith in the spiritual forces at work

( Ro 7:24, 25, 1 Co 1:8, 9, Eph 3:20, Ph 1:6, 2:13, 4:13; cf. 1 P 1:8). Any doctrine, therefore, of Christian ‘perfection’ must reckon at once with St. Paul’s sense of its reality, and at the same time of the present difference between real and actual.

The idea of perfection appears also in Ja 1:4, ‘that ye may be perfect and entire, lacking in nothing’ (cf. 3:2). In Hebrews special stress is laid upon the ‘perfecting’ of Christ by His humiliation and suffering, not in moral excellence but in fitness for His work of redeeming man (2:10 , 5:9, 7:28); through his sacrifice the ‘perfection’ unattainable under the old covenant (7:11–19 , 9:9) is secured for the believer (10:14; cf. 11:40, 12:23, 13:21).

The idea of perfection in the sense of complete adjustment and equipment (from a different Gr. root) occurs in 1 Co 1:10, 2 Co 13:11, 2 Ti 3:17.

S. W. GREEN.

PERFUMER.—The Oriental liking for odoriferous substances has always rendered the function of the perfumer an important one. The materials used in Bible times were gums, resins, roots, barks, leaves; and these were variously combined according to the skill and fancy of the perfumer. In Neh 3:8 we read of a guild of perfumers. ‘Perfumers’ ought in every instance to be substituted for AV apothecaries as well as for confectionaries of 1 S 8:13.

Cf. art. APOTHECARY.

PERGA.—An inland city of Pamphylia about 12 miles from Attalia on the coast, but possessing a river harbour of its own on the Cestrus 5 miles away. Its walls date from the 3rd century B.C. It was the chief native city of Pamphylia, and never seems to have come much under Greek influence, but it had a coinage of its own from the 2nd cent. B.C. to A.D. 276. ‘Artemis of Perga’ was the chief object of worship, and she resembled ‘Diana of the Ephesians’ in her rites and images, being sometimes represented like the Greek Artemis as goddess of the chase, but more often by a pillar of stone, the top of which was rounded or roughly carved to represent a head. Her worship was more Asiatic than Greek. Her temple probably possessed the right of sanctuary.

St. Paul passed through Perga twice on his first missionary journey. See PAMPHYLIA. But Christianity did not take root there easily. Perga is not mentioned in early martyrologies. When the Empire became Christian, it was the seat of a metropolitan bishop, but after the blow suffered by the Byzantine Empire at the battle of Manzikert, A.D. 1071, Perga seems to have fallen into the hands of the Turks. In A.D. 1084 we find Attalia made a metropolitan bishopric, and it is the only bishopric in Pamphylia now. The modern name of the site of Perga is Murtana.

A. E. HILLARD.

PERGAMUM, or PERGAMUS, was an ancient city of Mysia, the seat of an independent kingdom from about B.C. 280 to B.C. 133, and the capital of the Roman province of Asia from B.C. 133 until the 2nd cent. A.D. It lay in the Caicus valley about 15 miles from the sea, and its acropolis rose between two tributary streams 3 miles N. of the Caicus. As the capital of a kingdom, Pergamus had acquired a somewhat factitious importance. It stood on no great trade route, and under the Romans it slowly lost all but the official pre-eminence in the province. Its kings had been champions of Greek civilization and arts, and it still remained a centre of conservative culture. But Ephesus was now the centre of trade, and it was at Ephesus that West and East met together, creating a medley of all philosophies and all religions. At Pergamus there were splendid temples of Zeus and Athene, where these gods were worshipped in the ordinary Greek way, but others also of Dlonysos and Asklepios.

The only allusion to Pergamus in the NT is in the Apocalypse, where (1:11, 2:12) it is included among the seven churches of Asia. The message to it speaks of Pergamus as the place ‘where Satan’s seat is.’ While it is possible that this refers to it as the chief seat of heathen worship in general, it is more probable that it refers to the worship of Rome and Augustus, participation in which had become a test of loyalty, and therefore a frequent ground of Christian martyrdom. Christians would be brought to Pergamus for trial from any northern part of the province, and the mention of one martyr, Antipas, as having suffered there does not prove that he belonged to Pergamus. The Church at Pergamus is charged with having ‘them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to cast a stumbling-block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication’; and also ‘them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans.’ We must gather from this that a definite section of the church at Pergamus maintained that, Inasmuch as heathen ceremonies’ meant nothing’ (cf. Co 8:4, 10:19), they were at liberty to join in idolatrous feasts, and thus to maintain their social position and justify their loyalty in the sight of the law. The allusion in 2:17 to ‘a white stone, and in the stone a new name written,’ may be an allusion to a practice of keeping secret a new name taken at baptism in a place where it was dangerous to be known as a Christian. From its official and religious character there can be little doubt that Antipas was but one of many martyred at Pergamus.

Pergamus was the seat of a bishopric, but its subsequent history is obscure. It retains its name in the form Bergama. The German Government has been conducting excavations on the site since 1878, and in 1901 a Pergamon Museum was opened in Berlin. The name of Pergamus survives in the word

‘parchment,’ i.e. Pergamena. It is said that king Eumenes, the founder of the library, invented the use of this preparation of sheep-skin or goat-skin for the purposes of writing.

A. E. HILLARD.

PERIDA.—A family of ‘Solomon’s servants,’ Neh 7:57 = Ezr 2:55 Peruda, 1 Es 5:33 Pharida.

PERIZZITES.—According to the frequently recurring list of the Deuteronomic editors, one of the pre-Israelitish nations of Palestine (cf. Ex 3:8, 17, 23:23, 33:2, 34:11, Dt 20:17, Jos 3:10, 24:11). The Perizzites, however, do not appear anywhere definitely in the history. Because in Gn 15:20 and Jos 17:15 they are mentioned with the Rephaim, some have inferred that they were one of the pre-Semitic tribes of Palestine. In the J document the Perizzites are three times mentioned with the Canaanites (Gn 13:7, 34:30, Jg 1:4). The name ‘Perizzite’ (in AV and RV of 1 Es 8:69, 2 Es 1:21, and AV of Jth 5:16 Pherezite(s)) is in Hebrew almost identical with a word meaning ‘dweller in an unwalled village,’ hence Moore (on Jg 1:5) has suggested that they were Canaanite agriculturists, living in unwalled towns, and not a separate tribe. This view is most probable.

GEORGE A. BARTON.

PERJURY.—See CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS, § 5.

PERSECUTION.—Jesus Christ frequently warned His disciples that persecution would be the lot of all who followed Him (Jn 15:18, 20). So far from being dismayed at this, it should be a cause of rejoicing (Mt 5:11, 12). The early Church had not long to wait for the fulfilment of these words. The martyrdom of Stephen was the signal for a fierce outburst of persecution against the Christians of Jerusalem, by which they were scattered in all directions. Saul of Tarsus was the moving spirit in this matter, until, on his road to Damascus to proceed against the Christians there, ‘Christ’s foe became His soldier.’ The conversion of Saul seems to have stayed the persecution. The attempt of Caligula to set up his statue in the Temple at Jerusalem also diverted the attention of the Jews from all else. Hence ‘the churches had rest’ (Ac 9:31).

The next persecution was begun by Herod, who put to death the Apostle St. James, and would have done the same to St. Peter had he not been delivered. Herod’s motive was probably to gain a cheap popularity, but the persecution was ended by his own sudden and terrible death.

After this the history of persecution becomes more the history of the sufferings of certain individuals, such as St. Paul, though passages in the Epistles show us that the spirit of persecution was alive even if the details of what took place are hidden from us (1 Th 2:14, He 10:32, 33, 1 P 2:19–25) . Finally, in the Revelation of St. John, the seer makes frequent reference to the persecution and martyrdom of the saints as the lot of the Church in all ages.

MORLEY STEVENSON.

PERSEPOLIS.—The chief capital of the ancient kings of Persia, chosen as such by Darius Hystaspis (B.C. 521–486). Imposing ruins still mark its site about 30 miles north-east of Shiraz. It is named in 2 Mac 9:2 In connexion with the unsuccessful attempt of Antiochus Epiphanes to plunder its temples and palaces.

J. F. M‘CURDY.

PERSEUS.—‘King of Chittim,’ i.e. Macedonia (1 Mac 8:5). His kingdom was brought to an end with his defeat by the Romans at Pydna (B.C. 168).

PERSIA, PERSIANS.—The Persians, when they appeared first in history, were the southern branch of the Iranians who had migrated, in the 10th or 9th cent. B.C., from the tableland of Turkestan westward and southward. They were for long subject to the more numerous and powerful northern branch (see MEDES) , from whom, however, they were separated by the country of Elam, through their settlement in the district later called Persis, east of the Persian Gulf. Southern Elam they acquired before B.C. 600. Their prince, Cyrus, the second of that name among the ruling family of the Achæmenides, threw off the Median yoke and deposed his sovereign Astyages in B.C. 550. In 545 the kingdom of Lydia fell to him by the capture of Sardis under its king Crœsus. In 539 Babylon surrendered to his troops without fighting, after a two weeks’ campaign, and became thenceforth one of the Persian capitals. Thus the Babylonian empire was added to the Medo-Persian. Cf. Is 13, 14, 21 (where in v. 6 ‘Elam’ stands for Persia, into which it was incorporated; see above) 41, 44–47 , Jer 50, 51.

Thus was founded the greatest W. Asian empire of antiquity, whose power, moreover, was upon the whole consistently employed for the protection of the subject peoples, including in the great satrapy ‘beyond the River’ the Hebrew community in Palestine which was reestablished by the generosity of Cyrus himself (see Ezra and Neh. passim) . Of the kings who succeeded Cyrus there are named in OT, Darius Hystaspis (B.C. 521–486), his son Xerxes (486–465 , the

‘Ahasuerus’ of Esther), Artaxerxes I. (465–424) . See these names in their alphabetic places. To them is possibly to be added Cambyses, son of Cyrus the Great, made king of Babylon in 538, and thus corresponding to the misnomer’ Darius the Mede’ of Dn 6:1ff., 9:1, 11:1.

J. F. M‘CURDY.

PERSIS.—A Christian woman saluted in Ro 16:12.

PERSON OF CHRIST

I. CHRISTOLOGY OF THE SYNOPTIC GOSPELS.—In so brief an article as the present no attempt can be made to detail the stages in the self-revelation of Jesus, or to assign each partial disclosure

to a fixed period. Nor is it possible to inquire critically how far the picture of Jesus in the Gospels has been coloured by later experiences of the Church. Accepting the substantial authenticity of the narrative, and of the view of Jesus’ Person and teaching it embodies, we are led to examine chiefly the various significant titles in which His religious claim was expressed.

But we must glance first of all at the human portrait drawn by the Evangelists.

1. Humanity of Jesus.—Everywhere in the Synoptics the true humanity of our Lord is taken seriously. His bodily and mental life are both represented as having undergone a natural development. He is hungry and athirst, capable of the keenest suffering, possessed of a soul and spirit which He yields up to God in death. Joy, sorrow, distress, peace, love, anger—every wholesome human emotion is felt by Him. He prays to God the Father, looking up to heaven habitually in lowly trust, for strength and guidance to do His appointed work. Out of the sinless Impulse to use His powers in furthering and defending His own life there rose temptations, not merely at the outset but repeatedly later, which involved Him in a real conflict. He is pictured as sharing in the common secular beliefs of His age and country. Certainly He exhibits at times an extraordinary degree of penetration into the thoughts of men; but to speak of Him as omniscient, whether in regard to the past or the future, is simply to desert our sources (Mk 13:32). He asks questions to elicit information; He feels and expresses surprise; He looks to find fruit upon the fig-tree, and there is none. So far from being manifestations of omnipotence, His miracles are done through faith in the power of God, the gift of which is sought in prayer and acknowledged with thankfulness (Mk 7:34, Mt 14:19). Finally, it is impossible not to feel that most theological attempts to vindicate for the Jesus of the Gospels a ‘double consciousness’ or ‘double will’—the one human and limited, the other infinite and Divine—not merely destroy the unity of the impression He makes on us, but are really due to a tendency, devout but mistaken, to cast back upon those earthly years the glory of the risen Lord. This totally ignores the difference in Jesus’ status which the uniform teaching of the NT considers to have been made by the Resurrection, while it also obscures the fact—indicative of the vast redeeming sacrifice of God—that the life of Jesus, the Son Incarnate, was a life in the flesh, a distinctly human phenomenon which moved within the normal lines of a human mind and will.

2. Messiah.—The first article in the creed of the Apostles is the Messiahship of the crucified and risen Jesus of Nazareth. Certain scholars have recently denied that our Lord claimed this title for Himself; but we may fairly say that on such terms the Gospel narrative becomes a chaos. The title Messiah ( ‘Christ’), familiar to Jewish religion from Ps 2, denotes in general the anointed Head of the Kingdom of God, the new King of a redeemed people; and Jesus, retaining the outline of the traditional idea, infused into it a new spiritual meaning, which, as applied to Himself, signified that He was not a new Teacher or Lawgiver or even the Founder of a new faith, but the Bearer and Finisher of divinely wrought salvation. Full consciousness of His Messianic function must have come to Him not later than His baptism—the manner of its coming is for us inexplicable—and at that crisis a wonderful bestowal of the Spirit equipped Him with the knowledge and power demanded by this vocation. His self-avowal as Messiah was, however, marked by a singular reserve. It followed from His novel view of the Kingdom of God, as the spiritual reign of a Father over His children (no doubt in eschatological perspective), that His conception of His own Kingship also moved on novel lines. Hence the almost insurmountable difficulty of revealing Himself as the expected Deliverer without fanning into flame such political passions as would have made men deaf to His gospel. It is noticeable, therefore, that at Nazareth He announced Himself not as Messiah, but as a prophet ( Lk 4:18).

We are probably right in saying that St. Peter’s confession at Cæsarea Philippi (Mt 16:16) was the earliest point at which the Messianic dignity of Jesus became the explicit subject of conversation between the Master and the Twelve; this may be inferred with certainty from the wording of His question and the joy He evinced at the reply. He greets St. Peter’s answer with extraordinary emotion, as seeing in it a proof that the men nearest to Him had gained a clear religious view of the meaning of His life; while He is able to check any secular anticipations they might also form by at once adding the prediction of His death. To the world at large, however, He first declared His Messiahship when arraigned before Calaphas.

Our Lord’s reply to the Baptist’s message from prison (Mt 11:2ff.) gives us, perhaps, our clearest look at His own conception of the Messianic office. But it is to be observed that He did much more than modify the ancient idea ethically; He superseded it by unheard-of personal claims. ‘Jesus was condemned by His heathen judge as a usurper of the throne, by the Jewish tribunal as One who pretended to such a dignity as had never been conceded even to the Messiah’ (Dalman). He was all that the prophets had spoken, and much more. But although He put into the title an immensity of meaning which burst its real limits, and in a sense antiquated it, yet the historic name remains to teach that the hopes of men towards God have not been vain, and that it is through a personal Deliverer that God’s redemption comes. Furthermore, while the idea of a suffering Messiah may not have been altogether unknown to Rabbinical theology, it was Jesus who first made it current spiritual coin. Brooding meditation on the Suffering Servant of Is 53 may well have revealed Him to Himself. It was in this mode—through the felt need and reality of saving vicarious sorrow—that the conception of Israel’s Messiah was so glorified as to pass into that of the Redeemer of the world. But, even apart from this, a straight line can be drawn from the Messianic claim of Jesus to the later Christology of the Apostles. ‘With the recognition of Jesus as the Messiah the closest possible connexion was established, for every devout Jew, between Jesus’ message and His person, for it is in the Messiah’s activity that God Himself comes to His people, and the Messiah who does God’s work and sits at His right hand has a right to be worshipped’ (Harnack).

3. Son of Man.—This title is used only by Jesus, and applied to Himself alone; the earliest mention of it in the Synoptic narrative being Mk 2:10, 28. It is scarcely probable, as Dalman inclines to think, that Jesus employed it for the first time after St. Peter’s confession; yet at least that crisis does mark an incipient understanding of its significance on the disciples’ part. But it was only at His trial (Mk 14:62) that its meaning dawned on the general mind. Its absence from NT writings other than the Gospels (except Ac 7:56) is intelligible if we consider that ho huios tou anthrōpou is a phrase which, to any one but a Jew, would require too much explanation for convenience. The virtual disappearance of the title, however, proves conclusively that it was no invention of the primitive Christian Society.

In the Synoptics the name is found on Jesus’ lips about 40 times. Various writers have noted that the passages where it occurs naturally divide into two groups, as they refer (a) to Jesus’ work on earth, and particularly His passion, or (b) to the final glory of His Parousia. It is observable that the ratio of apocalyptic passages is greater in the closing than in the earlier sections of the narrative.

The ultimate source of the title is not a question of first-rate importance, and anyhow it is insoluble; but we are justified in regarding Dn 7:13 as at all events its proximate source, since Jesus obviously refers to this passage in His self-avowal before the Sanhedrin. We must also be prepared to allow for the influence of Ps 8 and perhaps Ezk 2:1ff. Whether in Dn 7:13 ‘one like unto a son of man’ denotes the ideal Israel or an idealized person, it is hard to say, but the exegetical probabilities are decidedly in favour of the former explanation. Later Jewish thought, however, read the passage in a Messianic sense; and in the Similitudes of the Book of Enoch (probably B.C. 96–64) the Son of Man is a supernatural person, preexistent, and (perhaps) identified with the Isaianic Servant of the Lord. Nothing can be more likely than that Jesus was familiar with this circle of ideas; and in practically every case His use of the title is intelligible only if it denotes an individual. Recently the argument has been used that the distinction existing in Greek between ‘man’ and ‘son of man’ could not have been expressed in Aramaic, and that we are consequently debarred from supposing that by the expression Jesus meant more than simply ‘man’ as such; but Dalman, followed by Driver, has put forward convincing reasons for denying this. Hence we may reasonably assume both that Jesus called Himself ‘the Son of Man,’ and that He did so frequently.

In asking what Jesus meant by this self-designation, we ought to remember that a given expression may have one meaning for the speaker and another for his audience. Still, one or two things are clear. It is quite un-Biblical to interpret the title as equivalent to ‘the idea of man’ or ‘the ideal man’; this conception is Hellenic rather than Jewish, and though it is embodied in the character of the Son of Man as realized in Jesus, it is not strictly present in the name. Again, the term was certainly not meant by Jesus as a dogmatic assertion of His true humanity; for of that no one was in doubt. What we judge to have really happened is this: taking the title freely as given in Dn 7, and possibly influenced by the Similitudes of Enoch or kindred ideas, Jesus began by using it to mean special or representative humanity as appointed to transcendent glory and dominion; but later He defined and enriched this meaning in a singular way by introducing the idea of suffering. On His lips, indeed, the name always had an educative aim. It was, as it were, a suggestive mystery, as much a problem as a disclosure. The title was traditional, yet it awaited final interpretation; and this Jesus gave by stamping on it the impress of Himself. Its educative value lay in this, that while in no sense can it be called a popular or transparent designation of the Messiah—otherwise Jesus’ question in Mt 16:13 is meaningless—it yet hinted Messiahship to those who cared to search deeper. Thus, breaking the bounds of the past, Jesus poured into the name a significance of His own, outstripping all previous Messianic ideals, as, e.g., when He claimed that the Son of Man had power on earth to forgive sins (Mt 9:6||). It is a title which denotes the vocation rather than the nature of Him who bears it; and we are led to think that Jesus chose it deliherately in order to veil, for a time, His personal claim to Messiahship.

As used by our Lord, then, the name ‘Son of Man’ is intrinsically a paradox. It binds Jesus to humanity, yet singles Him out from other men. It predicates of Him alike supramundane glory and earthly humiliation. It unites in itself the contrast of anticipation and reality, of the future and the present. Yet this seeming contradiction, far from being fatal to the internal coherence of the idea, is really constitutive of it. It is just through present suffering and indignity that He who is to be Saviour and Judge passes to His Kingdom. ‘The “Son of Man,” in the mature mind of Jesus, is the Person who unites a career of utmost service and suffering with a sure prospect of transcendent glory. And herein we touch at once the depth and height of His originality’

(Muirhead). He trained the disciples to grasp this novel view of what it meant to be Messiah; and when they at last understood Him, what their minds dwelt on, and held fast, as indicated by the title so interpreted, was not the Divine origin of Jesus; it was rather His Divine calling and the Divine destiny that awaited Him. For them ‘Son of Man’ pointed to the future more than to the past.

4. Son of God.—There are several occasions in the Synoptic narrative on which this title is addressed to Jesus—e.g. by the possessed (Mk 3:11), by unbelieving Jews (Mt 27:40), by the centurion (Mk 15:39), and constructively by Caiaphas (Mt 26:63)—where it cannot have anything like its full significance for a Christian mind. It is at most only a synonym of Messiah. Even when at the Baptism a Divine voice hails Him as God’s beloved Son, the words denote simply His definitive consecration to the Messianic office, as is shown by the clear echo of Ps 2:7 . In the OT, we should note, the title ‘Son of God’ is applied to the chosen people, to the theocratic king who rules and represents it, and to the perfect King who is to come. The outer side of this relation to God consisted in the possession of His power and glory; the Inner side was the enjoyment of His love as its chosen object.

It was on the inner side of this relation that the mind of Jesus dwelt. In the Synoptic records He does not Himself use the full title ‘Son of God’; probably because it was too familiar as a designation of the Messiah. But there are indications that the name which He chose to express His own view of His Person is simply ‘the Son.’ Not only does this form occur in three important passages (Mt 11:27, Mk 13:32, and possibly Mt 28:19), certain pieces of indirect evidence also bear on the point, such as His veiled reference to His Sonship in the parable of the Vineyard, His question to St. Peter as to the taxing of kings’ sons, and His conversation with the scribes about David’s Son and David’s Lord. Much more significant, however, is His habit of naming God

‘my Father’ (Mt 7:21, 10:32, 12:50 etc. and ||), a phrase which, beyond all serious doubt, puts His relation to God in a place distinctly by itself. St. Luke represents the dawning consciousness of this unique Sonship as already present at the age of twelve (2:49).

The classical passage bearing on this point is Mt 11:27: ‘All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal him.’ Here we ought to note distinctly the unqualified assertion that the mutual relation existing between Father and Son is a perfect one. Not only is the Father’s nature open to Jesus, without that sense of mystery of which prophets and saints have always been conscious, not only is the knowledge which Jesus has of God complete, final, and unattainable by others except as mediated through Him; but in like manner Jesus’ nature is open to the Father, and to Him alone. He stands to God in a relation of intimacy such as no other can share, since even those who become the sons of God through Him are sons only in a secondary and derivative sense. God and Jesus belong together in a fashion transcending man’s intelligence; their personal life is one; and it is constituted by a reciprocal fellowship in which Fatherhood and Sonship are uniquely perfect. This is not merely a new idea; the new idea is the expression of a new fact.

What has been said is enough to cast some doubt on the correctness of Harnack’s finding. ‘The consciousness,’ he writes, ‘which Jesus possessed of being the Son of God is, therefore, nothing but the practical consequence of knowing God as the Father and as His Father. Rightly understood, the name of Son means nothing but the knowledge of God’ (What is Christianity? p. 131). But we are not justified in confining the relation of Sonship to the sphere of special knowledge; a unity which is nothing if not personal is not thus to be lowered to the plane of mere cognition. We are aware that there was a time when our knowledge began to he; but Jesus’ filial relation to God, so far at least as His own words suggest, had no beginning, none at all events of which He was conscious. In Dalman’s words, it seems ‘to be naturally bound up with His person;

for, in distinction from every one else, just as it is by birth that a son becomes heir, so the prospect of universal rule and the possession of immediate knowledge of God were His.’ For Jesus’ mind, as we can study it in the Synoptics, the secret and origin of His own Person lay hid in God’s creative love. So far, alike in His self-disclosure and in the estimate of disciples, we have no sign of a strict doctrine of incarnation or of two natures united in one person; what we do have is the subduing delineation of One who, in virtue of a career of patient service and of suffering unto death, is the perfect Revealer of God and the destined Ruler of the world. But it is made undeniably plain that His Sonship lifts Him out of the context of sinful humanity, and puts Him in a relation to God which cannot be fully interpreted by any of the general categories of human life. By calling Himself ‘Son’ He describes what He is for God; but He does so without giving any explanation of it, or explicitly following it backwards or forwards in its eternal relations. Not that these relations are thereby denied, or made of no account in the interpretation of the name. All that the Apostles say of the pre-existing glory of Christ with God, or of creation as mediated through His agency, takes a place quite naturally as part of its implicit content. But at first Jesus used the name to convey simply His perfectly filial human consciousness, as filled, or rather constituted, by personal fellowship and ethical solidarity with God.

This conscious Sonship is for Jesus the supreme reality; and in the light of it He recognized from the first with perfect clearness the work God had given Him to do. It was not that He knew Himself to be Messiah, and rose from this to the certainty that God was His Father; the connexion of the two facts is just the reverse. He is Son of Man, and Head of the Kingdom of God, because of the still deeper consciousness that He is Son of God. The roots of His vocation are in the uniqueness of His Person. Yet in the last resort we cannot separate these two aspects. The loftier in the scale of being a human character stands, the more entirely personality and vocation coincide; and in the case of Jesus Christ the coincidence was absolute.

5. Self-assertion of Jesus.—A part from specific and, as it were, technical modes of selfdesignation, the Synoptics picture Jesus as in many ways assuming an attitude to God and men which is scarcely intelligible except upon a positive view of His higher being. A whole series of features point in the direction of the more developed Christology of the Apostles. He who could speak of Himself as meek and lowly of heart exhibits also an unparalleled loftiness and majesty of bearing. His disciples, the crowd at Nazareth, and the possessed are alike conscious of this singular elevation. The personal trust and allegiance which He never scrupled to ask from men, putting even natural affection in the second place, is yielded almost instinctively. Nor does the source of the impression thus produced lie in His miracles; it lies in the feeling of His supreme authority. He spoke uniformly in the tones of One who had the keys of the Kingdom of heaven, and with whom it rested to declare the conditions of entrance. He put aside the ancient ordinances of the Law. He called all the weary to Himself for rest; most amazing of all, He claimed the power to forgive sin, and actually bestowed forgiveness on the sick of the palsy and the dying malefactor. His entire demeanour makes the impression of perfect acquaintance with the mind of God—His thoughts towards men, His hearing of prayer, the grounds of His condemnation and His pardon. With apparently not a single interval of doubt, He knew Himself to be the chosen One of God, by whose presence the powers of evil were already vanquished, who should redeem many by His death, who should rise from the dead and come hereafter with Divine power as the Judge of the world. It gradually became clear to the disciples that no comparison was really possible between Jesus and the great figures of the OT. No prophet had ever called upon men to confess his name; no prophet had declared that the relation of men to him would decide their final destiny; no prophet had ever said: ‘All things are delivered unto me of my Father.’ But Jesus repeatedly puts Himself forward as the object of saving faith, and gives to those who trust Him the sovereign promise that, as they gather in His name. He will be present in their midst. These are features of the Synoptic portraiture of Jesus which it is impossible to eliminate; and while they do not amount to a doctrine of His Person, they insist on doctrinal interpretation. In view of such things it is futile to say blankly, with Bousset, that Jesus simply places Himself at the side of ordinary humanity, and reserves for Himself only the distinction of a unique vocation. On the contrary, even in the first three Gospels the Person of Jesus has factors of mystery in it which lead the mind towards the Apostolic doctrine of His transcendent relation to God.

6. Sinlessness of Jesus.—The NT belief in the sinlessness of Jesus, which we may suitably consider at this point, is not really an a priori dogma—though as Lamb of God He was viewed as being necessarily without spot or blemish; it is a conclusion drawn from convincing facts at which we have a clear look in the Synoptics. Nor, on the other hand, is it quite accurate to say that the NT bids us regard the sinlessness of Jesus as something which only a believer can grasp or assent to, and which, from the nature of the case, cannot be established historically. As against this, there is great force in Dr. Forrest’s argument (Authority of Christ, p. 22ff.), that even as historians, and irrespectively of any judgment of faith, we are bound to accept the Apostolic Interpretation of the facts, since ‘the facts concerning Him must have been such as to sanction and necessitate the interpretation.’

The Synoptic Gospels, it is true, contain no express claim on Jesus’ part to be sinless; certainly nothing so strong as Jn 8:46. Yet we find traits in His demeanour which reveal His selfconsciousness more plainly than even words could do. He called men to repentance; He condemned the ‘righteous’ unsparingly; He predicted that He should one day judge the world; He urged confession upon His disciples, and put the Lord’s Prayer upon their lips: yet He Himself never uttered the cry of the burdened conscience, never spoke one word of contrition.

We do not need to defend Him against the charge of harsh judgment (Mt 12:34), or a lack of family affection (v. 48), or an excess of passion (21:12); these, surely, are intelligible manifestations of fidelity to His Messianic task, and it has been fitly said that their final justification is that such a one as He should have done such things without any subsequent regret. The really decislve fact is that in the mature mind of Jesus there is no trace of old defeats, no memories of weakness overcome, no healed scars. It may be said, indeed, that one may be sinful without being conscious of it, but the familiar distinction is inapposite; for the moral pain of Jesus’ answer to Peter’s suggestion (Mt 16:23) proves with what infinite sensitiveness He felt the movings of sin in another, so that He could not have been unconscious of its presence in Himself. Besides, in view of His duty to remove a mistaken impression on such a point, His silence, were He aware of the slightest imperfection in His own nature, would have been an added hypocrisy. Finally, on every page of the Evangelists we read demands for perfect obedience, as well as promises of grace and help, which it would have been an enormity for a sinful man to utter. From these facts the only permissible conclusion is that Jesus had no experimental, interior knowledge of moral evil. Nor may His participation in the baptism of John be urged against this; for that was ‘a great act of loving communion with our misery,’ In which He identified Himself with sinful men, and took all their burdens and responsibilities as His own (cf. Denney, Death of Christ, p. 21). His repudiation of the epithet ‘good’ (Mk 10:18) has perplexed many, and must certainly not be explained away; but, in the first place, it is surely obvious that Jesus meant very much what the writer to the Hebrews means by the words (5:8): ‘He learned obedience by the things that he suffered.’ He was being made perfect from the outset to the end; and we see now that to attribute to Him the eternal, changeless perfection of God Himself would be to forget the ethical conditions of incarnation. And, in the second place, should we have thought more highly of one who calmly accepted the facile word of praise? Are not even we pained by careless eulogy?

Many recent writers, in view of the apparently negative character of the term ‘sinlessness,’ have preferred to predicate of Jesus absolute fidelity to His vocation. And it is true not merely that this conception brings out a fact of the utmost significance, but that several NT passages which are commonly adduced as proofs of our Lord’s sinlessness (e.g. 1 P 2:21, Ph 2:7, 8, 1 Jn 3:5) may more suitably be referred to the other category. Yet the idea of sinlessness is not one with which we can dispense. We need some term which will include, not merely Jesus’ actual fulfilment of His Divine commission, but the ebb and flow of His inner, spiritual life and the sinless development of the early years. It is true that such a sinless development is incomprehensible to us. To ethical psychology it remains an undecipherable mystery. All we can say is that it is because no one ever so felt His utter dependence upon God, and hence knew how much in God He had to depend upon, that, from first to last, Jesus kept His holiness pure (cf. Du Bose, Gospel in the Gospels, ch. 13). When we think out the idea of sinlessness, however, and consider how adult manhood rises with organic continuity out of childhood and infancy, we can hardly escape the inference that Jesus’ stainless life had from the first a different personal content from ours. The theological expression for this would then be, that in His case Divinity was the basis and condition of perfect humanity.

7. Virgin-birth.—In the Gospels of Matthew and Luke the Divine Sonship of Jesus is viewed as being mediated in part by the bestowal of the Spirit at His baptism, in part by the supernatural character of His conception. Weight may justly be laid on the fact that both Evangelists, divergent as their narratives of the conception are in certain points, agree in affirming the special action of the Holy Ghost. On the other hand, no reference to the Virginbirth is to be found elsewhere in the NT. It is not present in Gal 4:4 or Ro 1:3; and few would say with Westcott that the fact of the miraculous conception, though not stated, is necessarily implied in Jn 1:14. This silence might, indeed, have led men to ask whether any statement on the subject ought in wisdom to form part of the Creed; and yet again, it would be a mistake to overstrain the argumentum e silentio. The very fact that the eternal Divinity of Christ could thus be held and interpreted without recourse to the idea of virgin-birth proves that that idea did not arise as a psychologically inevitable religious postulate, and may therefore claim to have genuine tradition behind it. The present writer can only say that to him supernatural conception appears a really befitting and credible preface to a life which was crowned by resurrection from the dead. That an abnormal fact in the sphere of nature should answer to the transcendent spiritual element in the Person of Christ is both a Scriptural and a profoundly philosophical thought. Nevertheless, the Christian faith of many will always shrink from the assertion that virgin-birth is a sine qua non of real incarnation, or that, in any ultimate sense, it explains the wonder and glory of Jesus’ Person.

II. PRIMITIVE APOSTOLIC DOCTRINE.—As representing this stage of thought, we may take, with some caution, the discourses of St. Peter in Acts, checking our results later by comparison with his First Epistle.

1. St. Peter’s discourses in Acts.—The Christology of these discourses is, on the whole, extremely simple. It would have been strange, indeed, had the Apostolic mind come to understand the Person of Christ otherwise than gradually. The words ‘Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs’ (Ac 2:22), are the earliest Petrine description of Jesus, and the rudimentary nature of the suggested doctrine is characteristic. A parallel to this is the later verse, from the sermon in Cornelius’ house: ‘God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power: who went about doing good, … for God was with him’ (10:38). The gist of St. Peter’s gospel is that this Jesus is the promised Messiah, attested as such by wonderful works, resurrection, and ascension to glory (2:22–24 , 33, 36) . Hence the name ‘Jesus Christ’ now appears; ‘Christ,’ when it occurs by itself, being an official, not yet a personal title. The ministry of Jesus as teacher is scarcely referred to, except in 10:36. But His death, as Divinely ordained and foreknown, and above all His deliverance from death, with the exaltation which followed, are the themes to which the speaker perpetually recurs.

A tendency has been shown, in view of the fact that Jesus is thus described as ‘anointed with the Holy Spirit,’ as ‘the holy one and the just’ (3:14), and as a great prophet (3:22), to infer that the primitive Church held a merely humanitarian view of His Person. We have already conceded, or rather asserted, that the doctrine is rudimentary. Specially deserving of note is the eschatological light in which the whole is viewed—Jesus being represented as gone meanwhile into heaven, thus affording the Jews time for repentance, upon which will ensue His return to a restored creation (3:19–21). All is as yet within the limits of nationalistic Messianism. Yet when we look more closely there are clear indications of another kind. Jesus has been exalted to the right hand of God, and made Lord of all things; He is the giver of the Holy Spirit (2:33); He knows the hearts of all men (1:24); He is the Judge of quick and dead (10:42). He is set forth quite definitely as the theme of the gospel and the object of faith, from whom repentance and forgiveness come. Prayer is freely offered to Him (1:24, 7:59). Again and again His name, i.e. He Himself as revealed and known, is proclaimed as the only medium of salvation (2:38, 3:16, 4:12 , 10:43). Hence, while no attempt has yet been made to define His Person, the attitude of believers to Him is quite clearly one of faith and worship. We can scarcely overestimate the significance for Jews of this ascription of universal Lordship to One with whom they had eaten and drunk, and of whose death they had been witnesses.

2. The First Epistle of St. Peter.—The interest of this Epistle lies rather in soteriology than in the doctrine of Christ’s Person. The sufferings of the Cross are viewed as having been predestined by God and foretold by prophets, and, in connexion with the atonement accomplished thereby, the sinlessness of Jesus as sacrificial victim is insisted on (1 P 1:19). One significant fact indicating the writer’s favourite view of the Saviour’s Person, is that, whereas the name ‘Jesus’ is nowhere used by itself, ‘Christ’ has become a proper name; and it is natural to interpret this change as ‘due to the fact that the person of Jesus is contemplated by the Christian exclusively in His specific quality as Mediator of salvation’ (Weiss). It is a disputed point whether 1:11 in which the Spirit of Christ is said to have been present in the prophets, and 1:20 which represents Him as foreknown before the foundation of the world, do or do not imply His real pre-existence. The arguments on either side are given in the commentaries; the present writer can only say briefly that the language of 1:11 appears to him to be satisfied if we take it to mean that the Divine Spirit, now so entirely bound up with Christ that it can be called His Spirit, was previously active in the prophets; while the words ‘foreknown before the foundation of the world’ no more necessarily involve the personal pre-existence of Christ than the words ‘He chose us in him before the foundation of the world’ (Eph 1:4) demand a similar conclusion as to believers. Thus foreknown and predicted, then, Christ has been manifested at the end of the times for our sakes. In His incarnate Person ‘flesh’ and ‘spirit’ are to be distinguished (3:18); and a careful investigation proves that by ‘spirit’ is meant the Divine principle in a potency higher than that in which it dwells in man, and possessed, for that reason, of an inherent and indestructible energy of life. In Ac 2:24 the ground of Jesus’ resurrection is determined by prophecy; here the further step is taken of referring it to the power of life that was in Him through the unction of the Spirit which constituted Him Messiah. We need not pause at present on the enigma of the descent to Hades (3:19, 4:8; is it connected with Eph 4:9 and 1 Ti 3:10?), the clue to which has been lost; but at all events the writer means it as an illustration of the victorious and unparalleled powers of life that dwelt in Christ even prior to His resurrection, as well as of the wonderful redemptive efficacy of His death.

The Christology of 1 Peter is thus seen to be slightly more full and elaborate than that of the early chapters of Acts; but its primitive character cannot be mistaken. Still, there are distinct tokens of the specifically Christian estimate of Jesus’ Person. Thus, the Spirit of God is named ‘the Spirit of Christ’ (1:11); and although the title ‘Son of God’ is not employed, we find in 13 the full-toned phrase ‘the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,’ with a clear implication of His special Sonship. The statement (3:22) that angels and authorities and powers are subject to Him is a declaration not merely of His exalted state, but of His participation in the Divine power, whose instruments angels are. The doxology in 4:11—equivalent to that applied to God in 5:11—is most naturally interpreted of Christ; and in 3:15 a phrase which in Is 8:13 refers to Jehovah is used of our Lord expressly.

III. CHRISTOLOGY OF ST. PAUL.—The field of inquiry for the purposes of this article will include not only the four great Epistles of the earlier period (Rom., 1 and 2 Cor., and Gal.), but also the Epistles of the Imprisonment. We shall use them with equal confidence, although now and then it may be necessary to mark a difference of accent in the later Epistles. But if, as appears to be the case, Ro 9:5 contains a definite affirmation of the Godhead of Christ, we should have to treat with suspicion theories which imply that the Christology of Phil, and Col. is conspicuously higher than what preceded.

Much interest attaches to the question of the genesis of St. Paul’s view of Christ. Holsten, following the lead of F. C. Baur, argued for many years that the Apostle’s Christology took shape purely as the result of a logical process in his mind. Faced by the death upon the cross, as an event in which he felt the will of God for man’s salvation to be revealed, St. Paul yielded to what was really an intellectual compulsion to abandon the Jewish theology which he had been taught, and to substitute for it the conception of Jesus Christ we are familiar with in his writings. Others have held more recently that Saul the Pharisee was already in possession of a complex of ideas as to a superhuman Messiah—conceived as revealer of God and heavenly King—which owed much to mythical elements drawn from Oriental faiths; and that the subjective experiences of his conversion led him simply to identify the Jesus whom he seemed to behold in Divine glory with this antecedent notion of Messiah, and in consequence to assert such things of Him as that He existed before the world and shared in its creation. Hence we may infer the Christ of St. Paul has nothing particular to do with the Jesus of history (Brückner). To make but one criticism, both these related theories manifestly presuppose that St. Paul’s vision of Christ on the way to Damascus had no objective reality. But if we find it an incredible supposition that a mere illusory process in the Apostle’s fancy should have instantly revolutionized his life, or that he could have persuaded the primitive Christian society to accept, or even tolerate, a view of Christ so engendered, we shall naturally seek for some more solid basis and justification of his beliefs. And this, with the utmost certainty, we find in his actual relations to the glorified Lord, not merely at his conversion, though most memorably then, but also in his personal life as believer and Apostle. ‘It is this feature, its being borrowed from his own religious experience, that distinguishes Paul’s idea of Christ from a philosophical conception’ ( Somerville ).

The system of St. Paul’s thought is entirely Christocentric; not only so, his conception of Christ is entirely soteriological. From the saving efficacy of the death of Christ, as the fundamental certainty, he moves on to an interpretation of the Divine-human personality. He who died for all must stand in a unique relation to mankind. The work and the Person always go together in his mind. His creed in its simplest form is that ‘Jesus is Lord’ (1 Co 12:3, Ro 10:9; cf.

Ph 2:11); and although starting, like the other writers of the NT, from the belief that Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah, he at once transcends the current Messianic idea, and grasps the significance of Jesus, not for the Jews only, but for the whole world. Nowhere does he employ the title ‘Son of Man,’ and for him the ‘Kingdom of God’ is virtually merged in the Person of Jesus Christ.

1. It may be taken as certain that St. Paul was acquainted with the Evangelical tradition as to Jesus’ earthly life. He appeals to the words of the Lord as of supreme authority. Yet no allusion is made to His miracles or to His ways and habits among men. His human birth, His sinlessness, His institution of the Holy Supper, His death by crucifixion and His resurrection on the third day—these and a few more details are reported. The truth is that St. Paul’s mind dwelt chiefly on the decisive acts of redemption, and the blessings won thereby; hence it is not surprising that he should say little or nothing as to Jesus’ human development. At the same time the real humanity of our Lord is to him an axiom. Jesus was made of a woman, of the seed of David according to the flesh. There is nothing inconsistent with this in the remarkable expression (Ro 8:3) that God sent His own Son ‘in the likeness of sinful flesh’; which simply means that the sinful flesh of man is the pattern on which Christ’s sinless (2 Co 5:21) flesh was formed; in Him alone we see the flesh in perfect relation to the spirit. Moreover, human nature, as He wore it on earth, was a form of being intrinsically and unavoidably inadequate to His true essence. Originally He belonged to a higher world, and left it by a voluntary act; indeed, on the whole, it may be said that what St. Paul puts in place of a full-drawn picture of Jesus’ earthly activities is the great act of the Incarnation. The fact that He should have lived as man at all is more wonderful than any of His words or deeds.

2. In addition to a body of flesh and blood, the unique constitution of Jesus’ Person included spirit, ‘the spirit of holiness’ (Ro 1:4, on which cf. Denney’s note in EGT) , which completely dominated His nature, and was not merely the power energizing in His life in the flesh, but the active principle of His resurrection from the dead. To this spiritual being St. Paul would probably have referred for an ultimate explanation of what he meant by Christ’s pre-existence.

3. The main reason for St. Paul’s comparative silence as to Jesus’ earthly career is that the Person with whom he was directly in relation, habitually and from the first, was the risen Lord of glory. This is the starting-point of his Christology, and it determines it to the last. The attitude is no doubt common to the NT writers, but it has been accentuated in St. Paul’s case by his singular history, and his passionate faculty of faith. All redeeming influences, whether they concern the individual or the world, and bear on sin or death or principalities or powers, flow directly from the risen Christ. This pre-occupation with Christ as glorified is expressed forcibly in 2 Co 5:16, ‘Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet now we know him so no more.’ The present majesty of the Lord is something other and better than the earthly life now past. Yet again—the counter-stroke always follows—the Exalted One is also the Crucified, who has in Him for ever and ever the redemptorial efficacy of His death.

We can hardly put the fact too strongly, that for St. Paul’s mind it was after the Resurrection that the manifested Being of Christ took on its full greatness. The classical passage on this is Ro 1:4: ‘appointed (or declared) Son of God with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.’ The implication is that Divine power, acting through the medium of the Resurrection, set Christ free from the limitations of life on earth, limitations which had permitted to His Divine Sonship only a reduced and depotentiated expression here. In His exaltation that Sonship is displayed fully. With this we may compare Ph 2:9 and Ro 14:9, the latter being a somewhat remarkable statement: ‘For to this end Christ died, and lived again, that he might be Lord of both the dead and the living.’ In these and all parallel passages the two ideas are combined: first, that Christ has ascended up to be Lord of the world, assuming this place for the first time at the Resurrection, and still retaining His humanity; secondly, that there was in Him from the beginning that which fully qualified Him for this transcendent glory.

It is rewarding to pause for a moment upon this concrete, working conception of Jesus Christ as it inspired the Apostle’s heroic life. The Redeemer is to him a Divine Being, clad for ever, as on the way to Damascus, in the glorious radiance which is the mark of Deity. He has reached a position from which He can make effectual the reconciling and redemptive work achieved in His passion. He is more than Head of the Church; He is omnipotent in the fullest sense. God has set Him far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come (Eph 1:21). Vast as His glory is, He has not yet come to His full triumph; for it is God’s purpose yet to sum up all things in Christ, the things in heaven and the things on earth (v. 10). His sway will culminate in His advent at the last. And this royal Lord is not far off, inaccessibly high above believers, but rather within and beside them always, to guide, warn, inspire, comfort with infinite might and love; so that St. Paul could speak of himself as being in Christ, of his life as being not his own, but the life of Christ living in him, and could pray for his converts that Christ might dwell in their hearts by faith (Gal 2:20, Eph 3:17). Were our subject the personal religion of the Apostle, much more would have to be said as to his immediate certainty of Christ as alike dwelling in and embracing our spiritual life—the ideas of ‘Christ in us’ and ‘we in him’ alternate—but here it must suffice to have noted this profound and ever-present mystical note. The passage about the thorn in the flesh (2 Co 12) shows us the reverential fellowship in which St. Paul lived with the risen Lord, and the natural spontaneity with which he prayed to Him.

What are the Apostle’s reasons for giving Christ this Divine place? (a) The first is the relation which He sustains to humanity as Redeemer, and which is indicated by the title ‘Second Adam.’ As Adam was head, representative, and type of the race that derived from him, so Christ by death and resurrection is Head and Representative of a new, redeemed humanity (Ro 5). For human development has these two stages, the earthly or carnal and the spiritual. Now ‘the one element in the conception of Christ that ruled the thoughts of the Apostle was that of Spirituality’ ( Somerville). The spirit of holiness is the inmost and deepest reality of His own life, and of the life that emanates from Him; He is the organic Head of a new spiritual creation, and, as such, mediates to men the renewing grace of God.

Many scholars, not altogether unnaturally, hold that St. Paul borrowed this turn of thought from the Jewish-Hellenic conception of a pre-existent heavenly Man, the archetypal model of man’s creation, and that he accordingly conceived Christ as having existed as Man in heaven prior to His being incarnate. Certainly we can perceive that the Apostle was acquainted with these ideas. Nevertheless, no decisive proof can be given that he allowed them to exercise any particular influence on his view of Christ. At all events, this is true of the parallel he draws between Adam and Christ in Ro 5:12ff.; and in the passage in which this ‘Heavenly Man’ theory has its chief support, 1 Cot 15:45–47 , two points may be noted which lessen the probability of Alexandrian descent—first, that the Heavenly Man, for whom Philo’s designation is the ‘First Man,’ is by St. Paul called the ‘Second Man‘; secondly, that the important concluding phrase ‘the second man is from heaven,’ is referred by many of the best exegetes to the glorified Lord, the sense being that at His resurrection Christ became the life-giving head of a new race. It is all but incredible that this ‘Heavenly Man’ idea, which can only be proved to exist in one chapter of one Epistle, really was the fons et origo of the Apostle’s Christology; and in any case it is out of keeping with his undoubted ascription of personal Divinity to Jesus. On the other hand, it was eminently natural that Jewish theology should often supply the framework of his argument, or supply him with terms by which to give expression to truths springing directly from his faith in Christ. That faith, we have seen, grasps Jesus Christ as Redeemer of the world, and thereafter proceeds to view Him reflectively as sustaining a unique relation to God and to mankind.

(b) St. Paul’s second reason for placing Christ so high is that he believes Him to have been Son of God originally, in a heavenly life prior to incarnation. The incidental fashion in which allusion is made to this fact, as to something familiar to all Christians, is very impressive. As to specific passages, we may not be able to lay very much weight on the expression: ‘God sent forth his Son’ (Gal 4:4), for it might conceivably be used of one who came into the world simply with the commission of a prophet. But the underlying idea becomes plainer in 1 Co 10:4, which affirms that the rock which followed the fathers in the desert, and from which they drank, was Christ; In other words, He is represented as having personally intervened in OT history. And no doubt at all is possible as to 2 Co 8:9: ‘Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, for your sake he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich,’ where it is unmistakably asserted not only that His life on earth was less glorious than His life in heaven, but—a yet more sublime idea—that His entrance upon the lower estate of being was a voluntary act. Real pre-existence, i.e. independent and self-conscious life, is even more deliberately affirmed in the great passage Ph 2:5–11. Here it is stated—and the entire appeal hinges on the statement—that before He came as man Christ was in possession of a Divine form of being, and spontaneously renounced it to assume the form of a servant. Without permitting himself to speculate as to the transcendent relations of the pre-existent Christ to God, St. Paul clearly pictures Him as enjoying, in that prior life, the same kind of being as God enjoys. And the ethical motif of the passage is the great conception that while it was open to Christ so to use the infinite powers inherent in His Divine nature as to compel men, without more ado, to worship Him as God, He resolved to reach this high dignity—of Lordship recognized and adored—by the path of humiliation, suffering, and death. But while we are justified in saying that Jesus was constituted Lord by His exaltation, and that this was in some sense the reward of His self-emptying, we must avoid every kind of language which suggests that to St. Paul the ascension of Christ was a deification. To a Jew the idea that a man might come to be God would have been an intolerable blasphemy. ‘It is to be noted that the increased glory which St. Paul and all the NT writers regard as pertaining to Christ after His resurrection has only to do with His dignity, His “theocratic position,” not with His essential personality. He has simply become in actuality that which He already was substantially’ (Kennedy).

4. In view of all this, it is not surprising that the Apostle should ascribe to Christ a part in the creating of the world and an original relation to man. This comes out especially in the Epistles of the Imprisonment, notably in Col 1:13–18 , of which Lightfoot gives the following luminous paraphrase:

‘The Son of the Father’s love in whom we have our redemption, is the image of the invisible God, the first-begotten of all creation. For in Him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth, things visible and things invisible; all things have been created through Him and unto Him; and He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. This is He who is the Head of the Body, the Church. In both spheres, the natural and the spiritual, He has the pre-eminence.’

The chief predications which are made here should be noted: (1) Christ is the instrument of creation; (2) He sustains all; (3) all moves on to Him as goal. The words ‘in him were all things created’ ought to be taken in correlation to these other clauses, ‘in him all things consist,’ and ‘he is the head of the body, the church’; and when we take them so, they assert that Christ was appointed by God Creator of all things qua the Person in whom the world, through the work of reconciliation, now finds its organic centre. His function as Creator is proleptically viewed as conditioned by His subsequent work as Redeemer; but the expression of the thought is rendered well nigh impossible by the mysterious relations of eternity and time. Just as even in his conception of the pre-existent One, St. Paul never loses sight of the crucified and risen Saviour, neither can he think of Christ as Creator and Sustainer of the world except as he mediates the idea to his own mind through the present certainty of Christ the Redeemer. In a word, the

Creatorship of Christ is never dwelt upon for its own sake, but always in relation to His Saviourhood. It is strikingly so in a verse which in various ways forms a parallel to the verses just commented on, 1 Co 8:6, ‘To us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we unto him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and we through him.’ Here the ideas of creation and redemption are held and envisaged together, redemption being the experimental idea from which the mind starts, as it also is the exalted Lord who is the subject of predication. It is a noteworthy fact that the risen Christ should thus be bracketed with God the Father in a verse which actually insists on monotheism.

On the other hand, one of the most baffling problems of NT theology is just the fact that St. Paul should combine with these plain assertions of Christ’s Divinity a number of statements of a different complexion. No candid exegete will deny that over and over again Christ is somehow given a place inferior to God, His entire redeeming Work and position being traced back directly to the Father. We have such expressions as ‘God sent forth his Son’ (Gal 4:4), ‘He that spared not his own Son’ (Ro 8:32), ‘God hath highly exalted him’ (Ph 2:9); in which either the gift of Christ to the world, or the bestowal of exalted glory on Christ Himself, is declared to be God’s act. All is accepted, endured, achieved ‘to the glory of God the Father.’ Still more explicit is 1 Co 11:3 ‘The head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God’; and in 1 Co 15:28— a passage which strangely touched the imagination of the Greek and Latin Fathers—Christ is portrayed as delivering up the Kingdom to God, and as finally submitting even Himself to a higher, ‘that God may be all in all.’ These statements, as we have seen, are to be found on the same pages which unambiguously affirm Christ’s real Deity. It may be that St. Paul nowhere names Christ ‘God,’ and that 2 Th 1:12, Tit 2:13, and Ro 9:5 must all be otherwise explained; yet a verse like Col 2:9 ‘in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily,’ asserting that in Christ there is given as a unity, or in organic oneness, the whole sum of qualities and attributes which make God to be God, is quite decisive as to the Apostle’s real belief. St. Paul does not give us much help, perhaps, in solving this antinomy. Questions as to the origin of Christ’s being in God, or the relation of the personal energies of the Son to those of the Father, did not, apparently, come before him. It is possibly a true exegesis which holds that in verses of a subordinationist tendency the subject of predication is Christ viewed as a historic person, the Incarnate Mediator, One who has fulfilled on earth a certain vocation for humanity, and, from the nature of the case, has submitted Himself to God in the fulfilment of it. But there is at least as much help for the intelligence in the view that while a certain subordination of Christ indubitably forms part of NT teaching, we may still think of Him as being one in nature with God, in the light of certain human analogies which are our only guide. Father and son, or ruler and subject, may still be of one nature, although there exist between them relations of higher and lower.

It has been argued that for St. Paul the risen Christ and the Holy Spirit are really one and the same. This is a hasty deduction from the first clause of 2 Co 3:17 ‘Now the Lord is the Spirit’; but it is at once refuted by the second clause,—which speaks of ‘the Spirit of the Lord,’ so making a distinction between the two,—as well as by the threefold blessing of 2 Co 13:14. What the Apostle means by his form of verbal identification is rather the religious certainty that Jesus Christ, in whom God redeems men, and the Spirit, in whom He communicates Himself to men, are so indissolubly bound up in one, act so absolutely for the same end through the same means, that from the standpoint of the practical issue they are seen as merged in each other. They are one as the fountain and the stream are one. ‘Christ in you, or the Spirit of Christ in you; these are not different realities; but the one is the method of the other’ (Moberly).

5. The Christology of St. Paul, it ought to be said with emphasis, is built firmly on the foundation of the primitive doctrine. After all, his view of Christ, as the incarnate Son of God, was never, so far as our knowledge goes, the subject of denial or controversy in the early Church; if it was an advance, therefore, on the first beliefs, it was such an advance as no one felt to be out of line with what they already held. But of course his conception of the Lord does go beyond the primitive Christology. Instances are his view of Christ in relation to the universe, alike in its creation and in its maintenance; also, perhaps, his permanent conjunction, not to say identification, of the Spirit of God with the principle of life and energy that constitutes the personality of Christ. Further, we must allow for the influence of the intellectual categories of his time, even upon his doctrine of Christ’s Person. Ideas borrowed from Jewish apocalyptic come out in certain pictures of the Lord’s return; and in the statement that the rock which followed the Israelites in the desert was Christ, we may see a vestige of Alexandrian typology. ‘The last Adam’ is possibly a Rabbinical conception. But at most these things form part of the setting for his purely Christian thinking; they were a mode in which St. Paul’s mind naturally expressed itself; they were essential if the truth he had grasped was to be passed on to his contemporaries; and in this lies their abundant historical justification. It is vastly more important to note that the Apostle’s profoundest affirmations regarding the Lord Jesus Christ, so far from having faded into obsolescence, still elude us by their very greatness. They are still beyond us; we can but throw out our minds at an infinite reality; and the believing intelligence will for ever strive in vain adequately to discern and express all that St. Paul saw in Christ when he was moved to say: ‘In him were all things created, in the heavens and upon the earth.’

IV. THE CHRISTOLOGY OF THE EPISTLE TO THE HEBREWS.—The writer of this Epistle develops his view of the Person of Christ as an implied presupposition of His priestly vocation. Christ is the Mediator of the new and better covenant (12:24, 9:15, 8:6); and its superiority to the old covenant rests upon the incomparable dignity of the Eternal High Priest.

1. The picture which is drawn of the historical Jesus is full and intimate; indeed, no NT book sets forth the real humanity of our Lord with more moving power. Particular incidents of His life are referred to (He 2:3, 4, 5:7, 12:2, 13:12); and the name ‘Jesus’ occurs 10 times. He passed through the normal development of human life, and learned by suffering (5:8). The infirmities and temptations common to man were His also (4:15, a verse which ‘means not only that He conquered the temptation, but also that He was moved by no sinful impulses of His own’ ( Weiss)). Elsewhere His sinlessness is affirmed categorically, in its bearing on His redeeming work (7:26). The human virtues of Jesus are brought out in a fashion unique in the NT: His fidelity (2:17, 3:2), His trust (2:13), His piety (5:7). By this course of experience He was finally ‘made perfect’ (5:9); not that at any time evil really touched Him, but that the potencies of absolute goodness that were in Him were completely evoked by a moral discipline which rendered Him the great High Priest of humanity. Nevertheless, He does not, as man, gain His perfect unity with God’s will, but is represented as bringing it with Him into the world (10:5–7). Life on earth, although an imperfect medium of His higher nature, is a humiliation demanded by His office or vocation as the Sanctifier of sinners. He assumed flesh, not merely to make Himself apprehensible, but in order to suffer, by tasting death for every man; and to the bitterness and shame of death for Jesus there are pathetic allusions (5:7, 8, 13:12).

2. In spite of all this vivid portraiture of the humanity of Jesus, the writer well-nigh outstrips Paul in the loftiness of his Christology. As with other NT believers, his mind starts from the Exalted One (cf. 9:28), whom he conceives habitually as High Priest within the veil, but a Priest who has sat down on the right hand of the Majesty in the heavens (8:1); and from this Messianic dignity he argues back to Jesus’ original nature. In 1:2 Christ is announced as the ‘Son’; and statements are made regarding the Son which imply that He is more than man (1:8, where He is plainly addressed as God), eternal both before and after (7:3), and transcendently related to God (1:3). Thus eternal and Divine, He was made a little lower than the angels (2:9); and it touches the writer’s heart to think that in coming into the world the Son did not stop short of a genuine participation in the flesh and blood we mortals wear (2:14–16) . It has been justly pointed out that in Hebrews a certain metaphysical colour has been added to the ethical sense in which the term

‘Son’ occurs in other Apostolic writings; although we ought to take this distinction of metaphysical and ethical with great caution. Still, a proof of the primitive feeling which underlies the whole is given in the fact that in Hebrews, precisely as in the Synoptics, the Sonship of Christ is looked upon as the basis of His Messiahship, for it is to fulfil the Messianic function of salvation that the Son comes into the world.

3. A very difficult question is whether in this Epistle ‘Son’ is applied to the pre-incarnate One, or to the incarnate Christ only. The passage chiefly in dispute is 1:1–4 . No one can doubt that the writer’s mind starts from Christ the Son, as known in history and in His exaltation, and holds these revealing facts steadily in the foreground of his thought; but does he go further back, and carry this Sonship into the pre-existent state? A. B. Davidson says, ‘Son is His characteristic name, describing His essential relation to God, a relation unaffected by change of state’; and A. B. Bruce urges that the interest of magnifying Christ’s sacrifice requires His Sonship to be of older date than the life on earth. In favour of this view, despite weighty arguments against it, is the fact that throughout the three stages of His existence Christ is represented as personally identical. It is prima facie as Son that He is said to have acted as agent of God in the creation of the worlds (1:2), or to have built the ‘house’ of the OT dispensation (3:3). But probably the point is one which exegesis by itself cannot decide; and we ought to note that a similar unavoidable ambiguity obtains in what are more or less parallel passages—Col 1:15 and Jn 1:18.

But, at all events, it is clear that Hebrews teaches the real pre-existence of Christ, whether or not the pre-existent One is designated by the title ‘Son.’ It was the reproach of Christ that Moses bore (11:26); as Lord, He laid the foundation of the earth in the beginning 1:10); He came into the world with the conscious purpose of sacrificing Himself (10:5). Little is said about the preexisting state, yet it occupies more space than in any other NT Epistle. But the writer offers no rationale of the Incarnation; there is no passage comparable with Ph 2:5–11; although in one place it is pointed out how close the Son came to men in taking flesh and blood (2:14–16) . The supernatural character of His being is insisted on: ‘He did not come out of humanity, He came into it.’ At the same time, all docetism is excluded; for not only is suffering and death represented as the aim of His entrance upon human life, but the experience of His passion still remains as the ground on which He is resorted to by men as the great High Priest, who has learned sympathy through sufferings (2:18).

It is in His capacity as Son that the priestly work of Christ, in which, dying as a man, He offers Himself in and after death, is accomplished. So again, it is the essential being of the Son that is indicated when, in a striking expression (9:14), it is said that He offered Himself unto God ‘through an eternal spirit’; for the words mean that the Spirit which was in Him, and constituted His personal being, was indestructible by death, and enabled Him to pursue His high-priestly vocation in the heavenly sanctuary. Once more, strong emphasis is laid on the activity of Christ the Son for us in heaven, particularly as Intercessor (7:25, 9:24, 4:14, 13:8); it is as Son that He sits down at God’s right hand, the heir of all things, and Messianic King; as Son that He carries His offering before the face of God for us, and enters the holy place. In a word, the Sonship of Christ is the central thought of Hebrews; it supplies the ground and precondition of His being a perfect Surety of the eternal covenant.

4. A brief comparison with the Christology of St. Paul is not without Interest. In both there is a distinct assertion of Christ’s pre-temporal being, and His activity in creation; the argument going back from His present exaltation to His original nature. In both Christ reaches His throne, far above the angels, by way of the cross; and the idea is suggested that at the Resurrection or Ascension Christ first attained in status what He had always possessed by nature. In both real

Divinity is combined with as distinct subordination; thus in Hebrews not Christ, but God, is Judge, and the Son’s place is not on, but on the right hand of, the throne of God (8:1, 12:2). On the other hand, certain slight features of difference may be noted. In Hebrews, as contrasted with St. Paul, Christ is definitely represented as having taken flesh and blood with a view to suffering; the earthly Jesus, rather than the pre-existing One or the glorified Lord, is viewed as our example; the exaltation becomes slightly more prominent than the resurrection; the high-priestly activity in heaven fills a large place; the mystical strain of reciprocal unity with Christ is absent; nor is there any suggestion, as in 1 Co 15:46–47 , of a time yet to be when the reign of Christ shall close, and be merged in some final dispensation.

It is not improbable that the writer of Hebrews had felt the influence of the cultivated Jewish thought of Alexandria, that crucible of all the creeds. But while the system of Philo may have partially supplied him with a vocabulary, what appears to be certain is that this did not dictate his use of it. Thus the term ‘Logos’ is nowhere employed in the Philonic sense, nor is Christ called ‘Logos; His regular designation rather, we have seen, is ‘Son,’ as given by the OT and Christian usage. What finally puts out of court the identification of the Son with the Logos of Philo is that the Son participates in a redeeming history, which is unthinkable for the other. Nor is there anything in Philo that could properly be compared with the High Priesthood of Christ.

V. THE APOCALYPSE.—The Christology of the Apocalypse presents a rather perplexing problem to the historical critic. Whatever be the sources that lie behind the book, most scholars now regard it as a characteristic product of intensely Jewish Christianity; and OT and Jewish conceptions of the Messiah are certainly the foundation upon which its view of Christ is built up. Yet, on the other hand, its Christology is ‘apparently the most advanced in all the NT’ (Bousset), and seems at a few points to pass beyond the limits of Paulinism.

1. Although the book represents the heavenly rather than the earthly life of Christ, yet the personal, historic name ‘Jesus’ occurs frequently. Our Lord is described as the root and the offspring of David, and as of the trine of Judah. Primitive Christian thought comes out in the picture of Him as ruling the nations with a rod of iron (Rev 2:27), or, quite in terms of the Danielic passage, as ‘one like unto a son of man’ (14:14). He is repeatedly set forth in eschatological language; He is the bright and morning star (22:16), ushering in the day of final triumph. His redeeming work on the cross is compendiously summarized in the profoundly significant title of ‘the Lamb,’ which may almost be called the writer’s favourite designation of Him.

2. Yet all memories of history are lost in the higher view of Christ which centres in His exalted glory. It is not too much to say that the strain of praise to Christ rises from point to point until, in His essential qualities and attributes, He is frankly identified with God. He is the ‘Living

One,’ whose victory over the grave has given Him the keys of death and the underworld (1:18); He can unlock the secrets of human destiny (ch. 5); with eyes that are like a flame of fire He searches the reins and hearts (2:18, 23). He is ranked with God, not with finite being, in phrases like ‘the beginning of the creation of God’ (3:14; cf. Col 1:15), the ‘Son of God’ (2:18) who names God His Father in some unique sense (2:27, 3:21 ; Cf. 1:6), and ‘the Word of God’ (19:13),—this last being introduced with much solemnity. The specifically Divine title ‘the First and the Last’ (cf. Is 44:6 and Rev 1:8) He applies three times directly to Himself (1:17, 2:8, 22:13), thereby signalizing His own Person as the source and end of all that is. This claim is echoed passionately throughout the book. Notwithstanding the prohibition of 19:10, all creation unites to worship Him, in strains offered elsewhere to God Almighty (1:6; cf. 7:12); and ‘God and the Lamb’ receive united adoration (5:13, 7:10). One meaning of such phenomena is plain. They are ‘the most convincing proof of the impression made by Jesus upon His disciples, one which had been sufficient to revolutionize their most cherished religious belief; for them He had the value of God’ (Anderson Scott).

3. Yet even here the subordinationist note which is audible in other Apostolic writings does not fail. Thus the revelation forming the book was given to Jesus Christ by God (1:1); His authority over the nations He has received of His Father (2:27); and more than once, in the letters to the Churches, the phrase ‘my God’ is put upon His lips. Similarly, in 3:21 and 5:9 there appears the conception—present also in Ph 2:5–11 and Jn 17:4, 5—that our Lord’s risen glory is the issue and the reward of His saving word. In reply to the argument that this is incongruous with pre-existent Divinity, Weiss remarks, with great point, that so far from the assertion of His original Divine nature being neutralized by this representation of Jesus’ exalted glory as the gift of God, the one is rather the ground and justification of the other.

VI. JOHANNINE CHRISTOLOGY.—1. The view of Christ presented in the Fourth Gospel, it should be noted at the outset, is based firmly upon common NT beliefs. The writer—a Jew and an Apostle—declares it his purpose to prove that Jesus is the Messiah (Jn 20:31), though no doubt he went far beyond primitive Christian reflexion in perceiving all that Messiahship implies. This interest is everywhere present. Thus in Jn 1:49 Nathanael hails Jesus as the Christ on the ground of His preterhuman insight; the woman of Samaria is led to the same conclusion; and a similar movement of thought on the part of the multitude is indicated by their question (7:31): ‘When the Christ cometh, will he do more signs than this man?’ And the work entrusted to Jesus is specifically Messianic. He comes to raise the dead, to execute judgment, to confer the gift of the Spirit according to the ancient promise, to take to Himself universal Lordship (3:35, 16:15)—in a word, to exert a delegated but competent authority from above, such as none but the Messiah could assume. Only, the Jewish horizon has disappeared. All that Jesus is as Messiah, He is for the whole world.

2. It is observable, further, that the writer deliberately makes Christology his main theme. The relation of the Father to the Son, thrown up so conspicuously on one occasion in the

Synoptics (Mt 11:27), now becomes the central interest. The book opens with an assertion of the Godhead of the Son (Prologue), and it closes upon the same note (20:28). What, in the selfrevelation of daily life and act, the Synoptist had shown Christ to be, the Fourth Evangelist explicitly proclaims and demonstrates that He is; or, as we may express it otherwise, while Matthew, Mark, and Luke exhibit Jesus as Messiah, the Gospel of John goes a step further, and discloses the ultimate ground on which Messiahship rests. Christ is Messiah, in the absolute sense of that word, because He is the Eternal Son, the personal, articulate expression of God, in whom the Father is perfectly revealed; and the changing incidents of the narrative are so disposed as to bring out, by a variety of selected scenes, both the content of this revelation and its diverse reception by men.

As to the historical accuracy of the discourses, it ought to he said that there is a growing consent among scholars that Jesus’ words have passed through the medium of the writer’s mind, and somewhat taken the colour of his mature thinking. As Hanpt has expressed it, the teaching of Jesus has bound up with it an authentic commentary, showing that all, and more than all, the truth which St. John and the Church around him had learned by the close of the Apostolic age was really present in the teaching of the historic Jesus. It is thus that we can understand the comparative absence of growth or progress alike in Jesus’ self-revelation and in the disciples’ apprehension of it; ‘to the Evangelist looking back, the evolutionary process was foreshortened’ (Sanday). He carries out Jesus’ teaching about Himself to its last consequence; he views it sub specie œternitatis; but he does so with unerring perception, for it is remarkable that when we analyze a Johannine discourse into its simplest elements we invariably come to what is present also in the Synoptics. This being granted, however, it ought to be considered an axiom that the writer’s conception of Christ had undergone a long, rich development. Influences which must have acted on it can easily be imagined, such as his daily communion with Christ in prayer, the general teaching of St. Paul, of which he cannot have been ignorant, and the challenge of the wistful religious questionings everywhere current in the Græco-Roman world of his day. Unless experience is something of which God can make no use in conveying truth to man, these forces, playing on the writer’s memories of the historic Jesus, must have gone to evoke an ever fuller appreciation of His significance for humanity. Hence we may conclude that the Fourth Gospel is the work of one who, in the late evening of life, was moved to communicate to men the intuition he had reached of the permanent and essential factors in the Person of Christ—His unique relation to God as only-begotten Son, His unique relation to men as Life and Truth; and who, in doing so, has really seized the inmost centre of the self-consciousness of Jesus with greater firmness and profounder truth than even the Synoptic writers.

3. The Johannine picture of Jesus impresses the reader, from the first, by a certain wonderful and harmonious transcendence. Incessu patet deus, we say instinctively; this is in very deed God manifest in the flesh. Such a figure is not of our world; yet, on the other band, it would be a grave mistake to conceive Him as out of touch with the realities of human life. No misgiving should ever have been felt as to the genuine humanity of the Christ of St. John (cf. Burkitt, The Gospel History, p. 233) . Can we forget His weariness at Jacob’s well, His tears beside the grave of Lazarus, His joy in the fellowship of the Twelve, the dark troubles of His foreboding soul, His thirst upon the cross? Especially does His Teal oneness of nature with us come out in His uninterrupted dependence upon God, which is accentuated in the most striking way. The Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do (5:19; cf. 7:28, 8:28, 10:37 etc.). Again and again He speaks of Himself as being ‘sent’ of God, a commissioned ambassador to whom words and works have alike been ‘given,’ whose knowledge and power are mediated to Him by the Spirit, who seeks the glory of God, and finds His meat and drink in doing a higher will. His human dependence, however, is not a commonplace fact which might have been assumed; it really springs out of the creative ground of His special Sonship, or, in other words, it is the form taken by the Eternal Sonship under the conditions of human life. The life of the Son is wholly rooted in the Father’s. Their reciprocal love and knowledge, it is true, are frequently insisted on; yet, although the Son is uniformly dependent on the Father, it would he seriously untrue to St. John to say that the Father is dependent on the Son. The relation leaves a real subordinateness, a human Inferiority, on Jesus’ side. Again, this dependence is conceived in genuinely ethical terms; it is mediated by motives, feelings, desires, surrenders, not mechanically necessitated by the properties of a Divine substance, or the stiff categories of an a priori metaphysic. All that Jesus says of Himself is perfectly religious in character; it is meant to express personal relations humanly, and so to enable human faith to grasp the only true God through Jesus Christ whom He has sent. For St. John, then, Jesus is truly and perfectly man; what distinguishes Him from other men is His unique relation to the Father. The idea of a new birth from above, a prelude to union with God indispensable for others, is nowhere applied to Him.

4. Just as in the Synoptics, Jesus is depicted in the Fourth Gospel as striving to free the Twelve from earthly and political ideas of His purpose. And, as a result of His care and teaching, it dawns upon them gradually that the boon He offers is Divine and universal. An early stage of the process is marked by St. Peter’s words: ‘We have believed and know that thou art the Holy One of God’ (6:69); and it is one proof, out of many, of the Evangelist’s substantial accuracy, that he does not introduce at this point ideas of the Eternal Sonship of the Logos. But it is as Son that our Lord would have them know Him. He uses the phrase ‘my Father’ 30 times, on nine occasions so addressing God directly; and at least 17 times He calls Himself ‘Son’ or ‘Son of God.’ We can hardly doubt that wherever this term ‘Son’ occurs in the Johannine literature, its primary reference is to the historical Christ, known in the realm of human fact; and it denotes Him as holding to God a relation of unique intimacy and love. Thus in the great word 1 Jn 4:10

‘God … sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins,’ the writer is thinking of Jesus of

Nazareth, the historic Messiah. St. John, however, loves always to go back to ultimate truths; and his Gospel outstrips the others by the assertion that this relation of Sonship is really anterior to time and history. Jesus has lived previously in a state conditioned by personal relationships (17:24); in it (so the present writer, with some hesitation, judges) the pre-incarnate One was already Son, and was by nature possessed of a unique knowledge of God which was somehow capable of reproducing itself in His earthly consciousness (1:18, 3:18, 32).

The objection has been made that this reduces Jesus’ spiritual experience as man to a mere show; yet it is surely possible to believe that Jesus’ knowledge of God was experimental, as being mediated by the unmeasured gift of the Holy Spirit, without denying that its ultimate sources are to be found in His eternal being. Room must always be left, no doubt, for the possibility that words ascribed to Jesus regarding His own pre-existence, and spoken in wonderful hours of a more than human self-consciousness, have undergone a certain modification with the lapse of time, in the direction of intensifying the original light and shade. It is scarcely credible that Jesus should have spoken so plainly of His pre-temporal life with God as that His meaning was transparent to ordinary people; this would make the silence of the Synoptics unintelligible. It is altogether more likely that on this subject, as on the subject of His Messiahship, He exhibited reticence and delay. On the other hand, we are justified in believing that He did utter words, mysterious yet significant, which, as pondered by a mind like St. John’s, were clearly seen to involve preexistence, not of a so-called ideal sort, but real and personal. Even so careful a student as Titius has said, ‘I cannot regard it as impossible that the general NT idea of the pre-existence of Christ goes back to sayings of Jesus Himself, and that the Johannine discourses especially are based on really historical material.’

5. The last stage of Jesus’ claim to and interpretation of the name ‘Son (of God)’ is given in His prediction of the glory to which He should rise, and of His future presence in spirit with His followers (especially chapters 13ff.). The primary meaning of Sonship had been a relation to the Father of uniquely close love; it now transpires that, as Son, Jesus is destined to share in the Father’s omnipotence and universal sway. In the words (13:3), ‘Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands,’ no convincing reason can be offered for limiting ‘all things’ to the function of revelation and redemption, and barring out omnipotence as such. Besides, the Evangelist is quite familiar with the idea that Jesus is originally Lord and Possessor of men, irrespectively of their faith in Him; He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. Hence in his view the Divine power to which Jesus rises is not unsuited to His nature, or gained by usurpation; it is given Him by God, for only so could He receive anything (3:27), and it answers to the glory which He had before the world was. We see this truth breaking fully on the minds of the Twelve after the Resurrection; and the cry of Thomas, ‘my Lord and my God’ (20:28) , marks the great discovery. In the risen One the Apostle discerns the Victor over death, the Lord of glory; and realizing in that moment of inexpressible relief how in Christ he had all that Jehovah Himself could be, he grasps Him as having for faith the value, because the reality, of God. Nowhere in the NT is the implication more clear that religious faith in Jesus Christ is really equivalent to faith in His Divinity.

6. These general conclusions are strengthened by an examination of the title Son of Man, as used in the Fourth Gospel. Here also the name is put only on Jesus’ lips. Perhaps the accent is shifted slightly from His vocation to His Person; the writer employs the name in accordance with his higher view of our Lord’s nature to express His personal uniqueness. As in the Synoptics, the term is undoubtedly Messianic (12:34); and while in this Gospel it is not put in direct relation to the Second Coming, yet it is noticeable that the majority of passages in which Jesus speaks of Himself as Son of Man are references to His exaltation (3:14, 8:28, 12:34), or His glorifying (12:23, 13:31) , it being implied that Divine glory befits and still awaits Him; and this is a link with one side of the Synoptic representation. The other class of Synoptic passages bearing on the work of the Son of Man has also its parallel in Johannine verses, which describe the Son of Man as giving meat which endureth to everlasting life (6:27), or attach the possession of life to eating His flesh and drinking His blood, or declare that He must be lifted up on the cross. In point of fact, however, no appreciable distinction can be drawn between what, in the Fourth Gospel, is predicated of the Son of God and of the Son of Man. Both are Messianic names, raised, as it were, to their highest power; one expressing the origin of Jesus’ Person in God, the other His human affiliation. Yet, for St. John, the title ‘Son of Man’ always appears to carry something of the suggestion that for Jesus it is a wonderful thing that He should be man at all. Though in all points perfectly human, heaven is ever open to Him; He is present there perpetually, beholding God with immediate vision (3:13), and He will yet ascend up where He was before (6:32).

7. Other forms of thought in which the higher nature of Jesus is set forth in the Fourth Gospel are rich in theological implication. He is the Vine in which His followers inhere and grow as living branches (15:1ff.); He is the Resurrection and the Life, to believe in whom is to overcome death (11:25); He is the Bread of Life which by faith men eat, and live (6:32ff.). In all such utterances the distinction between Christology and soteriology has vanished. To sustain a relation of vital, inner unity with, and suffusion of, human souls is manifestly beyond the power of any lower than God Himself; and this is really the basal argument for the Deity of Christ which we can see to be implicit in the NT as a whole.

8. The sum and climax of the matter—and this quite irrespective of the Logos idea, to which we shall come immediately—is that God is personally in Jesus, and Jesus in God (10:38). The simplest and deepest words in the Gospel point to this: ‘I and the Father are one’ (10:30; cf. 17:11, 21); ‘He that hath seen me hath seen the Father’ (14:9; cf. 12:46). By these sayings the mind is led in the direction of a simple modalism, but no theory of it is furnished. The Father given personally in Jesus is the object of saving faith. Jesus is Life and Light in a sense which is absolute (Jn 1:4, 9, 1 Jn 5:11). In Him there is a real advent and inhabitation of God Himself— this faith is certain of and unconditionally asserts; yet what the ontological presuppositions of it may be is a remote and derivative question, and even the Logos idea, which St. John applies at this point, is not fitted, perhaps is not designed, to take us more than a certain distance towards theoretic insight. No explanation, no combination of categories, even an Apostle’s, is able to place us where we see the life of God on its inner side. What as believers we are sure of, is that in Jesus the God of heaven and earth is personally apprehensible, actually present in history— enlightening our eyes in all knowledge because first possessing us as our inward life. This is the keynote of the Johannine Christology; the faith out of which the Gospel is written and which it seeks to wake in other minds, is that Jesus and God are one. Attempts to discredit this unity by describing it as no more than a unity of will are simply wide of the mark. Will, the living energy of persons, is the most real thing in the universe; it is the ultimate form of being; and the suggestion that behind the will there may lie a still more real Divine ‘substance,’ a more authentic region from which, after all, Jesus is excluded, is a figment of obsolete metaphysic. If it is possible to express in human language the essential and inherent Godhead of Jesus Christ, the thing has been done in the relevant statements of this Gospel.

9. Nevertheless, in the Fourth Gospel, as in the NT generally, this unity with God is viewed as being compatible with real subordination. ‘My Father is greater than I’ (14:28). In 10:35 Jesus speaks of Himself as One whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world. Yet this is but the relation which belongs to Fatherhood and Sonship as such; for, as Lütgert has expressed it,’ the superordination of God above Jesus does not consist in God’s reserving anything to Himself; on the contrary, He conveys Himself wholly to Jesus, making Him monarch of the whole world; what it does consist in is the fact that God is everywhere the Origin, the Giver, the Foundation, while Jesus is the obedient and receptive organ of His purpose.’

10. Turning now to the Prologue, and its characteristic ideas, let us note first of all that the study of it comes properly at this point, after we have concluded our more general survey. As preface, the Prologue stands first, but we may well believe that it was the last to be written. Touching the origin of the term ‘Logos,’ while we need not assert that St. John took it from Philo, yet it is extremely probable that the influence of Philonic thought went to decide which term out of those supplied by the OT and the Targums (Wisdom, the Spirit, the Word) he should choose. ‘The Word’ had long been familiar to the Hebrew mind as designating the principle of revelation, and it had received from Greek philosophy a certain cosmic width of significance. The Evangelist, it would seem, took it as singularly fitted to express to men of that time the Divine light and life present in Jesus Christ; but, writing in Asia Minor, he took it without prejudice to the full Christian meaning it was to bear. It is, besides, a term which must have been in some sort familiar to the Church; for it is introduced without comment. In St. John’s use of it, too, ethical and soteriological considerations are supreme; ‘Logos’ receives its colour and atmosphere from the term ‘Son,’ as denoting the historic Jesus. What the Apostle is setting forth, in short, is not a Greek theologoumenon, but the total impression made by Christ’s personality. And when we recall how St. Paul had said that all things were created by Christ and for Him (Col 1:18), it is easy to see how strong were the interior tendencies of faith conducting to this identification of the Jesus of history with the creative Word of God.

In v. 1 three weighty affirmations are made as to the Logos: (a) He existed from the beginning, i.e. eternally; (b) His relation to God was living and personal in character; (c) His place is in the sphere of Godhead. Stevens, with a terminology slightly too developed, but with substantial accuracy, says of the content of this verse: ‘the author affirms a distinction, but a community of essence, between the Word and the Father.’ It is next asserted that the ‘Logos’ is the medium alike of creation and of revelation, that He has a universal relation to men (vv. 4, 9), that having been in the world from the first, but unrecognized, He is now come personally, and has given to all who receive Him the right to become children of God (vv. 11, 12).

Commentators invite us to note the solemn fashion in which v. 14 attaches itself and corresponds to v. 1. The Word is indeed the subject of discourse throughout, but He has not been specifically named in the interval; now, however, in v. 14, the announcement of the Incarnation is laid, point for point, alongside of the previous declaration of the absolute being of the Word. The simple phrase, ‘the Word became flesh,’ appears to signify that He passed into a new phase of being—a phase of human mortality, weakness, dependence—becoming individualized as a man, yet retaining personal continuity with that which He was before.

These four stages, then, are discernible in the movement of thought in the Prologue: (1) The Word in His original, eternal being; (2) the Lord who comes to His own as Life and Light; (3) the only Son of the Father; (4) the full name of the Person before the Evangelist’s mind throughout, Jesus Christ. The series is not strictly chronological, but it follows a well-defined gradation of ideas; and from the fashion in which it ends, we can perceive that the term ‘Logos’ is an ancillary and theoretic one, secondarily interpretative of Jesus as a historic personality, and that, although it stands here as first in the order of thought, it was last in the order of the

Evangelist’s reflexion. The Prologue, it is clear, has nothing to say as to the mode of Incarnation; but when we connect it, as we ought to do, with the Gospel to which it is prefixed, we can perceive the motive to which Incarnation is due, namely, the Divine purpose of giving eternal life to a perishing world. Unlike St. Paul, however, St. John conceives the advent of the Son, not as a humiliation, but as a means of revelation.

11. In the First Epistle of John the unity of God and Christ is so strongly felt that the two subjects are used almost interchangeably; so, for example, in 5:20. Again and again everything is affirmed to depend on the coming of the Son of God in the flesh, as Saviour of the world. At one or two points we seem to be observing the first movements of a dogmatic Christology (2:22, 4:3; cf. 2 Jn 7). The writer is chiefly concerned to assert the identity of the saving word of life with Jesus Christ, a docetic idealism having begun very early to dissolve the bond between the two, and to seek some other path to fellowship with God than that which lay through the mediation of Jesus the Messiah.

VII. CONCLUSION.—As we survey the different views of Christ set forth in the NT, the sovereign freedom with which Apostolic believers contemplated Jesus, and told what they saw in writings which have been quite truly described as ‘literature, not dogma,’ is infinitely impressive. The looked at Jesus each through his own eyes; and to try to force their statements into outward harmony is totally to mistake the genius of Christian faith. On the other hand, all grasped in Christ the reality of a present God of grace, and in this decisive fact lies the deeper, inward unity of NT doctrine. It is tempting to regard the various types of Apostolic Christology as elements in an advancing and organic series. Thus it might be asked whether the Synoptics do not give us the Jesus of history, and St. Paul the living Christ, while St. John fuses both together in an antidocetic way. It is a reasonable question; for, so far as Christology is concerned, St. John does build upon St. Paul, and St. Paul upon the faith of the primitive society. Nevertheless, it is probably truer on the whole to the facts if we think of NT minds as different prisms, through which the one white light of Jesus’ Person fell, and was analyzed into different colours.

Two certainties are common to the writers with whom we have been dealing: (1) That the life and consciousness of Jesus were entirely human in form; (2) that this historic life, felt and known as possessed of a redeeming supernatural content, is somehow inseparably one with the eternal life of God Himself. Again, it is implied wherever the matter comes up, that it is one and the same personal subject which passes through the three stages of pre-existence, historical life, and exaltation. Again, we are certain to go wrong unless we note that the NT is guided, in its Christological passages, by what is really a soteriological interest. Dr. Dale’s question: What must Christ’s relation to men be in order that He should be able to die for them? is entirely faithful to the Apostolic attitude. The Person of the Messiah must be of a quality that answers to His function as Redeemer of the world. ‘All the Christology of the NT,’ as Kähler has justly said, ‘is but the statement of the presuppositions and guarantees of that which believers may have, should have, and actually do have, for fellowship with God, in the Crucified and Exalted One.’ The chief problem which the NT bequeathed to dogmatic theology is that of thinking out and construing to intelligence two things which the Apostles simply put side by side—the true Deity of Jesus Christ and His real subordination to the Father. It lies beyond the scope of this article, however, to follow the problem into the Patristic and later ages.

H. R. MACINTOSH.

PERUDA.—See PERIDA.

PESTILENCE.—See MEDICINE, p. 598b.

PETER.—SIMON, surnamed Peter, was ‘the coryphœus of the Apostle choir’ (Chrysostom). His father was named Jonah or John (Mt 16:17, Jn 1:42, 21:15–17 RV). He belonged to Bethsaida (Jn 1:44), probably the fisher-quarter of Capernaum (Bethsaida = ‘Fisherhome’). There he dwelt with his wife, his mother-in-law, and his brother Andrew (Mk 1:28–31 = Mt 8:14, 15 = Lk 4:38, 39). He and Andrew were fishermen on the Lake of Galilee (Mt 4:18 = Mk 1:18) in partnership with Zebedee and his sons (Lk 5:7, 11, Mt 4:21).

Simon first met with Jesus at Bethany beyond Jordan (Jn 1:28 RV), the scene of the Baptist’s ministry (vv. 35–42) . He had repaired thither with other Galilæns to participate in the mighty revival which was in progress. Jesus was there; and Andrew, who was one of the Baptist’s disciples, having been directed by his master to Him as the Messiah, told Simon of his glad discovery, and brought him to Jesus. Jesus ‘looked upon him’ (RV) with ‘those eyes of far perception’; and the look mastered him and won his heart. He was a disciple from that hour. Jesus read his character, seeing what he was and foreseeing what the discipline of grace would make him; and He gave him a surname prophetic of the moral and spiritual strength which would one day be his. ‘Thou art Simon the son of John: thou shalt be called Cephas.’ Cephas is the Aram. = Gr. Petros, and means ‘rock.’ He was not yet Peter, but only Simon, impulsive and vacillating; and Jesus gave him the new name ere he had earned it, that it might be an incentive to him, reminding him of his destiny and inciting him to achieve it. In after days, whenever he displayed any weakness, Jesus would pointedly address him by the old name, thus gently warning him that he should not fall from grace (cf. Lk 22:31, Mk 14:37, Jn 21:15–17).

Presently the Lord began His ministry at Capernaum, and among His first acts was the calling of four of the men who had believed in Him to abandon their worldly employments and attach themselves to Him, following Him whithersoever He went (Mt 4:18–22 = Mk 1:16–20 , Lk 5:1–11). Thus he began the formation of the Apostle-band. The four were James and John,

Simon and Andrew. They were busy with their boats and nets, and He called them to become ‘fishers of men.’ It was the beginning of the second year of Jesus’ ministry ere He had chosen all the Twelve; and then He ordained them to their mission, arranging them in pairs for mutual assistance (Mk 6:7), and coupling Simon Peter and Andrew (Mt 10:2).

The distinction of Peter lies less in the qualities of his mind than in those of his heart. He was impulsive, ‘ever ardent, ever leaping before his fellows’ (Chrysostom), and often speaking unadvisedly and incurring rebuke. This, however, was only the weakness of his strength, and it was the concomitant of a warm and generous affection. If John, says St. Augustine, was the disciple whom Jesus loved, Peter was the disciple who loved Jesus. This quality appeared on several remarkable occasions. (1) In the synagogue of Capernaum, after the feeding of the five thousand at Bethsaida, Jesus delivered His discourse on the Bread of Life, full of hard sayings designed to test the faith of His disciples by shattering their Jewish dream of a worldly Messiah, a temporal King of Israel, a restorer of the ancient monarchy (Jn 6:22–65). Many were offended, and ‘went back and walked no more with him.’ Even the Twelve were discomfited. ‘Would ye also go away?’ He asked; and it was Simon Peter, ‘the mouth of the Apostles’ (Chrysostom), who answered, assuring Him of their loyalty (vv. 66–69). (2) During the season of retirement at Cæsarea Philippi in the last year of His ministry, Jesus, anxious to ascertain whether their faith in

His Messiahship had stood the strain of disillusionment, whether they still regarded Him as the Messiah, though He was not the sort of Messiah they had expected, put to the Twelve the question: ‘Who do ye say that I am?’ Again it was Peter who answered promptly and firmly:’ Thou art the Christ,’ filling the Lord’s heart with exultant rapture, and proving that he had indeed earned his new name Peter, the rock on which Jesus would build His Church, the first stone of that living temple. Presently Jesus told them of His approaching Passion, and again it was Peter who gave expression to the horror of the Twelve: ‘Be it far from thee, Lord; this shall never be unto thee.’ Even here it was love that spoke. The Sinaitic Palimpsest reads: ‘Then Simon Cephas, as though he pitied Him, said to Him, “Be it far from Thee” ’ (Mt 16:18–23 = Mk 8:27–33 = Lk 9:18–22). (3) A week later Jesus went up to the Mount with Peter, James, and John, and ‘was transfigured before them,’ communing with Moses and Elijah, who ‘appeared in glory’ (Mt 17:1–8 = Mk 9:2–8 = Lk 9:28–36). Though awe-stricken, Peter spoke; ‘Lord, it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, I will make here three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elijah’ (Mt 17:4 RV). It was a foolish and inconsiderate speech (Mk 9:6, Lk 9:33), yet it breathed a spirit of tender affection. His idea was: ‘Why return to the ungrateful multitude and the malignant rulers? Why go to Jerusalem and die? Stay here always in this holy fellowship.’ (4) When Jesus washed the disciples’ feet in the Upper Room, it was Peter who protested (Jn

13:6–9). He could not bear that the blessed Lord should perform that menial office on him. (5) At the arrest in Gethsemane, it was Peter who, seeing Jesus in the grasp of the soldiers, drew his sword and cut off the ear of Malchus (Jn 18:10, 11).

The blot on Peter’s life-story is his repeated denial of Jesus in the courtyard of the high priest’s palace (Jn 18:12–17; cf. Mt 26:69–75 = Mk 14:66–72 = Lk 22:54–62) . It was a terrible disloyalty, yet not without extenuations. (1) The situation was a trying one. It was dangerous just then to be associated with Jesus, and Peter’s excitable and impetuous nature was prone to panic. (2) It was his devotion to Jesus that exposed him to the temptation. He and John were the only two who rallied from the panic in Gethsemane (Mt 26:56b) and followed their captive Lord (Jn 18:15; cf. Mt 26:58 = Mk 14:54 = Lk 22:54). (3) If he sinned greatly, he sincerely repented (Mt 26:75 = Mk 14:72 = Lk 22:62). A look of that dear face sufficed to break his heart (Lk 22:51). (4) He was completely forgiven. On the day of the Resurrection Jesus appeared to him (Lk 24:34 , 1 Co 15:5). What happened during this interview is unrecorded, doubtless because it was too sacred to be divulged; but it would certainly be a scene of confession and forgiveness. The Lord had all the while had His faithless disciple in His thoughts, knowing his distress of mind ( cf. Mk 16:7); and He had that solitary interview with him on purpose to reassure him.

At the subsequent appearance by the Lake of Galilee (Jn 21) Peter played a prominent part. On discovering that the stranger on the beach was Jesus, impatient to reach his Master, he sprang overboard and swam ashore (cf. his action in Mt 14:28–31) . And presently Jesus charged him to make good his protestation of love by diligent care of the flock for which He, the Good

Shepherd, had died. ‘Be it the office of love to feed the Lord’s flock, if it was an evidence of fear to deny the Shepherd’ (Augustine). Jesus was not upbraiding Peter. On the contrary, He was publishing to the company His forgiveness of the erring Apostle and His confidence in him for the future.

Peter figures conspicuously in the history of the Apostolic Church. He was recognized as the leader. It was on his motion that a successor was appointed to Judas between the Ascension and Pentecost (Ac 1:15–26), his impetuosity appearing in this precipitate action (see MATTHIAS) ; and it was he who acted as spokesman on the day of Pentecost (2:14ff.). He wrought miracles in the name of Jesus (3, 5:15, 9:32–42); he fearlessly confessed Jesus, setting the rulers at naught (4:1–

18); as head of the Church, he exposed and punished sin (5:1–11, 8:14–24) ; he suffered imprisonment and scourging (5:17–42, 12:1–19).

The persecution consequent on the martyrdom of Stephen, by scattering the believers, inaugurated a fresh development of Christianity, involving a bitter controversy. The refugees preached wherever they went, and thus arose the question, on what terms the Gentiles should be received into the Church. Must they become Jews and observe the rites of the Mosaic Law? In this controversy Peter acted wisely and generously. Being deputed with John to examine into it, he approved Philip’s work among the hated Samaritans, and invoked the Holy Spirit upon his converts, and before returning to Jerusalem made a missionary tour among the villages of Samaria (Ac 8:1–25) . His Jewish prejudice was thoroughly conquered by his vision at Joppa and the conversion of Cornelius and his company at Cæsarea; and, when taken to task by the

Judaistic party at Jerusalem for associating with uncircumcised Gentiles, he vindicated his action and gained the approval of the Church (10–11:19).

The controversy became acute when the Judaizers, taking alarm at the missionary activity of Paul and Barnabas, went to Antioch and insisted on the converts there being circumcised. The question was referred to a council of the Church at Jerusalem; and Peter spoke so well on behalf of Christian liberty that it was resolved, on the motion of James, the Lord’s brother, that the work of Paul and Barnabas should be approved, and that nothing should be required of the Gentiles beyond abstinence from things sacrificed to idols, blood, things strangled, and fornication (Ac 15:1–29; cf. Gal 2:1–10) . By and by Peter visited Antioch, and, though adhering to the decision at the outset, he was presently intimidated by certain Judaizers, and, together with Barnabas, separated himself from the Gentiles as unclean, and would not eat with them, incurring an indignant and apparently effective rebuke from Paul (Gal 2:11–21).

There are copious traditions about Peter. Suffice it to mention that he is said to have gone to Rome [which is quite possible] and laboured there for 25 years [utterly impossible], and to have been crucified (cf. Jn 21:18, 19) in the last year of Nero’s reign (A.D. 68); being at his own request nailed to the cross head downwards, since he deemed himself unworthy to be crucified in the same manner as his Lord. According to the ancient and credible testimony of Papias of Hierapolis, a hearer of St. John at Ephesus, our Second Gospel is based upon information derived from Peter. Mark had been Peter’s companion, and heard his teaching and took notes of it. From these he composed his Gospel. He wrote it, Jerome says, at the request of the brethren at Rome when he was there with Peter; and on hearing it Peter approved it and authorized its use by the Church.

DAVID SMITH.

PETER, FIRST EPISTLE OF.—No Epistle of the NT has caught more of the spirit of Jesus than 1 Peter. Imbued with a strong love for the risen Christ, and a profound conviction of the truth of the gospel as established in the world by the life, death, and resurrection of the Messiah, the author delineates a rich Christian life on the basis of these evangelical facts.

1. Contents.—

I. Thanksgiving and exhortation in view of the Christian salvation, 1:3–2:10.

(i.) The glorious character of the Christian salvation, 1:3–12.

(a) A sure inheritance, vv. 3–5 . To God our Father is ascribed all praise, because by raising Jesus Christ from the dead He has begotten us into a living hope certain to be soon realized.

(b) A present joy, notwithstanding manifold trials, vv. 5–9 . Sufferings refine faith as fire does gold, and even now the unseen Christ is an object of unspeakable joy, and gives a foretaste of full salvation.

(ii.)Exhortation to realize this hope in a holy life as members of a Divine brotherhood, 1:13–2:10. (a) The holy and absolutely just Father requires filial obedience, vv. 16–17.

(b) To redeem us from sin the eternal and spotless Messiah was slain, and by His resurrection has awakened us to true faith in God. It is in the Holy God thus revealed that all your faith and hope rest, vv. 18–21.

with sincere mutual love and grow into maturity. As living stones built into the living

but once rejected Christ, they form a spiritual temple and also a holy priesthood to offer spiritual sacrifices to God. They have become the new Israel, the people of God, 1:22–2:10.

II. The behaviour of the Christian in the world and in the brotherhood, 2:11–3:12.

It must be pure and honourable in the midst of the heathen, 2:11, 12.

(a) Though free servants of God, Christians must be loyal to the earthly government, and observe their duties to all men in their several stations, vv. 13–17.

(b) Slaves must be obedient even to harsh masters, showing their possession of Divine grace and their discipleship to Jesus, by enduring suffering like Him whose unmerited death has brought us salvation, vv. 18–25.

their husbands, in the hope that if they are heathen they may be won to the faith by their Christian life. Likewise husbands must honour their wives as equally with themselves heirs of life, 3:1–7.

(d) The duty of a peaceful and kindly life to strengthen the unity within the brotherhood, vv. 8–12.

III. The uses of suffering, 3:13–4:19.

(a) Suffering cannot really harm one who has Christ in his heart; nay, gentle steadfastness under persecution may, like our Master’s, win over others to God, 3:13–17.

Digression. Quickened in spirit by death, Christ carried the gospel to the godless world that perished in the Flood, through which Noah and his family were saved, a type of the Christian who in his baptism asks God for a good conscience, and is cleansed through the risen Christ now triumphant over all His enemies, vv. 18–22.

(b) Suffering delivers us from our sinful life. Though your former heathen comrades revile you for abandoning their life of sensuality, you must have done with them and leave them to the just Judge of all, 4:1–6.

Digression. In the short time that remains until the return of the Lord, Christians should live a life of self-control, exercising brotherly love, hospitality, and spiritual gifts, 4:7–11.

(c) Your sufferings are not unique, but become a blessing if they are the result of fidelity to your Christian profession, and not of evil conduct. They are a sign that judgment is near, which you may await in a life of well-doing, trusting your faithful Creator, vv.

12–19.

IV. Miscellaneous advice, 5:1–14.

(a) Counsel to elder of the Church, and to the younger men, 5:1–6.

(b) Exhortation to resignation, watchfulness, and trust in the midst of the terrible sufferings that are being endured by the brotherhood everywhere, vv. 6–11.

2. Readers.—Of the provinces in which the readers lived, Galatia and Asia were evangelized by St. Paul, but nothing is known of the evangelization of the rest, nor does the letter assume that St. Peter had any share in it. At first sight it would appear that the readers were Jewish

Christians, as some scholars hold that they were, but the body of the Epistle clearly shows that the prevailing element was Gentile, and the words of 11 are to be taken figuratively of the sojourn of the Christian as a resident alien on earth, absent from his heavenly fatherland (2:8, 10, 4:1–4) . Doubtless, however, very many who had been Jews were found in all the Churches of the large cities. The former life of the readers, on the average low level of Asia Minor, had been given over to the vices of the flesh; perhaps, indeed, their past conduct was the source from which the criminal charges were brought against them afterwards as Christians (2:12, 4:15, 16). The Churches were suffering severely, though there does not seem to have been an official persecution, or a systematic attempt at extermination, for it is assumed that most will remain until the Parousia (4:7). So severe was their suffering, that only the strong arm of God could protect them in their temptation (1:6–7, 4:12, 5:6). Christians are easily confounded with criminals (2:12, 15, 16, 3:13, 16, 17, 4:15, 19), slaves suffer at the hands of their masters, wives from their husbands, but their experience was of the same character as that of the Christian brotherhood throughout the world (5:9). The Churches are ‘islands in an ocean of heathenism.’

3. Purpose.—This letter is an encouragement to readers who are in danger of lapsing, through suffering, into the unholy life of their neighbours. By recalling the fact of the resurrection of Christ, and by an appeal to the example of His remedial sufferings, the author seeks to awaken their faith and hope in God. They are urged to sustain their moral life in the exercise of a calm and sober confidence in the grace of God soon to be revealed more fully (1:18, 4:7, 5:8–10) , and to commend their gospel to the heathen world by their lives of goodness, entrusting themselves in well-doing to a faithful Creator (4:19).

4. Teaching

(a) Doctrine.—Faith in God as the holy Father and faithful Creator is built upon the solid facts of the gospel,—in particular, the life, death, and resurrection of Christ the eternal Messiah (1:8–21) . The life of Jesus Christ has made an ineffaceable impression upon the author. He was spotless, the perfect pattern for men, but also the Messiah, who as the Servant of the Lord has by His death ransomed a new people and ratified a new covenant (1:2, 18–20, 2:22–24) . By His resurrection He has been exalted to God’s right hand, and will soon return to unveil further glories (1:13, 3:22). The most probable interpretation of 3:18ff. is that Christ went, during the period between His death and resurrection, to the abode of the dead, and, having preached His gospel to those who had been the wicked antediluvian world, has made it of universal efficacy (cf. Eph 4:8–19) . In this life Christ becomes an object of inexpressible joy to believers on whom the Spirit has been poured forth (1:2, 8, 12). Peter does not regard the Spirit as the source of Christian virtues, but as the pledge of our future inheritance, as well as of present Divine grace manifested in the ability to endure suffering (4:14). This Spirit was also identified with the preexistent Messiah, and was the means of His persistence through death (1:11, 3:18, 19, 4:14). By the Spirit the brethren are also consecrated in a new covenant to Jehovah, thereby receiving the fulfilment of the promise of the Messianic age (1:2). The risen Christ has become the object of the believer’s utter love and devotion, and has begotten in him the living hope of an eternal inheritance.

(b) The Christian life.—At baptism the believer has his conscience cleansed through the risen Christ; and the new life springing from the seed of the word of God planted in the heart grows by feeding upon that word. Holiness is its quality, involving obedience to the truth, freedom from fleshly lusts, self-control under suffering, joy in a present salvation, and hope of life in the incorruptible inheritance. Faith is the act whereby the believer, realizing the worth of the unseen world through the revelation of Jesus Christ, puts complete trust in God. With Christ, the living stone, Christians form the new temple in which the brethren are a royal priesthood. They are the true Israel, a brotherhood which is God’s home on earth. The Christian is a pilgrim on earth, his life one of love to the brethren and of gentle endurance towards the unbeliever, whom he seeks to win to the gospel, while he stands ready girt for his Master’s coming (1:18, 5:5–11).

5 . Literary affinities

(a) The OT.—This Epistle is greatly indebted to the LXX, especially to the Psalms and to Isaiah, whose teaching as to the holiness of God and the redemptive efficacy of the sufferings of the Servant of the Lord is echoed (1 P 1:18–20 , Is 52:3, 53; 1 P 1:24, 25, Is 40:6ff.; 1 P 2:6ff., Is 28:18, Ps 118:22; 1 P 2:21ff.; Is 53; 1 P 3:10ff., Ps 34:12ff.). Proverbs also is used (1 P 2:17, Pr 24:21 ; 1 P 4:8, Pr 10:12; 1 P 4:18, Pr 11:31; 1 P 5:5, Pr 3:34).

(b) Book of Enoch.—An acquaintance with this pseudepigraphic book may be traced in 1 P 1:12 , 3:10, 20. Cf. Enoch 9.1, 10.4, 6, 12, 13, 64.1, 2, 69.26.

(c) The Gospels.—While the Epistle affords no proof of acquaintance with our Gospels, it contains many suggestions of the life and teachings of Jesus. Peter claims to have been a witness of the sufferings and the glory of Jesus (5:1), which may refer both to the Transfiguration and to the appearances of the risen Christ. Christ is set forth as the example for the sufferer, as though His silent endurance of reviling and the agony of the sinless One had been indelibly impressed on the author’s memory; and, as in the Synoptics, Jesus Christ fulfils the prophecy of the Suffering Servant. The great command of Jesus to His disciples to renounce the world, take up the cross and follow Him, seems to re-echo in this Epistle; as Jesus pronounced blessings on those who were persecuted for righteousness’ sake, so does Peter (3:14, 4:14), and other words from the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:10, 11, 16, 6:25) seem to speak in 2:12, 3:13–16 , 5:6. The parable of the Sower may have supplied the figure of 1:23ff.; the lesson of the tribute money may underlie 2:13, 14; and Christ’s utterance of doom on apostate Israel, especially the parable of Mk 12:1–12, probably suggested the thought of 2:5–10 . That the Kingdom of God, so common in the teaching of Jesus, is not referred to, may be due to the fact that the term had no worthy association for the readers. They had learned to call God ‘Father,’ not ‘King.’

(d) Acts.—There are similarities with Peter’s speeches in Acts, e.g., the witness of the prophets to the Messiah; Jesus Christ as the Suffering Servant whose death was foreknown to God, and was endured for our sins; His exaltation and near return to judge the living and the dead (Ac 2:23, 33, 3:18, 5:30, 31, 10:42, 43). Cf. also 1 P 3:20 with Ac 3:19–21.

(e) The Pauline Epistles.—A comparison of Romans with this Epistle reveals striking resemblances between them (1 P 1:14, Ro 12:2; 1 P 1:22, Ro 12:9; 1 P 2:5, Ro 12:1; 1 P 2:6–8 , 10, Ro 9:25, 32, 33, 1 P 2:13–17, Ro 13:1, 8, 4, 7; 1 P 3:8, 9, Ro 12:16; 1 P 4:7–11 , Ro 12:3, 6), so close, indeed, in 1 P 2:6 and Ro 9:32, that it is all but certain that one Epistle was known to the writer of the other; and Romans must have been the earlier. The more or less obvious relations of Ephesians with 1 Peter (1 P 1:3–5, 7, 9, Eph 1:3–14; 1 P 1:12, Eph 3:5, 10; 1 P 2:4– 8, Eph 2:18–22; 1 P 2:18, Eph 6:5; 1, 3:1–7, Eph 5:22–33; 1 P 3:22, Eph 1:20–22) justify the opinion that ‘the authors of both letters breathed the same atmosphere’ (v. Soden).

(f) Hebrews.—Many close verbal parallels are found between these Epistles, and their leading religious conceptions are similar. Both have the same view of faith, of Jesus Christ as an example, and as the One who introduces the believer to God, of His death as the sacrifice ratifying the new covenant and taking away sin. Similar stress is laid on hope and obedience; the fortunes of old Israel are employed in both to illustrate the demand for faith on the part of new Israel, and a similar use is made of the sufferings of the readers. Cf. 1 P 1:8, He 11:1: 1 P 1:20,

He 9:26; 1 P 2:21–23, He 12:1–3 ; 1 P 4:13, 5:1, He 11:26, 13:13; 1 P 4:11, He 13:21; 1 P 5:10, He 13:21. Though direct literary relationship between the two Epistles cannot be affirmed, the authors may have been close friends, and the readers were perhaps similarly situated.

(g) James.—A comparison of 1 P 1:1, Ja 1:1; 1 P 1:6f., Ja 1:2f.; 1 P 1:23–2:1, Ja 1:11–22 ; 1 P 5:5f., Ja 4:6f., 10—proves close relationship, but the priority can be determined only on the basis of the date of James.

6. Authorship.—According to the present greeting, this Epistle was written by the Apostle Peter, and this is supported by very strong tradition. Polycarp is the earliest writer who indubitably quotes the Epistle, though it was probably familiar to Barnabas, Clement of Rome, Papias, and perhaps Ignatius. Basilides seems to have known it, and it was rejected by Marclon on doctrinal grounds. It is first quoted as Peter’s by Irenæus and Tertullian, and is frequently used by Clement of Alexandria. Its omission from the Muratorian Fragment is not significant; it is contained in the oldest versions, and Eusebius, in full agreement with what we know of early Christian literature, places it among the books which the Church accepted without hesitation. In the Apostolic Fathers, e.g., it is as well attested as Galatians or Ephesians. Harnack suggests that the opening and closing verses were later additions, and that Polycarp did not regard the letter as Peter’s; but this hypothesis is utterly without textual support, and both paragraphs are fitted compactly into the Epistle. The chief objections to the Petrine authorship are—(1) the Epistle is said to be so saturated with Pauline ideas that it could not have been written by the Apostle Peter; (2) the readers are Gentile Christians living within territory evangelized by Paul, in which Peter would have been trespassing on the Gentiles (Gal 2:9); (3) there is a lack of personal

reminiscences of the life of Jesus that would be strange in Peter; (4) the use of good Greek and of the LXX would be remarkable in a Galilæan fisherman; (5) the persecution referred to in ch. 4 is said to be historically impossible until after the death of Peter.

In answer to (3) reference may be made to 5 (c) . (4) is too conjectural to be serious, for ‘there is not the slightest presumption against the use of Greek in writings purporting to emanate from the circle of the first believers. They would write as men who had used the language from boyhood’ (J. H. Moulton). Silvanus also may have had a large share in the composition of the Epistle. The difficulty of (5) is removed if, as we have seen to be probable, no official Imperial persecution is involved. Little is known of its beginnings in the provinces, though from Acts we learn that the Jews soon stirred up hostility against the Christians. Rome is called Babylon, the idolatrous oppressor of the true Israel. This might have happened whenever the Christians began to realize the awakening hatred of the wicked city, mistress of an empire ruled by a deified Nero, even before the persecution of 64 A.D. Undoubtedly there is a close relationship between this Epistle and Paul’s Epistles, closer in thought than in vocabulary. Probably the approximation is nearest in the treatment of morals, as, e.g., marriage, slavery, obedience to civil rulers; and how much of this was common Christian belief and practice. It is, however, striking that in an Epistle so indebted to the Romans the legalistic controversy is passed by, while a different view of righteousness, a change of emphasis as to the Import of Christ’s death, and a dissimilar conception of the work of the Spirit are manifest. Nor does the Ephesian idea of the Church appeal to this author. He cannot be called a Paulinist. He has been nurtured on prophetic, rather than on Pharisaic, ideals. Doubtless St. Paul, a broadly educated Jew, a Roman citizen, and a man of massive intellect and penetrating insight, influenced St. Peter. This much may be inferred from Gal 2:15–17. On the other hand, St. Paul did not resent St. Peter’s visit to Antioch in Gal 2:11 . Why should not St. Peter, many years later, have written to Churches some of which at least seem not to have been evangelized by St. Paul? But greatly as St. Peter may have been impressed by St. Paul’s masterful construction of Christian thought, his character must have been immeasurably more moulded by Jesus, while his own strong temperament, responsive to the prophetic side of his people’s religion, would change little with the years. It is precisely the ground-tone of the Epistle—in harmony with the spirit of OT prophecy and of the Jesus of the Synoptic Gospels—that makes its Petrine authorship so reasonable.

7. Date.—The belief that St. Peter died in Rome is supported by a very strong chain of evidence, being deducible from Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Papias; and it is held by Dionysius of Corinth, Irenæus, Tertullian, and Clement of Alexandria. Unless St. Peter had been definitely associated with Rome, it is difficult to understand how he supplanted St. Paul so soon in the capital as the chief Apostle. Evidently the tradition of a 25 years’ episcopate has no historical basis, but St. Peter probably came to Rome after St. Paul, and died perhaps in the Neronian persecution of 64, or possibly later. It is in the highest degree probable that St. Peter wrote this Epistle from Rome before A.D. 64.

R. A. FALCONER.

PETER, SECOND EPISTLE OF.—This Epistle cannot rank with 1 Peter as a Christian classic; indeed, very many would agree with Jülicher that ‘2 Peter is not only the latest document of the NT, but also the least deserving of a place in the canon.’ Nevertheless, it strikes a pure Christian note in its passion for righteousness.

1. Contents.—

(i.) Greeting and exhortation, 1:1–11. The Epistle opens with a salutation from Simon Peter to readers who, through the righteousness of God, have been admitted to the full privileges of the Apostolic faith. His prayer for increased blessing upon them, through the knowledge of God and Jesus our Lord, is based on the fact that by the revelation of His glorious excellence His Divine power has made a godly life possible for us and has given rich promises of our ultimately sharing His nature, when we have escaped from this present world perishing in its lust (vv. 1–4). They are therefore urged to enrich their character with virtues, because only from such a soil will a full knowledge of Jesus Christ grow; and entrance into His eternal Kingdom depends upon forgiveness of sins, and the zealous effort of the believer to make the gospel call effective by a life of virtue (vv. 6–11).

(ii.) The sure witness to the gospel, vv. 12–21 . The Apostle will hold himself in readiness to remind his readers of the truth; and since; his death may be sudden, he will endeavour to leave them a trustworthy memorial of his teaching; for, unlike the false teachers, Peter was an eye-witness competent to set forth the power and the return of the Lord, having seen the Transfiguration on the Holy Mount. Hs also heard the Divine voice that confirmed prophecy, to which they must pay heed, since it was given by the Spirit; but prophecy having such an origin can be interpreted only by the voice of God, not by private opinion.

(iii.) The false teachers, ch. 2. An invasion of false teachers is foretold. These men will subvert the gospel of redemption from sin, and cause apostasy in the Church. But their doom at the hand of a righteous God, is no less certain than that of the angels who sinned, or the antediluvian world, or Sodom and Gomorrah; though now also, as theo, the few righteous will escape (vv. 1–9) . Sensual, irreverent, brutish, and ignorant of spiritual things, they destroy even the sacred Christian feasts by their revelry, and, like Balaam, seek, for their selfish purposes, to lead their victims into fornication, deluding recently converted believers with a false doctrine of freedom. Had these apostates never known the truth, it would have been better for them (vv. 10–22).

(iv.) Warning against scepticism as to the return of the Lord, ch. 3. He reminds his readers that it was foretold as a sign of the end that mockers would deny that the Lord will return, but that both the prophets and the Lord proclaimed a day of Final Judgment. The memory of the Flood should be a warning to the scoffers (vv. 1–7). God’s delay is intended to give opportunity for repentance, and His purposes, though slowly maturing, will be brought to pass without warning; but the Day may be hastened by holy living and godliness. This is the teaching also of Paul, whose gospel of grace some are seeking to distort into licence. Safety lies in watchfulness and in growth in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ (vv. 8–18).

2. Situation of the readers.—Were it not that 2 P 3:1 seems to refer to 1 Peter, no definite information would be found in this letter as to the locality of the readers. It appears to be an Epistle designed to counteract a particular error affecting a district rather than one Church. It may be inferred that the readers were Gentiles (1:1), and were being misled by distortions of the Pauline doctrine of grace (3:16, 18), though the Churches were undisturbed by any echoes of the Jewish-Christian controversy. Indifference to Christian morality, inducing a dulled spiritual sense, has made them liable to apostasy under the influence of false teachers who are about to invade the Churches. Some are already at work among them (2:13–18) . They seem to have taken advantage of the privilege of porphecy to spread their libertinism, and to have turned the sacred love-feasts into bestial carousals, holding out, especially to recent converts, the distorted promise of Christain freedom. They satisfied their own avarice and lust, and scoffed at moral responsibility, teaching, it would appear, that there is no resurrection of the body or judgment to come, by playing upon the deferred Christian hope of the Return of the Lord. Apparently they were all of one type, and so wicked as to he compared with the worst sinners of the OT (2:4, 8, 8, 18). There is no evidence of any speculative system like those of the 2nd cent. Gnosticism, but there are features in common with the practices of the Nicolaitans of the Churches of Pergamum and Thyatira (Rev 2:13–24) , though no mention is made of idolatry. A greater affinity may be traced with the Sadducaic spirit of portions of the Jewish and semi-pagan world, where scepticism as to spiritual realities went hand in hand with practical immorality. The cities of Syria or Samaria would be a not improbable situation for the readers of 2 Peter.

3. Purpose of the Epistle.—It is a mistake to confine the purpose of 2 Peter to the refutation of one error, as, e.g., the denial of the Parousia. It is a loud appeal for godly living and faith in the affirmations of the gospel. Scripture, and the Christian conscience. God’s promises of mercy and threatenings of judgment are Yea and Amen. The writer aims to impress on his readers: (1) that saving knowledge of Jesus Christ is granted only to the virtuous heart; (2) that Jesus Christ is a present power for a godly life, and is certain to return for judgment; (3) the hideous character of the false teachers and the self-evident doom of themselves and their victims; (4) that delay in the Return of the Lord must be used for repentance, for that Day will surely come.

4. Literary affinities

(a) The OT.—Though the direct quotations are few (Ps 90:4 in 3:8 and probably Pr 26:11 in

2:22 , with reminiscences of Is 34:4 in 3:12, and Is 65:17, 66:22 in 3:13), the real indebtedness of

2 Pet. to the OT is very great in the historical examples of ch. 2, and in the view of Creation, the

Flood, and the Day of the Lord (3:5, 6, 7). The influence of Isaiah is manifest (cf. Is 13:9–13 ,

34:4 , 51:6, 66:15f. with 2 P 3:7, 10); and the use of Proverbs may perhaps he seen in 2 P 2:17 (Pr

10:11, 21:6, 25:14) and in 2 P 2:21 (Pr 12:28, 16:17, 31)

(b) Book of Enoch.—It cannot be doubted that Enoch 9.1, 10.4–6, 18.11–21 has influenced 2 P 2:4, 11.

(c) The Gospels.—The most obvious references are in 2 P 1:16–18 , which agrees fundamentally, though not precisely, with the Synoptic narratives of the Transfiguration, and in 1:14 , which seems to point to the incident in Jn 21:18, 19. The Synoptic eschatology also, along with OT prophecy, has influenced 2 Peter (cf. Mk 13:24, 25, 26, 31 || and 2 P 3:10–12 ; Mt 19:28, 25:31, Lk 21:26–28 and 2 P 3:12, 18). Mt 11:27, 29 || and the parable of the Sower (Lk 8:10, 16) throw much light on 2 P 1:2–8; and Mt 12:28, 29, 43–45 on 2 P 2:19–21.

(d) The Pauline Epistles.—Of these there are very few traces, though 2 P 1:13 may be compared with 2 Co 5:1; 2 P 2:19 with Ro 6:13; 2 P 3:14 with 1 Th 3:13, 5:23, and 2 P 3:16 with Ro 2:4, 9:22. There are verbal similarities with the Pastoral Epistles, but probably they do not involve anything more than a wide-spread similar atmosphere. According to 3:16, 18, the author seems to know all St. Paul’s correspondence, but he shows astonishingly little evidence of its influence.

(e) Jude.—One of these Epistles must have been used by the author of the other, but there is great diversity of opinion as to the priority, the prevailing view at present being apparently in favour of the priority of Jude, though Zahn and Bigg are strong advocates of 2 Peter. The question is really indeterminable, and, apart from the external testimony of the one to the other, has little bearing on the authorship.

(f) 1 Peter

(i.) Differences. These are many and serious. 1 Peter is written in fluent Hellenistic Greek while the style of 2 Peter is almost pseudo-literary, and its words are often quite uncommon. 1 Peter quotes largely from the LXX, the use of which can hardly be detected in 2 Peter. The Divine names are different, and different conceptions of Christ’s work and of the Christian life are emphasized—in 1 Peter Jesus is the Messiah whose sufferings, death, and resurrection are the leading motives for the Christian life; in 2 Peter Christ is ‘Saviour,’ who brings power for a godly life to all who have knowledge of Him. Hope and joy are the notes of 1 Peter, which was written to readers who are buoyed up in suffering by faith in and love to their risen Lord. In 2 Peter false teaching instead of persecution is a source of danger; knowledge takes the place of hope, and piety that of holiness.

(ii.) Resemblances [cf. (i.)].—These are manifold and striking. Both Epistles are influenced greatly by Isaiah and in some measure by Proverbs and Enoch. Both teach that Jesus Christ is progressively revealed to the believer, the Parousia being the fulfilment of the Transfiguration or the Resurrection (1 P 1:13, 4:13, 5:1, 2 P 1:3, 4, 16). Both emphasize the fact of the Parousia and of Divine judgment; Noah and the Flood are used as examples in both. A similar conception of the Holy Spirit, unique in the NT, is found in 1 P 1:10–12 and 2 P 1:19–21 . In both the Christian life is regarded as a growth from seed (1 P 1:23, 2 P 1:8, 3:18); obedience to the truth, emphasized in 1 P 1:22 and 2 P 2:2, 21, brings the favourite virtue of steadfastness (1 P 2:8, 5:10 , 2 P 1:10, 3:17). The law of holy living confers true freedom (1 P 1:15, 16, 2:15ff., 2 P 2:19, 3:11, 14). The virtues of 2 P 1:5–7 are paralleled in 1 Peter, being those of a gentle, orderly, patient, kindly life of goodness; and in both the Christian life is regarded as a pilgrimage to an eternal inheritance] (1 P 1:1, 4, 2 P 1:11, 13, 14).

5. Testimony of later Christian Literature.—Until the 3rd cent. the traces of 2 Peter are very few. It was evidently known to the author of the Apocalypse of Peter (c. 150 A.D.) , though this is questioned without sufficient reason by some scholars. The first certain quotation is found in Firmilian of Cæsarea in Cappadocia (c. 250); probably it was used by Clement of Alexandria; and Origen knew it, but doubted its genuineness. While Eusebius himself did not accept the Epistle, be placed it, in deference to general opinion, among the ‘disputed’ books. It is not referred to by the scholars of Antioch, nor is it in the Peshitta, the common version of the Syrian Church. The oldest Latin versions also seem not to have contained it; possibly it was absent from the original of Codex B, but it is found in the Egyptian versions. Jerome, and afterwards Erasmus and Calvin, harboured doubts about its genuineness.

6. Authorship.—It will have been evident that there is much in this Epistle to justify the doubt as to its genuineness which has been entertained by many of the greatest Christian teachers from the early centuries; and recent scholarship has not yet relieved the difficulties in the way of accepting the Petrine authorship. They are (1) the remarkable divergence from the First Epistle, which seems to be too radical to be explained by the employment of different amanuenses; (2) the inferior style of the Epistle, its lack of restraint and its discontinuity, notably in 1:12–21 and ch. 2; (3) the absence of an early Christian atmosphere, together with a tone of disappointment because the promise of Christ to return has been long deferred (3:3f.); (4) the appeal to the three authorities of the primitive Catholic Church—the Prophets, the Lord, and the Apostles (1:19–21 , 3:2) ; (5) the reference to St. Paul’s letters as ‘Scripture’; (6) the extremely meagre external evidence.

Of these difficulties the gravest are (1) and (6). It is almost impossible to hold that the author of 1 Peter could have described his letter in the words of 2 P 3:1, and have regarded 2 Peter as a sequel to the same readers. It has, however, been suggested that 2 Peter was written earlier than 1 Peter, and that the Epistles were composed by different amanuenses for different readers. But this hypothesis has not met with much favour. The insufficient witness is also serious, and though singly the other difficulties may be removed, their cumulative effect is too much for a letter already heavily burdened. But if the evidence is against direct Petrine authorship, is the book to be summarily banished into the middle of the 2nd cent. as entirely pseudonymous? Probably not. (1) There are no features of the Epistle which necessarily extrude it from the 1st century. Doubts as to the Parousia and similar false teaching were not unknown in the Apostolic age, and some of the most distinctive features of the 2nd cent., such as developed Gnosticism and Chiliasm, are conspicuous by their absence. Also the reference to St. Paul’s letters as ‘Scripture’ is not decisive, for in view of the insistence upon ‘written prophecy’ and its origin (1:19–21) it is doubtful whether St. Paul is ranked with the OT prophets.’ But in any case, by the time of 1 Clement there was a collection of St. Paul’s letters which would be read in churches with some Scriptural authority. Finally, there is much to be said for the view that not the OT Scriptures, but other Christian writings, are referred to in 3:16. (2) 2 Peter contains a large distinctively Petrine element. It has already been shown that 1 and 2 Peter have much in common. They present a non-Pauline conception of Christianity, shared by them in common with the Gospel of Mark and the speeches of Peter in Acts. In Mk. and in 2 Peter Jesus Christ is the strong Son of God, whose death ransomed sinners, and whose return to judgment is described in generally similar outlines. In the Epistle stress is laid on repentance, as in the opening of Mk. and in Acts (2 P 3:9–15), and there is a striking similarity between Ac 3:19–21 and 2 P 3:11, 12. Likewise the Christian life is regarded as the fulfilment of the new law, and the parables in Mk. of the planting and growth of the seed, supply suggestive parallels for both 1 and 2 Peter. Both Epistles, like the speeches in Acts, are Hebrew in spirit, and are influenced by prophetic motives.

Perhaps the solution that will best suit the facts is to assume that a disciple of Peter, who remembered how his master had dealt with an attack of Sadducaic sensuality in some of the Palestinian Churches, being confronted with a recrudescence of similar evil, re-edited his teaching. This will do justice to the moral earnestness and the true Christian note of the Epistle.

R. A. FALCONER.

PETHAHIAH.—1. The head of the nineteenth priestly course (1 Ch 24:15). 2. A Levite (Ezr 10:23, Neh 9:5); in 1 Es 9:23 Patheus. 3. A Judahite officer (Neh 11:24).

PETHOR.—Mentioned in Nu 22:5 and Dt 23:4 as the home of Balaam, in N. Mesopotamia, when he was called by Balak to curse Israel. With this indication agrees the repeated statement by king Shalmaneser II. of Assyria regarding a certain city which he calls Pitru, that it lay on the river Sāgūr (modern Sājūr) , near its junction with the Euphrates. Thus Pethor would seem to have lain a little south of Carchemish, on the west of the Euphrates.

J. F. M‘CURDY.

PETHUEL.—The father of the prophet Joel (Jl 1:1).

PETRA.—See SELA.

PEULLETHAI.—The eighth son of Obed-edom (1 Ch 26:5).

PHAATH MOAB (1 Es 5:11, 8:31) = Pahath-moab of Ezr 2:6 etc.

PHACARETH (1 Es 5:34) = Pochereth-hazzebaim, Ezr 2:57.

PHAISUR (1 Es 9:22) = Ezr 10:22 Pashhur, 1 Es 5:25 Phassurus.

PHALDEUS (1 Es 9:44) = Pedaiah, Neh 8:4.

PHALEAS (1 Es 5:29) = Padon, Ezr 2:44.

PHALIAS (1 Es 9:48) = Pelaiah, Neh 8:7.

PHALTIEL (cf. 2 S 3:16).—The ‘captain of the people’ (2 Es 5:16).

PHANUEL.—The mother of Anna (Lk 2:36).

PHARAKIM.—A family of Nethinim (1 Es 5:31).

PHARAOH.—The later Egyptian royal title, Per-‘o, Great House,’ adopted into Hebrew. Originally designating the royal establishment in Egypt, it graduailly became the appellative title of the king, and from the 22nd Dyn. (c. B.C. 950) onwards was regularly attached to the king’s name in popular speech. The Hebrew Pharaoh-necho and Pharaoh-hophra are thus precise renderings of Egyptian. Shishak also was entitled Per-‘o Sheshonk in Egyptian, but apparently Hebrew had not yet adopted the novel fashion, and so gave his name without Pharaoh (1 K 11:40 , 14:24). Tirhakah is not entitled Pharaoh as in Egyptian documents, but is more accurately described as king of Cush (2 K 19:9).

The following Pharaohs are referred to without their names being specified: 1. Pharaoh of Abram (Gn 12:10–20) , impossible to identify. The title Pharaoh and the mention of camels appear to be anachronisms in the story. 2. Pharaoh of Joseph (Gn 39 etc.). The proper names in the story, viz. Potiphar, Potiphera, Asenath, Zaphenath-paneah are at once recognizable (when the vocalization is discounted) as typical names (Petepre, Esnelt, Zepnetefonkh) of the late period beginning with the 22nd Dyn. (c. B.C. 950), and ending in the reign of Darius (c. B.C. 500). It has been conjectured that the Pharaoh of Joseph was one of the Hyksos kings, but it is not advisable to press for historical identifications in this beautiful legend. 3. and 4. The

Pharaohs of the Oppression and the Exodus. The name of Raamses, given to a store-city built by the Hebrews (Ex 1:11), points to one of the kings named Ramesses in the 19th–20 th Dyn. as the Pharaoh of the Oppression. The chief of these was Ramesses II. (c. B.C. 1350), after whom several towns were named. He was perhaps the greatest builder in Egyptian history. His son Mineptah might be the Pharaoh of the Exodus: but from the fifth year of Mineptah there is an Egyptian record of the destruction of ‘Israel,’ who, it would seem, were already in Palestine. At present it is impossible to ascertain the proportion of historical truth contained in the legends of the Exodus. 5. 1 Ch 4:18, ‘Bithiah, daughter of Pharaoh’: no clue to identity. Bithiah is Heb., and not like an Egyp. name. 6. 1 K 3:1, 9:16, 24, 11:1, Pharaoh, the father-in-law of Solomon, must be one of the feeble kings of the end of the 21st Dynasty. 7. 1 K 11:18, the Pharaoh who befriended Hadad the Edomite in the last days of Solomon, and gave him the sister of his queen Tahpenes: not identified. (At this point in the narrative Shishak comes in: he is never called Pharaoh, see above.) 8. Pharaoh, king of Egypt in 2 K 18:21, Is 36:6 etc., perhaps as a general term for the Egyptian king, not pointing to any individual. In the time of Sennacherib and Hezekiah, Tirhakah or some earlier king of the Ethiopian Dynasty would be on the throne. 9. For Jer 37, Ezk 29, see HOPHRA.

F. LL. GRIFFITH.

PHARATHON.—Named, with Timnath and Tephon, among the cities which Bacchides ‘strengthened with high walls, with gates and with bars’ (1 Mac 9:60). Some authorities read with LXX ‘Timnath-pharathon,’ as indicating one place. Conder suggests Fer‘on, about 15 miles W. of Nāhlus. This seems to be too far to the north, as the towns mentioned are all ‘in Judæa.’ It may possibly be Fer‘ata, 6 miles S.W. of Nāblus, although the same difficulty exists in a modified degree. Cf. PIRATHON.

W. EWING.

PHARES.—See PEREZ.

PHARIDA.—See PERIDA.

PHARISEES.—A study of the four centuries before Christ supplies a striking illustration of the law that the deepest movements of history advance without the men, who in God’s plan are their agents, being clearly aware of what is going on. The answer to the question—How came the Pharisees into the place of power and prestige they held in the time of our Lord? involves a clear understanding of the task of Israel after the Exile. It was to found and develop a new type of community. The Hebrew monarchy had been thrown into perpetual bankruptcy. But monarchy was the only form that the political principle could assume in the East. What should be put in its place? In solving this problem the Jews created a community which, while it was half-State, was also half-Church. The working capital of the Jews was the monotheism of the prophets, the selfrevelation of God in His character of holy and creative Unity, and, inseparable from this, the belief in the perfectibility and indestructibility of the Chosen Nation (the Messianic idea). Prophecy ceased. Into the place of the prophet came the schoolmaster and the drill-master. They popularized monotheism, making it a national instinct. Necessarily, the popularization of monotheism drew along with it a growing sense of superiority to the heathen and idolatrous nations amongst whom their lot was cast. And by the same necessity the Jews were taught to separate themselves from their heathen neighbours (Ezr 10:11). They must not intermarry, lest the nation he dragged down to the heathen level. This was the state of things in the 3rd cent. B.C. (see ESSENES) , when Hellenism began to threaten Judaism with annihilation. The deepest forces of Judaism sounded the rally. The more zealous Jews drew apart, calling themselves the ‘Holy Men’ (Chasīdīm), Puritans, or those self-dedicated to the realization of Ezra’s ideal. Then came the great war. The tendencies of Judaism precipitated themselves. The Jewish Puritans became a distinct class called the ‘Pharisees,’ or men who separated themselves from the heathen, and no less from the heathenizing tendencies and forces in their own nation. They abstained even from table-fellowship with the heathen as being an abominable thing (Gal 2:12ff.). As years went on it became more and more clear that the heart of the nation was with them. And so it comes to pass that in our Lord’s time, to use His own words, ‘the scribes and Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat’ (Mt 23:2) . They, not the priests, are the source of authority.

The history of Pharisaism enables us to understand its spirit and ruling ideas, to do justice to its greatness, while emphasizing its limitations and defects. Into it went the deepest elements among the forces which built the Jewish church and nation. The Pharisees are seen at their best when contrasted with the Zealots (see CANANÆAN) on the one side and the Herodians (wh. see) on the other. Unlike the latter, they were deeply in earnest with their ancestral religion. Again and again at critical times they showed the vigour and temper of fearless Puritanism. Unlike the former, they held back from the appeal to force, believing that the God of the nation was in control of history, that in His own good time He would grant the nation its desire; that, meanwhile, the duty of a true Israelite was whole-hearted devotion to the Torah, joined to patient waiting on the Divine will. This nobler side of Pharisaism could find itself in Ps 119. The Pharisees were in a sense Churchmen rather than statesmen. And they emphasized spiritual methods. Their interests lay in the synagogue, in the schooling of children, in missionary extension amongst the heathen. They deserved the power and prestige which we find them holding in our Lord’s time. The Master Himself seems to say this when He distinguishes between their rightful authority and the spirit which they often showed in their actions (Mt 23:1– 4). Hence we are not surprised when we learn that, after the conflicts with Rome (A.D. 66–135) , Pharisaism became practically synonymous with Judaism. One great war (the Maccabæan) had defined Pharisaism. Another war, even more terrible, gave it the final victory. The two wars together created the Judaism known to Europeans and Americans. And this, allowing for the inevitable changes which a long and varied experience brings to pass in the most tenacious race, is in substance the Pharisaism of the 2nd century.

A wide historical study discovers moral dignity and greatness in Pharisaism. The Pharisees, as contrasted with the Sadducees ( wh. see), represented the democratic tendency. As contrasted with the priesthood, they stood both for the democratic and for the spiritualizing tendency. The priesthood was a close corporation. No man who was unable to trace his descent from a priestly family could exercise any function in the Temple. But the Pharisees and the Scribes opened a great career to all the talents. Furthermore, the priesthood exhausted itself in the ritual of the Temple. But the Pharisees found their main function in teaching and preaching. So Pharisaism cleared the ground for Christianity. And when the reader goes through his NT with this point in mind, and when he notes the striking freedom of the NT from ritualistic and sacerdotal ideas, he should give credit to Pharisaism as one of the historical forces which made these supreme qualities possible.

We have not yet exhausted the claims of the Pharisees on our interest and gratitude. It was they who, for the most part, prepared the ground for Christianity by taking the Messianic idea and working it into the very texture of common consciousness. Pharisaism was inseparable from the popularization of monotheism, and the universal acceptance by the nation of its Divine election and calling. We need only consider our Lord’s task to see how much preparatory work the Pharisees did. Contrast the Saviour with Gautama (Buddha), and the greatness of His work is clearly seen. Buddha teaches men the way of peace by thinking away the political and social order of things. But our Lord took the glorified nationalism of His nation as the trunk-stock of His thought, and upon it grafted the Kingdom of God. Now, it was the Pharisees who made idealized nationalism, based upon the monotheism of the prophets, the pith and marrow of Judaism. It was they who wrote the great Apocalypses (Daniel and Enoch). It was they who made the belief in immortality and resurrection part of the common consciousness. It was they who trained the national will and purpose up to the level where the Saviour could use it.

But along with this great work went some lamentable defects and limitations. Though they stood for the spiritualizing tendencies which looked towards the existence of a Church, the Pharisees never reached the Church idea. They made an inextricable confusion between the question of the soul and the question of descent from Abraham. They developed the spirit of proud and arrogant orthodoxy, until the monotheism of the prophets became in their hands wholly incompetent to found a society where Jew and Gentile should be one (Gal 3:28, Col 3:11) . They developed Sabbatarianism until reverence for the Sabbath became a superstition, as our Lord’s repeated clash with them goes to show. And in spite of many noble individual exceptions, the deepest tendency of Pharisaism was towards an over-valuation of external things, Levitical correctness and precision (Mt 23:23), that made their spirit strongly antagonistic to the genius of Prophetism. For Prophetism, whether of the Old or of the New Dispensation, threw the whole emphasis on character. And so, when John the Baptist, the first prophet for many centuries, came on the field, he put himself in mortal opposition to the Pharisees, no less than to the Sadducees (Mt 3:7f., Jn 1:19ff.). And our Lord, embodying the moral essence of Prophetism, found His most dangerous opponents, until the end of His ministry, not in the Sadducees or the Essenes or the Zealots, but in the Pharisees.

15 21

J 9:25 10:1 3– 13b 14b 15a 15 c b– a 11 –19

E 35 12 18a 14a 15b 20 21–

R 1b 2

J 10:2 28 29 4–8 23 29 30

4–

E 27 11:1

–2

P 12:112

2

R 9 10 26 27a 13:1 15

If the sources have here been rightly separated, it becomes probable that the original account of JE contained eight and not ten plagues. The 3rd and 4th are insect pests, the former kinnīm, kinnām, i.e. gnats or mosquitoes (P), the latter ‘ārōbh, i.e. swarms of flies ( J). These may with probability be considered duplicates. And similarly the 5th and 6th, murrain (J) and boils (P). If this is so, all the eight were originally contained in J’s narrative; E has elements in the 1st, 7th, 8 th, and 9th, and in the 9th E’s narrative has largely displaced that of J.

2. Relation to natural phenomena.—The hostility which used to exist between religion and natural science is rapidly passing away, as it is becoming more clearly recognized that science is concerned solely with the observation of physical sequences, while religion embraces science as the greater includes the less. Nothing can lie outside the activity of a God who is both a transcendent Person and an immanent sustaining Power in the universe. And therefore to point out a connexion between some of the ‘miracles’ of Scripture and ‘natural phenomena’ does not eliminate from them the Divine element; it rather transfigures an unreasoning ‘faith in the impossible’ into a faith which recognizes the ‘finger of God’ in everything. Thus the following discussion of the plagues may claim to be entirely constructive; it seeks to destroy nothing, but aims at showing it to be probable that the providence of God worked in Egypt by means of a series of natural phenomena, upon which the religious instinct of the Hebrew writers unerringly seized as signs of God’s favour to their forefathers, and of punishment to their oppressors. This religious conviction led in process of time to accretions and amplifications; as the stories were handed down, they acquired more and more of what is popularly called the miraculous. The earliest stage at which they emerge into writing is in J; In the remains of E the wonders have increased, while in P they are greatly multiplied.

1st Plague.—According to J, this consisted in the smiting of the river by J″, and the consequent death of the fish, causing the necessity of obtaining water by digging in the neighbourhood of the river. Nothing is here said of blood, but that is introduced in the next stage of development. In E the marvel is performed not directly by J″ in the ordinary course of nature, but through Moses’ wonder-working staff, and the river is turned to blood. Two suggestions have been made as to the natural phenomena which might give rise to the story. When the Nile rises in June, its waters become discoloured from fragments of vegetable matter, which gradually turn to a dull red colour as the river rises to its height in August. This is confirmed by many travellers, who also speak of offensive odours emitted at the later stage. Others refer the reddening of the water to enormous quantities of minute organisms. Whatever may have been the actual cause, J comes the nearest to the natural fact; a fetid exhalation killed the fish, or in Hebrew language J″ smote the river. And the ease with which the belief could arise that the water was turned to blood is illustrated in 2 K 3:23. In P’s final amplification, every drop of water in Egypt was turned to blood.

2nd Plague.—From whatever cause the river became fetid, a mass of organic matter and of animal life would be collected. And these conditions would be suitable to the rapid multiplication of frogs. In J, J″ foretells that He will Himself smite Egypt with frogs; in the ordinary course of nature ‘the river shall swarm with frogs.’ In P, Aaron (as usual) is bidden by Moses to bring the plague by stretching out his staff. Plagues of frogs were not unknown in ancient times; and Haggard tells of a plague in the upper Nile valley in modern times (Under Crescent and Star, p. 279). Frogs are most plentiful in Egypt in September.

3rd and 4th Plagues.—The mass of dead frogs collected in heaps (8:14) would lead to the breeding of innumerable insects. In J, J″ Himself sends ‘swarms of flies’; in P, through the stretching out of Aaron’s staff, ‘all the dust of Egypt became mosquitoes’ (EV lice [ wh. see ]).

The ‘mosquitoes’ cannot have been, according to any natural sequence, distinct from the ‘swarms’; P particularizes the general statement of J. Stinging gnats of various kinds are common in Egypt about October. The insects come to maturity after the waters of the Nile inundation have receded, and the pools in which the larvæ have lived have dried up. Note that in Ps 105:31 the ‘swarm’ and the ‘mosquitoes’ are coupled in one sentence; and Ps 78:45 omits the ‘mosquitoes’ altogether.

5th and 6th Plagues.—The decomposing bodies of the frogs would produce pestilential effects; and bacteriological research shows that some insects, especially mosquitoes, are a serious factor in the spread of disease. Thus the murrain ( J) is amply accounted for. In the preceding narrative J relates that Goshen enjoyed complete immunity from the insects. It is not impossible that the direction of the wind or other natural causes, under God’s guidance, prevented them from reaching the Israelite territory. And if the insects, which spread disease, did not enter Goshen, the statement that the murrain did not touch the cattle of the Israelites is also explained. P, on the other hand, departs from natural causes. Moses and Aaron flung soot into the air, which became boils on man and beast. Cattle plagues, causing enormous mortality, are reported in Egypt. One such in A.D. 1842 killed 40,000 oxen.

7th Plague.—Thus far the series of plagues have followed one another in a natural sequence. But at this point a new series begins with a destructive thunderstorm, accompanied by hail. Such storms are rare in Egypt, but are not without example. Those which have been reported in modern times have occurred about January; and that is the point of time defined in 9:31f., ‘the barley was in the ear, and the flax was in bud, but the wheat and the vetch … were not grown up.’ Thus the cattle plague had lasted about two months and a half (Nov. to the middle of Jan.) when the storm came; and the first five plagues (reckoning 3, 4 and 5, 6 as duplicates) occupied a period of about five months.

8th Ptague.—The atmospheric conditions which resulted in the storm also led to other plagues. A strong east wind (the sirocco) was sent by J″, and brought a dense mass of locusts ( J ). In E, Moses brought them by lifting his staff. The lightness and fragility of the locusts render them helpless before a wind (cf. Ps 109:23b). And when the wind shifted to the west, they were completely swept away into the Red Sea (J); cf. Jl 2:20.

9th Plague.—Only a fragment of J’s narrative has been preserved, which relates the effect of the ‘darkness’ upon Pharaoh. E, as before, says that it was due to the lifting of the staff by Moses. But it is not impossible that it was a further consequence of the west wind. Dr. A. Macalister (art. ‘Plagues of Egypt’ in Hastings’ DB iii.) writes: ‘The condition of darkness referred to is strikingly like that brought about by the severer form of the electrical wind hamsin. This is a S. or S.W. wind that is so named because it is liable to blow during the 25 days before and the 25 days after the vernal equinox (hamsin = 50). It is often not so much a storm or violent wind as an oppressive hot blast charged with so much sand and fine dust that the air is darkened. It causes a blackness equal to the worst of London fogs, while the air is so hot and full of dust that respiration is impeded.… Denon says that it sometimes travels as a narrow stream, so that one part of the land is light while the rest is dark.’ And he adds that three days is not an uncommon duration for the hamsin.

10th Plague.—Malignant epidemics have at all times been the scourge of Bible lands; and it is worthy of note that many authorities state that pestilence is often worst at the time of the hamsin wind. In the Hebrew narratives, however, all thought of a ‘natural’ occurrence has passed away. Only the firstborn are smitten, as a just retribution for Pharaoh’s attempt to destroy the firstborn of the Israelites.

3. Religious value.—This is manifold. Considered from the point of view of natural phenomena, the narratives teach the all-important truth that God’s providential care of men is not confined to ‘miracles’ in the commonly accepted sense of the term, else were God’s providential actions unknown to-day. The lifting of Moses’ staff to bring the plagues, and his successive entreaties for their removal, teach that prayer is not out of place or unavailing in cases where natural laws can be co-ordinated and guided by God to bring about the wished-for result. And from whatever point of view the plagues are regarded, the same great facts shine through the narratives—that J″ is supreme in power over the world which He made; that He has an absolute right, if He so wills, to punish Pharaoh in order to show forth in him His power; that He does so, however, only because Pharaoh is impenitent, and consequently ‘fitted for destruction,’ for J″ is a God who hates sin; that if a man hardens his heart, the result will be as inevitable as results in the natural world—so inevitable that it may truly be said that J″ hardens his heart; that the sin of Pharaoh, and so of any other man, may entail sufferings upon many innocent men and animals; and finally, that J″ is mindful of His own, and delivers them from the ‘noisome pestilence,’ ‘the pestilence that walketh in darkness,’ and ‘the destruction that wasteth at noonday,’ so that ‘no plague can come nigh their dwelling’ (Ps 91).

A. H. M‘NEILE.

PLAIN.—This word is given by the AV as the equivalent of 8 different terms, 7 Heb. and 1 Greek; but is retained by the RV in the case of 4 only, all Hebrew.

(1) biq‘āh is translated in the RV by ‘plain’ in Gn 11:2, Neh 6:2, Is 40:4, Ezk 3:22, 23, 8:4, Dn 3:1 but elsewhere by ‘valley.’ It generally designates a broad vale between hills; among the localities to which it was applied the most notable are the pass between Lebanon and Hermon ( ‘the valley of Lebanon,’ Jos 11:17, 12:7), and the plain of Esdraelon (‘the valley of Megiddo,’ 2 Ch 35:22, Zee 12:11).

(2) mīshōr is usually translated by ‘plain’ or ‘plain country,’ sometimes accompanied by the mg. ‘table land’ (Dt 3:10, Jos 13:9, 1 K 20:23 etc.); but in the poetical and prophetical books by ‘even place’ (Ps 26:12) or ‘straight’ (Is 40:4). Its primary sense is level land; and the word, with the article, was specifically used of the high plateau on the E. of the Dead Sea.

(3) ‘ărābāh is ordinarily rendered in the AV by ‘plain’ (‘plains’) and ‘desert’ (or

‘wilderness’), but in Jos 18:18 it is transliterated ‘Arabah.’ The RV also sometimes translates by ‘plain (s)’ and ‘desert’ (Jos 4:13, Is 33:9 etc.), but retains the Heb. expression wherever it denotes the deep valley running N. and S. of the Dead Sea. The distinctive sense of the word is that of a bare, sterile plain, or (if between hills) an unfertile floor.

(4) kikkār, unlike the preceding, characterizes not the surface of the locality to which it is applied, but its shape. It is used specifically of the lower part of the bed of the Jordan, where it flows into the Dead Sea, and possibly also of the depression S. of the same sea; and should be rendered by ‘circle’ rather than by ‘plain’ (as in RVm in Gn 13:10) Cf. next article. In Neh 3:22,

12:28 it seems to refer to a district around Jerusalem, and is translated in RVm by ‘circuit.’

(5) Of the other Heb. words sometimes rendered in the AV by ‘plain,’ one (shephēlah) is uniformly translated in the RV by ‘lowland,’ and designates a group of ‘low hills’ on the E. of the Maritime Plain, which are separated from the hills of Judæa and Ephraim by a series of valleys (Dt 1:7, Jos 10:40 etc.). Of the remaining two, one (’ābēl) is transliterated in the RV (Jg 11:38), and the other (’ēlōn) is rendered by ‘oak’ (mg. ‘terebinth’) (Gn 12:8, 13:18 etc. ).

(6) The only passage where the word ‘plain’ is employed in the NT occurs in St. Luke’s account (6:17) of one of our Lord’s discourses, which, ace. to St. Matthew, was delivered on a mountain (Mt 5:1); the RV substitutes ‘a level place.’

G. W. WADE.

PLAIN, CITIES OF THE.—These were five in number, namely, Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and Bela (or Zoar), situated in the plain (‘circle’) of Jordan. Their inhabitants being guilty of great wickedness, the first four of the above-named five were overthrown by fire. Lot, the nephew of Abraham, who had made his home in Sodom, was warned by the Lord to withdraw from the city before it was destroyed; and he accordingly escaped to Zoar, which, at his entreaty, was spared the fate of its neighbours (Gn 18, 19).

The situation of the five cities has been variously placed at the N. and the S. end of the Dead Sea. The Biblical statements are generally in favour of the former site, which is supported by the facts: (1) that the circle of the Jordan, which is also called the circle of the valley of Jericho (Dt 34:3), is appropriate only to the broad hasin of the Jordan, near its mouth; (2) that it was visible from near Bethel (Gn 13:3–10); (3) that the cities were N. of Hazazon-tamar (usually identified with En-gedi), since this place was passed by Amraphel when he marched from Kadesh against the king of Sodom and his allies (Gn 14:7, 8). On the other hand, (1) it is implied in Ezk 16:46 that Sodom was on the right (i.e. south) of Jerusalem, whereas if it were at the N. end of the Dead Sea it would be almost due E.; (2) Zoar, which must have been near the other cities (Gn 19:20), is placed by Josephus in Arabia (BJ IV. viii. 4), and by Eusebius at the opposite end of the Dead Sea to Jericho; (3) the name Sodom is generally identified with Jebel Usdum, a cliff of rock-salt near the S.W. corner of the Dead Sea; (4) Hazazon-tamar may be, not En-gedi, but the Tamar of Ezk 47:19, which has been identified with a locality 20 m. W.S.W. of the lake, and therefore on the road between Kadesh and Sodom if the latter were at its S. end. If this view is right, the site of the cities is probably the marshy flat es-Sebkha, E. of Jebel Usdum. But the statement that the plain (or circle) of Jordan was near Jericho seems incompatible with a situation S. of the Dead Sea; and if the name Sodom survives in Jebel Usdum, that of Gomorrah seems to linger in that of Tubk Amriyeh, a place at the N.W. corner of the lake; so that, though the evidence is conflicting, the preponderant weight appears to support a N. site. (For the other view see Driver’s art. ‘Zoar’ in Hastings’ DB).

The nature of the catastrophe which destroyed the cities can only be conjectured. It may perhaps be suggested that the bitumen which abounds in the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea was ignited by lightning, and that this caused an extensive conflagration in which the cities perished.

G. W. WADE.

PLAISTER, PLASTER.—1. See ARTS AND CRAFTS, § 4. HOUSE, § 4.

2. The ‘piaister’ (Is 38:21; Amer. RV etc., ‘piaster’) which Isaiah prescribed for Hezekiah’s boil was a fig-pouitice, according to the text of 2 K 20:7, but the parallel passage above cited reads literaily, ‘Let them take a cake of figs and rub it upon the boll.’

A. R. S. KENNEDY.

PLANE.—Is 44:18 only; see ARTS AND CRAFTS, § 1. For ‘plane tree’ see CHESTNUT TREE, PINE TREE.

PLEAD.—In AV ‘plead’ always means to ‘argue for or against a cause’ as in a court of justice, never to ‘pray’ or ‘beseech.’ The substantive ‘pleading’ is used in the same sense in Job

13:8 ‘Hearken to the pleadings of my lips.’

PLEDGE.—The taking of a pledge for the re-payment of a loan was sanctioned by the Law, but a humanitarian provision was introduced to the effect that, when this pledge consisted of the large square outer garment or cioak called simlah, it must be returned before nightfali, since this garment often formed the only covering of the poor at night (Ex 22:26f., Dt 24:12f.; cf. Am 2:8, Job 22:6, 24:9, Ezk 18:7, 12, 16, 33:15). It was forbidden also to take the mill or the upper millstone as a pledge (Dt 24:6). In Is 36:8 the reference is to a pledge to be forfeited if a wager is lost (cf. RVm). In I S 17:18 ‘take their pledge’ probably means ‘bring back a token of their welfare’ (Driver).

PLEIADES.—See STARS.

PLEROMA.—The transliteration of a Gr. word which is generally rendered ‘fulness’ in the NT. plērōma is derived from the verb plēroun, which means either (a) ‘to fill,’ or (b) ‘to fill up,’ hence ‘to fulfil.’ The corresponding meanings of the noun are (a) ‘fulness,’ (b) ‘fulfilment.’

1. pleroma = ‘that which fills.’—The word has this meaning in the LXX version of Ps 24:1 ( cf. LXX Ezk 5:2, Dn 10:3) quoted in 1 Co 10:26 ‘The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof’; also in Mk 6:48 (cf. 8:20), where the fragments of the loaves are described as amounting to ‘the fillings of twelve baskets.’

2. pleroma = ‘that which fills up.’—The word has this meaning in Mk 2:21 (cf. Mt 9:18) which refers to the effect of sewing a piece of undressed cloth on a worn garment: ‘That which should fill it up (to plērōma) taketh from it, the new from the old, and a worse rent is made.’ Lightfoot says the patch ‘must be calied’ the plērōma’ not because it fills the hole, but because it is itself fulness or full measure as regards the defect.’ His paraphrase is ‘the completeness takes away from the garment, the new completeness of the old garment’ (Com. on Col., Note on ‘The meaning of plērōma’). The obscurity of this statement is removed by the active interpretation; the supplementary ‘unfulled’ patch takes away from the original garment. The new piece used to fill up the rent’ tears itself away by contraction when wetted, taking a part of the old garment along with it’ (Bruce, EGT i. 153).

To this section belong: (a) Ro 13:10, which contrasts partial fulfilment of the Law, secured by obedience to this or that commandment, with love’s complete filling up of the measure of neighbourly duty. (b) Ro 11:12, which contrasts the enriching of the Gentiles through Israel’s loss with what Dr. Armitage Robinson (Com. on Eph.) happily describes as ‘wealth in store for them in the great Return, when all Israel shall be saved—“when God hath made the pile complete!” ’ (c) Ro 11:25, in which the coming in of ‘the fulness of the Gentiles’ refers to the completing of their whole number. The same idea is expressed in the phrase ‘the fulness of the seasons’ (Eph 1:10 RVm; cf. ‘the fulness of the time,’ Gal 4:4).

3. pleroma = ‘that which is filled,’ or ‘that which is filled up.’—In its passive use plērōma means ‘plenitude,’ whether fulness is contrasted with incompleteness or with emptiness. As the plenipotentiary of Christ, St. Paul (Ro 15:29) is confident that he will come to Rome ‘in the fulness of the blessing of Christ.’

Six important passages remain; they may be classified according as ‘the plenitude Divine’ is said to be (a) in Christ, (b) imparted by Christ to His Church, (c) imparted to believers.

(a) In Col 2:9 St. Paul declares that in Christ ‘dweileth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.’ The assertion ‘negatives the Alexandrian “philosophy” with its cloud of mediating angei-powers and spiritual emanations’ (Findlay, Pulpit Com., in loc.) . The defining phrase ‘of the Godhead’ is not found in Col 1:19, which bases the pre-eminence of Christ on the indwelling in Him of ‘all the fulness.’ Instead of making this expression identical in meaning with the more definite statement in 2:9, it is better with Meyer (Com., in loc.) to expound pleroma as referring to ‘the whole treasure of Divine grace’ with which the Son of God was endowed. A suggestive parallel to these Pauline sayings is furnished by Jn 1:16, ‘of his fulness we all received, and grace for grace.’ The fulness is ours, if we are Christ’s. ‘In him,’ says St. Paul (Col 2:10), ‘ye are made full.’

(b) In Eph 1:23 it is probable that St. Paul describes the Church as ‘the fulness of him that filleth all in all.’ The main thought is what Christ is to the Church; He is its Head and in Him it is complete. Dr. Armitage Robinson (op. cit.) regards the Church as ‘the fulfilment of the Christ who, all in all, is being fulfilled.’ According to this interpretation the main thought is what the Church is to Christ. Moreover, the adverbial phrase ‘all in all’ seems inadequate to express the meaning of the emphatic assertion: He filleth ‘the all with all things.’ The objection to the active rendering of the verb (plēroumenou) , which is middle or passive, does not apply to Dr.

Salmond’s exposition of the reflexive middle: it conveys ‘the idea of filling the totality of things for Himself (EGT iii. 281).

(c) To individual believers as well as to His Church Christ imparts the plenitude of His grace. Eph 4:13 gives the measure of the stature of the ‘full grown’ Christian; it is nothing less than the fulness which belongs to Christ, by which is meant ‘the full possession on our side of that which Christ has to impart—the embodiment in us, the members, of the graces and qualities which are in Him the Head’ (Salmond, EGT iii. 333). An earlier passage in this Epistle (3:16ff.) teaches that this exalted ideal may be attained. When, as the result of the Holy Spirit’s inward strengthening, Christ dweils within the heart, and His knowledge-surpassing love is known, the only limit to spiritual excellence is’ to be filled unto all the fulness of God.’

J. G. TASKER. PLOUGH.—See AGRICULTURE, § 1.

PLUMBLINE, PLUMMET.—The latter is a diminutive of ‘piumb,’ from Lat. plumbum, ‘iead,’ and denotes the combined cord and weight, by suspending which against a wali it can be seen whether or not the latter is perpendicular. On the strength of Zec 4:10 (lit. ‘the stone, the tin,’ not ‘iead’; cf. AVm) it has been inferred that the Hebrew masons used a plumb-bob of iead, but the text of this passage is undoubtedly corrupt (Wellh., Marti, Nowack). The Hebrew plummet (2 K 21:13, Is 28:17) more probably consisted of a stone (Is 34:11 AV, but RV

‘plummet’) suspended by a cord, the ‘piumbline’ of Am 7:7ff., Cf. ARTS AND CRAFTS, § 3.

A. R. S. KENNEDY.

POCHERETH-HAZZEBAIM.—Among the ‘children of Solomon’s servants’ who returned with Zerubbabel. Ezr 2:57 = Neh 7:59; called in 1 Es 5:34 Phacareth.

POETRY.—1 . The presence of poetry in the Bible is natural and fitting. As it is the form of composition which is easiest to memorize, whether in the earlier stages of a literature, or later in the expression of common religious experience, it is natural that poetry should be preserved, and should be the preserver of Hebrew thought. As the form of literature which is concrete in its pictures, it is to be expected that the Hebrew people, to whom abstract thought and terminology are almost unknown, would employ it very freely. As the literature of emotion and imagination, it is naturally used to express religious emotion and religious ideals. It does not suffice, however, to state the fitness of poetry to satisfy in a measure the purposes for which the Bible was written. Does it actually contain poetry? The answer is to be found only by examination of its contents, and only an affirmative answer is possible. Though the Psalms have not been written in poetical form for two thousand years, yet their poetry cannot be obscured. Scholars may differ as to the forms and laws of Hebrew poetry, yet they do not venture to say that none is to be found in the Bible.

The presence of poetry must he recognized if one would gain any adequate knowledge of the Scriptures. Otherwise correct interpretation is impossible. From failure in this respect in the past, our theology has suffered, the warfare between the Bible and science has been intensified if not caused, and Christians have lost immeasurably the comfort and spiritual help available from this kind of literature. Poetry must be interpreted as poetry. To apply to it the same principles of exegesis as are applied to prose is highly absurd; for in attempting to mark the differences between prose and poetry we must go below the form of language, and note that there is a distinctly poetic mode of thought and range of ideas. The facts of experience are so grouped and wrought upon by the imagination as to become a new creation. The singer is not bound to time or place; he speaks in figure without knowing that it is a figure; he speaks in hyperbole because he does not have the sense of proportion. The poetry of the thought affects also the vocahulary of the singer; it modifies his word meanings, and affects his grammar. It alters his literary style, and there arises a distinct study, that of literature as poetry—a study in which the attempt is made to discover how poetical forms express the poetical thought of the writer.

2. In treating the poetry of the Bible we are concerned chiefly with the OT. The NT has a few poetical sections (see HYMN) , but these are confessedly Hebrew in character, and do not call for independent treatment here. As compared with the OT, the NT contains very little poetry, for the obvious reason that Christianity, early and late, has largely found the Hebrew Psalter sufficient for its devotional purposes.

3. What are the characteristics of Hebrew poetry? They must be found from an inductive study of recognized poetical sections of the OT. A certain part of the Scriptures is clearly poetry; a certain other part is clearly prose. Between the two there is a great amount of literature, especially in the prophetical books, about which there is a difference of opinion. It is called poetry or prose according to the scholar’s definitions and his zeal in making emendations. There are prose poems, products of real poetical imagination, and artistic in form, but lacking in poetic rhythm. These doubtful passages should he left out of account until the essential principles of the poetry of the Hebrew people are determined, and then the test can be reasonably applied to them. Such has not always been the mode of procedure on the part of scholars. Sometimes their aim seems to have been to discover new examples, whether by direct study or by inexact methods. One cannot look very deeply into the subject without discovering the most extreme differences of opinion among scholars. There is abundant reason for this state of things. The very reasons which make the presence of poetry in the Bible natural and fitting, operate to make its definition difficult. The more natural the poetic expression of thought and feeling, the freer it will be from conventional regulation, and the less sharp will be the difference between the prose and the poetical literature of a people. And again, in Hebrew so many facts are lost upon which we are wont to place dependence in such a study, that until we get new light from without, any scheme of Hebrew metre must be merely a working hypothesis, and no complete system can be expected. There is not a commanding tradition of the pronunciation of the language, whether we think of vowels, syllables, or accent. We have no knowledge of Hebrew music of a character that would aid in determining the rhythm of the poems that were sung to its accompaniment. Even the consonantal text is corrupt, in many places confessedly so; and there is almost no place so certain that a new scholar does not feel himself free to arise and emend it, and so win his spurs. Under these circumstances wide differences of opinion are to be expected, and their existence must be endured patiently. If there is any ridicule justifiable, it should he expended, with extreme caution, upon those who, ignoring these many points of uncertainty which necessarily limit the value of their inductions, formulate an elaborate and microscopically minute system of metre, and then turn confidently round and use the system to emend the text so as to bring it to its original condition. Rhythmical considerations may to a certain extent enter into literary and textual criticism, but unsupported they cannot be convincing.

The OT is not quite destitute of evidence that the Hebrews themselves were conscious of a difference between their prose and their poetry. They had special names for ‘proverb’ and ‘song’; they provided the Psalms with headings, some of which must have been musical directions; they made alphabetical poems, the several lines or stanzas of which begin with the letters of the alphabet in regular order. These lines and stanzas are of equal length and similar rhythm. Some of the poems inserted in the prose books are written and printed line by line, as Ex 15, Dt 32, Jg 5, 2 S 22; and for the three poetical books of the canon the Massoretes of later times provided a special system of pointing, thereby recognizing a distinction that must have had its basis in tradition, although the special pointing was not to preserve the poetic value.

Passing over, with the brief allusion already made, the peculiarities of thought, of vocabulary, and of grammar which poetry reveals, the features that one expects to find in OT poetry concern the line, and the stanza or strophe. (1) The line is so constructed that when it is read aloud it sounds agreeable to the ear by virtue of a distinct rhythm; this rhythm is repeated with little or no variation from line to line; the end of the line coincides with a break in the sense. The line is properly regarded as the unit of poetical expression. It is commonly of a length to be uttered with a single breath, and, if sung, a brief strain of music suffices to accompany it. The fundamental importance of the line makes it desirable to determine, if possible, what are the rules for its length, and what is the nature of the measurement that secures the rhythmical effect so universally recognizable. The history of the search for a satisfactory system of metre cannot be given here. Classical models, with quantity as a basis, were long ago abandoned; one group of scholars discard the Massoretic accents, and attempt an explanation on the basis of Syriac metre, counting syllables, and accenting alternate ones; but the predominant theories are accentual. Of these some have reckoned only the rises (accented syllables), and others count the falls also, permitting only a certain number of them to intervene between rises. This number is made to depend on the metrical value of the syllables, which, according to some scholars, is determined by the number of morœ, or time units, which they contain.

It should be remembered that we are dealing with an early form of an ancient literature, and that this literature is an Oriental one. This creates a very strong presumption against an elaborate and minute system of metre. The Hebrew language was indeed dominated by tradition, which made it difficult to alter established practice; but in case the tradition was one of freedom on the part of the writer to construct his poem as he chose, it naturally operated to keep him free from the complicated rules which spring up in the later periods of the life of a language.

Until the contrary is shown on other grounds, it must be assumed that the Hebrew accent system, differing traditionally from Arabic and Syriac, differed from them actually; and as the traditional grammatical forms depend largely upon the accent, the natural Inference is that it is an important feature of the language. If so, it may he supposed that it is important also in poetry. The view that seems best to suit the facts as they exist, that makes the smallest demands in the way of departure from ordinary prose style, and that yields at the same time results reasonably satisfying to the poetic feeling, is this: the line was composed of a definite number of accents, or, as ordinarily each word had one accent, of a definite number of words. This view does not fit all the lines of every poem; but the possibility of exceptions at the will of the writer is a part of the theory. Moreover, the percentage of exceptions is very likely not greater than that of probable corruptions in the text. It is not to be counted as an exception when, in order to secure the regular number of accents, two short words must be pronounced as one, as is so often done for other reasons with the insertion of a maqqeph (־) , or when a word exceptionally long and heavy must be pronounced with two accents for the same purpose. (2) The next higher unit is the group of lines taken together. The name strophe might be applied to all such groups, but it is usually reserved for the larger groups. The smallest group—the couplet or distich—exhibits the most characteristic feature of the poetry of the language, namely Parallelism, a name given by Lowth in 1753. The lines are so related to each other that there is a correspondence of parts, both in form and in sense. It is not confined exclusively to poetry, for it is nothing but the development of the idea of balance and euphony of parts which is found in elevated prose style, especially such as is uttered orally. The mind more easily grasps the thought of a second clause, if fashioned like an earlier one. It is less occupied with the form, for that is already familiar. It is also, and doubtless for that very reason, more agreeable to the ear. What is desirable in prose, and often used there, becomes the rule in poetry, as one may easily understand when one considers the necessity of a uniform line for the sake of easy utterance with musical accompaniment. It is by its persistence and uniformity that parallelism certifies to the poetical nature of a passage. This parallelism is of the utmost importance in determining the meaning of a verse. While its adoption as a poetical form has a logical basis, once let it become the rule for such composition, and it cannot fail to operate to modify the thought as well as the form. What would otherwise appear to be a careful choice of synonyms, for example, perhaps to secure climacteric effect, may be simply the operation of this principle. So the unusual position of a word in a clause may be traceable to this rather than to a desire to secure special emphasis.

Several distinct forms of parallelism have been observed.

(a) Synonymous parallelism.—The thought of the two lines is synonymous, and so are the several terms by which the thought is expressed.

How shall I curse whom God hath not cursed?

And how shall I defy whom Jahweh hath not defied?—( Nu 23:8).

(b) Antithetic parallelism.—The second line expresses the same real truth as the first, but it does it antithetically. The form is truly parallel, and one member of the lines is synonymous, the other two contrasted. This is especially common in proverbs.

A wise son maketh a glad father,

But a foolish son is the heaviness of his mother.—( Pr 10:1).

(c) Stair-like or ascending rhythm.—The thought of the first line is repeated in part, or, if entirely, more briefly, so that the second line can add a further item of thought, thus rising above the parallel line.

Till thy people pass over, Jahweh,

Till thy people pass over, which thou hast purchased.—( Ex 15:6).

(d) Synthetic parallelism.—The thought of the second line is entirely different or supplementary, none of the first being repeated. The distich remains in parallelism, for the two lines correspond in form.

Answer not a fool according to his folly, Lest thou also be like unto him.—( Pr 26:4).

Other varieties are often singled out for discussion, and it will not be supposed that a typical form is always to be discovered. The variations and combinations are very numerous, and the study of them is full of interest and novelty.

The two-line group, or distich, has been considered above, as the simplest in which parallelism can be observed. It is also by far the commonest. Three lines grouped in a similar way are not uncommon. In this case the first and second may be synonymous, and the third synthetic to them; or other combinations may be found. Moreover, distiches may be arranged in pairs, with the same parallelism as between single lines of the distich. It often occurs that several lines are grouped together so regularly that a stanza or strophe is recognizable. It may be marked off by a line repeated as a refrain, or by a special initial letter, in alphabetical poems; but such indications are not of common occurrence. Absolute regularity in length is not often found, and scholars often attempt to secure it by assuming the loss or insertion of a couplet or two. There is also no specific principle distinct from the parallelism above mentioned, to form the basis of a strophical division. It seems likely, then, that strophes are not to be regarded as an essential feature of Hebrew poetry, like the stanzas of a hymn that is to be sung; but that the grouping is entirely optional and ordinarily logical—a literary feature. Rhyme and assonance are known in the language, but are not used persistently throughout a poem, and cannot be anticipated or reduced to rule when present.

3. By far the greater part of the OT poetry is of course religious and ethical, as the Psalms, Proverbs, and Job ( see artt.). Outside of these books, however, is an interesting and by no means small amount of poetry which the Bible student may profitably study for its literary and historical value.

In family and social life, poetry evidently had a large place. Marriage occasions furnished the very best opportunity for the composition of songs, and for their execution to the accompaniment of music. Such are the songs in the Book of Canticles. The wedding song evidently furnished the model of the passage Is 5:1ff. Lamentation for the dead is also an evidence. The finest example is that of David over Saul and Jonathan (2 S 1:17ff.). A part of a lament by him over Abner is found in 2 S 3:33f. The tenderness and fitness of these utterances are very different from the stereotyped dirges of which there is notice in Jer 9:16 (17). The character of these may be seen from the Book of Lamentations, where the poet laments over the city as over a person. The first four of the five poems of this book are alphabetical, a strong mark of artificiality, which is further emphasized by the choice of a peculiar rhythm, known as the elegiac rhythm. There is a long line, commonly broken by a cæsura. The first half contains three beats or rises, the ordinary length of the Hebrew line. The second half has hut two. In ordinary rhythm it would have three, and would form a second line in parallelism with the first. The same rhythm is detected in a few passages of similar import in the prophets. There are allusions, too numerous to cite, to the use of songs at feasts of various kinds, and at the drunken revels against which the prophets protest. Nu 21:17f. is claimed to he an example of the songs often sung to celebrate the discovery of a spring or the successful digging of a well. The religious use of poetry is scarcely to be distinguished from its national use. For when Jahweh could be addressed as the God of the hosts of Israel, poems composed to incite or reward bravery could not fail to make use of religious as well as of patriotic emotions to secure their end. See, for example, Jg 5.

O. H. GATES.

POLE (SACRED).—See ASHERAH, 3, 4.

POLL.—‘By the poll’ (Nu 3:47) is ‘by the head.’ Cf. Shaks. Hamlet, IV. v. 196, ‘All flaxen was his poll. The idea in the Hebrew word is ‘roundness,’ and so to ‘poll’ the head is to give it the appearance of roundness by cutting off the hair. Cf. More, Utopia, ed. Arber, p. 49, Their heades he not polled or shanen, but rounded a lytle about the eares.’

POLLUX.—See DIOSCURI.

POLYGAMY.—See FAMILY, MARRIAGE.

POMEGRANATE (rimmōn, Arah. rummān).—Tree and fruit (Ex 28:33f., 39:24–26 , Nu

13:23, 20:5, Dt 8:8, 1 S 14:2, 1 k 7:18, 20, 42, 2 K 25:17, 2 Ch 3:16, 4:13, Ca 4:3, 13, 6:7, 7:12 , 8:2, Jer 52:22f., Jl 1:12, Hag 2:19). The pomegranate (Punica granatum) is one of the familiar fruit trees of the OT; it is usually a shrub, hut may attain the height of a tree (1 S 14:2); it was much admired for its beauty (Ca 4:3, 6:11), and its flower was copied in ornamentation (Ex 28:33 , 1 K 7:13). Its dark green leaves and brilliant scarlet blossom make it a peculiarly attractive object, especially when growing in orchards (Ca 4:13), mixed with trees of other shades of green; its buds develop with the tender grapes (Ca 7:12), and the round, reddish fruit, with its hrilliant crimson, juicy seeds, ripens at the time of the vintage. The fruit is a favourite food, and the hark a valued astringent medicine.

E. W. G. MASTERMAN.

POMMEL.—See BOWL.

POND.—See POOL.

PONTUS.—In the earliest times of which we have any knowledge, this name, meaning ‘sea’ in Greek, was used by Greeks to indicate vaguely country bordering on or near the Black Sea. From its importance for the corn supply of Greece, the Black Sea and the land around it came to be known as ‘the sea’ par excellence. As time went on the term gradually became confined to the country to the south of the Black Sea. It was not till about B.C. 302 that a kingdom was here formed. In that year, consequent upon the troubles due to the early death of Alexander the Great, a certain Mithradates was able to carve out for himself a kingdom beyond the river Halys in N.E. Asia Minor, and about B.C. 281 he assumed the title of king. It is not possible to define the exact extent of the territory ruled by this king and his descendants, but it is certain that it included part of the country previously called Cappadocia, some of the mountain tribes near the Black Sea coasts, and part of Pophiagonia; and also certain that its extent varied from time to time. The Mithradatic dynasty lasted till B.C. 63 . In the preceding year the kingdom ceased to exist, and part of it was incorporated in the Roman Empire under the name Pontus, and this district henceforth constituted one-half of the combined province Bithynia-Pontus, which was put under one governor. The remaining portions of the old kingdom were distributed in other ways. The civil wars helped Pharnaces, a son of the last Mithradates, to acquire the whole of his father’s kingdom, but his brief reign ended in defeat by Julius Cæsar (B.C. 47) . The narrowed kingdom of Pontus was re-constituted by Mark Antony in B.C. 39, and given in B.C. 36 to Polemon, who founded a dynasty, which ruled over this kingdom till A.D. 63. The daughter of this Polemon, Queen Tryphæna, is mentioned in the apocryphal book, The Acts of Paul and Thecla, as having been present at a great Imperial festival at Pisidian Antioch in the reign of the Emperor Claudius, whose blood-relation she was. This statement is no doubt founded on fact. These Acts relate that she protected the Christian maiden Thecla, and was converted, through her instrumentality, to Christianity. As tradition connects Bartholomew also with the Polemonian dynasty, it is probable that there were some Christians among them. In A.D. 63 the kingdom of Pontus had been brought to a sufficiently high pitch of civilization to be admitted into the Roman Empire; the western part was made a region of the province Galatia, and the eastern was added to Cappadocia. The dispossessed Polemon was given a Cilician kingdom, and it was as king of part of Cilicia that be (later than A.D. 63) married Berenice.

In the 1st cent. A.D., therefore, the name Pontus had various significations, and a strict nomenclature was available for their distinction. The province was Pontus, Polemon’s kingdom was Pontus Polemoniacus (incorporated into province Galatia A.D. 63), the part of Mithradates’ old kingdom incorporated in the province Galatia (B.C. 3–2) was Pontus Galaticus, and the regions that lay E. of Pontus Polemoniacus, between the Black Sea and Armenia, were known as Pontus Cappadocicus. (Into the difficult question of the institution of this fourth district we cannot enter here.) From about A.D. 78 to 106 P. Galaticus and P. Polemoniacus were included in the combined provinces Galatia and Cappadocia, and after A.D. 106 they constituted permanent parts of the province Cappadocia. In 1 P 1:1 Pontus means clearly the Roman province. There is little doubt that the adjective Pontikos, applied to Aquila in Ac 18:2, means that, though a Jew, he was a native of the Roman province, and it is interesting in connexion with this to mention that an inscription has recently been found referring to one Aquila at Sinope, one of the principal cities of the Roman province Pontus. The only remaining NT reference to Pontus (Ac 2:9) cannot be so easily explained. It must be left uncertain whether the name Pontus there is used strictly of the province, or more loosely of the kingdom, or of the kingdom and the province together.

Christianity was not brought to Pontus by St. Paul, if we can trust the silence of Acts, and it is best to do so. From 1 Peter it is clear that about the year 80, the probable date of the Epistle, there were Christians in that country, and these converts from paganism to Christianity probably came there from the Asian coasts or from Rome. There is a well-known and valuable testimony to the prevalence of Christianity in the province, belonging to the period A.D. 111–113 . At that time the younger Pliny was governor of the province Bithynia-Pontus, and addressed inquiries to the Emperor Trajan on the manner in which Christians ought to be treated by the administration.

He reports that many men and women of all ages and of every rank in town and country were

Christians, and that some had abandoned the faith 20 or 25 years before. After Pliny’s time Pontus continued to be a stronghold of Christianity. From here came the famous Marcion ( born about 120 at Sinope), and of this province Aquila, a translator of the OT into Greek, was a native.

A. SOUTER.

POOL, POND.—’ăgam, a collection of standing water, is distinguished from miqweh, a place into which water flows, or is led (Ex 7:19). The former may denote the water left in the hollows when the inundation of the Nile subsides, and the latter, reservoirs (cf. Gn 1:10, Lv 11:36). AV tr. ’ăgam ‘pond,’ in Ex 7:19, 8:6; RV uniformly ‘pool’ (Is 14:23 etc.). bĕrēikah (2 S 2:13, 4:12 etc.) is = Arab, birkeh, an artificial pond or tank. It is applied to great reservoirs constructed to furnish water for cities, or for irrigation, like that at Gibeon (2 S 2:18), those at Hebron (2 S 4:12), and at Jerusalem (2 K 18:17), etc.; and also to large basins, such as lend freshness to the courts of the houses in Damascus. The usual LXX equivalent is kolumbēthra, the word used in NT for the pools of Bethesda and Siloam (Jn 5:2, 9:7). In Is 19:10 read with RV ‘all they that work for hire shall be grieved in soul.’ See also HESHBON.

W. EWINO. POOR.—See POVERTY.

POPLAR (libneh [ root meaning ‘white’] Gn 30:37’ RVm ‘storax’; Hos 4:13. The Heb. is very similar to Arab, lubna meaning ‘storax,’ which is the LXX tr. in Gn 30:37; on the other hand, in Hos 4:12 the LXX has leukē [‘white’], i.e. the ‘poplar’).—The poplar may easily have furnished Jacob with white rods. There are two kinds of poplar in Syria, Populus alba and P. euphratica; they both flourish round Damascus, where their trunks are much used in making supports for the mud roofs.

E. W. G. MASTERMAN.

PORATHA.—The fourth son of Haman (Est 9:8).

PORCH.—This word is a doublet of ‘portico’ (from Lat. porticus) , both originally denoting a covered entrance to a building. When the front of this entrance is supported on pillars, the porch becomes a portico. particus, like the Gr. stoa, was extended to signify a roofed colonnade running round a public building such as a temple, or enclosing an open space, like the cloisters of a mediæval monastery. The most famous of these ‘porches’—a sense in which the word is now obsolete—were the ‘painted porch’—the Porch par excellence—at Athens, and Solomon’s porch at Jerusalem (see below).

In the OT a porch is named chiefly in connexion with the Temple (see below), or with the palace ( wh. see) of Solomon. The pillars of the temple of Dagon at Gaza which Samson pulled down, or rather slid from their stone bases, were probably two of those supporting the portico, as ingeniously explained by Macalister, Bible Sidelights, etc., ch. vii. (see HOUSE, § 5) . The word rendered ‘porch’ in Jg 3:23 is of quite uncertain meaning and even of doubtful authenticity.

In the NT, in connexion with the trial of Jesus, mention is made of a ‘porch’ or, as RVm, ‘forecourt’ (Mk 14:63), as distinguished from the ‘court’ (v. 66 RV) of the high priest’s palace, for which Mt 26:71 (EV ‘porch’) has a word elsewhere rendered ‘gate.’ In both cases the covered gateway leading from the street to the court is probably meant.

Solomon’s porch ( Jn 10:23, Ac 3:11, 5:12) was a covered colonnade or cloister running along the east side of the Temple enclosure (see TEMPLE, § 1 (a) , where the triple colonnade of Herod’s temple—the ‘Royal Porch’ of Josephus—is also discussed. For details see ExpT, Nov. 1908 , p. 68). A similar colonnade enclosed the pool of Bethesda (Jn 5:2).

A. R. S. KENNEDY.

PORCUPINE.—See BITTERN.

PORPOISE.—Ex 25:5, Ezk 16:10 RVm. See BADGERS’ SKINS.

PORT.—The ‘port’ of Neh 2:13 is a ‘gate,’ the same Heb. word being translated’ gate’ in the same verse. Cf. Pr.-Bk. version of Ps 9:14 ‘Within the ports of the daughter of Sion.’

PORTER in EV has always the sense of ‘doorkeeper’ (see HOUSE, § 6) or ‘gatekeeper’ (see FORTIFICATION AND SIEGECRAFT, § 5, end). In Jn 10:3 the porter is the man left in charge of a sheepfold by the shepherd or shepherds whose sheep are there housed for the night. In private houses the doorkeeper might be a woman (2 S 4:6 as restored from LXX, Ac 12:13). In OT, however, porters are most frequently named in the Books of Chron., Ezr„ and Neh. in connexion with the Temple (1 Ch 9:17f. onwards), where they had charge of the various gates (see TEMPLE,

§ 6, PRIESTS AND LEVITES, § III. 1, 2). The same word is rendered doorkeepers in AV 1 Ch

15:23 f., and in several other places in RV (15:19 etc.). It is to be regretted that this term was not substituted throughout. In Ps 84:10 the original is different, and should probably be rendered: ‘I had rather be [standing or lying] at the threshold in the house of my God.’

A. R. S. KENNEDY.

POSIDONIUS.—An envoy sent by Nicanor to Judas (2 Mac 14:18).

POSSESSION

1. Meaning of the term.—The central idea in the word is the coercive seizing of the spirit of a man by another spirit, viewed as superhuman, with the result that the man’s will is no longer free but is controlled, often against his wish, by this indwelling person or power. In Scripture the idea is associated with both phases of moral character; and a man may be possessed by Christ or the Holy Spirit, or by a or the devil. Later usage has confined the word mainly, though not exclusively, to possession by an evil spirit. Of the better possession there are several kinds of instances in both Testaments. It is sometimes represented, according to the more material psychology of early times, as the seizure of a man by an external power, though the internal occupation is implied, and the control is none the less complete (1 S 10:10, Is 61:1; cf. the frequent ‘the hand of the Lord was upon’ him, 1 K 18:46: so of an evil spirit, 1 S 18:10). The inspiration of the prophets is in some places described as effected by a supernatural agency occupying the seat of personality within the prophet, and controlling or moving him (Lk 1:70, 1 P 1:11, 2 P 1:21, 2 Es 14:22). In personal religion not only is the transference of authority within to the indwelling Christ spoken of (Jn 17:23, Gal 2:20), but the Holy Spirit also may seize and possess a man (Ac 2:1, Lk 1:15, Ro 8:9, Eph 5:18), and should rule in him (Eph 4:30). But this involves a welcome and glad submission to the sway of a spirit within, though personal wishes may be thwarted or crossed (Ac 16:7). Demoniacal possession, on the other hand, is characterized by the reluctance of the sufferer, who is often conscious of the hateful tyranny under which he is held and against which his will rebels in vain.

2. Features of demoniacal possession.—In such possession two features may generally be traced. It is allied with and yet distinct from physical disease, and there is almost always something abnormal with respect to the psychical development or defect of the sufferer. It is given as the explanation in cases of dumbness (Mt 9:32, Lk 11:14), of deafness and dumbness (Mk 9:25), of dumbness and blindness (Mt 12:22), of curvature of the spine (Lk 13:11), and of epilepsy (Mk 1:25). Elsewhere such complaints are referred to as merely disease, and no

suggestion is made that they were caused or complicated by the action of an evil spirit (Mt 15:30, Mk 7:32, Lk 18:25). Sometimes possession and disease are even distinguished by different enumeration (Mt 10:8, Mk 1:32, Lk 6:17f., 7:21, 13:32); and once at least epileptics (or lunatics) and palsied occupy a different category from demoniacs (Mt 4:24). The right conclusion seems to be that the same disease was in some cases ascribed to ordinary causes and in others to possession, the distinguishing feature being possibly intractability due to the violence of permanence of the symptoms. Evidence that the disorder was at the same time of a psychical or nervous character is plentiful. According to Arab belief, something abnormal in the appearance, such as a strange look in the eyes or an unusual catching in the throat, was an invariable symptom, and both are indications of nervous excitement or alarm. The will was paralyzed (Mk 9:18) , and the sufferer was under the influence of illusions (Jn 7:20). He identified himself with the demons, and was averse to deliverance (Mk 1:24, 5:7). In such cases Jesus does not follow His usual course of exciting faith before he heals, but acts as though the sufferer were not in a fit state to believe or to trust, and must be dealt with forcibly first of all. Some confident and majestic word is spoken, of which the authority is immediately recognized; and only then, when the proper balance of the mind has been restored, is an attempt made to communicate religious blessing.

3. Our Lord’s belief.—Two opinions have been held as to whether Christ actually shared the current views of His day as to demoniacal possession. That He seemed to do so is attested on almost every page of the Synoptics, (a) According to one opinion, this was nothing more than a seeming, and His attitude towards the phenomena must be explained as a gracious accommodation to the views of the age. In addition to the serious objection that such a theory introduces an unwelcome element of unreality into Christ’s teaching, and implies a lack of candour on His part, the arguments in its favour are singularly ineffective. To assert that Christ never entangled His teaching with contemporary ideas is to prejudge the very question at issue. That He adopted different methods from those followed by professional exorcists, whose success He expressly attests (Mt 12:27), is exactly what His difference in person from them would cause to be expected, but does not necessarily involve a difference in theory. To humour a patient by falling in with his hallucination is not a correct description of Christ’s procedure; for in many of the instances the treatment is peremptory and stern (cf. Mk 9:25, where the sufferer was not consulted, and any humouring followed the cure; so elsewhere), and the evil spirits are represented after expulsion as actual and still capable of mischief (Mk 5:13). Christ’s own language is itself significant. He makes the current belief the basis of argument (Lk 11:16ff.), attributes the power to cast out devils to the disciples of the Pharisees, and implicitly asserts it for Himself (Mk 12:27f., Lk 11:19f.), and recognizes the power as resident in others (Mk 9:38f., Mt 7:22) , without a single intimation that He was speaking in metaphor, and that His hearers were blundering in assuming that He meant what He said.

(b) The real explanation is to be found in quite another direction. His humanity was true and complete, the humanity of the age into which He was born; and of His Divine attributes He’ emptied himself’ (Ph 2:7, 2 Co 8:9, 13:4), except to the extent to which His perfect human nature might be the organ of their manifestation (Bruce, Humiliation of Christ, 136 ff.; Ottley, Doct. of Incarnation, 610 ff.). In virtue of this voluntary self-limitation, His humanity was not lifted clear of the intellectual atmosphere of His time; but He shared the conceptions and views of the people amongst whom He became incarnate, though His sinlessness and the welcomed guidance of the Holy Spirit aided His human intelligence, removing some of the worst hindrances to correct thinking, but not making Him in any sense a prodigy in advance of His age in regard to human knowledge. Accordingly, He avoids the extreme and exaggerated demonology into which an unduly extended animistic interpretation of the universe was leading His contemporaries, but does not reject or question the interpretation itself. At a later date there was a disposition to ascribe all diseases to possession, to multiply evil spirits beyond calculation, and to invest them with functions and activities of the most grotesque kind. Christ’s attitude was altogether different, though He consistently talks and acts upon the assumption that evil spirits were no creatures of the fancy, and that possession was a real phenomenon.

That such an assumption was wrong it is outside the province of the real sciences to assert or to deny; and there are some considerations that make the conclusion at least probable, that personal spirits of evil exist, and cause by their activity some woeful sufferings amongst men. Metaphysics postulates transcendent personal power as the original cause of material phenomena, and is sustained in so doing by all that a man knows concerning the roots of his own moral procedure. Immanent in man and outside, there is generally recognized a great spiritual existence, affecting human life in a thousand invisible ways; and the belief in One Supreme Spirit removes most of the difficulties from the belief in others, subordinate yet superhuman. In the asylums and hospitals, moreover, are cases of mental or nervous disease, not entirely explicable by physical law, but looking exceedingly like what cases of possession may be supposed to be; just as in social and civil life men are sometimes met with whose viciousness defies any other interpretation than that an, or the, evil spirit has secured the mastery over them. Psychical research, too, points to a large spiritual population of the world, and all the naturalistic explanations so far suggested have failed to solve the mystery. The conclusion seems probable that demoniacal possession was accepted by Christ as an actual fact, with modifications of the views of His contemporaries in the direction of economy in the bringing in of superhuman agencies, and of their due distinction from processes of physical law.

Possession may further be classed as one of the fundamental and universal beliefs of mankind, with a solid element of truth in it, though running at times of excitement into extravagance. Homer held that a wasting sickness was caused by a demon, and the Greek dramatists generally attribute madness and quasireligious frenzy to demonic or Divine possession. The Egyptians located a demon in each of the thirty-six members of the body; their presence was the cause of disease, which was healed by their expulsion. Seven evil spirits are grouped in Babylonian mythology (Mt 12:45, Mk 16:9, Lk 8:2, 11:26), and these with their subordinate genii kept men in continual fear, and were thought able to occupy the body and produce any kind of sickness. In almost every civilization, ancient as those of the East or rude as those of Central Africa, a similar conception has prevailed; and the prevalence points to a certain rudimentary truth that need not De renounced along with the elaborations by which in the course of ages the actual fact has been overlaid.

R. W. MOSS.

POST.—‘Post’ is used in 2 Ch 30:6, Est 8:14, Job 9:25, Jer 51:31 for ‘a bearer of despatches,’ ‘a runner.’ These runners were chosen from the king’s bodyguard, and were noted for their swiftness, whence Job’s simile (9:25), ‘My days are swifter than a post.’

POST, DOORPOST.—See HOUSE, § 6.

POT.—See HOUSE, § 9.

POTIPHAR.—Gn 39, a high Egyptian official in the story of Joseph. The name is perhaps a deformation of Potiphera (wh. see) or an unsuccessful attempt to form an Egyptian name on the same lines. Potiphar seems to be entitled ‘chief cook’ (EV ‘captain of the guard’), and likewise saris, ‘eunuch’ of Pharaoh. But the former title ‘cook’ may be only a mark of high rank; persons described as royal tasters in the New Kingdom were leaders of expeditions, investigators of criminal cases, judges in the most important trials, etc.; as yet, too, there is little indication that eunuchs were employed in Egypt even at a later period: so this also was but an honorific official title; the Hebrew word saris is actually found attached to the names of Persian officers in Egypt. Joseph was sold to Potiphar, on whose wife’s accusation he was cast into the king’s prison (in Potiphar’s own house), to which Pharaoh afterwards committed his chief butler and chief baker. The office thus held by Potiphar cannot yet be precisely identified in Egyptian documents. In the passage Gn 41:45 and the repeated description of Joseph’s wife, the forms of the names and the title of the priest are much more precisely Egyptian.

F. LL. GRIFFITH.

POTIPHERA.—Gn 41:45, 50, 46:20. The consonants in the Hebrew are an almost exact transcript of the Egyp. Peteprē, ‘Given by the Sun-god,’ a late name found from the 22nd Dyn. onwards; only the letter w (represented by Eng. o) is puzzling. Potiphera, father of Joseph’s wife Asenath (wh. see), was priest of On, i.e. probably high priest of Rē, the Sun-god, in On. He would thus be the head of the most learned sacerdotal college in the country, and of high rank. F. LL. GRIFFITH.

POTSHERD.—See POTTERY.

POTTAGE.—See FOOD, 3.

POTTER, POTTERY.—The artificer (yōtsēr) is first named in 2 S 17:28. This implies the use of pottery at an earlier period. The ancient Egyptians were familiar with its manufacture (Wilk. Anc. Egyp. ii. 190 ff.), and Israel could not be entirely ignorant of it. During their nomad life, however, such brittle material would be little serviceable, and its use would be reduced to a minimum—skins, vessels of wood, metal, etc., being preferred. Skins for water, wine, etc., have been in use at all times, down to the present day (Gn 21:14, Jg 4:19, 1 S 16:20 etc.); but we also find the earthenware pitcher, or jar (kad) , similarly employed (Gn 24:14, Jg 7:18, 1 K 17:12 [EV ‘barrel’] etc.). Only after settlement in Palestine was the art developed to any extent by

Israelites. In the later writings the potter is frequently referred to (Ps 2:9, Is 29:16, Jer 18:2 etc.).

The potter first kneaded the clay with his feet (Is 41:25), then shaped the vessel on the wheel (Jer 18:8). This consisted of two wooden disks attached to a perpendicular axle, the larger being below the work-table. This the potter turned with his foot. The vessel was then fired in an oven (Sir 38:29ff.). In later times the art of glazing was also understood, oxide of lead (‘silver dross’), obtained in refining silver, being used for the purpose (Pr 26:23, Sir 38:30). In Jeremiah’s day the potters seem to have had a stance by the ‘gate of potsherds’ (Jer 18:1, 19:1f., RV ‘gate Harsith’) , prohably in the neighbourhood of the clay pits, where they offered their wares for sale.

The thought of the potter moulding his clay at will is implicit in many passages where yātsar, ‘to form,’ is the verb used (Gn 2:7f., Ps 33:16, 95:5 etc.), and is made explicit in such passages as Is 29:16, 45:9, Ro 9:21 etc.

The reading el ha’ōtsār (Syr.), ‘into the treasury,’ is preferred in Zec 11:13 by many scholars and RVm to MT el hayyōtsēr, ‘unto the potter.’ The passage is one of great difficulty. What is known of the potter’s art in Palestine is due mainly to the work of the Palestine

Exploration Fund, and especially to that carried out by Flinders Petrie, Bliss, and Macalister, at Tell el-Hesy—possibly the ancient Lachish—and elsewhere, from 1890 onwards. The result of their investigations, and discussions by other scholars, are found in the PEFSt; Petrie’s Tell el Hesy; Bliss’s Mound of Many Cities; Excavations in Palestine, by Bliss, Macalister, and Wünsch, etc.

Petrie distinguishes three periods of ancient pottery. 1. Amorite, pre-historic, where the shape and markings of the vessels seem to show that they were moulded on the old leathern vessels. 2. Phœnician, rough and porous in character, often with painted ornamentation, of which possibly metal vessels furnished the models. This may be dated from B.C. 1400 to 1000. 3. Jewish, in which Amorite and Phœnician styles are blended; this apparently belongs to the time of the later monarchy. On many jar handles are legends stamped in characters resembling those of the Siloam inscription. Along with the Jewish, Greek types of pottery are found, ‘chiefly ribbed bowls, and large amphoræ with loop handles. The red and black figured ware was also imported’ (Bliss, in Hastings’ DB iv. 27).

Where pottery of the Seleucid age, with Greek names stamped on the handles, or Roman pottery, ‘ribbed amphoræ, and tiles stamped with the stamp of the tenth legion,’ or Arab glazed ware, is found, sites may be dated with approximate accuracy. But for these and older times, data furnished by remains of pottery must be used with caution. Thus certain jars found at a great depth below the surface at Jerusalem, undoubtedly belonging to a comparatively early time, closely resemble some of those in use at the present day (Nowack, Heb. Arch. i. 265ff.).

W. EWING.

POTTER’S FIELD.—See AKELDAMA.

POUND.—See MONEY, § 7; WEIGHTS AND MEASURES, § III.

POVERTY

1. In the OT.—The character and degree of the poverty prevalent in a community will naturally vary with the stages of social development through which it successively passes. Poverty is more acutely felt, and its extremes are more marked, where city-life and commerce have grown up than where the conditions of life are purely nomadic or agricultural.

The causes of poverty referred to in the OT (apart from those due to individual folly) are specially (a) bad seasons, involving failure of crops, loss of cattle, etc. (cf. 2 K 8:1–7 , Neh 5:3); (b) raids and invasions; (c) land-grabbing (cf. Is 5:8); (d) over-taxation and forced labour (cf. Jer 22:13f.); (e) extortionate usury, the opportunity for which was provided by the necessity for meeting high taxation and the losses arising from bad harvests (cf. Neh 5:1–6).

In the earlier period, when the tribal system with its complex of clans and families flourished, poverty was not acutely felt. Losses, of course, there were, arising from bad seasons, invasion, and pestilence; we hear, too, of rich men oppressing the poor (cf. Nathan’s parable, 2 S 12:1–6) ; but there was little permanent poverty. Matters were maintained in a state of equilibrium so long as the land-system, under which all free Israelitish families possessed a patrimony, remained in

working order. It is significant that in the earlier legislation of JE (cf. esp. the Ten

Commandments, Ex 20:1–17, and the ‘Book of the Covenant,’ Ex 20:23–23:33) the few references that do occur (e.g. Ex 22:25, 23:6) do not suggest that poverty was very wide-spread or acutely felt. During the period of the later monarchy, however, commerce, city-life, and luxury grew apace, and the greed and heartless oppression of the rich, the corruption and perversion of justice, which this state of things brought in its train, were constantly denounced by the great writing prophets, esp. in the 8th cent. (cf. e.g., Is 1:25, Am 4:1, 6:1ff., Mic 2:1ff.).

The Deuteronomic legislation (7th cent.) bears eloquent testimony to the prevalence of poverty under the later monarchy (cf. Dt 10:17–19, 14:28–29, 15, 23:19, 20, 24:10–21, 26:12– 15) , and in one famous sentence predicts its permanence (‘the poor shall never cease out of the land,’ 15:11).

The classes of poor more particularly mentioned are widows, orphans, and the ‘sojourners,’ or resident strangers, who possessed no landed rights (gērim) . The Levites also are specially referred to in Deut. as an impoverished class (cf. 12:12, 19:18),—a result of the centralization of worship in the one sanctuary at Jerusalem. All classes of the poor are the objects of special solicitude and consideration in the Mosaic legislation, particularly in the Priestly Code (cf. e.g.

Lv 5:7, 11, 19:9–15 etc. )

For a long time after the Exile and Return the Palestinian community remained in a state of miserable poverty. It was a purely agricultural society, and suffered much from contracted boundaries and agricultural depression. The ‘day of small things’ spoken of by the prophet Zechariah (4:10) was prolonged. A terrible picture of devastation (produced by a locust plague) is given by the prophet Joel (ch. 1), and matters were aggravated during the last years of Persian rule (down to 332), and by the conflict between the Seleucids and Ptolemye for the possession of Palestine which raged for considerably more than a century (322–198) . It is significant that in the Psalms the term ‘poor’ or ‘lowly’ has become synonymous with ‘pious.’ During the earlier part of the post-exilic period the wealthy Jewish families for the most part remained behind in Babylon. In the later period, after the conquests of Alexander the Great (from 322), prosperous communities of Jews grew up in such centres as Antioch and Alexandria (the Greek

‘Dispersion‘). Slowly and gradually the Palestinian community grew in importance; for a time under the Maccabees there was a politically independent Jewish State. A certain amount of material prosperity ensued. Jerusalem, as being a centre of pilgrimage, received large revenues from the Jewish pilgrims who thronged to It: a Temple-tax swelled the revenues of the priesthood. The aristocratic priestly families were very wealthy. But the bulk of the priesthood still remained comparatively poor. The Jewish community of Palestine was still mainly agricultural, hut more prosperous under settled government (the Herods and the Romans); while Galilee became a hive of industry, and sustained a large industrial population (an artizan class).

In dealing with poverty the Jewish legislation displays a very humane spirit. Usury is forbidden: the poor are to have the produce of the land in Sabbatical years; and in Deut. tithes are allotted to be given them (14:28 etc.); they are to have the right to glean (24:15, 21) , and in the Priestly Code there is the unrealized ideal of the Jubilee Year (Lv 25, cf. Dt 15:12–15) . All these provisions were supplemented by almsgiving, which in later Judaism became one of the most important parts of religious duty (see ALMS, ALMSGIVING).

2. In the NT.—In the NT period conditions were not essentialy altered. The exactions of taxcollectors seem to have been acutely felt (notice esp. the collocation ‘publicans and sinners’), but almsgiving was strongly inculcated as a religious duty, the early Christians following in this respect the example set by the synagogue (cf. Ro 12:18; and St. Paul’s collection for ‘the poor saints at Jerusalem,’ Ro 15:26, Gal 2:10). The early generations of Christians were drawn mostly from the poorer classes (slaves or freedmen), but the immediate disciples of our Lord belonged rather to what we should call the lower middle class—sturdy Galilæan fishermen, owning their own boats, or tax-collectors. It should he noted that in the Gospels (e.g. in the Beatitudes) the term ‘poor’ sometimes possesses a religious connotation, as in the Psalms.

G. H. BOX.

POWER.—In general the word means ability for doing something, and includes the idea of adequate strength, might, skill, resources, energy, and efficiency, either material, mental, or spiritual, to effect intended results. Strictly speaking, there is no real power or authority in the universe but that which is ultimately of God (Ps 62:11, Jn 19:11, Ro 13:1). But this Almighty One has originated innumerable subordinate powers, and some of these are possessed of ability to perform acts contrary to the will and commandments of the Creator. And so we may speak of the power of God, or of man, or of angel, or of demon, or of powers inherent in things inanimate. Inasmuch as in the highest and absolute sense ‘power belongeth unto God,’ It is fitting to ascribe unto Him such doxologies as appear in 1 Ch 29:11, Mt 6:13. In Mt 26:64 the word ‘power’ is employed for God Himself, and it is accordingly very natural that it should be often used to denote the various forms of God’s activity, especially in His works of creation and redemption. Christ is thus the power of God both in His Person and in His gospel of salvation (1 Co 1:18, 24, Ro 1:16). The power of the Holy Spirit is also another mode of the Divine activity. By similar usage Simon the sorcerer was called ‘the power of God which is called Great’ (Ac 8:10), i.e. a supposed incarnation of the power of God. The plural powers is used in a variety of meanings. (1) In Mt 7:22, Lk 10:13, Ac 2:22, 8:13, ‘powers,’ or ‘mighty works,’ along with ‘signs and wonders,’ are to be understood as miracles, and were concrete manifestations of supernatural power. (2) ‘The powers of the heavens’ (Mt 24:29, Mk 13:25) are understood by some as the forces inherent in the sun, moon, stars, and other phenomena of the heavens, by virtue of which they ‘rule over the day and over the night’ (Gn 1:18); by others these heavenly powers are understood to be the starry hosts themselves conceived as the armies of the heavens. (3) Both good and evil angels are designated by the terms ‘principalities and powers’ in such passages as Eph 1:21, 3:10, 6:12, Col 1:16, 2:10, 15, 1 P 3:22. The context of each passage must show whether the reference is to angels or demons. in Eph 2:2 Satan is called ‘the prince of the power of the air,’ and these powers are further defined in 6:12 as ‘world-rulers of this darkness, the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.’ These are thought of as so many ranks of evil spirits who are ever at war with God’s hosts, and seek to usurp the heavenly regions. (4) in Ro 13:1 civil magistrates are called ‘the higher powers’ because of their superior rank, authority, and influence as officers ordained of God for the administration of justice among men (cf. Lk 12:11 , Tit 3:1). (5) ‘The powers of the age to come’ (He 6:5) are best understood of all supernatural gifts and spiritual forces which belong to the age or dispensation of the New Covenant, of which Jesus is the Mediator (cf. He 9:15). They include the ‘greater works’ (Jn 14:12) which Jesus assured His disciples they should do after His going unto the Father and sending them the Spirit of truth. See AUTHORITY, KINGDOM OF GOD.

M. S. TERRY.

POWER OF THE KEYS.—In ecclesiastical history the phrase is associated primarily with the so-called ‘Privilege of Peter,’ upon which the dogma of papal supremacy has been built, but also with the delegated authority of an official priesthood to pronounce sentence of the absolution or the retention of sins.

1. The fundamental passage is Mt 16:18. When St. Peter at Cæsarea Philippi had made his great confession of Jesus as the Christ, Jesus blessed him and announced that upon this rock He would build His Church. Then He added,’ I will give unto thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall he bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.’ That this double promise, like the one in the preceding verse, was made to St. Peter personally can hardly be doubted. The question is as to what it means. Evidently Jesus is carrying out the figure He has already used of a building founded upon a rock—the rock, viz., of belleving confession, of which the Apostle was the splendid type; and He now declares that as the reward of a confession which stamped him as the first true Christian, the bottom stone of the great edifice that was about to rise, he should have the privilege of wielding the keys of that Church of Christ which was to be realized in the Kingdom of heaven. There are some who think that by this gift of the keys St. Peter was appointed to the position of a steward in charge of his Lord’s treasuries, entrusted with the duty of feeding the household (Lk 12:42, cf. Mt 13:52). But from the use of the word ‘key’ by Jesus Himself in Lk 11:52 , and from the analogy of Is 22:22, Rev 3:7, it is probable that the keys are those not of the storehouse but of the mansion itself, and that the gift of them points to the privilege of admitting others into the Kingdom. The promise was fulfilled, accordingly, on the day of Pentecost, when St. Peter opened the doors of the Christian Church to the Jewish world (Ac 2:41); and again at

Cæsarea, when he, first of the Apostles, opened that same door to the Gentiles (Ac 10:34–38 ,

15:7). But, as the two incidents show, there was nothing arbitrary, official, or mysterious about St. Peter’s exercise of the power of the keys on these occasions. It was his believing confession of Christ that had gained him the privilege, and both in Jerusalem and at Cæsarea it was by a renewed confession of Christ, accompanied by a testimony to the truth regarding Him as that had been made known in the experience of faith (Ac 2:32–36, 10:36–48) , that he opened the doors of the Kingdom alike to Jews and to Gentiles.

With regard to the second part of the verse, ‘Whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven,’ some scholars have regarded it as merely explaining what is meant by the keys of the Kingdom, while others bold that it confers a privilege. The latter view is the more probable. And as we know that in the Rabbinic language of the time, to ‘bind’ and to ‘loose’ were the regular terms for forbidding and permitting, these words confer upon the Apostle a power of legislation in the Christian Church—a power which we see him exercising by and by, along with the other Apostles and the elders, at the Jerusalem Conference (Ac 15:6–11, 22–28).

But now comes the question, Was this twofold promise, which was given to St. Peter personally, given him in any exclusive sense? As regards the second part of it, clearly not; for on a later occasion in this same Gospel we find Jesus bestowing precisely the same privilege on His disciples generally (18:18 ; cf. v. 1 and also vv. 19, 20). Moreover, the later NT history shows that St. Peter had no supreme position as a legislator in the Church (see Ac 15:13, 19, Gal 2:11 ff.). And if the power of binding and loosing was not given to him exclusively, the presumption is that the same thing holds of the parallel power of the keys. As a matter of fact, we find it to be so. Though St. Peter had the privilege of first opening the doors of the Kingdom to both Jews and Gentiles, the same privilege was soon exercised by others (Ac 8:4, 11:19ff., 13:2 ff.). By and by Peter falls into the background, and we find Paul and Barnabas rehearsing to the Church how God through their preaching had ‘opened a door of faith unto the Gentiles’ (14:27). But this does not mean that the privilege was withdrawn from St. Peter; It means only that it was extended to others on their fulfilment of those same conditions of faith and testimony on which Peter had first received it.

2. In Mt 18:18 there appears to be no reference whatever to the remission and retention of sins. As in 16:18, ‘whatsoever’ not ‘whomsoever’ is the word employed, and here as there the binding and loosing must be taken to refer to the enactment of ordinances for regulating the affairs of the Church, not to the discharge of such a purely spiritual function as the forgiveness of sins. In any case, the promise is made not to the Apostles, much less to an official priesthood deriving authority from them by an Apostolic succession, but to the Church’ (v. 17).

3. In Jn 20:23 we find the assurance definitely given of a power to remit or retain sins. But the gift is bestowed upon the whole company present (cf. Lk 24:35) as representing the Christian society generally. That society, through its possession of the Holy Spirit (v. 22) , is thus empowered to declare the forgiveness or the retention of sins (cf. 1 Jn 2:20, Gal 6:1; and see F. W. Robertson, Serm., 2nd ser. xi.).

J. C. LAMBERT.

PRÆTOR.—See MAGISTRATE, PROVINCE.

PRÆTORIAN GUARD.—See next art. and GUARD.

PRÆTORIUM (Gr. praitōrion) occurs only once in AV (Mk 15:18). Elsewhere it is represented by ‘common hall’ (Mt 27:27, RV ‘palace’), ‘judgment hall’ (Jn 18:28, 33, 19:9, Ac 23:25; RV in all ‘palace’) and ‘palace’ (Ph 1:18, RV ‘prætorian guard’). The word at first denoted the headquarters in the Roman camp, a space within which stood the general’s tent, the camp altar, the augurāle, and the tribūnāl; then the military council meeting there. Each prætor, on completing his year of office, went as governor to a province, and his official residence was called ‘prætorium’; then any house distinguished by size and magnificence, esp. the Emperor’s residence outside Rome. In the Gospels, prætorium perhaps (but see PILATE, p. 729^a) stands for the palace of Herod the Great, occupied by Pontius Pilate—a splendid building, probably in the western part of the city. In Ph 1:13 it is probably the barracks of the prætorians, the Imperial bodyguard. Originally the Cohors Prætoria was a company attached to the commander-in-chief in the field. Augustus retained the name, but raised the number to ten cohorts of 1000 each, quartering only 3 cohorts in the city at a time. Tiberius brought them all to Rome, and placed them in a fortified camp, at the northern extremity of the Viminal. Under Vitellius their number was raised to 16,000.

W. EWING.

PRAISE is the recognition and acknowledgment of merit. Two parties are involved: the one possessing at least supposed merit, the other being a person who acknowledges the merit.

Men may praise men. Forms of praise may be used without genuine feelings of praise, and extravagant praise may be rendered Intentionally, because of the advantage that will be gained thereby. This is downright hypocrisy, and the whole burden of the moral teaching of the Bible, and especially of Christ, is against hypocrisy. Again, the estimate of values may be so completely false that praise may be felt and expressed genuinely in cases where it is undeserved. And Jesus’ whole influence is directed towards the proper appreciation of values so that only the good shall appear to us good.

In its common Biblical use, however, praise has God for its object. This restriction does not involve an essential difference either in the praise or in the sense of moral values. The difference lies rather in the greater praiseworthiness of God. Praise of God is of course called forth only as He reveals Himself to men, only as men recognize His activity and His power in the event or condition which appears to them adequate to call out praise. Men praise God in proportion as they are religious, and so have conscious relations with God. The praiseworthiness of a god is involved in the very definition of a god. If men postulate a god at all, it is as a being worthy to be praised. Every thought and act by which men come into relation with God is a thought and an act of praise. Petition is justifiable only if behind it is the belief that God is worthy of such approach. If the act is confession of sin, the same is true, for confession is not made to a being who does not hold a place of honour and praise. If some active service is rendered to God, this subjugation of ourselves to Him can be explained only by the conviction that God is in every way entitled to service.

Moreover, as in the case of praise of men, there is a very clear distinction to be drawn between genuine and hypocritical ascription of praise to God. The temptation to the latter is extreme, because of the immense gain presumably to be secured by praise; but the hypocrisy and the sin of it are equally great. Indeed, the seriousness of the offence is evident when one reflects that he who praises God knows full well the praiseworthiness of God, so that if he praises while the genuine feeling is lacking and the sincere act of praise is unperformed, only moral perversity can account for the hypocrisy.

In order to genuineness, praise must be spontaneous It may be commanded by another human being, and the praise commanded may be rendered, but the real impelling cause is the recognized merit of God. God may demand praise from His creatures in commands transmitted to them through prophets and Apostles, but if man praises Him from the heart, it is because of the imperative Inseparable from the very being and nature of God.

We are prepared, then, to find that in the Bible praise to God is universal on the part of all who acknowledge Him. It is the very atmosphere of both dispensations. It is futile to attempt to collate the passages that involve it, for its expression is not measured by special terms or confined to special occasions. The author of Gn 1, like every reader of the chapter, finds the work of creation an occasion for praising God. The chapter is a call to praise, though the word be not mentioned. We have but to turn to the Psalms (e.g. Ps 104) to find formal expression of the praise that the world inspires.

The legal requirements of the Law likewise depend for their authority with men upon the recognition of the merit of the Law-giver. ‘Ye shall be holy, for I Jehovah your God am holy,’ has no force except for him who acknowledges holiness in God who commands; and obedience is the creature’s tribute of praise to the holy God.

The whole history of Israel, as Israel’s historians picture it, has in it the constant element of praise to Israel’s God: we turn to the Psalms (e.g. Ps 102) or to other songs (e.g. Ex 15), and find the praise of the heart rising to formal expression.

In the NT, praise of Christ and of God in Christ is the universal note. It is the song of those who are healed of their sicknesses, or forgiven their sins; of Apostles who mediate on the gospel message and salvation through Christ; of those who rehearse the glories of the New Jerusalem as seen in apocalyptic vision.

We are also prepared by this universality to find that praise cannot form a topic for independent treatment. There is no technical terminology to be examined in the hope that the etymology of the terms used will throw light upon the subject, for in this case etymologies may lead us away from the current meaning of the common words employed. The history of praise in the OT and the NT is the history of worship, temple, synagogue, sacrifice, festivals. The literature of praise is the literature of religion, whether as the product of national consciousness or of personal religious experience.

It will suffice to mention one or two points of Interest which the student may well bear in mind as he studies the Bible and consults the articles on related subjects.

The Heb. word oftenest used for praise is hillēl, perhaps an onomatopoetic Semitic root meaning ‘cry aloud.’ An interesting feature is the use of the imperative in ascriptions of praise. Taken literally, these imperatives are commands to praise; but they are to be taken as real ascriptions of praise, with the added thought that praise from one person suggests praise from all. Cf. the doxology ‘Praise God from whom all blessings flow,’ which consists solely of four imperative sentences.

The imperative of the Hebrew verb, followed by the Divine name, gives us Hallelujah, i.e. ‘Praise ye Jah.’ The word is used at the beginning and end of Psalms, apparently with liturgical value. Cf. also the Hallel Psalms (113–118 , 136). The noun from the same root appears as the title of Ps 145. See HALLEL.

The form which praise took as an element of worship in Israel varied with the general character of worship. It was called forth by the acts of Jahweh upon which the Israelites were especially wont to dwell in different periods. For personal and family favours they praised Him in early times with forms of their own choosing. When the national consciousness was aroused, they praised Him for His leading of the nation, in forms suitable to this service. As worship came more and more to conform to that elaborated for, and practised in, the royal sanctuary—the Temple at Jerusalem—the forms of praise could not fail to share the elaboration and to become gradually more uniform. To what extent these modifications took place is to be studied in the history of OT religion.

Praise was certainly a part of the varied service rendered by the Levites in the Temple ritual of later Judaism, and an examination of that ritual will show how far praise was given over to them, and how much was retained by the congregation. The Psalms are certainly adapted to antiphonal rendering. Did the people respond to the priests, or were there two choirs? [This word occurs in EV only in RVm of Neh 12:8.] The element of praise in the synagogue worship is an interesting and disputed question. Cf. also ADORATION, HYMN.

O. H. GATES.

PRAYER.—Prayer in the Bible is the uplifting of the heart to God with whatever motive. It includes supplication, whether in view of material or of spiritual needs; intercession, for individuals or communities; confession of sin—but also assertion of righteousness; adoration; colloquy with God; vows; thanksgiving; blessing; Imprecation. The results are chiefly objective and external. But the apparent failure of prayer may be more instructive than its outward success. (Apart from Christ’s prayer in Gethsemane [Mk 14:35ff. ||], take St. Paul’s for the removal of his affliction [2 Co 12:8f.].) Failure makes way for a boon greater than the one denied. Such cases would support the view that prayer is reflex in its action, specially potent in a subjective, inward, spiritual sense. Intercessory prayer must on the lowest view be of great altruistic value; while a recognition of God’s personality makes natural the belief that He may control events in answer to prayer made according to His will.

1 . Terminology

(i.) In OT.—(1) The moat usual noun (tephillah) and the verb (primarily of intercession ) connected with it are possibly derived from a root meaning ‘to cut.’ If so, this might hark back to days when devotees lacerated their flesh in worship (cf. 1 K 18:28). Another word (used only of prayer to God) is from a root of similar meaning Some conjecture that the Jewish tephillin (phylacteries) originated as substitutes for such marks of laceration. tephillah may, however, indicate merely ‘intervention.’

(2) Several words mean ‘to call.’ To ‘call on the Name’ is to worship (e.g. Gn 4:26). Others mean to call for the redress of wrongs (e.g. Jg 3:9), or for help in trouble (e.g. Ps 72:12). One noun is a ‘ringing outcry’ (e.g. Ps. 17:1).

(3) It is natural to find words meaning ‘seek’ (e.g. Am 5:4; a different word in Hos 5:15 ‘to seek God’s face’), ‘ask’ (e.g. Ps 105:40). To all such words, and generally, the correlative is ‘hear’ or ‘answer.’

(4) Some expressions are anthropomorphic:—‘to encounter,’ ‘fall upon’ in order to supplicate or intercede (e.g. Jer 7:16); ‘to make the face of God pleasant,’ i.e. to appease (e.g. Ex 32:11), thus equivalent to a more general word, ‘to crave favour’ (e.g. Dt 3:23).

(5) Other terms regard the suppliant’s state of mind:—prayer is ‘an outpouring of soul’ (e.g. Ps 62:8); or ‘a meditation’ (e.g. Joh 15:4 RVm); or ‘complaint’ (e.g. Ps 142:2); or the original connotation may be physical,—‘to bow down’ (Ezr 6:10, cf. Eph 3:14), ‘to whisper’ (Is 26:16

RVm).

(ii.) In NT.—(1) The classical Gr. word (proseuchomai) is largely used. Unlike most OT words, this is used for prayer to God only. A related word (euchomai) is by itself little more than wish’ (e.g. Ro 9:3), and needs supplementing to mean ‘prayer’ (e.g. 2 Co 13:7) . The corresponding noun (euchē) usually means ‘vow’ (e.g. Ac 18:18); but ‘prayer’ in Ja 5:15.

(2) ‘To call on the Name’ or invoke in prayer (e.g. Ac 9:14).

(3) The words for ‘seek’ and ‘ask’ may be used of requests or inquiries made to man (e.g. Ac 8:34), and do not of themselves connote worship. One word denotes the request of the will (e.g. Mt 6:8), another the request of need (e.g. Ac 8:22), another the form of the request (e.g. Jn 17:9, cf. RVm).

(4) The OT ‘encounter’ has NT equivalent used of intercession (e.g. Ro 8:27).

(5) Prayer is a ‘struggle’ (e.g. Ro 15:30). One picturesque word (hike tēria) , found only in He 5:7 , suggests the olive branches held forth by suppliants.

2 . Place, time, and circumstance

(i.) PLACE.—While no restriction is suggested at any period (cf. e.g. Gn 24:12, 13, Jon 2:1, Ps 42:6, 61:2, Dn 6:10, Lk 6:12, Ac 16:24–25 , 21:6), and is disclaimed by Christ in view of true worship (Jn 4:21–23), yet naturally specific worship-centres were regarded as appropriate: thus in early times Shiloh, where the ark rested (1 S 1:9, 10), Mizpah (1 S 7:5, 1 Mac 3:48), Gibeon (1 K 3:4ff.). But, later, the Temple was the place where (Is 37:14ff., 56:7) or (in absence ) ‘toward’ which prayer was offered (1 K 8:29, 30 etc., Ps 28:2, Dn 6:10, 1 Es 4:56). Synagogues afforded, in later times, local prayer-centres. Where there was no synagogue, a spot outside the town was chosen, near some stream, for hand-washing before prayer (Ac 16:13, 16). In the NT we find Apostles going to the Temple (Ac 3:1); and St. Paul attended the synagogue on his mission journeys (Ac 17:1, 2). Distinctively Christian worship was held in ordinary buildings (Ac 1:13, 14, 4:23, 12:12, Col 4:15)—a practice made natural by Jewish arrangements for private prayer (Dn 6:10, Jth 8:6, 10:2, Mt 6:8, Ac 10:9, 30) or for Passover celebration (Mt 26:16).

Ostentatious praying at street corners is discouraged by Christ (Mt 6:5).

(ii.) TIME.—It became a custom to pray thrice daily, i.e. at the 3rd, 6th, and 9th hours (cf. ? Ps 55:17 [may mean ‘all day long’], Dn 6:10, Ac 3:1, 10:9, 30; cf. 2:15 cf. 1). For instances of ‘grace before meat,’ cf. 1 S 9:13, Mt 15:35, Ac 27:35, and the Paschal meal.

(iii.) CIRCUMSTANCE

(1) Attitude: (a) standing (e.g. Gn 18:22, 1 S 1:26, Neh 9:5, Mk 11:25, Lk 18:11, 13 [the usual Jewish mode, not followed by early Christian Church save on Sundays and the days between Easter and Whitsun]); (b) kneeling (Ps 95:6, Is 45:23, 1 K 8:54, Ezr 9:6, Dn 6:10, Lk 22:41, Ac 7:60, 9:40, 20:35, 21:5, Eph 3:14); (c) prostrate, face to ground (Ex 34:6, Neh 8:6, 1 Es 8:91, Jth 9:1, 2 Mac 13:12, Mt 26:39); face between knees (1 K 18:42, cf. ? Ps 35:13b); (d) sitting (? 2 S 7:18); (e) hands uplifted (Ps 28:2, 63:4, 134:2, La 2:19, 3:41, 2 Mac 3:20, 1 Ti 2:3) or extended [symbol of reception from God?] (Ex 9:20, 1 K 8:22, Is 1:16, Ezr 9:5, Ps 77:2 [ct.

AV]).

(2) Forms of prayer: (a) formulæ (Dt 21:7, 8, 26:5–15); (b) the Lord’s Prayer; (c) allusion to the Baptist’s (Lk 11:1); (d) Christ’s repeated prayer (Mt 26:44); (e) allusion to ‘vain repetitions’ or ‘battology’ (Mt 6:7, cf. Sir 7:14).

(3) Incense. The OT word sometimes means merely the smoke from a sacrifice. Real incense was (certainly in later OT period) in use at sacrificial ceremonies, with which prayer was probably always associated (cf. Gn 12:6). Incense typifies prayer (Ps 141:2; cf. Jer 11:12, Mal 1:11 , Lk 1:10, Rev 5:8, 8:3, 4).

(4) Fasting. Being appropriate for times of solicitude and sorrow, fasting naturally became associated with prayer (Ps 35:13) , especially after the Exile (Neh 1:4, Dn 9:3; cf. Lk 2:37), and was continued in the Christian Church (Ac 13:3, 14:23, Mt 9:16). The following AV allusions to fasting coupled with prayer are absent from RV (but see RVm):—Mt 17:21, Mk 9:29, Ac 10:30, 1 Co 7:5.

3 . Prayer in the OT

(i.) PATRIARCHAL PERIOD.—Prayer is (1) colloquy with God (e.g. Gn 15:1, 2, 7, 8, 17:15, 16, 22); (2) intercession (e.g. Gn 17:16, 18:23ff.); (3) personal supplication (e.g. Gn 15:2, 32:11, 43:14); (4) asseveration (e.g. Gn 14:22); (5) vow (e.g. Gn 28:20; see art. Vows).

(ii.) THE LAW (i.e. as codified and expanded in later times).—The reticence as to prayer might suggest that it is voluntary and not patient of legislation; but in OT it is less a general duty (ct. NT) than a prophetic privilege (especially re intercession); cf. Gn 20:7 and below, §§ iii.–vi. Note, however, the formulæ for thanksgiving (Dt 26:5–11), assertion of obedience (vv. 13–14 , ct. NT), supplication (v. 16), expiation (21:7, 8).

(iii.) MOSES TO JUDGES.—(1) Moses pre-eminently a man of prayer and an intercessor (e.g.

Ex 8:12, 30, 32:11–13, 32, cf. Jer 15:1): colloquy with God (Ex 3, 4, 5:22, 6:1, 10, 12, 28–30 , Dt 3:23–25), appeal in crises (Ex 5:22, Nu 11:11), prophetic blessing (Dt 33:6–11); (2) Joshua’s prayer after defeat (Jos 7:7–9), and in battle (10:14); (3) Gideon’s colloquy (Jg 6:11–24) ; (4) Israelites’ frequent cry for help ( Jg 3:9, 15, 6:6 etc. ).

(iv.) KINGDOM PERIOD.—(1) Samuel, like Moses, an intercessor (1 S 7:5, 6, 9, 8:6, 10 , 21, 12:23, 15:11): colloquy (1 S 16:1–3, cf. 3:10, 11); (2) David: apart from the Psalms, with which his connexion is dubious, the following prayers may be noted, especially the last:—for guidance (1 S 23:2, 30:8 [consulting ephod]), on behalf of child (2 S 12:18), prayer of asseveration (1 S 24:12–15, 25:22 [a threat]), confession (2 S 24:17), adoration, etc. (2 S 7:18–29); (3) Solomon’s prayer for wisdom (1 K 3:6ff.; note the elaborate intercession attributed to him at dedication of Temple, 1 K 8:22–53, where (ct. v. 63) sacrifice is not mentioned! The Temple is a house of prayer); (4) Elijah’s intercession (1 K 18:36, 37), colloquy (19:9–11) , prayer before miracle (1 K 17:20, 21), so also Elisha (2 K 4:33, 6:17); (5) Hezekiah prays in national crisis (2 K 19:15) and in illness (20:3); note his assertion of righteousness. For this period see also § v.

(v.) THE PROPHETS.—Intercession in attitude, action, word, characterizes the prophets (much more than the priests, but cf. Jl 2:17), whether the earlier prophets, (§ iv. above) or those whose writings are extant. The reason lay in the prophet’s Divine call, his vision of the Divine will (so a ‘seer’), and his forthtelling of the Divine message. Hence comes prayerful expectancy (e.g. Jer

42:4), in the spirit of Hab 2:1; and intercession to avert disaster (e.g. Am 7:2, 3 and 5, 6, Is 63:9– 17 , and vividly Jer 14. 15 [where observe the colloquy of persistent intercession not withstanding Divine discouragement]), combined with prayer in view of personal difficulty (e.g. Jer 20:7–13).

(vi.) EXILE AND RETURN.—In this period prayer looms large, owing to the cessation of sacrificial worship and the realization of chastisement. Accordingly confession and a humble sense of dependence are prominent. The following passages should be studied: Is 63:7–64:12 , Ezr 9:5–15, Neh 1:4–11, 9:5–38 (cf. retrospective Psalms, e.g. 106), Dn 9:4–19 . Further, note the personal prayer-habit of Jewish leaders (Dn 6, Ezr 8:21–23) . Nehemiah’s prayer is often ejaculatory (Neh 2:4, 4:4), and sometimes betrays self-complacency (5:13, 13:14, 22).

(vii.) PSALMS, PROVERBS, JOB.—The Book of ‘Praises’ might be appropriately called also the Book of ‘Prayers.’ (Five only are so described in title: 17, 86, 90, 102, 142, but cf. 72:20, Hab 3:1.) (1) Throughout the Psalms, prayer—whether of the poet as an individual or as representing the nation—is specially an outpouring—artless and impulsive—of varied experiences, needs, desires. Hence typical psalms exhibit transitions of thought and alternation of mood (e.g. 6:7–10 , 42, 69:20, 27, 30, 77:9–11, 109:23–30). (2) The blessing sought is oftener material or external, like rescue from trouble or chastisement. Not seldom, however, there is a more spiritual aim: in Ps 51 pardon is sought for its own sake, not to avert punishment, and Ps 119 is notable for repeated requests for inward enlightenment and quickening. The trend of the whole collection is indicated by its ready and natural adaptation to NT ideals of prayer. In estimating psalms which express vindictive and imprecatory sentiments, we should note that they breathe abhorrence of evil, and are not the utterance of private malice. Even on the lowest view they would illustrate the human element in the Scriptures, and the progressive nature of revelation, throwing into vivid relief the Gospel temper and teaching. The propriety of their regular use in public worship need not be discussed here.

Proverbs. Note the suggestive allusion to the character of a suppliant (15:6, 29, 28:9; cf. Ps 145:18, 19, Jth 8:31, Sir 35:16, Ja 5:10), and Agur’s prayer (30:7–9).

Job. In this dramatic poem Job’s objections to his friends’ criticisms often take the form of daring expostulation directly addressed to God (e.g. especially ch. 10). As a ‘cry in the dark’ the book re-echoes prayers like Ps 88; but the conflict of doubt culminates in the colloquy between God and Job, in which the latter expresses the reverent submission of faith (42:1–6).

4. Prayer in the Apocrypha.—The Apocr. books—of fiction, fable, history, with apocalyptic and sapiential writings—are of very unequal value, but contain many prayers. The ideas are on the whole admirable, sometimes reaching a distinctively NT level; the thought in 2 Mac 12:44 as to prayer in relation to the dead is noteworthy (cf. below, 2 Es. and Bar.). As the books are little read, it may be well to take them in order, giving fairly full reference to relevant passages.

1 Esdras. Zerubbabel’s thanksgiving (4:68–69); prayer for journey, with confession (8:78– 90).

2 Esdras. Confession and historical retrospect (3:4–36), colloquy with Uriel (4–14 , where note the allusion to various OT intercessors, all useless at judgment-day, 7:102, 112 [not in AV]).

Tobit. Prevailing prayer of Tobit and Sarah (3:1–15); Tobias urged to pray (4:19)—prays in nuptial room (8:4–8); thanksgiving of Raguel (8:15–17) , Tobit (11:14, 15, 17, 13).

Judith. Except where general supplication is made (4:9–13:16 , 6:18, 6:19, 7:29), or where Judith’s intercession is sought (8:31), prayer in this romance is of a very unworthy kind: prayer for the success of a trick (ch. 9); prayer and the plans of Holofernes (11:17, 18); prayer before slaying him (13:4, 5).

Ad. Esther. Prayers of Mordecai (13:8–18) and Esther (14:3–19) in national peril.

Wisdom. Chs. 9–19 are in prayer-form. Note the picturesque illustration of manna and the morning prayer (16:27, 28).

Sirach. In this book prayer reaches heights: value of prayer (21:5), true prayer heard of God (35:13–17), prayer in sickness (38:8, 14, cf. Ja 5:14–16), for deliverance from sin (23:1–5) , prayer and alms (7:10), ‘battology’ (7:14, cf. Mt 6:7), prayer and revenge (28:1–4 , cf. Mt 6:14, 18:21, 22), national prayer against foe (36:1–17), thanksgiving, led by Simon (50:21–24) , author’s closing prayer (51:1–12).

Baruch. Jews of Babylon ask those of Jerusalem to pray for welfare of Nebuchadnezzar (1:11; cf. Ezr 6:10, Jer 29:7, 1 Ti 2:2); prayer and confession of captive Israelites (1:15–3:8 , where note prayer by the dead, 3:4, but see RVm).

Song of the Three. Prayer and confession of Azarias before the Benedicite (vv. 1–22 ; cf. Ezr 9 , Dn 9).

Susanna. Her prevailing prayer (vv. 42–44).

Bel. Brief prayer by Habakkuk (v. 35), Daniel (v. 38), king of Babylon (v. 41).

Prayer of Manasses. For pardon.

Maccabees. The two books are quite distinct, 1 Mac. being much the more reliable as history. Prayer is very prominent throughout the whole Maccabæan struggle,—before, during, and after battles (1 Mac 3:46–53, 4:10, 24, 30–33, 40, 55, 7:33–38, 41, 42, 9:46, 11:71, 2 MaC 1:24–29 , 3:22, 10:13, 25, 33, 11:6, 12:15, 28, 42, 13:10–12, 14, 14:16, 34–36, 15:22–24 , 28, 27). Note specially in 2 Mac. the allusion to the efficacy of prayer, etc., of the living for the dead (12:44, 45. cf. baptism for dead, 1 Co 15:29, and [?] 2 Ti 1:18), and prayer of the dead for the living (15:12–14 ; cf. angelic intercession, Zec 1:12).

5 . Prayer in the NT

I. EXAMPLE AND TEACHING OF JESUS CHRIST.—The special character of the Fourth Gospel should be remembered. Of the Synoptics, Lk. is specially instructive as to prayer (cf. Acts also). For Lord’s Prayer, see separate article.

(i.) CHRIST’S EXAMPLE

(a) Prays at great moments in His life: baptism (Lk 3:21), election of Apostles (Lk 6:12, 13), miracles (Lk 9:16; cf. Jn 6:23, Mk 7:34 [implied] 9:29, Jn 9:30–33 [implied] 11:41, 42), transfiguration (Lk 9:29); Gethsemane (Lk 22:39–46), crucifixion (Mt 27:46, Lk 23:46); (b) intercedes for disciples (Jn 17), Peter (Lk 22:32), soldiers (Lk 23:34); for His intercession in glory, see below, § II. (ii.) (1).

(ii.) CHRIST’S TEACHING.—The range of prayer is chiefly (ct. OT) for spiritual blessing (cf.

Lord’s Prayer, and esp. Mt 6:33), but not exclusively so (‘daily bread’ in Lord’s Prayer and Mt 24:20). The conditions and requisites of prayer are numerous.—(a) Earnestness [ cf. urgent supplication in OT, esp. Psalms] (Lk 11:5–13 , where note juxtaposition with Lord’s Prayer, 18:1–8); and His attitude to the Syrophœnician seems to teach urgency of petition (Mk 7:27). (b) Humility (Lk 18:9–14; the juxtaposition with preceding parable is suggestive, and ct. OT assertion of righteousness; e.g. in Dt. and Neh. [see above, 3 ( vi.)], Lk 17:10); ambition rebuked (Mt 20:20–23). (c) A forgiving spirit: as in Sir. (see above, § 4). (d) Privacy recommended; see above, § 2 (i.) end, and cf. Christ’s own example of solitary prayer (Lk 6:12). (e) Without

‘battology’; see above, § 2 ( iii.) (2), where the reff. show that the repetition discouraged is that of mere mechanical prayer (cf. heathen incantations) or of pretence (Mk 12:40). (f) With faith. Mk 11:23 contains just such hyperbole as would appeal to an Eastern mind and enforce the value of prayer; while the seeming paradox of v. 24 must be taken along with this and understood in the light of Christ’s general teaching. The need of faith is further illustrated by Christ’s attitude to those seeking aid (e.g. Mt 8:13, 9:28, Mk 5:35, 9:23, Lk 8:48). (g) Agreement when two or three join in prayer (Mt 18:19, 20). (h) In His name ( Jn 14:13, 15:16, 16:23, 24, 25). This specially Johannine feature suggests frame of mind rather than form of speech (cf. Mt 18:5, 20, 10:22 etc.; on the other hand, cf. Ac 3:6, 10). For the Christology it supports, see below, § II. (ii.) 1.

II. CUSTOMS AND IDEAS IN APOSTOLIC TIMES.—Evidence is afforded by Acts (where the prominence given to prayer is natural if Lk. wrote it, see above, § I.), and by Epp., whose writers had inherited the best traditions of Jewish piety and had also assimilated their Master’s teaching (which, however, they may not in every point have grasped fully). A glimpse of prayer-triumphs would be afforded by such passages as Ac 3:10, 4:31, 9:40, 10:4, 12:5, 12, 16:25, 28:8. One or two detailed points have already come up for notice (see above § 2 (i. ii. iii. 1. 4), 5 (I. ii. (h)) , but it may be well now to collect, from Acts to the Apocalypse, some passages showing the practice and teaching as to prayer in the Apostolic Church.

(i.) Prayer is found in connexion with:—(1) Laying on of hands: (a) in healing (Ac 28:8, cf.

9:17, (see below (3)); (b) after baptism (Ac 8:14–17, cf. 19:6); (c) on appointment to office (Ac

6:6, 13:3), with which also prayerful lot-casting is associated (Ac 1:24, 26, cf. Pr 16:33). (2) Public worship (1 Ti 2). (a) Both sexes participate (cf. 1 Ti 5:6, 1 Co 11:4, 5); (b) prayer and gift of tongues (1 Co 14:14, 16, where it is suggested that the head as well as the heart is concerned with prayer); (c) ‘state-prayers’ in the Apostolic Church (1 Ti 2:1f.; cf. § 4 ‘Baruch’). (3) Sickness (Ja 5:13–16, where notice conjunction of prayer and outward means [for unction cf. Mk 6:13] with confession; physical and spiritual healing are associated, and both with prayer; see above, § 4 ‘Sirach’).

(ii.) (1) A distinctive Idea in NT prayer is the work of the Holy Spirit. He aids us in prayer

(Ro 8:14–16 , Eph 6:18, Jude 20), interceding for us (Ro 8:26). Christ also intercedes (Ro 8:34, He 7:25; cf. § 5 I. (1.) (b)) . Ct. presentation of prayer to God in Rev 5:8, 8:4. By Christ we enjoy free access to God (Gal 4:4–7, Eph 2:18, 3:12, He 4:15, 16, 10:19–22; see above, § 5 I. (II.) (h)) ; prayer offered to Christ direct (Ac 7:59, 60, 9:14 (?), 1 Co 1:2 (?)). (2) Prayer needs faith ( Ja 1:6–8 , 1 Ti 2:8 RVm, He 10:22), must have right alms (Ja 4:3), and be backed by conduct (1 Jn 3:22, cf. above, § 3 (vii.) ‘Proverbs’). Such prayer succeeds (Ja 5:16–18 , 1 Jn 3:22, 5:14, 15).

Prayer for temporal gifts is not very conspicuous in NT, but see Ro 1:10, 2 Co 12:8, Ph 4:6. (3) Exhortations to prayer (Ro 12:12, Col 4:2, 1 Th 5:16, 1 P 4:7, Jude 20). (4) Reminiscences of OT occur in prayer as colloquy (Ac 9:13–16, 22:17–21; cf. § 3) , as struggle (Ro 15:30, Col 2:1, 4:12; cf. Gn 32:24), as cry for vengeance (Rev 6:9, 10, ct. 1 Ti 2:8). (5) Intercession, which in OT is specially characteristic of the prophetic office, is here a general duty, and is very prominent: Apostles for converts (Ro 10:1, 15:5, 2 Co 13:7, Eph 1:15, 3:14, Ph 1:4, 9, Col 1:9, 2:1, 1 Th 1:2,

2 Th 1:11, Philem 4, 3 Jn 2); converts for Apostles (Ac 12:5, Ro 15:30, 2 Co 1:11, 9:14, Col 4:3 ,

2 Th 3:1, Philem 22); for one another (Ja 5:15, 1 Jn 5:16 [within limit]). (6) Thanksgiving abounds (Ro 1:3, 1 Co 1:4, 2 Co 2:14, 8:15, Ph 1:3, Col 1:3, 1 Th 1:2, 2:13, 2 Th 1:3, 2:13, 1 Ti 1:12, 2 Ti 1:3). (7) Note also the salutation and blessing at the beginning and close of Epistles. The NT closes with a threefold prayer for Christ’s coming (Rev 22:17, 20).

H. F. B. COMPSTON.

PRAYER OF MANASSES.—See APOCRYPHA, § 11.

PREACHING.—In the OT ‘preaching’ is referred to explicitly in the case of Jonah’s preaching in Nineveh (Jon 3:2). The word here used means strictly ‘proclamation,’ and corresponds to the NT word used with reference to our Lord ‘proclaiming’ (as a herald) the advent of the Kingdom of God (e.g. Mt 4:17), which, in its initial stages, was closely associated with the preaching of John the Baptist (cf. Mt 3:1, 2). Christian preaching is often described in the NT as a declaration of ‘glad tidings’ (‘evangel,’ ‘gospel’). Strictly, the ‘proclamation’ ought to be distinguished from the ‘teaching’ that followed on it. But in its more extended application ‘preaching’ covers all instruction in religious matters of a homiletlcal character, and especially such as is associated with public worship.

The prophetic preaching hardly falls within this category. The prophets undoubtedly as a rule spoke their discourses (before writing them down). But these allocutions were special in character, and formed no regular part of the public worship.

The preaching of John the Baptist and of Jesus was largely prophetic in character—the gospel may be described as a ‘revival of the spirit of prophecy’—but nevertheless it possessed some affinities with the synagogue preaching, which had become an institution of worship, though in many respects in marked contrast with and independent of it (our Lord constantly addressed the multitudes in the open air).

Preaching as a regular part of the service of public worship was a comparatively late development. Its real beginning can be traced back to the custom inaugurated by Ezra of reading a part of the ‘Law’ or ‘Torah’ at the Sabbath-day assemblages of the people, and on other holy days. On these occasions the lesson from the Law was read in the original Hebrew, and explained in the form of a paraphrase in the Aramaic vernacular by a methurgemān ( dragoman ) or interpreter. Such translations were called Targums. It was from this practice that preaching in the synagogue was developed—probably as early as the 4th cent. B.C. ( cf. Ac 15:21). Thus originally the sermon was essentially an exposition (of a legal kind) of some part of Scripture. Two famous teachers of the Law of the 1st cent. B.C. are styled darshanim (‘preachers,’ Pes. 70 b), though they were primarily expounders of the Law on its strictly legalistic side. But in process of time the sermon assumed to a large extent a purely edifying character; it utilized the tale, parable, allegory, in enforcing the lessons of morality and religion, and developed truly homiletical features, without, however, losing its Scriptural colouring.

By NT times preaching had evidently become an integral part of the ordinary synagogue service, and in this way it became one of the chief instruments in the propagation of the ‘new teaching.’ Our Lord constantly ‘taught in the synagogues’ (cf. Mt 4:23, Mk 1:21 , 6:2, Jn 6:59, 18:20) . St. Luke (4:16f.) has preserved a compressed account of one such sermon, while in Acts (13:14–41) a fuller report of an exhortation by the great missionary Apostie, delivered in a synagogue, is set forth.

Our Lord’s teaching, and that of the Apostles which He inspired, were marked by a freshness, a spontaneity and power which filled their hearers, accustomed as they were to the more set and laborious exhortations of the scribes, with the utmost surprise. But original as they were in substance, these addresses were still Semitic in form, and we must guard against importing our Western ideas of rhetoric into what were essentially Eastern homilies. The differences between the two are fundamental. While the Western develops a main and principal thought or theme through its logical subdivisions, and usually in a more or less abstract way, the Eastern adds point to point, theme to theme, often in striking antithesis, and strives to employ concrete illustrations and embodiments either figurative or parabolic of the thought. The ‘Sermon on the Mount’ (though its form in the First Gospel is doubtless an extended one) is an excellent illustration of Eastern method in some of these respects. The following example of an old Rabbinic address, based on the words ‘He hath clothed me with garments of salvation,’ which come from the chapter in Isaiah (61) from which Jesus took His text in His address in the synagogue at Nazareth, will illustrate the character of contemporary Jewish sermons:

Seven garments the Holy One—blessed be He—has put on, and will put on from the time the world was created until the hour when He will punish the whole of wicked Edom (= the Roman Empire). When He created the world, He clothed Himself in honour and majesty, as it is said (Ps 104:1): “Thou art clothed in honour and majesty.” Whenever He forgave Israel’s sins He clothed Himself in white; for we read (Dn 7:9): “His garment was white as snow.” When He punishes the people of the world, He puts on the garment of vengeance, as it is said (Is 59:17): “He put on garments of vengeance for clothing, and was clad with zeal as a cloak.” The sixth garment He will put on when the Messiah comes; then He will clothe Himself in a garment of righteousness, for it is said: “And he puts on righteousness as a breastplate, and an helmet of salvation upon his head.” The seventh garment He will put on when He punishes Edom; then He will clothe Himself in Adom—i.e. red; for it is said (Is 63:2): “Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel?” But the garment which He will put upon the Messiah, this will shine far, from one end of the earth to the other; for it is said (Is 61:10): “As a bridegroom decketh himself with a garland.” And the Israelites will partake of His light, and will speak:

“Blessed is the hour when the Messiah shall come!

Blessed the womb out of which He shall come!

Blessed His contemporaries who are eye-witnesses!

Blessed the eye that is honoured with a sight of Him!

For the opening of His lips is blessing and peace;

His speech is a moving or the spirits;

The thoughts of His heart are confidence and cheerfulness;

The speech of His tongue is pardon and forgiveness; His prayer is the sweet incense of offerings; His petitions are holiness and purity.

Oh, how blessed is Israel for whom such has been prepared!”

For it is said (Ps 31:19): “How great is thy goodness which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee!” ’

Several specimens of the Apostolic preaching are given in the Acts (cf. chs. 2, 7, 8 etc.). To the Jews the Apostles preached the Messiahship of Jesus, basing their appeal mainly on two arguments, viz. (1) the resurrection, and (2) OT prophecy. On this depended the forgiveness of sins, and salvation through Christ. These reports, abbreviated as they obviously are, reveal their essential genuineness by their undeveloped theology (e.g. of the Atonement).

Preaching long continued free and spontaneous among the Christian societies, being exercised in the assembly by private members who possessed the gift of prophecy (cf. e.g. 1 Co 14:31) , though, of course, the Apostles, while they were alive, would naturally assume, and be accorded, the chief place in this, as in other respects.

G. H. BOX.

PRECIOUS STONES.—See JEWELS AND PRECIOUS STONES.

PREDESTINATION.—The English word ‘predestinate’ in the AV is, in the few cases in which it occurs (Ro 8:29, 36, Eph 1:5, 11), exchanged in the RV for ‘foreordain,’ a return to the usage of the older Versions. The Gr. word (proorizo) conveys the simple idea of defining or determining beforehand (thus, in addition to above, in Ac 4:29, 1 Co 2:7). The change in rendering brings the word into closer relation with a number of others expressing the same, or related, meanings, as ‘foreknow’ (in pregnant sense, Ac 2:23, Ro 8:29, 11:2, 1 P 1:2, 20),

‘determine’ (Ac 17:26), ‘appoint’ (1 P 2:8), ‘purpose’ (Eph 1:9), in the case of believers, ‘choose’ or ‘elect’ (Eph 1:4 etc.). In the OT the idea is expressed by the various words denoting to purpose, determine, choose (e.g. Is 14:24–27, 46:10, 11), with the ahundance of phrases extolling the sovereignty and immutability of God’s counsel in all the spheres of His operation ( see below; so in NT). The best clue to the Scripture conception will he found in tracing it as it appears in these different spheres of the Divine action.

1. In its most general aspect, foreordination is coextensive with the sphere of God’s universal providence, is, in fact, but another name for the eternal plan, design, purpose, counsel of God, which executes itself in providence. The election of believers, to which ‘predestination’ is sometimes narrowed, is hut a specific case of the ‘purpose’ of Him ‘who worketh all things after the counsel of his will’ (Eph 1:11). It is in this wider regard, accordingly, that

foreordination must be studied first. It cannot be reasonably doubted that all Scripture—OT and NT—represents God as exercising in and over the world a providence that is absolutely universal. Nothing, great or small—operations of nature or actions of men—is left outside its scope. This does not happen blindly, but in accordance with a plan or purpose, equally allembracing, which has existed from eternity. As Plato says in his Parmenides that nothing, not even the meanest object, is unpenetrated by the idea, so even the minutest details, and seemingly most casual happenings, of life (the numbering of hairs, the fall of a sparrow, Mt 10:29, 30) are included in the Divine providence. Free agency is not annulled; on the contrary, human freedom and responsibility are everywhere insisted on. But even free volitions, otherwise mere possibilities, are taken up in their place into this plan of God, and are made subservient to the accomplishment of His purposes. The Bible does not trouble itself with solving difficulties as to the relation of the Divine purpose to human freedom, but, in accordance with its fundamental doctrine of God as the free personal Creator of the world and absolutely sovereign Ruler in the realms both of matter and of mind, working through all causes, and directing everything to the wisest and holiest ends, it unhesitatingly sees His ‘hand’ and His ‘counsel’ in whatever is permitted to happen, good or bad (Ac 2:28). It need not be said that there is nothing arbitrary or unjust in this ‘counsel’ of God; it can be conceived of only as the eternal expression of His wisdom, righteousness, and love.

Texts are almost superfluous in the case of a doctrine pervading the whole of Scripture,— history, prophecy, psalm, epistle,—but an instance or two may be given. The history is a continual demonstration of a Divine teleology (e.g. Gn 45:8, 50:20). God’s counsel stands, and cannot be defeated (Ps 33:1, 46:10, 11); all that God wills He does (Ps 115:3, 135:6, Dn 4:35); it is because God purposed it, that it comes to pass (Is 14:24, 27, 37:26); God is the disposer of all events (2 S 17:11, 12, Job 1:21, Pr 16:33); man may devise his way, but it is the Lord who directs his steps (16:9); even the hearts of men are under His control (21:1); God sends to man good and evil alike (Am 3:6, Is 45:7) . It has already been pointed out that the same doctrine is implied in the NT (e.g. Ac 4:28, 15:18, 28 [story of Paul’s shipwreck], Eph 1:11, Rev 4:11 etc.).

2. A universal, all-pervading purpose of God in creation, providence, and human life, is thus everywhere assumed. The end of God’s purpose, as regards humanity, may be thought of as the establishing of a moral and spiritual kingdom, or Kingdom of God, in which God’s will should be done on earth, as it is done in heaven (cf. Mt 6:10). But this end, now that sin has entered, can be attained only through a redemption. The centre of God’s purpose in our world, therefore,— that which gives its meaning and direction to the whole Biblical history, and constitutes almost its sole concern,—is the fact of redemption through Jesus Christ, and the salvation of men by Him. To this everything preceding—the call of Abraham, the Covenant with Israel, the discipline and growing revelation of Law and Prophets—leads up (on predestination here, cf. Gn 18:18, 19, Lv 20:24 , 26, Is 43:1, 7 etc.); with this begins (or, more strictly, continues) the ingathering of a people to God from all nations and races of mankind, who, in their completeness, constitute the true Church of God, redeemed from among men (Eph 5:25–27, 1 P 2:9, 10, Rev 1:5, 6, 14:1–6 etc.). The peculiar interest of the doctrine of foreordination, accordingly, in the NT, concentrates itself in the calling and salvation of those described as the ‘chosen’ or ‘elect’ of God to this great destiny (Eph 1:4 etc.). The doctrine of foreordination (predestination) here coalesces practically with that of election ( wh. see). Yet certain distinctions arise from a difference in the point of view from which the subject is contemplated.

Election, in the NT, as seen in the article referred to, relates to the eternal choice of the individual to salvation. As little as any other fact or event in life is the salvation of the believer regarded as lying outside the purpose or pre-determination of God; rather, an eternal thought of love on God’s part is seen coming to light in the saved one being brought into the Kingdom (2 Th 2:13, 15). There is the yet deeper reason for seeing in the believer’s calling and salvation the manifestation of a Divine purpose, that, as lost in sin, he is totally incapable of effecting this saving change in himself. He owes his renewal, his quickening from spiritual death, to the gratuitous mercy of God (Eph 2:1–8; see REGENERATION) . Every soul born into the Kingdom is conscious in its deepest moments that it is only of God’s grace it is there, and is ready to ascribe the whole glory of its salvation to God (Rev 7:10), and to trace back that salvation to its fountainhead in the everlasting counsel of God. Thus regarded, ‘election’ and ‘foreordination’ to salvation seem to have much the same meaning. Yet in usage a certain distinction is made. It may perhaps be stated thus, that ‘election’ denotes the Divine choice simply, while ‘foreordain’ has generally (in sense of ‘predestinate’) a reference to the end which the foreordination has in view. Thus, in Eph 1:4, 5 ‘Even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world … having foreordained us unto adoption as sons’ (where ‘having foreordained,’ as Meyer rightly says, is not to be taken as prior to, but as coincident in point of time with, ‘he chose’); and in v. 11 ‘having been foreordained,’ i.e. to be ‘made a heritage,’ and this ‘to the end that we should be unto the praise of his glory’ (v. 12). In Ro 8:29, again, where ‘foreknew’—which seems to take the place of ‘chose’ (it can hardly be foreknowledge of the faith which is the result of the later ‘calling’)—comes before ‘foreordained,’ the latter has the end defined: ‘to be conformed to the image of his Son.’ Those ‘foreknown’ are afterwards described as God’s ‘elect’ (v. 33). This striking passage further shows how, in foreordaining the end, God likewise foreordains all the steps that lead to it (‘foreknew’—‘foreordained’—‘called’—‘justified’—‘glorified’). In 1 P 1:1, on the other hand, ‘foreknowledge’ is distinguished from election—still, however, in sense of pre-designation.

3. God’s foreordination, or predestination, whether in its providential, historical, or personal saving aspects, is ever represented as a great mystery, the depths of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of which (for this is the character of its mystery) man can never hope to fathom (Ro 11:33, 34). When the Apostle, in Ro 9, is dealing with objectors, he does not attempt a rationale of that which he admits to lie beyond his ken, but falls back on the unchallengeable sovereignty of God in acting as He wills (vv. 14–16, 19–23) . The answer would be a poor one, were it not as absolutely assumed throughout that God’s is a will in which there can be no taint of unrighteousness, and that there is nothing in His action which does not admit of vindication to a perfect wisdom and goodness. If God shows His mercy on whom He wills, His right to do so cannot be assailed; if He hardens—not arbitrarily, but through the fixed operation of ethical laws—and glorifies His wrath in the destruction of the hardened, it is not without sufficient cause, and only after much long-suffering (v. 22). As little does the Apostle attempt to show the compatibility of the Divine foreordination with human freedom, but habitually assumes that the one is not, and cannot be, in violation of the other. The material with which the potter works (v. 21) is not, in this case, after all, mere inanimate clay, but beings who can ‘reply against God’ (v. 20), and are the objects of His long-suffering endurance (v. 22). Sovereignty is seen in this, that even those who refuse to be moulded to higher uses do not escape the hands of God, but are made to subserve His glory, even if it be in their destruction. Doubtless even here a purpose of God is to be recognized. Godet, who is not a rigid predestinarian, says of the instance in v. 17—

‘God might have caused Pharaoh to be born in a cabin, where his proud obstinacy would have been displayed with no less self-will, but without any historical consequence; on the other hand, he might have placed on the throne of Egypt at that time a weak, easy-going man, who would have yielded at the first shock. What would have happened? Pharaoh in his obscure position would not have been less arrogant and perverse, out Israel would have gone forth from Egypt without ēclat’ (on Ro 9:17, 18).

Only in this sense, of those wilfully hardened and persistently obdurate, is it permissible to speak—if the language should be employed at all—of a decree of reprobation. Scripture itself, with all its emphasis on foreordination, never speaks of a foreordination to death, or of a reprobation of human beings apart from their own sins. See REPROBATE. Its foreordination is reserved for life, blessing, sonship, inheritance.

JAMES ORR.

PRE-EXISTENCE OF SOULS.—

‘Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:

The soul that rises with us, our life’s star,

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And cometh from afar.’

—Wordsworth, Intimations of Immortality

The idea expressed in these lines has been prominent in many religions—cultured and crude alike. That it had Jewish adherents is clear from (a) Wis 8:19, 20, written by some Jewish thinker influenced (as, e.g., Philo, a believer in the same doctrine, was conspicuously) by Platonist study; (b) the reference of Josephus to Essene doctrines; (c) the Talmud. That traces occur in the OT is doubtful. The idea can be more easily read into, than gathered out of, such passages as Job 1:21 (cf. Sir 40:1), Ec 12:7, Ps 139:16 . Cf. also Rev 4:11b. But something very like it occurs Jn 9:2. Had the man been born blind because of his own sin? In His reply Christ finds no fault with the question as such. The objection that such an idea would be unfamiliar to the disciples is weakened by considerations as to the advanced thought of the Fourth Gospel; moreover, the Book of Wisdom (see above) is clearly re-echoed in NT. Some think that the question rose from

Jewish ideas as to pre-natal consciousness. See Gn 25:22 (strife), Lk 1:41–44 (joy). Non liquet must be the verdict. The subject re-appears in Origen’s speculative teaching and, indirectly, in related controversies.

H. F. B. COMPSTON.

PREPARATION (Gr. paraskeuē).—A term applied by the Jews to the day preceding the Sabbath, or any of the sacred festivals, especially the Passover.

PRESBYTER (Gr. presbyteros, ‘elder’).—The word occurs only once in EV, viz. as a RV marginal alternative for ‘elders’ in Ac 20:17; the Gr. presbyteros, which is of frequent occurrence, being otherwise invariably rendered ‘elder.’ In this case the Revisers doubtless put ‘presbyters’ In the margin because the passage furnishes one of the leading proofs for the identity of the presbyter or elder with the bishop or overseer (cf. v. 17 with v. 28). For treatment of the subject of the presbyter, see art. BISHOP.

J. C. LAMBERT.

PRESBYTERY (Gr. presbyterion).—In EV of NT the word occurs only in 1 Ti 4:14, where it denotes the body of Christian presbyters or elders (no doubt those belonging to the church at Lystra; cf. Ac 16:1–4) who laid their hands upon Timothy before he set out on his labours as St. Paul’s missionary companion. In the Gr. text, however, the word presbyterion is found in two other passages, viz. Lk 22:66 (AV ‘elders,’ RV ‘assembly of the elders’) and Ac 22:5 (AV and RV ‘estate of the elders’), as an expression for the body of Jewish elders who with the ‘chief priests’ and the scribes composed the Sanhedrin. This twofold use of the word (like the corresponding twofold use of ‘elder’) affords a strong confirmation of the view, which is otherwise most probable, that the presbytery of the Christian Church finds its roots in the eldership of the Jewish ecclesia.

The presbytery was at first a purely local body (cf. the Letters of Ignatius, passim) , corresponding not to the modern presbytery of the Presbyterian Churches, which is a district court composed of ministers and elders drawn from a number of separate congregations, but to the kirk-session or body of elders by which in those churches a single congregation is ruled. Originally the presbytery had no fixed president. The presbyters or elders, otherwise known as bishops (see art. BISHOP) , whom we meet in the NT seem officially to have all stood upon the same footing. But early in the post-Apostolic age one of the congregational presbyter-bishops rose, by what was probably a process of natural evolution (cf. 1 Ti 5:17, ‘Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially those who labour in the word and in teaching’), to a position of predominance, and was now known as the ‘bishop’ par excellence, in distinction from the other presbyters (cf. in the Presbyterian and Congregational Churches the precedence of the minister over the elders and deacons respectively, although, properly speaking, a ‘minister’ is simply a diakonos or deacon). The bishop as we meet him in the Letters of Ignatius (e.g. Ephes. 4) is a congregational bishop, the president of a body of congregational presbyters. The monarchical bishop is a later creation.

What was involved in the laying on of the hands of the presbytery in the case of Timothy it is impossible to say with certainty. Probably it was an act corresponding to ordination to office (see LAYING ON OF HANDS), St. Paul himself being associated with the presbytery in the matter ( cf. 2 Ti 1:6). On the other hand, it may have been no more than a commendation of Timothy to the grace of God for strength and guidance in his new work as a missionary, analogous thus to the action of the prophets and teachers of Antioch in the case of Barnabas and Saul (Ac 13:1–3). The laying on of St. Paul’s hands (2 Ti 1:6) may really have been a separate incident, comparable again to the laying on of the hands of Ananias on himself (Ac 9:17)—not an official act but a gracious benediction (cf. Lindsay, Church and Ministry, p. 143n.). St. Paul without doubt received a consecrating grace from the hands both of Ananias and of those prophets and teachers of the Church at Antioch, but he claimed to be an Apostle ‘not from men, neither through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead’ (Gal 1:1).

J. C. LAMBERT.

PRESS, PRESSFAT.—The former occurs in the OT for the usual ‘winepress’ in Pr 3:10

(RV ‘fats’; in modern English, ‘vats’), Is 16:10, where alone it is retained in RV, and Jl 3:13 RV ‘winepress.’ Also Hag 2:16 AV, along with the only instance of ‘pressfat’ (RV ‘winefat’), as the rendering of a rare word, which RV wrongly tr. ‘vessels.’ The passage in question should run: ‘When one came to the winepress (expecting) to draw off fifty (measures [probably ‘baths’ are intended]) from the wine-trough, there were but twenty.’ For the ancient winepresses, see WINE

AND STRONG DRINK, § 2.

A. R. S. KENNEDY.

PREVENT.—To ‘prevent’ in the Eng. of AV is to ‘be before,’ ‘anticipate,’ ‘forestall,’ as Ps 119:147 ‘I prevented the dawning of the morning and cried’ (Amer. Revision has ‘anticipated’ here, but the Eng. Revisers retain ‘prevented’). Sometimes it is to forestall for one’s good, as Ps 59:10 ‘The God of my mercy shall prevent me’; and sometimes for one’s hurt, as Ps 18:5 ‘The snares of death prevented me’; but the mod. idea of merely ‘hindering’ never occurs in AV.

PRIESTS AND LEVITES.—The method here adopted as on the whole the most

satisfactory is first to give some account of the highly organized hierarchical system of the Second Temple, as we know it from the Priestly Code, and, taking this as a standard, next to trace its history up to this point, and, lastly, follow its subsequent developments.

I. THE HIERARCHY OF THE SECOND TEMPLE.—The chief authority for the religious institutions of the early period of the Second Temple is the document known as the Priestly Code (P), which was composed probably shortly after, or partly during, the Exile, and reached very nearly its present form in the time of Nehemiah. It comprised the whole of Leviticus and the ritual portions of Numbers, all the regulations connected with the Tabernacle in Exodus, together with certain narrative portions especially connected with religious institutions—the Sabbath, circumcision, and the like—and statistical statements throughout the Hexateuch. According to P, the Jewish hierarchy was threefold, including high priest, priest, and Levite, distinguished by different functions and different privileges.

A. The high priest

1. His consecration

The high priest, who is the eldest son of his predecessor in the office, is consecrated by an elaborate ritual consisting of washing, solemn vesting in his robes, anointing by pouring oil on the head, and several sacrificial rites, among them the sprinkling with blood and the anointing with oil of different parts of the body. The sacrificial ceremonies lasted for seven days (Ex 29, Lv 8).

2. The distinctive vestments of the high priest, in addition to those worn by all priests (B. 2) , were the robe of blue, which was woven without seam, had a hole for the head, and was said to have reached down to the knees; the ephod of curiously wronght embroidered work; the breastplate, also of embroidered work, which was attached to the ephod, and contained originally the Urim and Thummim (II. B. 4); the turban with the crown or plate engraved ‘Holy to Jahweh’ ( Ex 28:36).

3. The special duties of the high priest included the offering of a daily meal-offering (Lv 6:19 , 20, where the words ‘in the day when he is anointed’ are probably a later interpolation). He had also to perform the ceremonial sprinklings in the case of sin-offerings for the whole people (Lv 4:13–21). But by far the most important ceremonies were those connected with the great Day of Atonement, on which day alone he, and he alone, attired merely in the linen garb of the priest, entered the ‘Holy of Holies’ and sprinkled the mercy seat with the blood of a bullock as a sinoffering for himself, and that of a goat as a sin-offering for the people (Lv 16).

B. Priests.—1. Their consecration.—The priests who belonged to the family of Aaron were consecrated by special ceremonies like those of the high priest, but less elaborate (Ex 29, Lv 8). These did not, however, include, in later times at any rate, anointing, the high priest being called by way of distinction ‘the anointed priest’ (Lv 4 passim, cf. Ps 133:2). At most the anointing of priests meant sprinkling the different parts of the body with the holy oil as well as with the blood ( Ex 29:21, Lv 8:30).

2. All priests were required to wear, during their ministrations only, special vestments. These were ‘linen’ breeches, coats of checker-work, girdles and head-tires (Ex 28:42, 29:3, 9, Lv 8:13).

3. The work of the priests consisted in (a) offering up all sacrifices. This included especially collecting the blood and sprinkling the altar with it; washing the inwards and legs, making the fire, placing the pieces of the burnt-offering upon it and burning them, doing the same to the ‘memorials’ of other offerings, and the removal of ashes. They did not, except usually in the case of public sacrifices, themselves kill the victim (Lv 1–6).—(b) They were required to give decisions, after examination, about suspected leprosy, plague, and mouldin garments and houses, and to perform the required rites (Lv 13, 14).—(c) It was also their duty to blow the trumpets, whether as the alarm of war or at the new moon, especially that of the 7th month, and at the set feasts (Nu 10:10, Lv 23:24; cf. Ps 81:3) and on the Day of Atonement of the Jubilee year (Lv 25:9) . The words used in different passages suggest the probability that the instruments employed were originally horns, for which silver trumpets were afterwards substituted.

4. The priests were supported (a) partly by the tithe of the tithe which they received from the Levites (Nu 18:26); (b) partly by the first-fruits and firstlings, including the redemption money for men and unclean beasts (Nu 18:12–18, Lv 7:30–34); (c) partly by sacrificial dues of various kinds. The latter included (1) practically the whole of private meal-offerings, whether flour or cakes, sin-offerings and guilt-offerings (Nu 18:9, Lv 5:16, 10:16–20) . These were regarded as ‘most holy,’ and might be eaten only by the priest and his sons as a sacrificial act in the Temple precincts (Lv 6:16, 26, 7:8, Nu 18:10). (2) Of peace-offerings the breast and the thigh, which might be eaten by any of the priest’s family, the sacrificial act consisting in their first being ‘waved’ or ‘heaved’ respectively (Nu 18:11, Lv 7:30–34). (3) The skin of the burnt-offerings (Lv 7:8). (4) The shewbread and several special offerings, as that of the leper, etc. (Lv 24:9, Mk 2:26, Lv 14 etc.). The language suggests that these dues were in some cases fresh enactments (see esp. Lv 10:18–20 , Nu 18:18). The tendency to increase the dues of the priests was the natural consequence of the increase of work arising out of the continually greater complication of religious ceremonies. C. Levites

1. Dedication.—The Levites were also dedicated to their work by special ceremonies. They were sprinkled with water, their bodies shaved, and their clothes washed. Then they were solemnly presented to God, the high priest laying his hands on them, and were required to present two bullocks, one as a burnt-offering, the other as a sin-offering (Nu 8:5–22) . The ceremonies signified the solemn offering up of the Levites to God as a wave-offering (vv. 13, 15 b). This is said to have been as a substitute for the firstborn of the Israelites, who by right belonged to God (Nu 3:9–13).

2. The age at which they entered upon their office varied at different times between 30, 25, and 20 (Nu 4:3, 8:24, 1 Ch 23:3, 24, 27). Probably it was twice reduced because of the increasing difficulty in procuring Levites to do the work.

3. Work.—The Levites were said to have been given as a gift (nĕthūnīm) to Aaron and his sons. In other words, they were to be regarded as the servants of the priests. This included especially the work of fetching and carrying, as they were believed to have carried the Tabernacle and its furniture in the Wilderness. Beyond this belonged to them the work of

‘keeping the charge,’ i.e. protecting and keeping clean the vessels and the furniture. In short, they were required to do everything connected with the service which was not by law required of the priests themselves (Nu 18:2–7, 3:5–39).

4. The Levites were supported from the tithe, which was in the first instance paid to them (Nu 18:21–24).

D. Levitical and priestly cities.—According to Nu 35:1–8 , there were assigned to the Levites in different parts of Palestine 48 cities with suburbs and surrounding pasture land to about 500 yards distance. In the description of the division of the land under Joshua, 13 of these, in the territories of Judah, Simeon, and Benjamin, are given to the priests (Jos 21; see also 1 Ch 6:54–81, where, however, the text is very corrupt). No trace of any such arrangement is to be found in Ezekiel’s ideal sanctuary, according to which the priests and Levites have their possessions in the ‘oblation’ or sacred ground, which included the sanctuary (48:9–14) . This provision of cities and land in P appears to be in direct contradiction to the oft-repeated statement that the Levites had no portion in the land because Jahweh was their portion (Dt 10:9, Nu 18:20, 26:62 etc.)—a statement explained as meaning in practice that they were to depend for their support upon their tithes and priestly dues, which were all regarded as offerings to Jahweh (Dt 18:2, Nu 18:8–32 , Lv 27:30).

This assignation of priestly cities must therefore be regarded as a sort of historical theory, which grew partly out of some sort of provision, in land and houses in and about Jerusalem, having been actually made in the period of the Second Temple for the priests and other officers (Neh 11:3, 21, 1 Ch 9:2), partly because the cities so assigned in P were many of them ancient sanctuaries, where priests and Levites would have been located in early times. At some of the larger sanctuaries there may have been several priests, as, according to an early tradition, there were at Nob (1 S 21). Though too great a reliance should not be placed on the editorial note in Jer 1:1, it is quite possible that several of the priests of Jerusalem may have lived together at Anathoth, which was only 2¹/₂miles from Jerusalem, and the home of Abiathar (1 K 2:26), and so given rise to the tradition that it was a priestly city.

E. Genealogical theory of the hierarchy.—P’s theory of the origin of the hierarchy was as follows: The Levites were one of the 12 tribes of Israel, descended from Levi, one of Jacob’s sons. They were set apart by Jahweh for Himself in lieu of the firstborn of the Israelites, when He slew the firstborn of the Egyptians (Nu 3:12, 8:17, 19). All the ‘sons’ of Aaron—a descendant of Levi (Ex 6:14–20)—were priests (Lv 1:5 etc.). The high priesthood descended in one line by primogeniture. Nadab and Ahihu, Aaron’s eldest sons, having perished, it passed to Eleazar, the next in age (Nu 20:22–29 , Ex 6:23). That Eleazar’s son Phinehas succeeded him is perhaps implied in Nu 25:11, and certainly is so in Jg 20:28—in a document closely allied in its present form to P. The rest of the made descendants of Levi were Levites, divided into the three great families of Gershon, Kohath, and Merari. The family of Kohath, as being that to which both Aaron and Moses belonged, had the most honourable work. They had charge of the sacred furniture and vessels—the ark, altars, candlestick, and table, while the other families divided between them the charge of the different parts of the building (Nu 3:21–39).

II. OT EVIDENCE FOR THE EVOLUTION OF THE HIERARCHY.—There is reason to believe that the hierarchical system of P was not handed down in its completeness from primitive times, but was of gradual growth.

A. The Book of the Covenant

1. Status of the local priests.—The earliest document bearing at all fully on the subject is the ‘Book of the Covenant’ (Ex 21–23) , to which we should add Ex 20 and 24. The priests of the several sanctuaries, of which many are contemplated (20:24b), are called Elohim ( RV ‘God,’ AV usually ‘the judges’), probably in the sense that they were God’s representatives, and that their decision, often probably determined by the sacred lot, was regarded as the expression of God’s will. We may compare Ps 82:6 ‘I said, Ye are gods’—a reference undoubtedly to this passage, made to show how unworthy the judges of a later time were of their sacred office.

2. Their work, etc.—These local priests were required to superintend the ancient primitive ceremony connected with the retention of a slave after 6 years’ service (Ex 21:6), decide suits, impose fines and the like (21:22, 22:9, 9). To ‘revile’ them was a crime (22:28, where the order of phrases suggests that they were of more consequence than the ‘rulers’). No mention is made of any distinctive dress, even where one might certainly have expected it (cf. 20:26 with 28:42, from which we may gather that the linen breeches were the addition of a later, probably postexilic, date). Nor is anything said of their being an hereditary guild. But silence on this latter point does not prove that they were not. In laws what is customary is often taken for granted.

B. The First Book of Samuel

1. Temple of Shiloh.—With the Book of the Covenant we may compare I Samuel, which points in many ways to the state of society and religion assumed by the former. Here we find several local sanctuaries. One of the most important of them, at the time when the book opens, is the ‘temple’ of Shiloh.

The words ‘tent of meeting’ in 2:22 are a very late insertion not found even in LXX. It depends upon a later tradition that the Tabernacle was set up in Shiloh (Jos 18, 19:51 [P]).

In this temple was the ark, and the infant Samuel slept inside the sanctuary to protect it (1 S 3:3). The priest Eli seems to have had a large influence and to have exercised a jurisdiction over at least the whole tribe of Ephraim. In 2:29—in a document probably at earliest only a little before Josiah’s reign—he is spoken of in a way which implies that he held a unique position among the tribes of Israel. The further statement in 4:19, that he judged Israel 40 years, is a still later editorial insertion connecting 1 Samuel with Judges (see Jg 15:20, 16:31 etc.).

2. Position of Samuel.—When Shiloh had been destroyed by the Philistines, Samuel came to be a still more powerful priest, being, according to 1 S 7:10, 17, connected, both as priest and ruler, with several local sanctuaries—Bethel, Gilgal, Mizpah, and Ramah. But even these were comprised within a very small circle. It is curious that, according to 9:6—part of one of the earliest sources of the book,—Saul did not appear, at the time of searching for his father’s asses, to have even heard of Samuel’s existence. It is also significant that in 2:26 Eli uses Elohim as in the Book of the Covenant, showing that, in his time at any rate, there were other priests exercising jurisdiction at their several sanctuaries.

3. Absence of regular religious organization.—1 Samuel points to great liberty of action on the part of the priests, or, at least, of Samuel himself. His movements do not seem to imply any regularly organized sacrificial system. Except for new moons and yearly feasts of perhaps more than one kind (1 S 1:3, 20:5, 6, 29), to which we should probably add sabbaths (cf. 2 K 4:23), there seem to have been no regular feast days. The priest appoints and invites whom he chooses to the sacrificial meal (1 S 9:23, 24), and on one occasion takes with him the animal for sacrifice (16:2–5).

4. Dress of the primitive priests.—In 1 S 2:18, 19 the two parts of the dress of Samuel, the ephod and the robe, are, in name at any rate, what afterwards belonged to the peculiar dress of the high priest (Ex 28:6–12, 31–35) . But the robe is also the common name for the upper garment, and is used of that worn by Jonathan and Saul (1 S 18:4, 24:4). Of the use of the ephod by the priests of this date there is abundant evidence. It was essentially the priestly garment of primitive times, and is especially connected with ascertaining the will of God by means of the sacred lots, Urim and Thummim, which was the peculiar province, and one of the most important functions, of the priest (1 S 14:13, 22:18, 23:6, 9, 30:7). The Urim is expressly mentioned in 28:6, and the Urim and Thummim were both originally in the text of 14:41, 42, as a comparison with the LXX and Vulgate shows.

5. The priests’ means of support.—According to 1 S 2—from a relatively old document—the priests had no fixed dues; but the passage seems to suggest that then, or at least in the writer’s day, what had been voluntary gifts were passing into customary claims which were liable to abuse. The chief ground of complaint was the wrong committed not so much against the sacrificer as against God, to whom was due the fat of the inwards, which should first be burnt (2:16).

6. A colony of priests.—In addition to the priests of the local sanctuaries, we find in 1 S 21, 22 an account of a settlement of priests at Nob under Ahimelech, all of whom except Abiathar his son were put to death by Doeg at Saul’s command. This settlement may have originated in the troubles brought about by the Philistines.

7. Priests not regarded as Levitical.—There is nothing in the Books of Samuel which affords a sufficient reason for connecting the priesthood of this period directly with a tribe of Levi, the mention of the ‘Levites’ in 1 S 6:16 and 2 S 15:24 being clearly a very late interpolation which assumes the liturgical arrangements of P. Had these been in vogue at the time, we should certainly have found some reference to them in 2 S 6 such as we find abundantly in the parallel in 1 Ch 15, where v. 2 suggests that the death of Uzzah was a punishment for other than Levites having carried the ark.

C. Jg 17–21 (a document which, though revised by a priestly writer, belongs to rather the earlier part of the monarchy and speaks of a still earlier condition of things) confirms in many ways the Books of Samuel. It speaks of different sanctuaries—Mizpah (20:1) and Bethel (20:18, 26), besides Shiloh, which is a place of comparatively small importance, yet marked, as in 1

Sam., by a yearly religious festival of a somewhat secular character (cf. 21:19–21 with 1 S 1:3, 13–15 , 21). The ‘Levite’ who is priest to Micah is actually of the tribe of Judah (17:7). There is mention of an ephod and a suit of apparel for the priest; but it is uncertain whether the ephod refers to the priest’s dress or, as apparently in 8:27, to some kind of image.

D. 1 and 2 Kings (original documents) up to Josiah’s reform.—There were two circumstances which tended to diminish the prestige of the local priests.—1. The establishment of the monarchy, by which many, if not all, of the secular functions of the priests had passed into the hands of the king or his deputies. Of these one of the most important was the practice of jurisdiction (see esp. 2 S 12, 14:1–20, 15:2–4, 1 K 3:9, 16–28 ; cf. also Dt 16:18). It is also true that, sooner or later, the idea of the king as God’s earthly representative was substituted for that of the priest.

2. Of even greater importance was the building of the great Temple at Jerusalem by Solomon. From the very first it made for the centralization of worship, though not of course intended originally to be the one single lawful sanctuary which it afterwards became. The local sanctuaries (‘high places’) were still tolerated (1 K 15:14, 22:48 etc.), but would tend more and more to sink into insignificance beside this splendid building. This was especially the case in the Southern Kingdom. In the North the local sanctuary worship had more vitality, but it was largely maintained and also debased for political reasons (1 K 12:26–29) . The calves of Jeroboam were probably Canaanitish, though he probably meant them as symbols, not rivals, of Jahweh. The cult of the ‘high places’ seems gradually to have relapsed into familiar and popular types of Semitic worship; and in the books of the early prophets Amos and Hosea it is not always easy to distinguish between heathenism and a heathenish worship of Jahweh.

With the decline of the local sanctuary the status of the priest gradually declined, till it reached the low level implied in Jg 17–19 , and in Deuteronomy.

E. Deuteronomy

1. Levites.—In Dt. (first published in all probability in Josiah’s reign) we find the terms ‘priests’ and ‘Levites’ rather curiously used. The latter occurs frequently, but when used alone it is always as of a class deserving of pity. The Levite is frequently ranged with the slave, the widow, and the fatherless (Dt 12:12, 18, 16:11, 14). The descriptive phrase ‘that is within thy gates’ means in the towns generally as distinct from Jerusalem, as we see from 12:15, 16:5, where the local sanctuaries are contrasted with the one permissible sanctuary. The Levites were certainly the priests of these local sanctuaries. The poverty of the Levites is also testified by Jg 17–19 , in which we find more than one case of Levites wandering about in search of a living.

2. Effect of abolishing local sanctuaries.—Dt 18:3–8 suggests that Levites might desire to go up to Jerusalem and perform priestly functions and receive support, and orders that they should be allowed to do both, and be treated in these respects on an equality with the priests at

Jerusalem. When we realize that the ideal of Dt. was the one only sanctuary, it becomes evident that the case contemplated was one which would naturally arise when the local sanctuaries were abolished, as in fact they were by Josiah.

3. ‘The priests the Levites.’—On the other hand, the priests of Jerusalem are generally called distinctively, it would seem, ‘the priests the Levites’; occasionally ‘priests’ only, when the context makes it clear that the priests of Jerusalem are meant, as in 18:8, 19:17.

4. The dues of these priests, including the Levites who joined them, were the shoulder, the two cheeks, and the maw, and the first-fruits of field and garden produce. They did not include, as in P, the thigh or the firstlings. The tithes were not given by right to the priests or Levites, but the latter shared in the family feast at the one sanctuary, at which they were solemnly eaten as a sacrificial act. The same was the case with the firstlings, vows, and freewill offerings (18:1–8 , 12:17–19) . One sees in these arrangements very clearly the system which was elaborated in P, and a development from what is implied in 1 S 2.

5. Levitical theory variously explained.—Not only are the priests of the local sanctuaries and those of Jerusalem both called ‘Levites’ in Dt.; but the name is distinctly understood as that of a tribe to which both belonged (18:1, 7). The traditional explanation accepted by Dt. of the exceptional position of the tribe, was that it was a reward for having slain a large number of rebellious apostates, probably on the occasion of the golden calf (cf. Dt 10:8, 8 with Ex 32:28, 29. [There are some critical difficulties in both passages concerning the connexion of the incident with the context]). This does not very well accord with P, which, as said above, connects the separation of the tribe with the dedication of the firstborn and the last of the plagues, and that of the priests, or the high priest especially, with the action of Phinehas at Baal-peor (Nu 3:11–13 , 25:13) . What is, however, probably an older tradition than either, while recognizing the Levites as a tribe, explains their being scattered in Israel as a punishment for an act of cruelty in conjunction with the Simeonites towards the Shechemites (Gn 49:5–7 , 34). It is quite impossible to say what elements of truth may underlie these traditions. But if the word ‘Levite’ was originally merely official, such a united act on the part of a body of priests seems improbable; and the stories may have arisen as different ways of accounting for their dispersion. But the belief that the priests all belonged to one tribe proves at any rate that at the time when Dt. was written, and probably long before, the priesthood had become a hereditary and isolated guild. That is to say, every priest was the son of a priest, and his sons became priests. The cursing of Levi in Jacob’s blessing, so conspicuously contrasted with the glorification of Joseph (i.e. Ephraim and Manasseh), perhaps shows that the writer, evidently of the Northern Kingdom, despised the priestly office.

F. Reforms of Josiah as they concerned the Levites.—When Josiah abolished the local sanctuaries, the difficulty about the priests contemplated by Dt. seems to have arisen in fact. But it was not solved altogether in the way directed. Probably the priests of Jerusalem resented the presence of the local priests at their altar, and certainly their services could hardly have been required. In fact the language of Dt. almost suggests that the main purpose was to secure means of support (18:8). This purpose was at any rate secured by Josiah. They were to receive allowances of food with the priests of Jerusalem, but were not allowed to perform priestly functions (2 K 23:9). It is to be noticed that the writer treats them with respect, calling them priests, and speaking of the priests of Jerusalem as brethren.

G. Ezekiel’s ideal sanctuary

1. His direction concerning the Levites.—In his ideal sanctuary Ezekiel makes a marked distinction between the ‘Levites that went far from me, when Israel went astray,’ and the ‘priests the Levites, the sons of Zadok,’ who had faithfully ‘kept the charge of my sanctuary’ (44:10, 15) . The Levites are here charged with apostasy and idolatry, in reference, no doubt, to the sin of Jeroboam, which Ezekiel so regarded. He directs that as a punishment they should be forbidden the office of priest, and be allowed to do only the servile work of the sanctuary, such as the oversight of the gates, slaying of victims—work that had hitherto been done, so Ezekiel complains, by uncircumcised aliens (vv. 5–10) . There can be little doubt that Ezekiel here gives the clue to the way in which the ‘Levites’ in the later sense of the term arose. The descendants of the priests, turned out from their local sanctuaries and not allowed to do the regular work of the priests, became a sort of inferior order, to do the menial service of the Second Temple.

2. The appellation ‘sons of Zadok’ seems to imply that the priests in Jerusalem also were, at least in Ezekiel’s time, an hereditary guild. Zadok himself was the chief priest appointed by Solomon in the room of Abiathar, in consequence, no doubt, of his loyalty with reference to

Adonijah (1 K 2:35). It is obvious that at first all the priests of Jerusalem could not have been ‘sons of Zadok,’ and it is extremely unlikely that their successors were all descended from him or any other one ancestor.

3. Like the ‘Levites,’ the high priest seems to have emerged gradually. In the different small sanctuaries each priest probably occupied an independent position. As some of these grew in importance, the priest attached to them would obtain a relatively greater influence, or possibly a paramount influence, over a district or tribe, as in the cases of Eli and Samuel, whose power, however, a later tradition seems to have greatly magnified. When several priests were associated together, as exceptionally perhaps at Noh (see II. B. 6), and afterwards in Solomon’s Temple, some kind of leadership became necessary, without any necessary difference of religious functions. Such a leadership seems to have been held by Ahimelech (1 S 21), Zadok (1 K 2:35), and Jehoiada (2 K 11). These were known as ‘the priest.’ Such is probably meant by ‘the priest that shall be in those days’ in Dt 26:3.

In Ezekiel’s ideal sanctuary there is no distinction between priest and high priest, and the only special vestments sanctioned for the priests are the garments kept in the priests’ chambers, but no details are given as to their character or style (42:14).

The earliest document in which the distinction appears is probably the almost contemporary ‘Code of Holiness’ (Lv 17–26) . In 21:10 we find the curious phrase ‘he that is the high priest among his brethren’ (RV), which might be more exactly rendered, ‘the priest that is greater than his brethren’—an expression which would very well apply to one who did not hold a distinctly different office, as the high priest of P, but was rather primus inter pares. The directions concerning him deal entirely with ceremonial and social obligations, which were rather more exacting in his case than with other priests. For instance he might not marry a widow, or rend his garments as a sign of grief (21:10–15) . The allusions to a special unction (see I. A. 1, B. 1) and the high-priestly dress in 10 and 12 are almost certainly later interpolations.

III. DEVELOPMENTS IN THE HIERARCHY AFTER THE PRIESTLY CODE.

1. Relation of lower officers to Levites.—The historical sketch just given shows clearly how, in many ways, the earlier arrangements paved the way for the hierarchical system of P. The later history points to new developments in the hierarchical system. The Books of Chronicles, and the parts of Ezra and Nehemiah which belong to them, point to a highly organized service in which singers, and players on musical instruments, porters (RV sometimes ‘doorkeepers’), and Nethinim take a prominent place.

The Nethinim are always distinguished from the Levites, as in 1 Ch 9:2 (Neh 11:3), Ezr 2:43

(Neh 7:46). Both singers and porters are distinguished from the Levites in documents contemporary with Nehemiah and Ezra, but included among them by the Chronicler (cf. 1 Ch 9:14–34 (Neh 11:15–24) 15:16–24 etc. with Ezr 7:24, 10:23, 24, Neh 7:1, 10:28). This shows that the ‘porters and singers’ came to be regarded as ‘Levites,’ and were believed to be descended from one tribe. Meanwhile the more menial work of the Levites passed into the hands of the Nethinim, who are said in a Chronicler’s note to have been given by David to the Levites just as in P the Levites are said to have been given (nĕthūnīm) to the priests (cf. Ezr 8:20 with Nu 18:16).

2. (a) Their history.—The origin of the singers and porters is unknown. That they were both in existence in some form when Ezra began his work of reform is clear from Ezr 7:24, where they as well as the Nethinim were exempted from taxation by a decree of Artaxerxes. What is apparently the first mention of them is in what is, on the face of it, a list of the families which returned from the Exile in Ezr 2 (Neh 7:6ff.), in which the singers, porters, and Nethinim appear as separate classes. A closer examination, however, of the parallel passages makes it clear that the list in Nehemiah is not what was found in the archives, but the census made by himself. This is shown by the use of ‘Tirshatha,’ the official title of Nehemiah, in v. 65, and the references to contemporary events in vv. 64, 70, 73. The Chronicler in Ezr 3, after giving the list, continues the parallel context of Nehemiah, showing that here too he has taken the whole extract from the same source as in Nehemiah; Ezr 2 cannot, therefore, be cited as independent evidence for the early date of this list.

The porters might very naturally have arisen out of the necessity of defending the city and Temple from hostile attack (2 Ch 23:4, Neh 11:19). The complicated arrangements in 1 Ch 26:1– 19 suggest that an original necessity had become a stately ceremonial.

The singers, or at any rate the musicians, of Nehemiah’s time appear to have belonged to one particular guild, that of Asaph ( Neh 12:35, 45). The note in v. 45 is probably a later insertion of the Chronicler, who ascribed to David all the Temple institutions not already assigned to Moses in P.

It appears from Neh 7:1 that Nehemiah probably went a long way in re-organizing the work of Levites, singers and porters.

(b) The Books of Chronicles and the Psalms as a whole point to a later development of the Temple offices. (1) New guilds connected with the names of Korah, Heman, and Jeduthun (or Ethan) were added. The guilds of Asaph and Korah, and perhaps Heman and Jeduthun, had each a psalm-book of their own, of which several were afterwards incorporated into the general Psalter (see Pss 73–85, 87–89, 1 Ch 15:16–22). On the other hand, in 1 Ch 9:19, the Korahites, who were perhaps really of Levitical origin, are represented as doing the menial work, which had been that of the Levites, and yet are classed (9:33) under the general name of ‘singers.’ It is impossible to say which represents the earlier arrangement. (2) Another change in organization testified by the Chronicler is the division of priests and Levites (singers) into 24 ‘courses’ (1 Ch 24:1–19 , 25). These were believed to have been arranged by David, but first appointed by Solomon (2 Ch 8:14). This meant that in later times the whole body of priests and ‘Levites’ was arranged in 24 guilds, each of which was believed to be a separate family. So the work could be conveniently arranged. Thus it became customary for each of the courses of priests to attend in turn to the public work of the Temple. Like much that came to be ascribed to David, the beginning of some arrangement of the kind was probably the work of Nehemiah (Neh 13:30, 31).

3. Further development of Levitical theory.—In the Books of Chronicles we find a considerable development of the Levitical theory of the hierarchy. (1) A Levitical origin is assigned to Samuel, Asaph, Heman, etc. (1 Ch 6:27, 28, 33, 39, 44). (2) Zadok is held to be a descendant of Eleazar (1 Ch 6:4–12) ; Ahimelech (or Abimelech), Abiathar’s father or son, a descendant of Ithamar, Eleazar’s younger brother (1 Ch 24:3, 6; cf. 1 S 22:20, 2 S 8:17, 1 Ch 24:6). That Abiathar was a descendant of Eli, and Eli a descendant of Aaron, had already been implied by an editorial note in 1 K 2:27, which explained Solomon’s supplanting Abiathar by Zadok as a fulfilment of the prophecy against the house of Eli (1 S 2:27–36) , whereas in all probability by the ‘faithful priest’ is meant Samuel. According to the Chronicler, what Solomon did was to restore the high priesthood from the line of Ithamar to that of Eleazar. The office had originally passed, according to the priestly tradition, from Eleazar to his son Phinehas (Jg 20:28) , but how or when it got into the line of Ithamar is nowhere explained. There is a tendency in the Chronicler to ignore the priesthood of Abiathar, even in David’s reign. In 1 Ch 16:39 Zadok is appointed priest when the ark is first brought to Jerusalem, and in 29:22 he is anointed together with Solomon shortly before David’s death.

4. Extra ecclesiastical work of the priests and Levites.—The later books of the Bible make it likely that in the later period, at least from Nehemiah onwards, the priests and Levites engaged in other than sacrificial work, and especially in religious teaching (see 2 Ch 15:3, where the Chronicler characteristically reads into the history the ideas of a later time, Mal 2:7, Neh 8:4, 7). In 2 Ch 19:8–11 the work of administering justice is similarly referred to them. Thus the influence and also, to some extent, the work which in primitive times had been theirs, and had dwindled with the rise of king and prophet, seem to have returned to them, when these officers disappeared.

IV. INFLUENCE OF THE HIERARCHY ON THE RELIGION OF ISRAEL AT DIFFERENT PERIODS.—1. In primitive times, when each local sanctuary was the centre of religious, and, to some extent, of social and political, life, we find the influence of the priests very considerable (see II. A.). They were the natural persons to consult in case of difficulty. With them grew up a religious and moral tradition. They became the earliest channels of Divine revelation, and handed down that Divine teaching or Instruction (the ‘law’ of our English Bibles, as in Is 1:10).

2. It was probably out of the early priesthood that the prophetic office, as represented in the Books of Samuel, emerged. The prophet Samuel, who, according to tradition, combined the two offices, marks the transition between the spiritual influence of priest and prophet.

3. As the priestly power declined through loss of spiritual vigour, the prophetic influence became stronger, and we find the early prophets, in both the North and the South, but in the North especially, denouncing the unspiritual character of the priesthood, and the prevailing religious rites (see esp. Hos 4:4–9, Is 1:10–17).

4. With the religious revival under Josiah and the publication of the early chapters of Dt. we may notice a temporary reaction, but one marked by a strong tendency to give religion a more spiritual tone. It is still the prophet who is to be the source of Divine revelation (Dt 18:15), though even the words of a prophet are not necessarily infallible (13:1–5) . At about the same period Jeremiah denounces the popular valuation of a purely formal worship and an unworthy priesthood (3:16, 5:31, 7:11).

5. The possibilities, however, of a spiritual worship and a holy priesthood were never lost sight of, and a fresh impetus to priestly ideas is given, at latest during the Exile, by the ‘Code of Holiness’ (Lv 17–26) and the ideal sanctuary and priesthood sketched by Ezekiel (40–48).

6.With the first Return and the re-institution of Temple worship, the priesthood gained a fresh accession of power, all the greater as the secular power was under Persian rule. The contemporary prophets, Zech. and Haggai, not only insistently urge the importance of using every effort to re-build the Temple, but speak of Joshua the high priest as though on all but equal terms with Zerubbabel (Hag 1:14, 2:1–9, Zec 3, 4:11–14, 6:9–15).

7. The same priestly feelings influence Malachi, almost the contemporary of Nehemiah, who, while he attacks unmercifully the unworthy priests (1:6–2:9) , is loud in denouncing those who robbed God by not paying tithes (3:16), and seeks for a religious ideal in a purified Levitical system (3:3, 4).

8. The exaltation of the priesthood reached its climax in the person of Simon the Just, who restored the Temple, and re-built the city walls which had been demolished by Ptolemy. The people regarded him with supreme veneration. Sir 50:5–12 gives a most glowing description of the impression that he made as he officiated in his high-priestly vestments: ‘He was as the morning star in the midst of a cloud, and as the moon at full; as the sun shining upon the temple of the Most High, and as a rainbow giving light in the bright clouds,’ etc. etc.

9. In the Maccabæan period we find Simon II., the younger brother of Judas, actually ruling the people as high priest. Later on (B.C. 106) Judas (Aristobulus), according to Josephus, bore the title of ‘king,’ and the title actually appears on the coins of his brother Jannæus.

10. The close of this period, nevertheless, marks a decline, at any rate in the spiritual influence of the priesthood, and especially of the high priest. The latter office ceased to be hereditary, and was often bought and sold. A high priest could be deposed, and another appointed for political purposes. One reason for this decline was that religious interest tended in an increasing degree to be diverted to ethical and moral questions, as we see in the Wisdom literature of the age. Other causes or perhaps rather symptoms of the spirit of the time at a later period were the growth of the Jewish sects and the practice of a childish casuistry, which depended more on the opinion of the ancients than on the spiritual needs of the present.

F. H. WOODS.

PRIEST (In NT).—‘Priest’ (Gr. hiereus) is employed in the NT to denote anyone whose function it is to offer a religious sacrifice. 1. It is used of a Gentile priesthood in Ac 14:15 (‘the priest of Jupiter’), and also in Heb. as applied to the ‘order of Melchizedek’ (5:8, 10, 6:20, 7:1ff.), for Melchizedek, it is evident, was not merely a pre-Aaronic but a Gentile priest.

2. It is constantly employed to denote the members of the Jewish priesthood in their various ranks and functions. The ordinary officiating priests of the Temple come before us discharging the same offices of which we read in the OT. They burn incense (Lk 1:5, 8), present the sacrificial offerings (Mt 12:5, cf. Nu 28:9, 10), effect the ceremonial cleansing of the leper (Mt

8:4 = Mk 1:44 = Lk 5:14, cf. 17:14). The high priest (archiereus) appears as president of the

Sanhedrin (Mt 26:57 ||, Ac 5:27, 7:1, 23:2 etc.), and as entering every year on the Day of Atonement into the Most Holy Place with his offering of blood (He 9:25). Most frequently of all the word occurs in the plural form ‘chief priests’ (archiereis), an expression that probably designates a high-priestly party consisting of the high priest proper, the ex-high priests, and the members of those privileged families from which the high priests were drawn.

3. In the Ep. to the Hebrews Christ is described as both priest and high priest, but the fact that Melchizedek ( wh. see), the chosen type of His eternal priesthood, is also described by the same two terms (cf. 5:6 with v. 10, 6:20 with 7:1) shows that no distinction in principle is to be thought of, and that Christ is called a high priest simply to bring out the dignity of His priesthood. This conception of Christ as a priest is clearly stated in no other book of the NT, though suggestions of it appear elsewhere, and esp. in the Johannine writings (e.g. Jn 17:19, Rev

1:13). In Heb. it is the regulating idea in the contrast that the author works out with such elaboration between the Old and the New Covenants. He thinks of a mediating priest as essential to a religion, and his purpose is to show the immense superiority in this respect of the new religion over the old. He finds certain points of contact between the priesthood of Aaron and that of Christ. This, indeed, was essential to his whole conception of the Law as having a shadow of the good things to come (10:1), and of the priests who offer gifts according to the Law as serving ‘that which is a copy and shadow of the heavenly things’ (8:5). Christ, e.g., was Divinely called and commissioned, even as Aaron was (5:4, 6). He too was taken from among men, was tempted like His fellows, learned obedience through suffering, and so was qualified by His own human sympathies to be the High Priest of the human race (4:15ff., 5:1ff.). But it is pre-eminently by way of antithesis and not of likeness that the Aaronic priesthood is used to illustrate the priesthood of Christ. The priests of the Jewish faith were sinful men (5:3), while Jesus was absolutely sinless (4:15). They were mortal creatures, ‘many in number, because that by death they are hindered from continuing’ (7:23), while Jesus ‘abideth for ever,’ and so ‘hath his priesthood unchangeable’ (v. 24). The sacrifices of the Jewish Law were imperfect (10:1ff.); but Christ ‘by one offering hath perfected for ever them that are being sanctified’ (10:14). The sanctuary of the old religion was a worldly structure (9:1), and so liable to destruction or decay; but Christ enters ‘into heaven itself, now to appear before the face of God for us’ (9:24).

And this contrast between the priesthood of Aaron and the priesthood of Christ is brought to a head when Jesus is declared to be a priest—not after the order of Aaron at all, but after the order of Melchizedek (7:11ff.). ‘Order,’ it must be kept in mind, does not here refer to ministry, but to the high priest’s personality—a fact which, when clearly perceived, saves us from much confusion in the interpretation of this Epistle. The distinctive order of Christ’s priesthood is found in His own nature, above all in the fact that He is ‘a priest for ever.’ The Melchizedek high priest is conceived of all through as performing the same kind of priestly acts as were discharged by the high priests of the house of Aaroo; but the quality of His Person is quite different, and this completely alters the character of His acts, raising them from the realm of copies and shadows to that of absolute reality and eternal validity (cf. A. B. Davidson, Hebrews, 149).

It is a mistake, therefore, to attempt, as some do, to distinguish between an Aaronic priesthood exercised by Christ on earth and a Melchizedek priesthood exercised by Him in heaven; and equally a mistake to attempt to confine His priestly ministry to a work of mediation and intercession that begins after His exaltation. No doubt it is true that His priestly work is not consummated until He enters into God’s presence in the heavenly places, but all that the writer has previously set forth as bearing upon His priesthood must be borne in mind. It was by His life on earth, by the obedience He learned and the human sympathy He gained, that Christ was qualified to be the high priest of men. Moreover, every high priest ‘must have somewhat to offer,’ and the ‘somewhat’ of Jesus was Himself, yielded up on earth in a life of perfect obedience (5:3, 9) and an atoning death of spotless self-sacrifice (9:11–16 , 28). It was with this priestly offering of His life and death, and in virtue of it, that Jesus entered into the presence of God (9:24) as the ‘mediator of a new covenant’ (v. 15) and the ever-living Intercessor (7:25), and so secured for us our access with boldness unto the throne of grace (4:16, 10:18–22).

4. According to the teaching of the NT, the Church is a priestly institution, and all believers are themselves priests. The OT idea that Israel was ‘a kingdom of priests unto God’ (Ex 19:5) is transferred in precise terms to God’s people under the New Dispensation. They are ‘a royal priesthood’ (1 P 2:9); Christ has made them to be ‘a kingdom of priests unto God and his Father’

( Rev 1:6, 5:10). Again, they are referred to by these same two writers as ‘a holy priesthood’ (1 P 2:5) , ‘priests of God and of Christ’ (Rev 20:6). And though the author of Heb. does not so describe them in set language, it follows from his way of speaking that he regards all Christ’s people as priests. When he says in the passage fast cited (10:19–22) that they have boldness to enter into the Holy Place by a new and living way through the veil, it seems evident that he is thinking of those who draw near to God, by the blood of Jesus and in fulness of faith, as a company of worshipping priests; for under the old economy, which serves him at so many points as a type of the new, it was priests alone who could pass through the curtain into the Holy Place. It is the same idea, probably, that meets us in St. Paul when he speaks of our ‘access’ (Ro 5:2), our ‘access in one Spirit unto the Father’ (Eph 2:16), our ‘access in confidence through our faith’ in Christ (3:12). And it is nothing more than a carrying out of this same conception that all believers belong to a holy priesthood, when St. Peter writes of the ‘spiritual sacrifices’ which we are called to offer up (1 P 2:5); and St. Paul beseeches us to present our bodies a living sacrifice ( Ro 12:1); and the author of Heb. bids us offer to God the sacrifice of praise (13:15), or declares that God is well pleased with such sacrifices as kindly deeds and gifts of Christian liberality (v. 16); and the seer of the Apocalypse speaks of the prayers of all the saints as rising up like incense from the golden altar before the throne (Rev 8:3).

5. It is a noteworthy fact that the NT never describes the Christian ministry as a priesthood, or the individual minister as a priest, except in the general sense in which these terms are applicable to all believers—a fact which is all the more significant when we consider how frequently both the minister and the ministry are referred to. In particular, there is no trace in the NT of the later idea that in the Lord’s Supper a sacrifice of propitiation is offered to God, much less that this sacrifice is presented through the mediation of an official priesthood. The two terms ‘presbyter’ (presbyteros) and ‘priest’ (hiereus), which came to be confounded by and by, were at first kept absolutely apart. Thus, so far as the NT is concerned, it is only in an etymological sense that it can be said that ‘presbyter is priest writ large.’

J. C. LAMBERT.

PRINCE.—This is the tr. of a considerable number of Heb. and Gr. words, expressing different shades of meaning, e.g. ‘chieftain,’ ‘ruler,’ ‘king,’ ‘governor,’ ‘noble,’ ‘deputy.’ The main terms are 1. sar, ‘one who has authority or bears rule.’ It is used of rulers (Is 21:6, Nu 21:18 etc.), of royal officials (Gn 12:15, 2 K 24:12 etc.), of leaders in war (1 S 22:2), of tribal chieftains (e.g. Philistines, 1 S 18:30), of the chief butler and baker (Gn 40:2, 16), of the keeper of prison (Gn 39:21), of the taskmaster (Ex 1:11), of the prince of the eunuchs (Dn 1:7). It came later to be applied to the guardian angels of the nations (Dn 10:13, 20, 21), to Michael the archangel (Dn 12:1). It is the most general term for prince, and occurs in the fem, form sārāh, ‘princess,’ used of the wives of Solomon (1 K 11:3), and also of Jerusalem ‘princess among the provinces’ (La 1:1), and it is translated ‘ladies’ in Jg 5:29 and ‘queens’ in Is 49:23.

2. nāgīd, ‘one who is high, conspicuous, outstanding.’ It is applied to the governor of the palace (2 Ch 28:7), the keeper of the treasury (1 Ch 26:24), the chief of the Temple (1 Ch 9:11, 2 Ch 31:13); also to the chief of a tribe (2 Ch 19:11), the son of a king (2 Ch 11:22), the king himself (1 S 25:30), the high priest (Dn 9:25), and is occasionally in AV translated ‘captain.’

3. nāsī’, ‘one lifted up,’ is applied to chiefs of tribes, princes of Ishmael (Gn 17:20), to

Abraham (23:6), to Shechem (34:2), to Sheshbazzar (Ezr 1:8). It is often used of the heads of the Israelitic tribes, and translated ‘ruler’ in AV. The word is frequently in Ezekiel used of kings of Judah and foreign princes, and is also applied to the future head of the ideal State (34:24 etc.).

4. nādīb, ‘willing,’ ‘a volunteer,’ ‘generous,’ ‘noble,’ generally found in plur. and often translated ‘nobles,’ used of those of noble or princely birth (1 S 2:8, Ps 47:9, 107:40 etc.).

Other less frequent terms are nāsīk ‘installed,’ partĕmīm ‘leading men,’ qātsīn ‘judge,’ shālīsh ‘officer,’ ‘captain,’ sĕgānīm ‘deputies.’ In Dn 3:2, 3, 27, 6:2, 4, 7, the ‘princes’ of AV are Persian satraps, while in the names Rabshakeh, Rabsaris the prefix rab signifies ‘chief,’ as also the proper name Rezon (1 K 11:23), which occurs as a common noun (rāzōn) in Pr 14:28. We may also note that in Job 12:19 the word ‘priests’ (kōhănīm) is wrongly rendered ‘princes,’ and in Ps 68:31 the word translated ‘princes’ is not found in any other passage, the text being likely corrupt.

The NT terms are 1. archēgos, applied to Christ ‘the Prince (author) of life’ (Ac 3:15), ‘Prince and Saviour’ (Ac 5:31); so in He 2:10 Jesus is ‘the author ( AV ‘captain’) of salvation’ and in He 12:2 the ‘author and finisher of our faith.’ 2. archōn, used of Beelzebub (Mt 9:34, 12:24 , Mk 3:22), of the princes of the Gentiles (Mt 20:25), the princes of this world (1 Co 2:6, 8), prince of the power of the air (Eph 2:2), the Prince of the kings of the earth (Rev 1:5). 3.

hēgemōn, used of Bethlehem, ‘not least among the princes of Judah’ (Mt 2:6).

W. F. BOYD. PRISCA, PRISCILLA.—See AQUILA AND PRISCILLA.

PRISON.—Imprisonment, in the modern sense of strict confinement under guard, had no recognized place as a punishment for criminals under the older Hebrew legislation (see CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS, § 9). The first mention of such, with apparently legal sanction, is in the postexilic passage Ezr 7:26. A prison, however, figures at an early period in the story of Joseph’s fortunes in Egypt, and is denoted by an obscure expression, found only in this connexion, which means ‘the Round House’ (Gn 39:20, 23, 40:3, 5). Some take the expression to signify a round tower used as a prison, others consider it ‘the Hebraized form of an Egyptian word’ (see Driver, Com. in loc.) . Joseph had already found that a disused cistern was a convenient place of detention (Gn 37:24; see PIT). The same word (bōr) is found in Ex 12:29 and Jer 37:16 in the expression rendered by AV ‘dungeon’ and ‘dungeon house’ respectively; also alone in 38:8, Zec 9:11.

The story of Jeremiah introduces us to a variety of other places of detention, no fewer than four being named in 37:15–16 , although one, and perhaps two, of these are later glosses. Rigorous imprisonment is implied by all the four. The first ‘prison’ of v. 15 EV denotes literally ‘the house of bonds,’ almost identical with the Philistine ‘prison house,’ in which Samson was bound ‘with fetters of brass’ (Jg 16:21, 25). The second word rendered ‘prison’ in Jer 37:15 (also vv. 4, 18, 52:31 and elsewhere) is a synonym meaning ‘house of restraint.’ The third is the ‘dungeon house’ above mentioned, while the fourth is a difficult term, rendered ‘cabins’ by AV, ‘cells’ by RV. It is regarded by textual students, however, as a gloss on the third term, as the first is on the second.

Jeremiah had already had experience of an irksome form of detention, when placed in the stocks (20:2; cf. Ac 16:24), an instrument which, as the etymology shows, compelled the prisoner to sit in a crooked posture. 2 Ch 16:10 mentions a ‘house of the stocks’ (RVm; EV ‘prison house’), while Jer 29:26 associates with the stocks (so RV for AV ‘prison’) an obscure instrument of punishment, variously rendered ‘shackles’ (RV), ‘pillory’ (Oxf. Heb. Lex.) , and ‘collar’ (Driver). The last of these is a favourite Chinese form of punishment.

In NT times Jewish prisons doubtless followed the Greek and Roman models. The prison into which John the Baptist was thrown (Mt 14:3, 10) is said by Josephus to have been in the castle of Machærus. The prison in which Peter and John were put by the Jewish authorities (Ac 4:3 AV ‘hold,’ RV ‘ward’) was doubtless the same as ‘the public ward’ of 5:18 RV (AV

‘common prison’). St. Paul’s experience of prisons was even more extensive than Jeremiah’s (2 Co 6:5), varying from the mild form of restraint implied in Ac 28:30, at Rome, to the severity of ‘the inner prison’ at Philippi (16:24), and the final horrors of the Mamertine dungeon.

For the crux interpretum, 1 P 3:19, see art. DESCENT INTO HADES.

A. R. S. KENNEDY.

PRIZE.—See GAMES.

PROCHORUS.—One of the ‘Seven’ appointed (Ac 6:5).

PROCONSUL.—This was originally two words—proconsule, meaning a magistrate with the insignia and powers of a consul. When the kingship was abolished in Rome it gave place to a rule of two men, not called by the now detested name, but named prætores ( ‘generals’) or consules (‘colleagues’). As the Roman territory increased, men of prætorian or consular rank were required to govern the provinces (wh. see). During the Empire all governors of senatorial provinces were called proconsuls, whether they were ex-consuls and governed important provinces like Asia and Africa, or merely ex-prætors, like Gallio (Ac 18:12 AV deputy) , who governed a less important province, Achaia.

A. SOUTER.

PROCURATOR.—Originally a procurator was a steward of private property, who had charge of the slaves and his master’s financial affairs. His importance depended on that of his master. Thus the Emperor’s stewards were persons of consequence, and were sometimes trusted with the government of some less important Imperial provinces as well as with the Emperor’s financial affairs in all provinces. They were of equestrian rank, like Theophilus, to whom the Third Gospel and Acts are addressed. The following were at different times procurators of Judæa: Pontius Pilate, Felix, and Festus, called in NT by the comprehensive term ‘governors.’ A. SOUTER.

PROFANE.—‘To profane’ is ‘to make ceremonially unclean,’ ‘to make unholy.’ And so a ‘profane person’ (He 12:16) is an ‘ungodly person,’ a person of common, coarse life, not merely of speech.

PROGNOSTICATOR.—See MAGIC DIVINATION AND SORCERY, and STARS.

PROMISE.—Although the OT is the record of God’s promises to lowly saints and to anointed kings, to patriarchs and to prophets, to the nation of His choice and to the world at large, the word itself is rarely used in the EV, and less frequently in the RV than in the AV. The Heb. noun dābhār is generally rendered ‘word,’ but ‘promise’ is found in 1 K 8:56, Neh 5:12f. In Ps 105:42 the change made in the RV reminds us that God’s ‘holy word’ is always a ‘holy promise.’ Similarly, the Heb. verb dābhar is usually tr. ‘speak’; but ‘promise’ is found in Ex 12:25, Jer 32:42 etc. In several passages, as, e.g., Dt 10:9, Neh 9:23, the RV gives ‘speak’ or ‘say’ instead of ‘promise.’ A complete study of the subject would therefore require a consideration of the whole question of OT prophecy. ‘For thy word’s sake’ is the ultimate appeal of those who can say ‘thou art God, and thy words are truth, and thou hast promised’ (2 S 7:21,

28). See PROPHECY.

1. In a few passages (Jos 9:21, Neh 5:12f., Est 4:7, Mt 14:7, Mk 14:11, Ac 7:5, 2 P 2:19) the reference is to a man’s promises to his fellow-man; once only (Ac 23:21) the noun has this meaning in the NT. In Dt 23:23 the verb refers to man’s promises to God, and is synonymous with vowing unto God. This passage is instructive, on account of the stress that is laid on the voluntary nature of the obligation that is incurred by him who promises or makes a vow. Driver renders ‘according as thou hast vowed freely unto Jehovah, thy God, that which thou hast spoken (promised) with thy mouth’ (ICC, in loc.). The thought of spontaneity is an essential part of the meaning of the word when it is used of God’s promises to man, and especially of ‘the promise’ which comprises all the blessings of the Messianic Kingdom (Ac 2:39, 7:17 etc.).

2. The Gr. word epangellesthai, tr. ‘promise,’ is found only in the middle voice in the NT; its root-meaning is ‘to announce oneself,’ hence it comes to signify ‘to offer one’s services,’ and ‘to engage oneself voluntarily to render a service.’ Dalman derives the NT conception of the ‘promise’ from the Rabbinic phraseology concerning ‘assurance.’ A typical example is Ber. R. 76: ‘for the pious there is no assurance (promise) in this age’; cf. Apoc. Bar 53. 8, ‘the promise of life hereafter’ (The Words of Jesus, p. 103). The promises of God are numerous (2 Co 1:20); they are also ‘precious and exceeding great’ (2 P 1:4). ‘His every word of grace’ is a promise; even His commandments are assurances of grace, conditional only upon men’s willingness to obey. When God commanded the children of Israel to go in to possess the land, it was as good as theirs; already He had ‘lifted up’ His hand to give it them; but the promise implied in the command was made of no effect through their disobedience. The possession of Canaan, the growth of the nation, universal blessing through the race, are examples of promises of which the patriarchs did not receive the outward fulness (He 11:18). On the one hand, Abraham ‘obtained the promise,’ because the birth of Isaac was the beginning of its fulfilment (6:15); on the other hand, he is one of the fathers who ‘received not the promise,’ but ‘with a true faith looked for a fulfilment of the promises which was not granted to them’ (cf. Westcott’s note on He 11:39).

3. The NT phrase ‘inherit the promises’ (He 6:12; cf. 11:9, Gal 3:29) is found in Ps. Sol 13:8 (B.C. 70 to B.C. 40) . This passage is probably ‘the first instance in extant Jewish literature where the expression “the promises of the Lord” sums up the assurances of the Messianic redemption’ (Ryle and James, Com., in loc.) . In the Gospels the word ‘promise’ is used in this technical sense only in Lk 24:49, where ‘the promise of the Father’ refers to the gift of the Holy Spirit (cf. Ac 1:4 , 2:33, 39, Gal 3:14, Eph 1:13). The Ep. to the Hebrews is especially rich in passages which make mention of promises fulfilled in Christ (4:1, 6:17, 7:8, 9:15 etc.); but both in his speeches and in his Epistles St. Paul looks at the Christian gospel from the same point of view (Ac 13:28, 32 , 26:6f., Ro 9:8, Gal 4:28, Eph 3:6; cf. the only Johannine use of ‘promise’ in 1 Jn 2:25). There are promises to encourage believers as they strive to perfect holiness (2 Co 7:1), whilst ‘to them that love him’ the Lord hath ‘promised the crown of life’ (Ja 1:12); there is also the unfulfilled ‘promise of his coming’ (2 P 3:4). But ‘how many so ever he the promises of God, in him is the

Yea: wherefore also through him is the Amen, unto the glory of God through us.’

J. G. TASKER.

PROPHECY, PROPHETS.—Hebrew prophecy represents a religious movement of

national and worldwide importance, not paralleled elsewhere in history. Most significant in itself, it has acquired deeper and wider import through its connexion with Christianity and the philosophy of religion generally. The present article will deal in brief outline with (1) the history, (2) the inspiration, and (3) the functions and specific teaching, of the prophets of the OT; also (4) with the special topic of Messianic prophecy and its fulfilment in the NT.

1. History and prophecy.—The prophetic period proper may be said to have extended from the 8th to the 4th cent. B.C. During these centuries at least, prophecy was a recognized, flourishing, and influential power in Israel. But a long preparatory process made ready for the work of Amos, Hosea, and their successors, and it is not to be understood that with the last of the canonical writings the spirit of prophecy disappeared entirely from the Jewish nation. It is not surprising that the beginnings of Hebrew prophecy are lost in comparative obscurity. Little light is shed upon the subject by a comparison between similar phenomena in other religions. It is true that among Semitic and other peoples the idea was widely prevalent of an order of men who were favoured with special intercourse with the Deity and entrusted with special messages from heaven, or an unusual power of prognostication of future events. The line which separated the priest from the prophet was in early times a very narrow one, and sometimes the functions of the two offices were blended. In Israel also, during the earlier stages of history, lower conceptions of the Divine will and human modes of optaining knowledge of it prevailed, together with practices hardly to be distinguished from pagan rites. The description in Dt 18:10–14 proves how long these mantic ideas and customs lingered on in the midst of clearer moral and spiritual light. When the true significance of prophecy came to be understood, the contrast between it and heathen divination was very marked, but the process by which this stage was reached was gradual. Its course cannot always he clearly traced, and down to the Christian era, the lower and less worthy popular conceptions existed side by side with the high standard of the prophetic ideal.

No certain information can be gathered from the names employed. The word most frequently used in OT (more than 300 times) is nābī, but its derivation is doubtful. It was long associated with a root which means to ‘bubble up,’ and would thus denote the ecstatic influence of inspiration, but it is now more usually connected with a kindred Arabic word meaning to ‘announce.’ Two other words—rō’eh, which occurs 9 times (7 times of Samuel), and chōzeh, about 20 times—are of known derivation and are both translated ‘seer’. The historical note in 1 S 9:9 marks the fact that rō‘eh passed comparatively out of use after Samuel’s time, but both it and chōzeh are used later as synonyms of nābī, and in Chronicles there appears to be a revival of earlier usage: We shall probably not be far wong if we find in the words the two main characteristics of the prophet as ‘seer’ and ‘speaker,’—the spiritual vision which gave him knowledge, and the power of utterance which enabled him to declare his message with power. Other phrases employed are—‘man of God,’ used of Moses, Samuel, and others; ‘servant of God,’ a term not limited to prophets as such; ‘messenger of Jehovah,’ chiefly in the later writings; and once, in Hos 9:7, the significant synonym for a prophet is used, ‘man of the spirit,’ or ‘the man that hath the spirit.’

We may distinguish three periods in the history of prophecy: (1) sporadic manifestations before the time of Samuel, (2) the rise and growth of the institution from Samuel to Amos, (3) the period marked out by the canonical prophetic writings.

(1) In dealing with the first, it will he understood that the literary record is later than the events described, and the forms of speech used must be estimated accordingly. But it may be noted that in Gn 20:7 Abraham is called a prophet, and in Ps 105:15 the name is given to the patriarchs generally. In Ex 7:1 Aaron is described as a prophet to Moses who was ‘made a god to Pharaoh.’ In Nu 11:25–29 the incident of Eldad and Medad shows that in the wilderness ‘the spirit rested’ on certain men, enabling them to ‘prophesy.’ The episode of Balaam in Nu 22–24 is very instructive in its bearing upon the ideas of Divine revelation outside Israel. In Nu 12:5–8 the Divine intercourse vouchsafed to Moses—‘with him I will speak mouth to mouth, even manifestly’—is distinguished from the lower kind of revelation, ‘in a vision, in a dream,’ granted to the prophet; and in Dt 18:15 Moses is described as possessing the highest type of prophetic endowment. Later, Deborah is described (Jg 4:4) as both a prophetess and a judge, and an anonymous prophet was sent to Israel at the time of the Midianite oppression (Jg 6:8). Samson was not a prophet, but upon him, as a Nazirite from infancy, ‘the spirit of Jehovah began to move’ in youth, and it ‘came mightily’ upon him. Finally, before the special revelation given to Samuel, there came a ‘man of God’ to Eli, rebuking the evil-doings of his sons and announcing punishment to come. It must be borne in mind, moreover, that during all this period God was, according to the OT narrative, speaking to His people in various ways, revealing Himself by dreams and visions, or through special messengers, though the term ‘prophet’ but seldom occurs.

(2) It is generally recognized that a new era begins with Samuel. Peter in Ac 3:24 used a current mode of speech when he said ‘all the prophets from Samuel and them that followed after,’ and the combination in him of the prophet and the judge enabled him to prepare the way for the monarchy. The statement in 1 S 3:1 that in the time of Eli ‘the word of Jehovah was rare’ and that ‘vision’ was not widely diffused or frequent, points to the need of clearer and fuller revelation such as began with Samuel and continued more or less intermittently for some centuries. Whether he originated the prophetic communities known as ‘sons of the prophets,’ who first appear in his time and are mentioned occasionally until after the times of Elisha, we cannot be sure. But at Ramah (1 S 19:18), at Naioth (2 K 6), at Bethel, Jericho, Gilgal, and other places there were settlements which may be described as training-schools for religious purposes, and these provided a succession of men, who were in theory, and to some extent in practice, animated by the devoted and fervent spirit which was necessary for the maintenance of the prophetic fire in the nation. Music formed a prominent part in their worship (1 S 10:5, 10). These societies might constitute a true and abiding witness for Jehovah (1 K 18:13), or they might be characterized by false patriotism and subserviency to a prevailing policy (1 K 22:6). Saul was at one time brought under their influence in a remarkable manner (1 S 10:10–13) , and Samuel evidently exercised a commanding influence over them, as did Elisha in later days. To these ‘colleges’ may probably be traced the preservation of national traditions and the beginnings of historical literature in Israel.

David is styled a ‘prophet’ in Ac 2:30, but this is not in accordance with OT usage, though the Spirit of Jehovah is said to have rested on him as a psalmist (2 S 23:2). In his time began that close association between kings and prophets which continued in varying phases until the Exile. Nathan the prophet was his faithful spiritual adviser, and Gad is described as ‘the king’s seer’ (2 S 24:11). Both these counsellors exercised a wholesome influence upon the large-hearted, but sometimes erring, king, and according to the Chronicler they assisted David in organizing Divine worship (2 Ch 29:25). Nathan, Ahijah of Shiloh, and Iddo the seer are mentioned in 2 Ch 9:29 as having taken part in the compilation of national records, history and prophecy having been from the first closely associated in Israel. In Solomon’s time prophecy would seem to have been in abeyance. But it appears again in connexion with the description of the Kingdom, and from this time forwards in Israel and Judah the relation between Church and State, between king and prophet, was of an intimate and very significant kind. The prophet, as a man specially endowed with the spirit of God, did not hesitate to warn, rebuke, oppose, and sometimes remove, the king who was ‘God’s anointed.’ But when the monarch was faithful to the high position, the prophet was to him as a strong right hand. Elijah, in the idolatrous times of Ahab, is the very type of the uncompromising and undaunted reformer; and Elisha, though of a milder character and with a less exacting task to accomplish, was instrumental in the overthrow of the ungodly house of Omri (2 K 9). These two are essentially prophets of action; the writing prophets do not appear till a century later.

(3) It is inevitable that for us at least a new era of prophecy should appear to set in with the earliest prophetical book that has come down to us. We are dependent upon our records, and though the continuity of prophecy was never quite broken, the history of the prophets assumes a new character when we read their very words at length. Amos, the first in chronological order, shows in 2:11 that he was only one in a long line of witnesses, and that he was but recalling the people to an allegiance they had forgotten or betrayed. But he introduces the golden age of prophecy, in which Isaiah is the central glorious figure. Modern criticism has carried the analysis of the prophetical books as they have come down to us so far that it is not easy to present the chronology of the prophetic writings in a tabular form. But it may be said roughly and generally that six prophets belong to the Assyrian period, Amos and Hosea in the Northern Kingdom, about the middle of the 8th cent. B.C., and Isaiah and Micah in the Southern, a little later, whilst Zephaniah and Nahum belong to the early part of the 7th cent. B.C. As prophets of the Chaldæan period we find Jeremiah and Habakkuk before the Exile (B.C. 586) , and Ezekiel during the former part of the Captivity. Before its close appears the second Isaiah (perhaps about 540), and after the Return, Haggai and Zechariah (chs. 1–8), whilst Malachi prophesied in the middle of the 5th cent. B.C. The dates of Joel, Jonah, Obadiah, and Zec 9–14 are still debated, but in their present form these books are generally considered post-exilic. Many chapters of Isaiah, notably 24–27, are ascribed to a comparatively late date.

It is impossible here to trace the fluctuations in prophetic power and influence, as these waxed or waned with the varying fortunes of the nation throughout the period of the monarchy. The Northern Kingdom came to an end in B.C. 722, but for more than 150 years longer there appeared prophets in Judah who aided the repeated efforts at national reformation made by kings like Hezekiah and Josiah. These, however, met with little permanent success, and a change in the characteristic note of prophecy begins with Jeremiah. Thus far the prophets had aided the cause of religious and civil progress by bringing to bear upon national policy the moral principles of

the religion of J″, but as time passed, the recuperative power of the nation declined, ‘false’ prophets gained predominating influence, and the true prophet’s task grew more and more hopeless. All that remained for Jeremiah was to preach submission to foreign foes, and the imminence of coming judgment, and to point the people to a spiritual fulfilment of promises which could no longer be realized by means of any earthly monarch or dynasty. It was the painful duty of Jeremiah to oppose princes, priests, and people alike, as none of his predecessors had done, and to stand alone, charged with lack of patriotism, if not with actual treachery. Though a man of peaceable and kindly temperament, he was involved in perpetual conflict, and whenever he was tempted to withdraw from a thankless and apparently useless office, the word of the Lord burned within him again like a fire in his bones, and he was bound to deliver it, whether men listened and heeded or not. The chief burden of this last pre-exilic prophet was the declaration that, as the measure of the people’s sins was now filled up, they must as a nation suffer practical extinction; but stress was laid upon the importance of individual fidelity and the fulness of spiritual blessing which might still be enjoyed, whilst hopes of material good and national prosperity had been disastrously overthrown.

The fall of Jerusalem brought with it many changes. Ezekiel adopted and expanded many of Jeremiah’s ideas, but his forecasts of restitution, as delivered to the exiles in Babylon, took fresh shapes, determined by his circumstances, his personal temperament, and the fact that he was priest as well as prophet. It was left for a great unknown seer to deliver in the second part of the Book of Isaiah the most spiritual message of all, and to re-animate his countrymen by means of pictures glowing with larger and brighter hopes than any of his predecessors had portrayed. But after the return from captivity prophecy did not renew its ancient fires. Haggai and Zechariah are but minor stars in the great constellation, and the book known as ‘Malachi’ testifies to a dwindling inspiration, though fidelity to truth, and hope of fuller Divine manifestations yet to come, were not entirely extinct in God’s messengers and representatives.

At last Ps 74:9 and 1 Mac 4:43, 9:27 and 14:41 point to a time when ‘signs’ were no longer seen among the people, when ‘there is no more any prophet, neither is there any among us that knoweth how long.’ The latest ‘prophetic’ book, Daniel, does not properly belong to this list; it was not reckoned by the Jews among the prophets, but in the third part of the sacred canon known as ‘writings.’ The remarkable visions it contains do not recall the lofty spirit or the burning words of Isaiah; they contain another kind of revelation, and belong not to prophecy but to apocalyptics. Nearly two centuries elapsed before John the Baptist, the last prophet under the Old Covenant and the forerunner of the New, came in the very spirit and power of Elijah ‘to make ready for the Lord a people prepared for him.’

2. Inspiration of the prophets.—When we seek to pass from the outward phenomena of prophetism to its inner mental processes, from its history to its psychology, many questions arise which cannot be definitely answered. How did God reveal His will to the prophets? In what did their inspiration consist? How far were their natural faculties in abeyance, or, on the other hand, heightened and strengthened? Did the prophet fully understand his own message? How could personal errors and prejudices be distinguished from direct Divine afflatus? To these questions no simple categorical replies can be made. But Scripture sheds sufficient light on them for all practical purposes.

It must be borne in mind that prophecy has a history, that the record is one of development— of rise, progress, and decay—and that precise definitions which take no account of these changes are misleading. Some forms of ‘inspiration’ are higher than others, and a measure of advance is discernible from the lower forms which belonged rather to the soothsayer, to those higher moods which distinguish the OT prophet from all others. The steps of the process are not always discernible, but the distinction between lower and higher is to be drawn according as (1) the prophet was a mere unconscious instrument, or his highest mental and spiritual faculties were enlisted in his work; (2) the inward revelation of the Divine will was or was not bound up with external and objective manifestations; and especially (3) the moral and spiritual element in the message became its distinguishing, feature, in contrast with a mere non-ethical ‘seeking for signs.’ Revelation by means of dreams and visions was recognized throughout, and in Nu 12:6, Dt 13:1, Jer 23:5 a dreamer of dreams is synonymous with a prophet. The distinction between dream and vision appears to be that the former occurred in sleep, the latter in a kind of ecstatic waking state, the seer ‘falling down and having his eyes open.’ But the distinction is not strictly enforced, and in the Hexateuch, and where the Elohist speaks of dreams, the Jahwist more frequently describes God as speaking directly to His messengers. Side by side with revelation by means of dreams and visions went that higher spiritual enlightenment which we associate with Hebrew prophecy at its best estate.

It was not necessary that a prophet should receive a formal ‘call’ to undertake the office. Many were trained in the schools who never became prophets, and some prophets, like Amos, received no preparation, whether in the schools or elsewhere. Upon some, the affiatus appears to have descended occasionally for a special purpose, whilst in other cases the influence of the Divine Spirit was permanent, and they were set apart to the work of a lifetime. The important point was that in every case the Spirit of God must rest upon His messenger in such a way as to supersede all other influences and ideas, and this higher impulse must be obeyed at all costs. The prophet must be able to announce with unwavering confidence, ‘Thus saith the Lord.’ In some instances a description is given of the way in which this overpowering conviction came upon the man. Samuel was (perhaps) called as a child; Amos exclaimed, when both king and priest did their best to silence him, ‘Jahweh hath spoken, who can but prophesy?’ Isaiah, when he beheld God lifted up upon His throne and when his lips had been purified by the hot stone from the altar, cried, ‘Here am I, send me.’ Jeremiah, when but a youth, was strengthened to be as an iron pillar and a brazen wall against the whole force of the nation, because God had put His words in his mouth. The vision of the chariot which came to Ezekiel by the Chebar dominated his imagination and moulded all his ministry. Whether a ‘vocation’ in the formal sense was, or was not, vouchsafed at the opening of a prophet’s course, it was absolutely essential that he should be directly moved by the Spirit of God to deliver a message which he felt to be an irresistible and overwhelming revelation of the Divine will.

The phraseology used to describe this inspiration, though varied, points entirely in this direction. The Spirit of the Lord is described as coming mightily upon Saul (1 S 10:6, 10); the hand of the Lord was on Elijah (1 K 18:46, Ezk 1:3); or the Spirit ‘clothed itself’ with the man as in Jg 6:34, 2 Ch 24:20; or Micah is said to be ‘full of power by the spirit of the Lord’ to declare to Jacob his transgression (3:8). Perhaps the impulses were more violent and external in the earlier history, whilst in the later more room was left for human reflexion, and a more intelligent comprehension of the Divine will and word. Still, it would be a mistake to suppose that the overmastering power of the Divine commission was relaxed in the later prophetic period. No stronger expressions to describe this are found anywhere than those used by Jeremiah, who ‘sat alone because of God’s hand,’ and to whom God’s word was ‘as a burning fire shut up in his bones,’ so that he could not contain (15:17, 20:9).

Neither the exact mode of communicating the Divine will, nor the precise measure of personal consciousness which obtained in the prophetic state, can be defined; these varied according to circumstances. But speaking generally, it may be said that the personality of the prophet was not merged or absorbed in the Divine, nor was his mind as an inanimate harp or lyre which the Divine Spirit used as a mere instrument. Moses is represented as holding back from the Divine call (Ex 3:3), as remonstrating with God (32:11), and offering himself as a sacrifice to appease the Divine anger (32:32). Amos succeeded in modifying the Divine decree (7:2, 3), and Jeremiah was very bold in reproaching the Most High with having given him an impossible task, and as having apparently failed to fulfil His own promises (15:18). A careful study of all the phenomena would go to show that whilst supernatural power and operation were taken for granted, the workings of the prophetic mind under inspiration were not very different from some of the highest experiences of saints in all ages, the Divine and human elements being blended in varying proportions. The fact of inspiration, rather than its mode, is the important feature in the Bible narratives.

A similar answer must be given to the question whether the prophets understood their own prophecies. For the most part they understood them very well, and expressed themselves with remarkable clearness and vigour. What they often did not understand, and could not be expected to understand, was the full bearing of their words upon contingent events and their application to conditions as yet in the far future. In 1 P 1:10 we are told that they searched diligently ‘what time or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in them did point unto,’ perhaps with special reference to Dn 8:15. That is, it was not given them to discern at what epoch, or under what circumstances, the fulfilment of their words should come to pass. But the declaration of moral principles required no such elucidation, and the prophets were the first to recognize that the fulfilment of their words depended on the way in which they were received. For the work of the prophet was not to mouth out oracles, mystic sayings obscure to the mind of the speaker and enigmatical to the hearers, like the utterances of Delphi or Dodona. The root idea of prophecy is revelation, not mystery-mongering—‘Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets’ (Am 3:7).

Deeper and more important questions concerning the nature of prophetic inspiration gather round the existence of ‘false prophets’—this term does not occur in the Hebrew text—the line of distinction between the true and the false, and the tests which should separate the two in practice. The subject is greatly complicated to the modern mind when we read in Dt 13 that a prophet might be utterly mistaken, that a lying spirit might come from the Lord (1 K 22:22), that tests of genuineness were necessary, and that God might mislead the very prophets themselves, destroying the people through the agency of a deceptive vision (Ezk 13:14). These are no doubt exceptional expressions, a sharp contrast being usually drawn between genuine and spurious prophecies, as those which come from God, and those which come from the prophet’s own heart (Jer 23:16). Professed prophets might be treacherous (Zeph 3:4), just as the priests might profane the sanctuary and do violence to the law. The fact that Divine gifts may be abused does not interfere with their significance when rightly used. But wherein lay the distinction between true and false? If the prophets were connected with idolatrous worship (1 K 18), or devoted to other gods (Dt 13:2), their departure from the truth is obvious. Also if high prophetic gifts were perverted for purposes of selfish advancement, or a part were deliberately assumed to deceive (Zec 13:4) , or office were desired merely for a livelihood (Mic 3:5), the case is clear. But might the prophets themselves be deceived, and how were the people to distinguish between the true and the false?

Ostensibly both classes had the same ends in view—the honour of Jehovah and the prosperity of the nation. But some put religious principle first and taught that prosperity would follow obedience; others, blinded by false ideas of national advantage, thought they were doing God service by promoting a policy which seemed likely to lead to the aggrandizement of His people. The same difference has often been observed in the Christian Church between a true religious leader and a mere ecclesiastic, honestly persuaded that whatever advances ‘the Church’ must be for the Divine glory, but who, none the less, perverts the truth by setting the means above the end. Lower ideas of God, of morality, and of true national prosperity lay at the root of the utterances of the false prophets. The main distinction between them and the true messengers of God was a moral and spiritual one, and discrimination was possible only by trying each on its own merits.

But certain tests are suggested. Sometimes (a) a sign or wonder was wrought in attestation (Dt 13:1,

2), but even this was not conclusive, and the true prophets seldom relied upon this evidence. Again, (b) in Dt 18:21f. fulfilment of prediction is adduced as a test. Clearly that could not be applied at once, and it would rather be useful afterwards to students of the national history than to kings or people about to enter on a battle or an alliance. But (c) the people were expected to use their moral and spiritual insight and distinguish the issues set before them, as a man has to judge for himself in questions of conscience. In the case of Hananiah (Jer 28), an example is given of two lines of national policy presented by two leading prophets, and the process of judging between the true and the false was a part of the education through which Israel was called to pass and in which unfortunately it often failed. The difficulty of this process of discrimination was often lightened (d) by watching the career of the prophets, as to how far their character bore out their professions, what motives actuated them—whether crooked policy, immediate expediency, or high self-denying principle—and thus in the centuries before Christ, as afterwards, one of the best criteria was, ‘by their fruits ye shall know them.’

One other point remains. To what does the term ‘inspiration’ apply—the men or their writings? What relation do the books that have come down to us bear to the originally spoken words of the prophets? The answer is that in the first instance it is the man who is inspired, not the book. In the case of the Hebrew prophet especially, the very nature of the influence at work impelled him to immediate utterance, and if he was inspired at all, the word is most applicable at this stage. In many instances the prophet went as it were from the very presence of God to perform his errand and utter winged words which have come down to us as delivered, white-hot from the very furnace of Divine prompting. But in other cases the record was not written till long after the original utterance; only a summary of the addresses delivered was handed down. The literary element predominates in the composition, and a finish is given to its phraseology which does not belong to the spoken word. A full account of the process is given in one case (Jer 36:7), where we are told that the prophecies delivered through 21 years were carefully written out with the aid of a secretary, the transcription taking some months to accomplish. The document thus prepared was handed to the king and destroyed by him in anger at its contents, whereupon another record was made with considerable additions. Probably a similar process was usual in the case of the literary prophets. The utterances called forth by a crisis could not be prepared beforehand; sometimes, as in Malachi, the prophet would be interrupted by objections from the people, to which he must reply on the spur of the moment, and open conflicts were not infrequent. But the words in which the substance of many utterances was embodied were carefully chosen and were of more abiding import. The process of selection and transcription, as well as the original outpouring of the message, was under the guidance of the Divine Spirit, who actuated the prophet in all he said or did.

That the work of collecting the prophetic utterances was not always carefully done is clear from the state of the text in some of the books that have come down to us, e.g., the serious differences between the Hebrew and the LXX in Jeremiah. Also it should be noted that the utterances of different authors were often blended under one well-known name: e.g., under ‘Isaiah’ many prophecies extending over a long period have been gathered; the Book of Zechariah is certainly composite, and indications of additions, editorial notes, and modifications are numerous. But the God who inspired His servant first to see and then to speak, did in certain cases inspire him also to write; and thus words which were intended in the first instance for rebellious Israel or disconsolate Judah have proved of perennial significance in the religious education of the world.

3. Functions and teaching.—One who was essentially a ‘man of God’ under the conditions of life which obtained in Israel must have had many parts to play, many messages to give; and many would be the ways in which he brought his Influence to bear upon the life of his time. The prophetic office in its essence implied freedom from such routine duties as occupied (e.g.) the priest and later the scribe. These could easily be enumerated, but the work of the prophet, from its very nature, cannot be defined by strict boundary lines.

In the earliest times prophets were consulted on common matters of daily life. Samuel was asked by Saul’s servant how to find the lost asses of his master. Later, inquiry was made concerning the sickness of Jeroboam and its probable issue, and Elisha throughout his life was sought for in times of private and domestic need. On another side of their lives the prophets were closely connected with literature; they compiled historical records and preserved the national chronicles (see 1 Ch 29:29). The narrative portions of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and other prophetical books show that the seer is a man whose searching glance may run backwards as well as forwards. It required a prophetic eye rightly to read the lessons of Israel’s past, and to this day the inspired historical books of OT teach lessons which no mere annalist could have perceived or conveyed to others. The work of other prophets lay in the department not of literature but of action, and—apart from Elijah and Elisha—some of the most notable figures in the prophetic succession were distinguished, not so much for what they taught as because at the critical moment they threw the weight of deservedly great influence into the right scale, and actually led the people in the right way.

These, however, were not the prophet’s main functions. His chief work was to serve as a great moral and religious teacher, especially in relation to the duties of national life. He was sent to minister to his own age, to teach his contemporaries the duties of the hour, how to apply the highest religious principles to current questions of political and social life. In the course of the delivery of this message he was moved to utter predictions, and these formed so characteristic and important a feature of the prophet’s teaching that foretelling the future came to be regarded as his chief work. This was not strictly the case, since the forecasts of the future arose out of the delivery of the message to the speaker’s own age. But prediction must be allowed its due place in an estimate of Hebrew prophecy; a reaction against the excessive stress formerly laid upon this element has unfortunately led to the opposite extreme of underestimating its importance.

Moral teaching was pre-eminent. The prophets were not exponents of the ‘law’ in the technical sense; that belonged to the priest (Jer 18:18); but the ‘word’ which was given to the prophet was an immediate revelation of the will of God, and was sometimes necessarily opposed to the orthodox and conventional religious teaching of men more anxious about following precedents than discerning the highest duty. In Is 1 and 58, in Mic 6, and Ezk 18 we have examples of lofty ethical teaching which might appear to disparage the routine of religious service and the traditions of religious doctrine. It is not sacrifice in itself, however, that is denounced, but a trust in formal service punctiliously rendered to God, without a corresponding reformation of character. The prophet was the messenger who recalled the people to their highest allegiance, who fearlessly rebuked spiritual unfaithfulness, and who laid emphasis, not on the tithing of mint, anise, and cummin, but on those weightier matters of the law, judgment and mercy and faith. Of worship and ritual they would have said, as did the greater Prophet who followed them, ‘These ought ye to have done, and not to have left the other undone’ (Mt 23:23). These moral teachings covered a very wide field. The prophets called evils by plain names and denounced them in uncompromising terms, however high the places in which they were found. Habits of luxury and self-indulgence in the upper classes; Intemperance and tendencies to excess of all kinds; the oppression of the poor, the usurpations of landowners, the extravagance of women in dress—these are only a few specimens of class-sins which they frankly exposed and fearlessly denounced.

In this sense the prophets strove to recall the best features of Israel’s post. The tone of remonstrance adopted shows that for the most part the people were familiar with the principles laid down. The prophets were not innovators; they spoke as men whose words were likely to find an echo in the consciences of their hearers. But reformers they undoubtedly were in the sense that they ‘spared not the hoary head of inveterate abuse,’ and they prevented many of the evils which an undisturbed conservatism induces. They belonged to the party of progress in the beat sense of the term, and their work was especially to break up the fallow ground of habit that had become hard and set and unfit to receive the seed of fresh spiritual teaching. Moral reformation, they taught, was a necessary condition for the acquisition of spiritual knowledge, and the enjoyment of spiritual privilege. ‘Wash you. make you clean’ was the burden of their message; the arm of Jehovah is not shortened, nor His ear heavy, but your sins have separated between you and your God. Deal bread to the hungry and let the oppressed go free, then shall thy light break forth as the morning … and thine obscurity shall be as the noonday … and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters fail not.’

This moral teaching was brought to bear especially upon national life. Israel was a churchnation, one in which the community counted for much more than the individual, and the prophet’s chief function was to promote national righteousness. He represented the highest civic consciousness. He might, and did, rebuke private individuals and point out personal faults, though this was chiefly in the case of kings like David, Jeroboam, or Ahab, or State officials like Shebna in Is 22. Whole classes might go astray, the prophets themselves be unfaithful to their calling, and then an individual prophet was sent to recall all alike to their duty, himself the sole representative of Jehovah in a degenerate nation. For a time the political influence of the prophets was great, while their power was at its zenith, but this period did not last very long. Isaiah and Micah, Amos and Hosea, illustrate the way in which, both in the Southern and in the Northern Kingdom, the prophets intervened in questions of wars and alliances and treaties—the foreign policy of their times. They took their part in domestic policy no less, sometimes standing between the sovereigns and their subjects—teachers and examples of patriotism in the best sense of the word. Whilst the false prophets practically asserted the maxim ‘My country, right or wrong.’ the true prophet enforced the lesson that ‘There is no wisdom nor understanding nor counsel against the Lord,’ and that unflinching loyalty to Him is the only secret of national stability and success. Sometimes they urged bold defiance of enemies, as in the invasion of Sennacherib (2 K 19); sometimes they recommended a policy of neutrality as between Egypt and Assyria (Is 30); whilst, as already pointed out, it was sometimes the duty of a Jeremiah to preach submission to the power of Babylon, even though that course might be represented as pusillanimous truckling to superior force. In thus directing the national policy, the prophet might be commissioned to announce the success or failure of certain projects, and to foretell the consequences of a given course of action. But if the prophecies be closely examined, it will be seen that the forecasts were for the most part conditional—‘If thou wilt hear and obey, thou shalt eat the good of the land; if not, thou shalt be devoured with the sword’—the object of such vaticinations being pre-eminently moral, to bring the people to such a state of mind that the threatened evils might be averted.

The value of such an institution in any State is obvious. J. S. Mill describes it as an

‘inestimably precious’ feature, that ‘the persons most eminent in genius and moral feeling could reprobate with the authority of the Almighty, and give a higher and better interpretation of religion, which henceforth became a part of that religion.’ The power of the prophet has been compared to the modern liberty of the press. The comparison is sadly inadequate, for at best the press represents the highest current of public opinion, whilst it was one of the chief duties of the prophet to rebuke public opinion in the light of higher truth, which he discerned as from a mountain top whilst all the valley below lay in darkness. That the ethical standard was maintained in Israel as high as it was, and that the Jews were the most progressive people of antiquity, and conjointly with the Greeks have so strongly influenced modern culture, is due mainly to the prophets.

Religious teaching was closely connected with the ethical. The prophet would not permit any severance of these two elements. The explanation of the freedom and beauty of the moral life on which they insisted was that it was not inculcated as a code, but as a service rendered to a holy and gracious God. The people were to offer the kind of service with which He would be pleased; hence the higher their conceptions of God were raised, the higher also became their standard of conduct. The prophets of the 8th cent. B.C. are sometimes described as the first teachers of ethical monotheism, but this position it would be difficult to establish. That the standard of the people had sunk sadly below that of the revelation granted them is certain, and that the prophets not only recalled them to their duty, but raised their very conceptions of Deity, is practically certain. But Amos, the first of the writing prophets, appealed to a conscience and a God-consciousness already developed, and his rebukes presuppose the knowledge of one holy God, and do not inculcate the doctrine for the first time. Both he and Hosea press home the duty of the people to return to the God they had forsaken; sometimes sternly, sometimes with tender and pathetic pleading: ‘O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? Thou art graven on the palms of my hands.’ The worst feature of the wickedness of the times lay in the unfaithfulness of Israel to the God who had bound His people to Him by the closest ties and their disobedience is described as infidelity to a spiritual marriage vow. The prophets strove and urged and remonstrated, ‘rising up early’ and pleading that they might win the heart of the people back to God, sure that thus, and thus only, a basis could be secured for a permanently upright national and individual character. From this point of view their words can never grow obsolete.

As to the predictive element in prophecy, it may be discerned on every page, but it is not of the ‘fortune-telling’ order. Most of the predictions refer to national events, in Israel or surrounding nations. Some of these enter into detail, as in the overthrow of Ahab at Ramothgilead foretold by Micaiah (1 K 22:34), and the failure of Sennacherib’s expedition announced by Isaiah. Others threaten in a more general way that punishment will follow disohedience, this strain becoming ever sterner and more pronounced as time advanced. These dark presages were fulfilled in the case of the Northern Kingdom in the 8th cent. B.C.; and afterwards when Judah refused to take the warning, her calamities culminated in the capture and overthrow of Jerusalem.

The prophets, however, are able to take a wider outlook, their penetrating gaze extends to the more distant future. This feature is so closely blended with the last, that it is sometimes hard to distinguish the two. It is the habit of the prophets to pass immediately and without warning from the nearer to the further horizon, and the question perpetually recurs—Of whom, of what period, speaketh the prophet this? That their power of foresight was akin to the moral insight which other exceptionally gifted persons have possessed, enabling them within limits to forecast the future, may be admitted. But no parallel has been found in any other nation to the phenomena of Hebrew prophecy, especially in the continuous succession of men carrying on the same remarkable work for generations. Many critics seek to eliminate the element of the supernatural from prophecy. But, whilst it may be granted that many prophecies were not fulfilled because they were given with a condition stated or implied, and that the poetical language of many others never was literally fulfilled, or intended to be so, there remain a considerable number of national predictions which were fulfilled in a very remarkable manner, especially when we bear in mind that they ran directly counter to the prejudices of the times and were sometimes uttered at the risk of very life to the daring messenger himself.

A candid examination of the whole conditions of the case must lead to the admission of a supernatural power and knowledge in Hebrew prophecy—quite apart from the Messianic element, which will be considered separately. The attempts to explain this away have failed. The prophetic power was not exceptional political shrewdness, not the mere sanguine expectation of enthusiasts, or the gloomy foreboding of convinced pessimists; it was not like the second-sight of the Highlander, the effect of excitement upon a highly sensitive temperament; nor, as rationalism teaches, can all predictions be explained on the vaticinia post eventum principle, as history written after the event. On the other hand, supernatural enlightenment and direction must be included, whilst it may be freely admitted with Tholuck that the predictions were for the most part ‘not of the accidental, but of the religiously necessary,’ that they were mostly general, sometimes hypothetical, consistent with the freedom of the persons addressed, and that while they contain what some call ‘failures,’ in broad outline they reflect with wonderful accuracy and force the word of God in relation to the principles and progress of human history.

4. Messianic prophecy and its fulfilment.—It was inevitable that teachers so commissioned by God to declare His will should take a wider range. Theirs was emphatically a message of hope—they were sent to prepare the way for a brighter future. Hence we find them passing, by rapid and almost insensible gradations, from immediate to far distant issues, and descriptions of a

Final Consummation are blended with their very practical teaching as to present duty. In later

Judaism these prospects of coming national felicity gathered round the term Messiah, the Anointed One, used to designate a coming Deliverer, through whose instrumentality the glories of the future age were to be realized. Christians believe that Jesus of Nazareth claimed to be, and was, the promised Messiah of the Jews, and the name ‘Messianic prophecy’ has been given to predictions which refer directly to the ideal personage of whose coming the prophets were the heralds. But this narrower meaning of the phrase is for several reasons unsatisfactory. In the first place, ‘Messiah’ is not a recognized OT term for this Deliverer; it may be questioned whether the word is once used in this sense. Further, there is a great body of prophetic utterances which belong to the ‘Messianic’ era, though no mention is made of a personal King or Saviour. And from the Christian point of view, the preparation for the coming of Christ was very various: many prophecies are believed to find direct fulfilment in Him, in which neither the name nor the idea of a personal Messiah occurs; hence ‘Messianic prophecy’ is now generally understood to mean all the OT promises which refer to the final accomplishment of God’s purposes for the nation and the world.

The whole OT religion is one of hope. God’s promises made to His people were too large, the ideal descriptions of their privileges were too lofty, to find full realization at any early stage of national development. And Israel itself was so intractable and unfaithful, and the gap between profession and practice was so painfully obvious, that the gaze of the people was ever fixed on the future. Sometimes the prospect was held out of a regenerated city, sometimes of an ideal temple and its worship, sometimes the idea prevailed of a clearer manifestation of God Himself in the midst of His people, sometimes expectation pointed to a Ruler who would embody all the qualities of righteousness. wisdom, and power which had been so conspicuously lacking in many monarchs of the Davidic line. Sometimes material considerations figured most largely in the pictures of the future—the fruitfulness of the land, abundance of corn and wine and oil; sometimes a promise filled the air like music of an unprecedented peace which should bless the often invaded and always more or less disturbed country; sometimes a broad landscape picture was drawn of the extensive dominion and influence which Israel should exercise over the nations around. And it is obviously undesirable that forecasts which contain a more directly personal reference should be separated from these others with which they were closely connected in the prophets’ thoughts, especially as closer examination has tended to reduce the number of passages which may be described as directly Messianic. A few central ideas lay at the heart of the whole. The Covenant which bound together God and His people, the City in which He made His abode, the Temple hallowed by His presence, the Kingdom in which His law should prevail and His will be always done, were never very far from the minds of the ancient seers. Correspondingly, the Jew anticipated, and the prophet foretold, the coming of the ideal King who would dwell in the City and at the head of the Kingdom, the ideal Priest of the Temple, the ideal Prophet to declare the Divine purposes completely, and cement the Divine Covenant so that it should never again be broken. Brooding over the whole was the thought of the Divine Presence, which in the future was to be a Theophany indeed.

It was only in the 2nd cent. B.C. that the term ‘Messiah’ became the focus in which all these rays were centralized. In the OT books the word is used as an epithet of the king, ‘Jehovah’s anointed’; it is used of Cyrus, a heathen prince, in Is 45:1f.; possibly, though improbably, it may be understood as a proper name in Dn 9:25; whilst some would find in Ps 2 an almost unique use of the word to designate the ideal Prince of the house of David who should rule all the nations with unparalleled and illimitable sway. But if the term ‘Messiah,’ standing alone to designate a unique office, appears comparatively late in Jewish history, a less clearly defined idea of a personal Ruler and Deliverer pervaded the national thought for centuries before. The terms (1) ‘Son of David,’ pointing to a ruler of the Davidic line, together with ‘Branch’ or’ Shoot,’ with the same connotation; (2) ‘Son of Man,’ applied in OT to Ezekiel and others, sometimes indicating man in his frailty, but sometimes man as God intended him to be; and (3) ‘Son of God,’ indicating the nation Israel, Israel’s judges and Israel’s king, alike representing the Most High upon earth—all helped to prepare the way for the idea of a Messiah who should, in an undefined and unimaginable way, unite the excellences of the whole in His person. (4) One other name, such as would not have occurred to the earlier prophets, appears freely in Second Isaiah; and, as the event proved, influenced subsequent thought to an unexpectedly profound degree— the ‘Servant of Jehovah’ as Sufferer and Saviour. It was along these lines and others kindred to them which have not been named, that the preparation was made by the prophets for the coming of Israel’s true Deliverer. When all are put together, it will be seen that if the number of passages referring directly to the Messiah by name is unexpectedly small, the number which prepared the thoughts of the people for His Advent is exceedingly large, and these are so various in their character that it might well have seemed impossible that they should all be realized in one Person.

It is quite impossible here to survey this vast field even in outline. But one point must not be lost sight of—the distinction between those prophecies which are directly and those which are only indirectly Messianic. When the meaning of the prophet’s words is obviously too lofty to be applied in any sense to a mere earthly kingdom, or where the context necessitates it, we may assume that the prophet’s eyes were fixed, not on his contemporaries but on the far distance, and the period of the Consummation for which it was needful long to wait. But where the mention of local and temporal conditions or of human imperfections and limitations makes it clear that the immediate reference of a passage is to the prophet’s own times, whilst yet his glance shoots at intervals beyond them, there the words are only indirectly Messianic, and a typical significance is found in them. That is, the same ideas or principles are illustrated in the earlier as in the later dispensation, but in an inferior degree; the points of similarity and difference varying in their relative proportions, so that a person or an event or an institution under the Old Covenant may more or less dimly foreshadow the complete realization of the Divine purpose yet to come. The type may be described as a prophetic symbol.

The line between typical and directly prophetic passages is not always easy to draw. For example, it may be debated in what sense Pss 2, 8, 16, 45, 72 and others are ‘Messianic,’ the probability being that in every case the primary thought of the Psalmist was occupied with the history that he knew, though his words in each case soared beyond their immediate occasion. So the language of Is 53—which for centuries has been understood by Christian interpreters to refer directly to a suffering Messiah—is now understood by some of the best Christian scholars as referring at least in the first instance to faithful Israel. An ideal personification of Israel, i.e., identified with the nation yet distinct from it, is represented as the true servant of God carrying out His purposes for the national purification, even through persecution, suffering, and death. Opinions may well differ as to whether this interpretation is adequate. But it must be borne in mind in any case that in the prophets we do find a remarkable combination of two features—a wide outlook into the future implying preternatural insight, and very marked limitations of vision derived from the ideas of the times in which they lived. The object of the student of Messianic prophecy is to examine the relations between these two elements, and to show how out of the midst of comparatively narrow ideas, determined by the speaker’s political and historical environment, there arose others, lofty, wide, and comprehensive, with ‘springing and germinant accomplishments,’ and thus the Spirit of Christ which was in the prophets ‘testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow them.’

When we inquire concerning the fulfilment of prophecy, it is necessary to distinguish between (1) what the prophet meant by his words in the first instance, according to their plainest and simplest interpretation; (2) any realization, more or less imperfect, of his utterances in Israelitish history; (3) any more complete realization of them which may have taken place in Christ and Christianity, considered as the Divinely appointed ‘fulfilment’ of Judaism; and (4) any appropriate application of the prophetic words which may be made in subsequent generations in further illustration of the principles laid down. If there be a wise and gracious God who orders all the events of human history, if He inspired the OT prophets to declare His will for some centuries before Christ, if the climax of His self-revelation was reached in the gift of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, and if He is still working out His purposes of righteous love among the nations of the modern world, it is to be expected that the declarations of the prophets will receive many ‘fulfilments,’ many of them much wider, deeper, and more significant than the prophets themselves could possibly understand. But the meaning of the original words as first uttered should first of all be studied without any reference to subsequent events. Then the nature of the connexion between OT and NT should be clearly understood, and the principles on which the NT writers find a complete realization of the promises of the Old Covenant in the New. And afterwards it will not be difficult to see in what sense perpetually new applications of the prophets’ words may be legitimately made to the subsequent history of the Kingdom of God in the earth.

Every reader of the NT must have noticed that the words ‘that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet’ are used very freely by the several writers, and not always in precisely the same sense. Christ Himself led the way and the Apostles followed Him in declaring that His work on earth was to ‘fulfil’ both the Law and the prophets, and that the whole of the OT Scriptures pointed to Him and testified of Him. It was not so much that minute coincidences might be discerned between the phraseology of the OT and the events of His life, though it was natural that such should be noted by the Evangelists. But Jesus specially insisted upon the fact which it is most important for the student of the Bible to observe, viz. that what ‘the Law failed to accomplish, and what the prophets and those who looked for the fulfilment of their words had failed to realize, He had come completely and perfectly to achieve. The emphasis lies, as might have been expected, upon the spiritual, rather than the literal, meaning of the Scriptures; and the

most complete fulfilment of OT words lies not in a precise correspondence between circumstantial forecasts made long before with the details of His personal history, but in a spiritual realization of that great end which lawgivers, kings, prophets, and righteous men under the Old Covenant desired to see, but were not able.

OT prophecy, then, is best understood when it is viewed as one remarkable stage in a long and still more remarkable history. Some of its utterances have not been, and never will be fulfilled, in the sense that many of its students have expected. A large proportion of them have already been fulfilled, though in strange and unlooked-for fashion, by Him of whom it has been said that ‘the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy’ (Rev 19:10). In the Person, life, sufferings, death, and resurrection of Jesus the Christ, and in the establishment of His Kingdom on the earth, is to be found the fullest realization of the glowing words of the prophets who prepared the way for His coming. For a still more complete fulfilment of their highest hopes and fairest visions the world still waits. But those who believe in the accomplishment of God’s faithful word thus far will not find it difficult to believe that our Lord’s words concerning the Law (Mt 5:18) may be adapted, and that in the highest spiritual sense they will be at last realized—‘Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the prophets, till all things be accomplished.’

W. T. DAVISON.

PROPHET (in NT).—1. The spirit of prophecy, as it meets us under the Old Dispensation, runs on into the New, and there are prophets in the NT who are properly to be described as OT prophets. Such as Anna the prophetess (Lk 2:36; cf. Miriam, Deborah, and Huldah in the OT); Zacharias, who is expressly said to have prophesied (Lk 1:67ff.); Simeon, whose Nunc Dimittis is an utterance of an unmistakably prophetic nature (2:25ff.) But above all there is John the

Baptist, who was not only recognized by the nation as a great prophet (Mt 14:5, 21:26, Mk 11:32, Lk 20:6), but was declared by Jesus to be the greatest prophet of the former dispensation, while yet less than the least in the Kingdom of heaven (Mt 11:9ff. = Lk 7:26ff.)

2. Jesus Himself was a prophet. It was in this character that the Messiah had been promised (Dt 18:16, 18; cf. Ac 3:22, 7:37), and had been looked for by many (Jn 6:14). During His public ministry it was as a prophet that He was known by the people (Mt 21:11; cf. Lk 7:16), and described by His own disciples (Lk 24:19), and even designated by Himself (Mt 13:57, Lk 13:33). And according to the teaching of the NT, the exalted Christ still continues to exercise His prophetic function, guiding His disciples into all the truth by the Spirit whom He sends (Jn 16:7, 13) , and ‘building up the body’ by bestowing upon it Apostles, prophets, and teachers (Eph 4:8ff.).

3. From the prophetic office of her exalted Head there flowed the prophetic endowment of the Church. Joel had foretold a time when the gift of prophecy should be conferred upon all (2:28f.), and at Pentecost we see that word fulfilled (Ac 2:16ff.). Ideally, all the Lord’s people should be prophets. For ‘the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy’ (Rev 19:10), and in proportion as Christians are filled with the Pentecostal Spirit they will desire, like the members of the newborn Church, to bear testimony to their Master (cf. Nu 11:29, 1 Co 14:5).

4. But even in the Spirit-filled Church diversities of gifts quickly emerged, and a special power of prophetic utterance was bestowed upon certain individuals. A prophetic ministry arose, a ministry of Divine inspiration, which has to be distinguished from the official ministry of human appointment (see art. MINISTRY) . In a more general sense, all those who ‘spoke the word of God’ (He 13:7) were prophets. The ministry of the word (Ac 6:4) was a prophetic ministry, and so we find St. Paul himself described as a prophet long after he had become an Apostle (Ac 13:1).

5. But in a more precise use of the term we find the specific NT prophet distinguished from others who ‘speak the word of God,’ and in particular from the Apostle and the teacher (1 Co 12:28 f., cf. Eph 4:11). The distinction seems to be that while the Apostle was a missionary to the unbelieving (Gal 2:7, 8), the prophet was a messenger to the Church (1 Co 14:4, 22); and while the teacher explained or enforced truth that was already possessed (He 5:12), the prophet was recognized by the spiritual discernment of his hearers (1 Co 2:15, 14:29, 1 Jn 4:1) as the Divine medium of fresh revelations (1 Co 14:25, 30, 31, Eph 3:6; cf. Did. iv. 1).

Three main types of prophesying may be distinguished in the NT—(a) First, there is what may be called the ordinary ministry of prophecy in the Church, described by St. Paul as ‘edification and comfort and consolation’ (1 Co 14:3). (b) Again, there is, on special occasions, the authoritative announcement of the Divine will in a particular case, as when the prophets of Antioch, in obedience to the Holy Ghost, separate Barnabas and Saul for the work of missionary evangelization (Ac 13:1ff.; cf. 22:21, 16:5ff.). (c) Rarely there is the prediction of a future event, as in the case of Agabus (11:28, 21:10; cf. v. 4).

Of Christian prophets in the specific sense several are mentioned in the NT: Judas and Silas

(Ac 15:32), the prophets at Antioch (13:1), Agabus and the prophets from Jerusalem (11:27f., 21:10) , the four daughters of Philip the evangelist (v. 9). But these few names give us no conception of the numbers and influence of the prophets in the Apostolic Church. For light upon these points we have to turn especially to the Pauline Epistles (e.g. 1 Co 12:28f., 14, Eph 2:20, 3:5 , 4:11). Probably they were to be found in every Christian community, and there might even be several of them in a single congregation (1 Co 14:29). Certain of them, possessed no doubt of conspicuous gifts, moved about from church to church (Ac 11:27f., 21:10; Cf. Mt 10:41, Did. xiii. 1). Others, endowed with literary powers, would commit their ‘visions and revelations’ to writing, just as some prophets of the OT had done, though of this literary type of prophecy we have only one example in the NT—the Book of Revelation (cf. Rev 1:3, 22:7, 9, 10, 19).

Quite a flood of light is shed upon the subject of the NT prophets by the evidence of the Didache. We see there that about the end of the first century or the beginning of the second the prophet is still held in the highest estimation (xi. 7, xiii.), and takes precedence, wherever he goes of the local ministry of bishops and deacons (x. 7). But we also see the presence in the Church of those influences which gradually led to the elimination of the prophetic ministry. One influence is the abundance of false prophets (xi. 8 ff.; cf. Mt 7:15, 24:11, 24, 1 Jn 4:1), tending to make the Church suspicious of all prophetic assumptions, and to bring prophecy as such into disrepute. Another is the growing importance of the official ministry, which begins to claim the functions previously accorded to the prophets alone (xv. 1). Into the hands of the official class all power in the Church gradually passed, and in spite of the outburst of the old prophetic claims, during the latter half of the 2nd cent., in connexion with the Montanist movement, the prophet in the distinctive NT sense disappears entirely from the Catholic Church, while the ministry of office takes the place of the ministry of inspiration.

J. C. LAMBERT.

PROPHETESS.—1. The courtesy title of a prophet’s wife (Is 8:3). 2. The OT title of women in whom the promise was fulfilled: ‘your daughters shall prophesy’ (Jl 2:28; cf. Ps 68:11 RV). ‘The term is of course not to be misunderstood, as if it referred merely to predictions relating to the future: the reference is in general to inspired instruction in moral and religious truth’ (Driver, Camb. Bible, in loc.) The title is given to Miriam (Ex 15:20), Deborah (Jg 4:4), Huldah (2 K 22:14, 2 Ch 34:22), and Noadiah (Neh 6:14). 3. The NT gift of prophecy was bestowed on women (Ac 21:9, 1 Co 11:6). Anna (Lk 2:35) is the only ‘prophetess’ mentioned by name, except Jezebel (Rev 2:20), who was probably not the wife of the angel of the church ( RVm), but a temptress of the Christians at Thyatira to whom was given the name of Israel’s wicked queen.

J. G. TASKER.

PROPITIATION.—The idea of propitiation is borrowed from the sacrificial ritual of the OT, and the term is used in the EV of the NT in three instances (Ro 3:25, 1 Jn 2:2, 4:10) of Christ as offering the sacrifice for sin which renders God propitious, or merciful, to the sinner. In the first of these passages the word is strictly ‘propitiatory’ (answering to the OT ‘mercy-seat’), and RVm renders ‘whom God set forth to be propitiatory,’ without, however, essential change of meaning. In the two Johannine passages the noun is directly applied to Christ: ‘He is the propitiation for our sins; and not for ours only, but also for the whole world’ (2:2); ‘Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins’ (4:10). In one other passage. He 2:17, the RV renders ‘to make propitiation for the sins of the people,’ instead of, as in AV, ‘to make reconciliation.’

1. In the OT.—In the OT, to which we go back for explanation, the Heb. word kipper, which corresponds with ‘to make propitiation,’ is ordinarily rendered ‘to make atonement,’ sometimes ‘to reconcile’ (e.g. Lv 6:30 AV, but in RV ‘to make atonement’); the word has primarily the sense ‘to cover,’ but in actual usage has the meaning of ‘to conciliate’ an offended party, or ‘to hide or expiate’ an offence. A person may be conciliated by a gift (Gn 32:20); may be made propitious by intercession (Ex 32:30); an offence may be atoned for by an act of zeal for righteousness (Nu 25:13). In ritual usage it is the priest who ‘makes atonement’ for the offender, as touching, or concerning, his sin (cf. Lv 1:4, 4:35, 5:13, 18 etc.). Both ideas seem to be implied here; the offence is cancelled or annulled,—hidden from God’s sight,—and God is rendered propitious: His displeasure is turned away. The means by which this was effected under the Law was ordinarily sacrifice (burnt-offering, sin-offering, guilt-offering; the Idea was doubtless present in the peace-offering as well). The blood of an unblemished victim, obtained by slaughter, was sprinkled on the altar, or otherwise presented to Jehovah (cf. Lv 1–7 , and see ATONEMENT) . On the annual Day of Atonement expiation of the sins of the people was effected by an elaborate ceremonial, which included the carrying of the blood into the Holy of Holies, and the sprinkling of it upon the mercy-seat (Lv 16). The significance of these rites is considered in the artt. ATONEMENT and ATONEMENT [DAY OF].

2. In the NT.—These analogies throw light upon the meaning of the term in the NT in its application to Christ, and further Illustration is found in St. Paul’s words in Ro 3:25. The Apostle, having shown that no one can attain to righteousness, or be justified before God, by works of law, proceeds to exhibit the Divine method of justification, without law, by ‘a righteousness of God’ obtained through faith in Jesus Christ. ‘Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God set forth to be a propitiation, through faith, by his blood, to show his righteousness, because of the passing over of the sins done aforetime, in the forbearance of God.’ The ideas in this passage include the following: (1) that Christ’s death is a propitiatory sacrifice; (2) that sin cannot be righteously passed over except on the ground of such a sacrifice; (3) that Christ’s propitiatory death is the vindication of God’s righteousness in passing over sins under the older dispensation (cf. He 9:13); (4) that the virtue of Christ’s propitiation is appropriated by faith; (5) that everyone thus appropriating Christ’s propitiation, freely set forth, becomes possessed of ‘a righteousness of God’ which perfectly justifies him. It is seen, therefore, that Christ’s death is here regarded as having a true power to expiate guilt, redeem the sinner from condemnation, set him in righteous relations with God, and make him an object of God’s favour. It is not otherwise that Christ’s manifestation is conceived of by St. John, who in his Epistle emphasizes the cleansing power of Christ’s blood (1:7), extols Christ as the propitiation for the sins of the world (2:2) , and declares that the love of God is seen in this, that He sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins (4:10; cf. ‘to take away sins,’ 3:5). This last passage raises the difficulty which will naturally be felt about ‘propitiation.’ Assuming, as can hardly be denied, that the term includes the idea of rendering God propitious, or favourable, how is this to he reconciled with the statement that the propitiation itself proceeds from, and is a demonstration of, the love of God? Can it be supposed that God, who Himself sends the Son, needs to be appeased, conciliated, or in any way made more gracious than He is, by His Son’s death? That idea, which belongs to the heathenish conception of propitiation, must certainly be excluded. Yet the paradox holds good that, while God loves the sinner, and earnestly seeks his salvation, there is a necessary reaction of the holiness of God against sin, manifesting itself in displeasure, withdrawal, judgment, wrath, which hinders the outflow of His friendship and favour to the world as He would desire it to flow forth. The sinner cannot take the initiative here; it must come from God Himself. Yet it must come in such a way as furnishes an adequate ground for the extension of His mercy. Christ’s work in our nature was one which entered into the deepest need of God’s own being, as well as into the imperatives of His just government of the world. In the Person of His own well-beloved Son a reconciliation was truly effected with humanity, which extends to all who receive the Son as Saviour and Lord. This is the reality in propitiation. See ATONEMENT.

JAMES ORR.

PROSELYTE

1. The character and the history of the proselyte.—The character and the history of the proselyte are somewhat obscured by the fact that the name ‘proselyte’ occurs only in the NT, and there in the final meaning of a convert to Judaism, as if he were a product of NT times alone. But the same Greek word that stands for ‘proselyte’ In the NT is very largely used in the LXX, where EV has ‘stranger.’ Even the Hebrews themselves are described by the LXX as ‘proselytes’ in Egypt (Ex 22:21, 23:9, Lv 19:34, Dt 10:19). The ‘stranger’ of the OT becomes the ‘proselyte’ of the NT. For the history that lies behind the use of the word see art. STRANGER. By the 4 th cent.

B.C. the ‘stranger’ had become a member of the Jewish Church—a proselyte in the technical sense (Bertholet, Stellung der Israeliten, p. 178).

Other expressions are used in the NT to indicate a more or less close sympathy with Jewish religious thought and life without implying absolute identity with and inclusion in Judaism. These are ‘fearers of God’ (phoboumenoi ton Theon, Ac 10:2, 22, 13:16, 26, 50 etc.), and ‘worshippers of God’ (sebomenoi ton Theon, Ac 16:14, 17:4, 17 etc.). They were such as were drawn from heathenism by the higher ideals and purer life of Judaism. They were dissatisfied with the religious teaching of their nation, and found in Judaism an Intellectual home and a religious power they sought in vain elsewhere. But a study of Ac 10:11 , esp. 11:3, shows that these were not proselytes; they refused to take the final step that carried them into Judaism—viz. circumcision (EGT vol. ii. p. 250 f.; Ramsay, Expositor, 1896, p. 200; Harnack, Expansion of Christianity, i. p. 11). They lived on the fringe of Judaism, and were, it seems (Lk 7:5, Ac 10:2), often generous henefactors to the cause that had lifted them nearer to God and truth.

2. Proselytizing activity of the Jews.—Up to the time of the Exile and for some time after, the attitude of the Hebrews towards ‘strangers’ was passive: they did not invite their presence into their community, and did not encourage them to be sharers of their faith. But before the 3rd cent. B.C. a change of outlook and national purpose had taken place, which had converted them into active propagandists. There appear to have been three reasons for this change. (1) The Hebrews were no longer concentrated in one narrow land where a homogeneous life was followed, but were scattered over all parts of the civilized world, and found themselves in contact with peoples who were religiously far inferior to themselves, however otherwise they might be placed, and who excited, it may be, their disdain, but also their pity.—(2) Many of those in the Gentile world who were dissatisfied with the intellectual results and the religious conditions of their time saw in Judaism, as lived and taught before their eyes, something finer and nobler than they had found elsewhere; and were drawn to its practical teaching and life without committing themselves to the ritual that offended their sense of fitness and decency (cf. Harnack, op. cit. i. 10 f.).—(3) The Hebrews themselves seem to have responded to their opportunity with a quickened enthusiasm for humanity and a higher ideal of their national existence, in the providence of God, among the nations of the earth. It does not appear that the Hebrews have ever been so powerfully moved towards the peoples lying in darkness as in this time subsequent to the Exile (Harnack, op. cit. i. 11, 12) . They were convinced of the claim of God to the homage of men everywhere, the universalism of their revelation of truth and duty, and their own fitness to bring the world to God. The needs of the world moved them powerfully, and the thoughts that found expression in such passages as Ps 33:8 (‘Let all the earth fear the Lord, let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of him’) 36:7–9 , 64:10, 65:8 etc., filled them with a burning zeal to make the world their offering to God. (Bertholet, op. cit. p. 191 f.). Perhaps we may not be wrong in regarding the Septuagint as a product of, as it certainly was an aid to, this missionary effort.

This spiritual enthusiasm for God’s honour and man’s salvation continued till about the time of the Maccabees, when the tenderer springs of the Jewish spirit were dried up, and the sword became the instrument of national idealism, and whole cities and tribes were given the option of circumcision or exile, if not slaughter (1 Mac 2:46, 13:48, 14:14, 36; Jos. Ant. XIII. ix. 1, xi. 3, xv. 4). Of course, this was a means that was not available outside their hereditary home. This propaganda went on till the 1st cent. of our era, when the dissatisfaction of the Jews with the Roman supremacy culminated in insurrection. In their conflict with Rome their numbers were greatly reduced by slaughter, and their power of religious expansion was checked by the decree of Hadrian, modified later by Antoninus, in forbidding circumcision. By this time, however, Judaism had won a large following in every town of size and importance (cf. Ac 2:9–11; Jos. BJ VII. iii. 3, c. Apion. ii. 11, 40; Seneca, ap. August, de Civitate Dei, vi. 11; cf. ‘victi victorious leges dederunt’; Harnack, op. cit. i. 14; Schürer, HJP II. ii. 304 ff.). But now bloodshed and persecution produced the twofold result of closing and steeling the heart of Judaism to the outside world, so that proselytes were no longer sought by the Jews, and the tenets and the practices of Judaism became crystallized and less amenable to Hellenistic influences, and so less fitted to win the Gentile spirit.

3. Admission of the proselyte.—The ritual conditions imposed on the proselyte on entering Judaism were three: (1) circumcision, (2) cleansing or baptism, (3) sacrifice. Baptism took place after the healing of the wound caused by circumcision. Some have sought to discover in it an imitation of Christian ritual. But there is no foundation for such a claim. Cleansing or baptism lay in the very nature of Judaism,—the heathen was unclean and so had to be cleansed by washing in water before admission into Judaism. Sacrifice was both an expression of thanksgiving and an individual participation in Jewish worship. With the fall of the Temple sacrifice lapsed, though at first it was made a burden on the proselyte to lay aside enough to pay for the sacrifice, should the Temple again be restored; but even this demand was in course of time allowed to lapse, as the prospect of restoration vanished. These three conditions seem of early origin, though we may not have specific reference to them till the 2nd cent. A.D.

Among individual Jewish teachers there was difference of opinion as to the necessity of circumcision and baptism, but all early usage seems to confirm their actual observance. It is true that Izates, king of Adiahene, for a time refrained from circumcision under the guidance of his first Jewish teacher, Ananias, but this counsel was given, not because it was at the time deemed unnecessary for a proselyte to be circumcised, but because circumcision might alienate the sympathies of his people from Izates and endanger his throne. And Ananias wisely laid greater stress upon the moral than upon the ritual side of conversion. All through the Dispersion we find the same disposition to conciliate the Gentiles who were willing to share in the Jewish faith in any measure, by relaxing the ritual demands. And we cannot withhold our appreciation of the action of the Jews, for they wisely discriminated between the real and the formal side of their religion. They never did anything, however, to lower or compromise the moral demands of their faith. They rigorously insisted on the recognition of God from all their proselytes with all His claims upon their service (Harnack, op. cit. i. 72). It does not appear that conversion enhanced the reputation of the proselytes; for although they could not but win the esteem of the finer minds of their nation by their higher moral life, yet they seemed to the people to display a type of daily life lacking in domestic reverence and civic and national patriotism (Tac. Hist. v. 5. 8; Juv. Sat. xiv. 103–4).

4. Place of the proselyte in the growth of the Christian Church.—Those proselytes who had embraced Judaism in its entirety seem to have accepted the attitude of the Jews generally towards Christianity. Most of them would oppose it, and those who accepted it would make the Law the necessary avenue to it, and so they acted rather as a hindrance than as a help to the progress of the gospel. If the experience of Justin be any indication of the general attitude of the proselytes to the Church, they must have deemed it a duty to their adopted faith to manifest a violence of speech and an aggressiveness of action unsurpassed by the Jews themselves; for he says, ‘the proselytes not only do not believe, but twofold more than yourselves blaspheme His name, and wish to torture and put to death us who believe in Him’ (Dial. 122).

But the proselytes must always have formed a very small minority of those amongst the Gentiles who had lent an ear to Jewish teaching. There were many who were attracted to the synagogue by the helpfulness of its worship and the purity of its teaching, who had no sympathy with its ritual. Amongst these the gospel had a different reception; it was readily accepted and eagerly followed. They found in it all that drew them to the synagogue, and a great deal more. With historical Judaism they had nothing to do, and loyalty and nationality did not appeal to them as motives to maintain it against Christianity. Amongst the Jews both the proselyte and the devout worshipper occupied an inferior place, but here was a faith that made no distinction between Jew or Gentile, a faith whose conception of God was tenderer and whose ethical standards were higher, that made love and not law the interpreter of duty and the inspiration of service, that lived not in an evening twilight of anticipation of a glorious Messianic morning, but in warm fellowship with a Personality that was the evidence of its power and truth. It is easy to understand how quickly the gospel would be adopted by these adherents of Judaism. Every synagogue would become the seed-plot of a Christian church. And so it was specially to these that St. Paul addressed himself on his missionary journeys, and from them he formed the beginnings of many of his churches and received so much kindness (Ac 13:16, 42, 16:14, 16 etc.). One can easily understand with what feelings of combined jealousy and hate the Jews would see these worshippers detached from the synagogue and formed into a church. But Judaism had nothing to offer the Gentile that was not better provided by the Christian Church, and so it recoiled from the attack on Christianity like the spent waves from the rock-bound coast, angry but baffled. Failure drove the Jews in sullenness upon themselves. They left the field to Christianity, restricted their vision to their own people, and left the outer world alone.

J. GILROY.

PROSTITUTION.—See CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS, 3.

PROVENDER.—1. mispō′ (Gn 24:25, 32, 42:27, 43:24, Jg 19:19, 21), a general name for cattle food. 2. bĕlīl, Job 6:5 ‘fodder’; bĕlīl chāmīts, Is 30:24 ‘clean (AVm and RV ‘savoury,’ RVm ‘salted’) provender,’ i.e. fodder mixed with salt or aromatic herbs. The ordinary food of cattle in Palestine—besides pasturage—is tibn (broken straw), kursenneh (the vetch, Vicia ervilia) , bran (for fattening especially), and sometimes hay made from the flowering herbs of spring.

E. W. G. MASTERMAN.

PROVERB

1. Meaning.—In the Bible there is no essential difference between the proverb and the parable (wh. see). The Heb. māshāl and the Gr. parabolē, meaning ‘resemblance,’ were applied indiscriminately to both. The value arising from this likeness was twofold. In the first place, as the moral truth seemed to emerge from the observed habits of animals, objects in nature, familiar utensils, or occurrences in daily life, such juxtaposition gave to the ethical precept or fact of conduct the surprise and challenge of a discovery. Thus the whole influence of example and environment is compressed into the proverb, ‘As is the mother, so is her daughter’ (Ezk 16:44). The surprise was intensified when the parable product contradicted ordinary experience, as in the statement, ‘One soweth and another reapeth’ (Jn 4:37). Definite labour deserves a definite reward, yet the unexpected happens, and, while man proposes, there remains an area in which God disposes. Out of such corroboration grew the second value of the proverb, namely, authority. The truth became a rule entitled to general acceptance. The proverb usually has the advantage of putting the concrete for the abstract. Among the modern inhabitants of Palestine, when a letter of recommendation is asked, it is customary to quote the proverb, ‘You cannot clap with one hand.’ Of a dull workman without interest or resource in his work it is said, ‘He is like a sleve, he can do only one thing.’

2. Literary form.—(1) Next to the fact of resemblance was the essential feature of brevily. Such a combination at once secured currency to the unpremeditated exclamation, ‘Is Saul also among the prophets?’ (1 S 10:11, 12). When the proverb consisted of two parts, rhetorical emphasis was secured either by repeating the same thought in different words (Pr 3:17) or by the introduction of contrasting particulars (3:33). (2) Rhythmic measure was also studied, and there was often an untranslatable felicity of balance and repeated sound. The final mark of literary publicity was conferred by a rhetorical touch of picturesque hyperbole, as in the reference to a camel passing through the eye of a needle (Mt 19:24). (3) The fact that a wise saying was meant for the wise encouraged the use of elliptical form. This carried the complimentary suggestion that the hearer was able to understand a reference that was confessedly obscure. On this account proverbs were called ‘the words of the wise’ (Pr 22:17). Hence the note of surprise and unexpectedness in Christ’s words, when He said that the mysteries of the Kingdom had been hidden from the wise and understanding and revealed unto babes (Mt 11:25, Lk 10:21). (4) The obscurity referred to was sometimes made the leading feature and motive of the proverb, and it was then called an ‘enigma’ or ‘dark saying’ (Ps 49:4, Pr 1:6, 30:15–31) . Its solution then became a challenge to the ingenuity of the interpreter. Both the prophets and Christ Himself were charged with speaking in this problematical manner (Ezk 20:49, Jn 16:29). Riddles were introduced at festive gatherings as contributing an element of competitive acuteness and facetious exhilaration. Instances resembling Pr 30:15–31 are common among the modern Arabs and Jews in Syria, as when it is said: ‘There are three chief voices in the world, that of running water, of the Torah, and of money.’ An enigma for the study of books is: ‘Black seeds on white ground, and he who eats of the fruit becomes wise.’

3. Subject-matter.—This is summarized in Pr 1:1–8 . The reference is generally to types of character, the emotions and the desires of the heart, and the joys and sorrows, the losses and gains, the duties and the relationships of human life. Amid these the proverb casts a searching light upon different classes of men, and points out the path of wisdom. Henos the name ‘words of truth’ (Pr 22:21).

4. Authority.—Proverbial literature is more highly esteemed in the East than in the West. While the popularity of proverbs is partly due to literary charm and intellectual force, and the distinction conferred by the power of quoting and understanding them, the principal cause of their acceptance lies in their harmony with Oriental life. The proverb is patriarchal government in the region of ethics. It is an order from the governing class that admits of no discussion. The proverb is not the pleading of the lawyer in favour of a certain view and claim, but the decision of a judge who has heard both sides and adjudicates on behalf of general citizenship. Such authority is at its maximum when it not only is generally current but has been handed down from previous generations. It is then ‘a parable of the ancients’ (1 S 24:13). The quotation of an appropriate proverb in a controversy always carries weight, unless the opponent can quote another in support of his claims. Thus, to the careless and inattentive man in business who says

‘Prosperity is from God,’ it may be retorted ‘He that seeketh findeth.’ Beneath some commendable social qualities belonging to this attitude there is a mental passivity that seeks to attain to results without the trouble of personal inquiry, and prefers the benefits conferred by truth to any sacrifice or service that might be rendered to it.

G. M. MACKIE.

PROVERBS, BOOK OF.—The second book among the ‘Writings’ is the most characteristic example of the Wisdom literature in the OT. 1. We may adopt the division of the book made by the headings in the Hebrew text as follows:—

I. 1–9 , The proverbs of Solomon, son of David, king of Israel (heading for more than this section). See below.

II. 10–22:16 , The proverbs of Solomon.

III. 22:17–24:22, … the words of the wise (22:17–21 forms an introductory poem ).

IV. 24:23–34 , These also are the sayings of the wise.

V. 25–29 , These also are the proverbs of Solomon which the men of Hezekiah copied out.

VI. 30 , The words of Agur, etc.

VII. 31:1–9 , The words of king Lemuel, etc.

VIII. 31:10–31 , Without heading, but clearly distinct from VII.

Sections I., II., and III. form the body of the book; sections IV. and V. are additions to the earlier portion, and VI., VII., and VIII. are still later additions.

We consider section II. first, because here the typical Hebrew proverb is best seen, especially if chs. 10–15 are taken by themselves as IIa. These chapters consist of aphorisms in the form of couplets showing antithetic parallelism (see POETRY) . The couplets are wholly detached, and little order is observable in their arrangement. In content they come nearest being popular, even if they are not so actually. In general they show a contented and cheerful view of life. The wise are mentioned, and with admiration, but not as a class or as forming a school of thought or instruction. They are the successful, upright, prosperous men, safe examples in affairs of common life. In IIb the lines are still arranged in distiches, but the antithetic parallelism has largely given way to the synonymous or synthetic variety. This form gives a little more opportunity for classifying and developing the sentiment of the proverb. ‘My son’ is addressed a few times, but not regularly. Section III. again marks an advance over IIa and IIb. The verses 22:17–21 are a hortatory introduction. There follows a collection of quatrains, instead of couplets. They are maxims with proverbs among them. Consecutive thought has developed. The truths stated are still the simple every-day ones, but they show meditation as well as observation. Section IV. is an appendix to the third, both coming from ‘the Wise.’ It is very defective in rhythm, and seemingly the text has suffered corruption. In the few verses three themes are treated, chiefly the sluggard. Section V. is easily subdivided. Chs. 25–27:22 contain proverbs in the form of comparisons. Chs. 28–29 are in the style of section II. Between the two a little piece (27:23–27) praises the life of a farmer. Section VI. consists of several independent discourses. The heading (30:1) separates the chapter from the preceding, but otherwise adds little to our knowledge of the origin, for it is wellnigh unintelligible, Even if it consists of proper names, as is most likely, there is no gain from knowing them and nothing more. In vv. 15ff. are several stanzas of peculiar ‘numerical’ style: ‘there are three things that … and four … namely …’ Section VII. is a brief manual for a king or judge, though the maxims are rather rudimentary and homely. If there is a temperance lesson, it is only for the king; the advice to the poor and oppressed is very different (see vv. 6 and 7). The remainder of the chapter, section VIII., is noticeable for two things: its alphabetical structure, each couplet beginning with a new letter in regular order, and the unusual subject, the capable housewife. A most delicate tribute is in the omission of any reference to her virtue, which is tacitly assumed, and not even mentioned.

There remains the important section chs. 1–9. Its position at the head of the book does not show that it was first in point of time. It is clearly a preface, or hortatory introduction. It does not so much give wise counsel of a concrete kind, as praise the wisdom illustrated in the concrete counsels of the following sections. It is studied, philosophical, flowing in style. It addresses ‘My son’ at the beginning of a new paragraph, exactly as a teacher addresses ‘My hearers’ as he begins a lecture. In one chapter at least, the eighth, the adoration of wisdom is carried to the limit, and in spite of the fine personification one feels, regretfully, far removed from the plain practical precepts of sections II. and III. In this ‘cosmogonic hymn’ wisdom is assigned a dignity in the universe hardly inferior to that of the Creator.

Among the various attempts to explain the form in which the book comes to us, perhaps the following will be found as simple as any. We may suppose that the proverbs ‘of Solomon’ in IIa and IIb were collected separately and then combined in II.; that ‘the words of the wise’ in III. at first stood by themselves, and were supplemented by IV.; that the two groups, II. and III.–IV., were then joined together, becoming known as the proverbs ‘of Solomon’; that the collection in V. was attached; that to this book section I. was then prefixed as an introduction, which was thus stamped as the literature of the school of Wisdom. The few remaining chapters, sections VI., VII., and VIII., were added later from the mass of Wisdom literature which must have been in existence, or later came into existence.

2. As for the date of the book, the traditional ascription of parts of it to king Solomon must, of course, be discarded. And with this rejection there disappears any reason for seeking an early date for it. The time when, all things considered, the compilation is best explained, is between B.C. 350 and 150. From the nature of the case it is impossible to fix even approximately the date of the origin of individual couplets. Many of the arguments valid against an early date of compilation are valueless so far as the single proverbs are concerned.

3. The authors of the Wisdom literature do not claim revealed wisdom; their teachings are only practical common sense. They are humanists, basing their morality upon the universal principles underlying all human nature. From this practical interest the view broadens to the wide sweep of ch. 8. ‘Proverbs may be regarded as a manual of conduct, or, as Bruch calls it, an “anthology of gnomes.” Its observations relate to a number of forms of life, to affairs domestic, agricultural, urban (the temptations of city life), commercial, political, and military’ (Toy, Proverbs, p. x.).

O. H. GATES.

PROVIDENCE.—1. The word is not found in the OT. In the NT it is used only once; in the exordium of his address to Felix, the orator Tertullus says: ‘By thy providence evils are corrected for this nation’ (Ac 24:2). Here ‘providence’ simply means ‘foresight,’ as in 2 Mac 4:6 ‘the king’s providence.’

2. The first appearance of the word ‘providence’ (Gr. pronoia) in Jewish literature is in Wis 14:3 , where God is represented as making for a ship ‘a way in the sea’; the Jewish author, borrowing the expression from the Stoic philosophers, says: ‘Thy providence, O Father, guideth it along.’ In a later passage, recognizing the sterner aspect of the truth to which the OT also bears witness, he contrasts the destinies of the Israelites and Egyptians and describes the latter, when they were ‘prisoners of darkness,’ as ‘exiled from the eternal providence’ (17:2).

3. Although the OT does not contain the word ‘providence,’ it is a continuous and progressive revelation of Him ‘whose never-failing providence ordereth all things both in heaven and earth.’ Historians narrate the gradual accomplishment of His redemptive purpose concerning the Chosen People and the world at large (Gn 50:20, Ex 8:22, Dt 32:8ff.; cf. Ps 74:12ff.); poets delight to extol Him ‘whose tender mercies are over all his works’ (Ps 145:9; cf. 29:3ff., 104, 136); prophets point to the proofs of God’s guidance in the past in order that the people may gain wisdom for the present and courage for the future (Dt 32:7ff., Hag 2:9, Is 51:2, Mal 4:4ff.). The Book of Job has been called ‘the book of Providence,’ because it not only gives the author’s solution of perplexing problems, but also ‘furnishes reasons for believing in the righteous providence of God from the consideration of His character and His dominion over nature’ (Oehler, Theology of OT, ii. 474; cf. Job 27, 34:10, 36:22, 37:21).

4. Belief in Providence stands or falls with belief in a personal God. It is incompatible with mechanical or pantheistic theories of Creation. Ancient problems which perplexed Greek philosophers and Hebrew sages press heavily upon the modern mind as it strives to reconcile its trust in Divine providence with the reign of law in the universe and with the existence of pain and evil. Jesus Christ taught that the laws of nature are the established methods of His Heavenly Father’s working, and that they fulfil as well as reveal His will (Mt 6:25ff., 10:29ff., Jn 5:17). Belief in Providence means to the Christian, trust in the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has so clearly revealed His will in His Son as to make it plain to His children that natural laws may not only subserve moral and spiritual ends in this present time, but may also further His unerring purposes which are not bounded by this mortal life (Ro 8:28, 2 Co 4:11ff., 1 P 1:6 ff. ).

J. G. TASKER.

PROVINCE.—This word, of unknown derivation, originally meant simply ‘a sphere of (magisterial) duty,’ and was applied, for example, to the duty of the prætor urbanus, who was never permitted to leave Rome. With the extension of the Roman Empire, and the consequently much increased number of spheres of duty outside Rome and Italy, the word came gradually to have a territorial application also. It is in this derived sense that the word is taken here. It was part of the Roman policy throughout to be in no unnecessary hurry to acquire territory and the responsibility connected with it, and it was not till the year B.C. 227—hundreds of years after the foundation of the Roman State—that the first province was taken over. In that year Sardinia and Corsica became one province, Western Sicily another, and each, after the details of government had been settled by special commissioners, was put under an additional prætor elected for the purpose. Behind this step, as behind the annexation of most Roman provinces, there lay long years of warfare. Province after province was annexed, until in the time of Christ the Romans were in possession of the whole of Europe (except the British Isles, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and Russia), all Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, and the north-west of Africa. Most of this vast territory had been acquired during the Republic, but certain portions had not been annexed till the time of the first Emperor, Augustus. During the Republic the governors of these provinces were appointed by the Roman senate from among their own number, generally after a period of service as prætor or consul, as the case might be. They were unpaid, and had heavy expenses to bear. Few resisted the temptation to recoup themselves at the expense of the long-suffering provincials, and the vast sums acquired by an extortionate governor in his one year’s governorship may be estimated from the fact that Cicero, a just and honest man, acquired £18,000 during his tenure of the province Cilicia.

During the Empire the provinces were treated according to a notable settlement made between the Senate and the Emperor Augustus on January 1, B.C. 27 . On that day it was arranged that those provinces which were peaceful and did not require the presence of an army should be under the control of the senate, who would appoint their governors; while the disturbed provinces that did require the presence of an army were to be under the Emperor himself, who was generalissimo of all the forces of the State. At the same time the Emperor retained financial interests even in senatorial provinces. The following thus became senatorial (or public) provinces: Asia (i.e. roughly the western third of Asia Minor), Africa (i.e. practically Tunis), Gallia Narbonensis, Hispania Bætica, Achaia, Cyprus, Creta et Cyrenaica, Macedonia, Sicilia, Bithynia, Illyricum, Sardinia et Corsica. The first two were senatorial provinces of the first rank, and were governed each by an ex-consul with the title of proconsul, and three legati under him. The others were senatorial provinces of the second rank, and were governed each by an exprætor, also with the title proconsul. All the rest of the Roman world outside Italy, namely, three-fourths of the whole, was made up of Imperial provinces, including the following: Egypt (where the Emperors, as successors of the Ptolemys, ruled as kings), Judæa, Syria-CiliciaPhœnice, Galatia (established B.C. 25), Thracia, Pamphylia (established B.C. 25) , Galliæ tres (Aquitania, Lugudunensis, Belgica), Britannia (established A.D. 43) . Every new province naturally came under the Emperor’s authority. He governed his more important provinces (e.g. Syria, Galatia) through a legatus pro prætore in each—a man of consular or prætorian rank, who was paid a fixed salary in and after the time of Tiberius—and his less important provinces through a procurator (e.g. Judæa) or præfectus (e.g. Egypt). The period of senatorial governorships was one year, that of Imperial indefinite. Each province was governed according to a definite statute, which determined the administrative procedure and defined the privileges of individual cities in it. The inhabitants were disarmed and taxed. The oppressive and unjust rule of the Republic was exchanged for a much better during the Empire; and the provinces, at least during the first three centuries of our era, were prosperous and contented.

A. SOUTER.

PROVOKE.—‘To provoke’ is now ‘to try to call forth evil passions,’ but in AV it is used in the sense of inciting to any action, good or evil, as 2 Co 9:2 ‘Your zeal hath provoked very many.’ ‘Provocation,’ however, always occurs in a bad sense. It is used in Ps 95:8 of the conduct of the children of Israel towards God in the wilderness.

PSALMS

1. Title and place in Canon.—The Book of Psalms is a collection of sacred poems, in large part liturgical in character and intended to be sung. The book belongs to the Kethubim or ‘Writings,’ i.e. the third and last group of the Jewish Scriptures. The order of the Writings was much less fixed than the order of the Law and the Prophets, the other two groups of Scriptures; but the Psalms in all cases come near the beginning of this group, and in the modern Hebrew printed Bibles, which follow the great majority of German MSS, they stand first. In placing the Psalms, together with the rest of the Writings, before the (‘Latter’) Prophets, the EV has followed the Greek version; but in the internal arrangement of the Writings, the English and Greek versions differ from one another.

The title of this collection of poems is derived from the Greek version, in which the book is entitled in some MSS Psalmoi, in others Psalterion (in NT ‘Psalms,’ and ‘Book of Psalms,’ Lk 20:42, 24:44, Ac 1:20). psalmos in classical Greek signified the twanging of strings, and especially the musical sound produced by plucking the strings of a stringed instrument; as used here it means poems played to the music of (stringed) instruments. The Greek word thus corresponds closely to the Heb. mizmōr, of which it is the tr. in the titles of individual Psalms (e.g. 3:1) . The Jewish title for the whole book was ‘Book of Praises’: this referred directly to the subject-matter of the poems, and less directly than the Greek title to their musical character. Both titles take into account the majority of the poems rather than the whole; not all the Psalms were sung to musical accompaniment, and not all of them consist of praise.

The Psalter contains, according to the division of the Hebrew text followed by EV, 150 poems; the Greek version contains 151, but the last of these is described as ‘outside the number.’ This number does not exactly correspond with the number of different poems. On the one hand, there are one or two clear cases, and there may be others less clear, of a single Psalm having been wrongly divided into two; thus Psalms 9 and 10 are shown by the continuance of the acrostic scheme through the latter Psalm (cf. ACROSTIC, and see Expositor, Sept. 1906, pp. 233–253) to have once formed, as they still do in the Greek version, a single poem. So Pss 42, 43 are shown by the recurrence of the same refrain (42:5, 11, 43:5) to be one poem. But the Greek version is scarcely true to the original in making two distinct Psalms out of each of the Psalms numbered 116 and 147 respectively in the Hebrew text and EV. Probably in a larger number of cases, owing to an opposite fortune, two poems originally distinct have been joined together under a single number. A clear instance of this kind is Ps 108, which consists of two Psalms or fragments of Psalms (viz. 57:7–11, 60:5–12) . Among the more generally suspected instances of the same kind are Pss 19 (= vv. 1–6 + 7–14) 24 (= vv. 1–6 + 7–10) 27 (= vv. 1–6 + 7–14) and 36 (= 1–4 + 5–12) . A very much larger number of such instances are inferred by Dr.Briggs in his Commentary (ICC).

The Psalter does not contain quite the whole of what survives of Jewish literature of this type. A few psalms not included in the Psalter are found in other books: see, e.g., 1 S 2:1–10 , Is 12, 38:10–20 , Hab 3. And we have another important, though much smaller, collection of psalms in the ‘Psalms of Solomon’ written about B.C. 63. These, with such NT psalms as Lk 1:46–55 , 68–79 , are important as showing that the period of psalm composition extended beyond the close of the OT.

2. Origin and history

(1) Reception into the Canon.—The history of the Psalms and the Psalter is obscure; and many conclusions with regard to it rest, and for lack of other independent evidence must rest, on previous conclusions as to the origin and literary history of other Hebrew and Jewish literature. Conclusive external evidence for the existence of the Psalter in its present extent does not carry us very far back beyond the close of the Jewish Canon (see CANON of OT); but the mode of allusion to the Psalms in the NT renders it very unlikely that the book was still open to additions in the 1st cent. A.D.; and the fact that none of the ‘Psalms of Solomon’ (see § 1, end) gained admission, and that this collection by its title perhaps presupposes the canonical ‘Psalms of David,’ renders it probable that the Psalter was complete, and not open to further additions, some time before B.C. 63. Other evidence (cf. Hastings’ DB iv. 147), such as that derived from the substantial agreement of the Greek version with the Hebrew text, does not carry the proof for the existence of the Psalter in its present extent much further. The net result is that, if not impossible, it is unsafe, to place the completion of the Psalter much below B.C. 100.

(2) Previous history.—Behind that date lies a long history; for the Psalter represents the conclusion of a complex literary growth or development. We may note, first, two things that prove this general fact, that the Psalter is neither a simple edition of the poems of a single man or a single age, nor the first collection of its kind. (1) At the close of Ps 72 stand the words: ‘The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.’ This is intelligible if the remark once closed an independent collection, and was taken over with the collection by the compiler of a larger work. But apart from some such hypothesis as this it is not intelligible; for the remark is not true of the Psalter as we have it; the prayers of David are not ended, other Psalms actually entitled ‘prayers’ and described as ‘of David’ are Pss 86 and 142; and several subsequent Psalms assigned to David are, without being so entitled, actually prayers. (2) The same Psalm is repeated in different parts of the Psalter with slight textual or editorial variations: thus Ps 14 = Ps 53; 40:13–17 = 70; 108 = 57:7–11 + 60:5–12 . The Psalter, then, was composed by drawing on, and in some cases incorporating, earlier collections of Psalms.

Our next questions are: How many collections earlier than the Psalter can be traced? How far can the methods of the editor who drew on or combined these earlier collections be discerned? The first clue to the first question may be found in the titles referring to persons and their distribution; the more significant features of this distribution may be shown thus—

1. Pss 1–2 are without title.

2. Pss 3–41 are all entitled ‘of David,’ except Ps 10, which is a continuation of Ps 9 (see above), and Ps 33.

3. Pss 42–49 are all entitled ‘of the sons of Korah,’ except Ps 43, which is a continuation of Ps 42 (see above).

4. Ps 50 is entitled ‘of Asaph.’

5. Pss 51–72 are all entitled ‘of David,’ except Pss 66, 67 , 71, 72.

6. Pss 73–83 are all entitled ‘of Asaph.’

7. Of Pss 84–89 , four (Pss 84, 85, 87, 88) are entitled ‘of the sons of Korah,’ one (Ps 86) ‘of

David,’ and one (Ps 69) ‘of Ethan.’

8. Pss 120–134 are all entitled ‘Songs (so rather than ‘A song’ RV) of Ascent.’

The remaining 46 Psalms (90–119, 135–150) are either without title, or the titles are not the same in any considerable number of consecutive Psalms (but note 108–110 and 138–145 entitled ‘of David’).

Now, if it stood by itself, the statement at the close of Ps 72 could be explained by a single process—the incorporation of a previous collection consisting of Pss 1–72 by an editor who added these to Pss 73–150 derived from other sources. But within Pss 1–72 we have two occurrences of the same Psalm (Ps 14 = Ps 53), which in itself indicates that in Pss 1–72 at least two hymn-books are combined. Again, Ps 53 differs from Ps 14 by the entire absence from it of the name ‘Jahweh’ and the use in four places of the name ‘God,’ where Ps 14 uses ‘Jahweh’ (EV ‘the LORD’). So also in Ps 70 = Ps 40:13–17 ‘Jahweh’ is twice retained, but thrice it is replaced by ‘God.’ But the editorial activity thus implied proves on examination to have affected the entire group of Pss 42–83; for the difference in the use of the names ‘Jahweh’ and ‘God’ between Pss 1–41 and Pss 42–83 is remarkable: in Pss 1–41 ‘Jahweh’ occurs 272 times, ‘God’ (absolutely) 15 times; in Pss 42–83 ‘Jahweh’ 43 times, but ‘God’ 200 times (see Driver, LOT⁶371). Now this Elohistic Psalter, as Pss 42–83 are termed on account of the marked preference which is shown in them for the term Elohim = ‘God,’ is one of the earlier collections embodied in our Psalter; but it is itself in turn derived from different sources; for it includes the group of David’s Psalms which closes with the statement that the Prayers of David are ended—a statement which, though not true of the whole Psalter, is true of this earlier Psalter, for between Pss 73–83 no prayer of David occurs. It also includes Psalms ‘of the sons of Korah’ and ‘of Asaph.’ Very possibly this Elohistic Psalter has not reached us in its original condition; for (1) the untitled Psalms may have been subsequently inserted; and (2) the Psalms entitled ‘of Asaph’ may have once stood all together: at present Ps 50 stands isolated from the rest (Pss 73–83).

In addition to the occurrences of Psalms in two recensions and the occurrence of similar titles or groups, another feature points to earlier independent books of Psalms: this is the occurrence of a doxology or suitable concluding formula at certain points in the Psalter, viz. 41:13 at the end of the first group of Psalms entitled ‘of David’; 72:18, 19 immediately before the statement that the Prayers of David are ended; and 89:52. See also 106:48 and 150, which last Psalm in its entirety may be taken as an enlarged doxology at the close of the completed Psalter. The doxologies at the end of Pss 41 and 72 occur at points which we have already found reason for regarding as the close of collections; that at 89:52, however, occurs not at the close of the Elohistic Psalms, but six Psalms later. Now five of these six Psalms are drawn from the same sources as supplied the Elohistic editor, viz. from the ‘prayers of David’ (Ps 86) and the book ‘of the sons of Korah.’ In Pss 42–89 we not improbably have the original Elohistic Psalter (Pss 42–83) , enlarged by the addition of an appendix (Pss 84–89) , in which the name ‘Jahweh’ was left unchanged, and consequently the form ‘Elohim’ ceases to predominate.

From the evidence thus far considered or suggested (it cannot here be given in greater detail), we may infer some such stages as these in the history of the Psalms before the completion of the Psalter:—

1. Compilation of a book entitled ‘of David’ and including Pss 3–41 (except the untitled Ps 33).

2. Compilation of a second hymn-book entitled ‘of David’ (Pss 51–72 , with exceptions ).

3. Compilation of a book entitled ‘of Asaph’ (Asaph being the name of a guild of singers, Ezr 2:11).

4. Compilation of a book entitled ‘of the sons of Korah’ (also probably a guild of singers; cf. 2 Ch 20:19).

5. Compilation of ‘the Elohistic Psalter’ out of Psalms derived from 2, 3, 4 by an editor who generally substituted ‘Elohim’ (‘God’) for ‘Jahweh’ (EV ‘the LORD’).

6. Enlargement of 5 by the addition of Pss 84–89.

7. Compilation of a book entitled ‘Songs of the Ascents.’

Can we detect the existence of other earlier Psalters? So far we have taken account mainly of titles of one type only and of titles which occur in groups. Dr. Briggs carries the argument from titles to the existence of collections of Psalms further. He infers that there was a collection of Michtams or chosen pieces, whence Pss 16, 56–60 and Is 38:9–20 were drawn; another collection of Maschils or meditations, whence Pss 32, 42–45, 52–55 , 74, 78, 88, 89, 142 were derived; another collection of Psalms proper, of poems set to music, whence the 57 Psalms described in the titles as Mizmor ( EV ‘psalm’) were derived; and yet another collection which bore the name of the musical director or choir master (EV ‘the chief musician’), whence the 55 Psalms so entitled were derived. If this be the case, then the composite titles enable us to see that many Psalms stood successively in two or three collections before they obtained their place in the completed Psalter; e.g. Ps 19—entitled ‘of (or belonging to) the chief musician, a Psalm, of (or belonging to) David’—had previously been included in three distinct collections; and so also Ps 44—entitled ‘of the chief musician, of the sons of Korah, Maschil.’ Perhaps the strongest case for these further collections is that of the chief musician’s Psalter; in any case, the English reader must be warned that the preposition prefixed to the ‘chief musician’ is the same as that prefixed to ‘David’ or ‘Asaph’ or ‘the sons of Korah,’ though in the first case RV renders ‘for’ and in the latter cases ‘of.’ Consequently, since in many cases it is impossible, owing to intervening words (e.g. in Pss 12, 45), to interpret such a combination as ‘of the chief musician, of David,’ ‘of the chief musician, of the sons of Korah’ of joint authorship, we must see in them either conflicting ascriptions of authorship placed side by side, or, far more probably, as just suggested, the titles of collections of Psalms or hymn-books to which they had previously belonged. It is then highly probable that in the first instance such titles as ‘of David,’ ‘of Asaph,’ ‘of the sons of Korah,’ were neither intended nor understood to name the author of the Psalm in question. But if this was so, we can also see that before the final stage in the growth of the Psalter they were misunderstood; for the title ‘of David’ clearly implied authorship to the author(s) of the longer titles in Pss 7 and 8: it is scarcely less clear that the title implied authorship to the authors of other titles that suggest an historical setting (see, e.g., Pss 3, 57).

Titles of the Psalms.—Inasmuch as the terms occurring in the titles to the Psalms are not explained elsewhere in this Dictionary, it will be convenient to give here brief notes on those which have not already been discussed. It may be said in general that great obscurity enshrouds the subject, and that, in spite of the many ingenious speculations to which the terms in question have given rise, it is hazardous to base, on any particular theories of interpretation, far reaching conclusions. With few exceptions the titles of the latter part of the Psalter (Pss 90–150) are free from these terms.

Apparently we have in the titles not only notes indicating the source whence the Psalm was derived (see above), but also in some cases notes defining the character of the Psalm (see below, Nos. 12 and 13 and [?) No. 18) , or some circumstances of its use. Thus Ps 92 was to be used on the Sabbath, Ps 30 at the Feast of the Dedication (1 Mac 4:56, Jn 10:22), celebrated from the time of the Maccabees onward; and

Pa 100 on the occasion of offering thank-offering; so also ‘to bring to remembrance’ (EV) in Pss 38 and 70 may rather mean ‘at the time of making the offering called azkarah’ (RV ‘memorial,’ e.g. Nu 5:26); see also No. 5 (below). This type of note is more frequent in the LXX, which assigns Ps 24 for the use of the first day of the week, Pa 48 for the second, Pa 94 for the third, Ps 93 for the day before the Sabbath. Other titles, it is supposed, name, by the opening words of songs sung to it or otherwise, the tune to which the Psalm was to be sung (see Aijeleth hash-shahar, Al-tashheth, Jonath-elem-rehokim, Shoshannim; see below), or the instruments which were to accompany the singing of the Psalm (? Nehiloth, Neginoth).

For ease of reference we give the terms in alphabetic order.

1. Aijeleth hash-shahar ( Ps 22) is a transliteration of Heb. words which mean ‘the hind of the morning’; the Heb. consonants might equally well mean ‘the help of the morning.’ These words are preceded by the Heb. preposition ‘al, which, among many others, has the meaning ‘in accordance with,’ and here and in other similar titles not improbably means ‘set to’ (AV). The whole note, then, may mean that the Psalm was to be sung to the tune to which the song beginning ‘the hind (or ‘the help’) of the morning’ had been accustomed to be sung. The renderings ‘upon Aijeleth Shahar’ (AV) and ‘concerning Aijeleth hash-shahar’ are also legitimate, but less probable. With this title cf. below Nos. 3 , 7, 9, 10, 14, 19 ( not all equally probable instances ).

2. Alamoth (Ps 46). This term and Sheminith (Pss 6, 12) must be treated together. They are preceded by the same preposition ‘al discussed under No. 1, and accordingly RV renders ‘set to the Sheminith,’ etc. But it is hardly likely, in view of 1 Ch 15:19–21, that these terms are names of tunes, though they obviously have some reference to the music. The usual meaning of sheminith in Heb. is ‘eighth,’ of ‘alamoth’ ‘young women’; so that the titles run ‘upon’ or ‘according to’ or ‘set to the eighth’ or ‘the maidens.’ ‘The maidens,’ it is conjectured, means ‘the voices of maidens,’ and that, it is further conjectured, stands for ‘the falsetto voice of males’; so that the whole phrase ‘set to the maidens’ would mean ‘to be sung with soprano voices.’ Thence, it is inferred, ‘set to the eighth’ means ‘sung with the bass voice.’ All this, though it has found considerable acceptance and has sometimes been stated with little or no qualification, possesses no more than the value of an unverified and perhaps unverifiable guess.

3. Al-tashheth (Pss 57 , 58, 59, 75). The words mean ‘destroy not,’ and may be the beginning of a vintage song cited in Is 65:8 ‘Destroy it not, for a blessing is in it.’ Then the note presumably directs that the Psalms shall be sung to the tune of this song (cf. No. 1). But the omission of the preposition ‘al used in similar cases is suspicious.

4. The Chief Musician. See preced. column.

5. ‘Ascents’ (RV; ‘degrees’ AV), a song of (Pss 120–134) . The Heb. may also be the plural of a compound expression, and mean ‘Songs of Ascent.’ In the latter case the title of the whole collection has been prefixed to each Psalm (see above). ‘Songs of Ascent’ might mean ‘Songs of the Ascent’ (cf. Ezr 7:9), from Babylon, but more probably ‘Songs of the Ascent’ to Jerusalem on the occasion of the great yearly festivals. On the supposition that the meaning is ‘A song of Ascents’ (pl.), the phrase has been explained with reference to the 15 ascents’ or ‘steps’ (such is the meaning of the Heb. word in Ex 20:23, 1 K 10:19f.), that led from the Women’s Court to that of the men in the Temple area; it has been inferred that one of each of these 15 Psalms was sung on each of the 15 steps. Other ingenious but improbable suggestions have been offered (cf., most lately, J. W. Thirtle, Old Testament Problems).

6. Dedication of the House, i.e. the Temple (Ps 30). See above and art. DEDICATION [FEAST OF THE].

7. Gittith (Pss 8, 81, 84). The word is the fem. of the adj. derived from Gath. In the three titles it is preceded by the prep. ‘al (see under No. 1), and the phrase has been supposed to mean that the Psalm was to be sung to the accompaniment of the Gittite instrument (cf. Nos. 15 and? 16) , whatever that may have been, or to the Gittite tune (cf. No. 1). If the word was originally pronounced ‘Gittoth’ (pl. of gath, ‘a wine-press’), the note may direct that the Psalms were to be sung to some vintage melody (cf. No. 3).

8. Higgaion.—The word thus transliterated in 9:16 (RV) is translated in 92:3 ‘a solemn sound’ (RV), ‘murmuring sound’ (Driver), and in 19:14. ‘meditation.’ In 9:16 it seems to be a musical note.

9. Jeduthun.—On the analogy of ‘of David,’ etc. (see above), the title in Ps 39 should run ‘of the sons of Korah, of Jeduthun.’ In Pss 62, 77 the preposition prefixed to the term is ‘al (cf. No. 1), and by analogy Jeduthun might be the name of a tune or an instrument. But this is very uncertain; see art.

JEDUTHUN.

10. Jonath-elem-rehokim ( Ps 56). The Heb. consonants are most naturally translated ‘the dove of the distant terebinths’; less probably, but as the tradition embodied in the vocalized Heb. text suggests, ‘the dove of the silence of them that are distant.’ The note is to be explained as No. 1.

11. Mahalath (Ps 53), Mahalath Leanooth ( Ps 88). The words are very ambiguous and obscure, but the fact that in both Psalms the prep. ‘al precedes, relates these notes to the group of which No. 1 is typical.

12. Maschil (Pss 32, 42–45, 52–55, 74–78 , 88, 89, 142). The term describes the character of the poem, but whether its precise meaning is ‘a meditation’ (Briggs) or ‘a cunning Psalm’ (Kirkpatrick), or something else, cannot be determined with certainty. See also p. 771^a.

13. Michtam (Pss 16, 56–60 , also perhaps in the original text of Is 38:9) is a term like the last, but of still more uncertain meaning. The Rabbinical interpretation—a golden (poem)—though adopted by Briggs, is quite unconvincing.

14. Muth-labben ( Ps 9). The Heb. consonants may mean ‘Death whitens,’ and this may have been the commencement of a song which gave a name to a tune; cf. No. 1. But it is not unreasonable to suspect the text, as many have done.

15. Neginoth ( AV in Pss 4, 6, 54, 55, 67, 76) and Neginah (Ps 61). The words thus, in excess of caution, transliterated by AV, are correctly translated by RV ‘stringed instruments’ (Ps 61 ‘song’) , and so even by AV in Hab 3:19.

16. Nehiloth (Ps 5), often supposed to mean ‘wind instruments’ (cf. No. 15) . But this is quite doubtful. Uncertain, too, is the view that the word indicates a tune; the preposition (’el) that precedes is not the same as that which generally introduces what appear to be names of tunes elsewhere (cf. No. 1) ; but cf. No. 19.

17. Sheminith. See No. 2.

18. Shiggaion (Ps 7). The pl. of this word (Shigionoth) occurs in Hab 3:1, possibly by error for Neginoth (cf. No. 15), which perhaps stood in the text from which the Greek version was made. The root from which the word is derived means ‘to go astray’ or ‘to reel’ (as, e.g., from drunkenness). Hence, since Ewald, many have conjectured that Shiggaion means ‘a wild, passionate song, with rapid changes of rhythm’ (Oxf. Lex.) . The meaning really remains entirely uncertain.

19. Shoshannim (Pss 45, 69), Shushan-eduth (Ps 60), and Shoshannim-eduth ( Ps 80) appear to be different ways of citing the same song to the tune of which these Psalms were to be sung. The preposition used before these words is ‘al (cf. No. 1), except in Ps 80, where it is ’el, which in some cases is used interchangeably with ‘al. It is curious that Psalms so different as 45 and 69 should be set to the same tune. Ps 80 cites the first two words of the poem, ‘(Like) lilies (or rather anemones) is the Testimony (or Law)’; Pss 45, 69 the first word only; and Ps 60 apparently was variant, ‘(Like) a lily’ (singular for plural), etc.

3. Dates of the various collections.—Is it possible to determine the dates at which any of these collections of Psalms were made? Obviously they are earlier than the completion of the Psalter, i.e. than about B.C. 100 (see above); obviously also the collections were later than the latest Psalm which they originally contained. One or more Psalms in all the collections show more or less generally admitted signs of being post-exilic. The various collections therefore which we have in the Psalter were compiled between the 6th and the 2nd centuries B.C. By arguments which cannot here be reproduced, Robertson Smith (OTJC ch. vii.) reached the following conclusions in detail. The first Davidic collection (Pss 3–41) was compiled about the time of Ezra and Nehemiah; the second Davidic collection (Pss 57–72) in the 4th cent.; the Asaphite (Pss 50, 73–83) and Korahite (Pss 42–49) collections between B.C. 430 and 330. Dr.

Briggs places the Korahitic and Asaphite collections somewhat later—after B.C. 332 ; the Elohistic Psalter (Pss 42–83) and the chief musician’s collection in the 3rd cent. B.C. But whatever the value of these detailed conclusions, which are not all very secure, one general fact of much importance already stands out: the period between the Exile and the 1st cent. B.C. was marked by much activity in the collection and editing of Psalms; and this, apart from the dates of individual Psalms, is significant for the part played by the Psalms in the religious life of the postexilic community.

4. Dates of individual Psalms.—From the collections we pass to the difficult and much discussed question of the dates of the individual Psalms. All that will be possible here is to point out certain general lines of evidence, with one or two illustrations in detail. If the detailed conclusions with reference to the collections are sound, a minimum date is fixed for many Psalms: e.g. Pss 3–41 (except the untitled Ps 33) are not later than about the time of Ezra and Nehemiah; Pss 42–49 and 50, 73 and 83 not later (on Robertson Smith’s theory) than B.C. 330 , and so on. The collections are indeed post-exilic, but in itself that need not prevent even the whole of the Psalms being pre-exilic: the collections might be post-exilic hymn-books composed entirely of ancient hymns. As a matter of fact, not all the Psalms are pre-exilic; many of the individual Psalms are somewhat clearly of post-exilic origin; indeed, there is a fairly general consensus of opinion that the majority, a considerable body of opinion that the great majority, of the Psalms are post-exilic. Signs of exilic or post-exilic origin are: (1) Allusions to the Exile or the desolation of Zion, as a present or past fact, as the case may be: see e.g. 51:18f., 89:44–51 , 102:13, 16, 106:47, 107:3ff., 126:1, 137:1, 147:2. The profanation of the Temple by the heathen alluded to in Pss 74–79 may refer rather to the events of Maccabæan times (B.C. 165) than to 586. (2) Other allusions to social and political conditions, such as the frequent division of the Jews into religious parties, with the use of terms like ‘the poor,’ ‘the pious’ (Chasīdīm) as party names; but this and other such allusions are differently interpreted and weighed by different scholars. (3) Language such as that of, e.g., Pss 116, 139; style and language in many other Psalms is less conclusive though (granted certain previous conclusions) not without weight. (4) Dependence upon exilic and post-exilic writings: e.g. Pss 93, 96–100 almost certainly, and Ps 57 most probably, imply familiarity on the part of the writer with much of Is 40–66. (5) The presence of certain religious ideas which were not developed till late in the history of Israel’s religion. There is much variety of judgment as to the number of Psalms and the particular Psalms shown by these criteria to be late, but, as previously stated, it is admittedly large. Strictly speaking, indeed, these criteria determine the date of those sections only to which they apply, not necessarily that of the entire Psalm; and if it can be shown that the obviously post-exilic sections in any particular Psalm are interpolations, the rest of the Psalm may be (but, of course, by no means necessarily is) pre-exilic. Dr. Briggs in his Commentary has carried the hypothesis of interpolation far, using as his test certain theories of metre and strophe.

What, then, are the positive criteria for pre-exilic Psalms or pre-exilic elements in Psalms which may show in parts obvious signs of post-exilic origin? Failing such criteria, the Psalms cannot be shown to be considerably earlier than the post-exilic collections in which they have come down to us. The criterion of pre-exilic date most relied on is an allusion to the king; from the fall of Judah in B.C. 586 down to B.C. 105, when Aristobulus I. assumed the title of king, there was no native king of Judah. Now, since in, e.g., Pss 20, 21 the allusion to the king cannot satisfactorily be explained of a foreign monarch, and these Psalms cannot be thrown as late as B.C. 105, it appears to follow that they originated before 586. Other Psalms alluding to a king who cannot well be a foreigner, or have lived so late as B.C. 105 , are Pss 2, 18, 28, 45, 61, 63, 72. Yet there still remains a question of interpretation: is the king in these Psalms an actual contemporary individual, or the Messianic king whether regarded as an individual or as the royal people of Israel (cf. JQR, 1895, p. 658 ff.)? If the latter interpretation is correct (as, e.g., in the case of Ps 2 at least, it probably is), the value of the allusion as a criterion of pre-exilic date vanishes; for a reference to a king who is not a person of history but an ideal conception is not less probable in a post-exilic than in a pre-exilic poem. Further, a purely proverbial allusion to the king, such as occurs in Ps 33:16, furnishes no valid criterion for pre-exilic origin, nor does an allusion to kings in the plural (e.g. Ps 119:46, 148:11).

If, as the previous remarks should have suggested, it is in most cases only possible to determine whether a Psalm is pre-exilic or post-exilic on evidence somewhat widely applicable, and in many cases impossible to determine even this quite decisively, it should be clear that the attempt to fix the authorship or dates of Psalms very precisely must generally prove fruitless. Are there any that can be referred, even with great probability, to a particular occasion as that of their origin, or to a particular writer? The mere fact that a Psalm may appear to us suitable to a particular occasion, as, e.g., Ps 46 to the deliverance from Sennacherib in 701, does not necessarily prove that it even refers to it, still less that it was written at the time; the question arises, is the occasion in question the only one to which the terms of the Psalm are applicable, or are those terms sufficiently specific to render it improbable that the Psalm might have fitted other occasions unknown to us, or but partially known? Thus Pss 44, 74, 79, 118 presuppose conditions which resemble what is known of the period of the Maccabæan revolt (cf. 1

Maccabees), more closely than what is known of any other period, and on that ground they have been assigned by many to the Maccabæan period the question is. Are the descriptions so specific that they might not also correspond to the conditions of the middle of the 4th cent. B.C. ( to which other scholars have referred Pss 44, 74, 79) if we were equally well informed with regard to these?

5. The question of Davidic Psalms.—The question of authorship retains an interest only with reference to David. The theory that David was the author of Psalms can be traced back as far as the time (not to be dated very precisely, but centuries at least after David’s time) when the historical notes were added in certain Psalms to the title ‘of David’ (see above). Whether it goes back further (except in the case of Ps 18 = 2 S 22; see below) to the time of the origin of the collection entitled ‘of David’ is less clear, for it is by no means certain that the similar title ‘of the chief musician’ referred to authorship (see above). Still, we may consider the argument which, based on the assumption that it did, is to the effect that if so many Psalms (as 73 in the Hebrew text, more in the Greek text, and all in later Jewish tradition) were attributed to David, some must actually be his, though many so entitled are demonstrably and admittedly not. In a word, where there is much smoke, there must have been some fire. The argument at best does not seem to justify more than a strong probability that David wrote psalms; and possibly the fact that David was a famous poet, even though all his poems more nearly resembled 2 S 1:19–27 than the Psalms, coupled with his fame as a zealous worshipper of Jahweh, may be the extent of the historical fact underlying the late traditions. But even granted that the evidence were strong enough to justify the statement that some Psalms of David are preserved in the Psalter, the most important problem still remains to be solved, viz. which Psalms in particular are David’s? It will be found on an examination that the positive reasons assigned for regarding any particular Psalm as David’s are inconclusive: they often amount to nothing more than an argument that there is nothing in such and such Psalms which forbids us to ascribe them to David. There are some Psalms which in whole or in part may not be incompatible with what we know of David’s life, but the allusions are too general to enable us to deny that they are equally applicable to many other lives. The Psalm which is most generally claimed for David by those who go beyond the general argument and specify particular Psalms as his, is Ps 18; but many who hold this to be in the main David’s feel compelled to treat vv. 20–27 as later. An external argument in favour of the Davidic authorship of this Psalm has often been sought in the fact that it appears in 2 S 22 as well as in the Psalter; but the argument is of little value; it carries us back, indeed, beyond the evidence of the Psalm-titles, but the Books of Samuel were composed long after David’s time, and 2 S 22 occurs in a section (2 S 21–24) which shows signs that entitle us to conclude that it was inserted after the main work was complete. We may safely conclude thus: There are Psalms in the Psalter of which, if we may remove certain parts as later interpolations, a residuum remains of which it would be unjustifiable to assert that it was not written by David.

6. Character of the contents: the ‘I’ of the Psalms.—But if we cannot determine the authors of the Psalms, or the particular occasions out of which they sprang, we may yet ask, and ought to ask, What type of persons wrote them, what type of experiences do they embody, with what type of subject do they deal? In order to answer these questions, it will be necessary to discuss briefly an important principle of interpretation.

A considerable proportion of the Psalms describe, from the writer’s standpoint, the experiences or aspirations or the religions faith of the nation or of the religious community— whether this community be co-extensive with the nation or a group or party within it. The Psalms which most obviously belong to this class are those in which the pronoun of the first person plural is used. These are some 27 in number (see Pss 21, 33, 46, 47, 48, 50, 60, [both vv. 1–4 and 5–12 = 108:6–13] 65. [ in v. 3a Vulg. and LXX read ‘us’ for ‘me’] 67, 79, 80, 81, 90, 95, 98, 99,

100 , 105, 113, 115, 117, 124, 126, 132, 136, 144, 147). In another group of 25 Psalms (viz. Pss

8, 17, 22, 40, 44, 59, 62, 66, 68, 71, 74, 75, 78, 84, 85, 89, 94, 103, 106, 116, 118, 122, 135, 137, 141) the personal pronoun is sometimes in the first singular, sometimes in the first plural; this interchange is not perhaps to be always accounted for in the same way; but in some of these Psalms it is obviously the main purpose of the writer to describe the experiences of the nation (cf. e.g., Pss 44, 74, 78). Another group of Psalms, not so easily defined as the two preceding, but including some 22 Psalms at least (Pss 1, 12, 14, (= 53) 15, 19:1–6, 24 , 29, 34, 72, 76, 82, 93, 96 , 97, 107, 112, 114, 125, 127, 133, 134, 148, 149, 150), are as little limited to individual experience as the first: they are, for example, calls to praise God for His goodness, or descriptions of the character which is pleasing to God. The remainder of the Psalms, about (yet barely) half the whole number, appear superficially, in contrast to the foregoing, to describe the experiences or aspirations of some individual. They are written in the first person singular. But in one Psalm, owing to its peculiar structure, the Psalmist supplies the interpretation of the pronoun of first singular, and in this case the singular pronoun refers, not to an individual, but to the nation (see Ps 129:1). The personification of the nation as an individual which underlies this usage occurs often in Hebrew literature (see SERVANT OF THE LORD, § 5) . How far does it extend in the Psalter? is the much afflicted subject of other Psalms written in the first person an individual, or, like the much afflicted subject of Ps 129, Israel? For instance, does the author of the words, ‘Thou wilt not abandon my soul to Sheol, nor suffer thy holy one to see corruption’ ( Ps 16:10), express the conviction that he himself will never see death (for it is this and not resurrection that the words imply), or that Israel will never cease to be? Does the author of Ps 51 make confession of purely personal sins (vv. 1–5) , and look forward as an individual to a missionary career (v. 13), or, like the authors of La 1:18–22, Is 63:7–64:12 , does he, identifying himself with his people, make confession of national sins? It is impossible either to discuss this fully here, or to attempt to determine how far the use of ‘I’ = Israel extends beyond Ps 129. One other feature of the Psalms which superficially appear to describe the experiences of the individual may be noted: many of them break off into perfectly obvious prayers for the nation (e.g. Ps 25:22, 28:9), or into appeals to the community as a whole to participate in the writer’s experience or aspirations (cf. e.g. Ps 30:4f., 32:11). These departures from the apparently individual tenor of the rest of the Psalm are sometimes treated as glosses; and they may be such. Not all of these Psalms need have the same origin: some may have been originally written as national confessions, some, originally of a more exclusively individual character, may have been fitted for use by the community, by the addition of liturgical verses and the elimination of what was too limited to be of general applicability.

Summary.—The conclusion to be drawn even from this brief survey of the origin of the Psalter and the character of the Psalms may be stated thus:—The Psalms as we have received them are sacred poems that reflect more or less clearly the conditions of the post-exilic Jewish community and express its varying religious feelings and aspirations; in origin some of these Psalms may go back to the pre-exilic period, some may originally have sprung out of circumstances peculiar to an individual; but in consequence of editing by the successive compilers of the post-exilic hymn-books through which the Psalms have come down to us, most of the peculiarly pre-exilic or individual characteristics which may have distinguished them originally have been largely obliterated.

7. Religious value and influence of the Psalter.—Probably no book of the OT has exercised a more profound and extensive influence over succeeding ages than the Psalms. Among the Jews, indeed, the Law has received a more persistent and greater attention; but the place of the Psalms in the history of the Christian Church and in Christian experience is typified by the frequency with which they are quoted in the NT. To trace this influence, or to illustrate it as Mr. Prothero has so excellently done in his volume entitled The Psalms in Human Life, falls outside the scope of this article. All that can be attempted, and even that but very inadequately, is to indicate some of the leading religious ideas, some of the striking religious qualities of the Psalms. And in doing this it is necessary to emphasize clearly the fact that such ideas and qualities are by no means common to all the 150 or more poems which were written by an indefinite number of writers, and were gathered together in our Psalter. What alone is aimed at here is to draw attention to some of the qualities that are at least frequently present, and some of the ideas which frequently or strikingly appear—to the ideas and qualities which have in large measure been the cause of the great and persistent influence which the Psalms have exercised.

(1) The Psalms occupy a peculiar position in the OT literature in consequence of their character. The Law codifies the customs of Israel which had received the approval of Jahweh; the Historical Narratives relate Jahweh’s dealings with Israel; the Prophets deliver Jahweh’s message to Israel, and in the Psalms Israel replies. These distinctions are of course broadly drawn, and we may find, for example, in Jeremiah (e.g. 20:7ff.) ‘contentions’ with Jahweh that may be somewhat closely paralleled in the Psalms; or, again, the facts that faced the author of the Book of Job are discussed, for example, in Pss 37, 49, 73, though more briefly, and in the case of Pss 37 and 49 less penetratingly. Yet it is true that in the main the Psalter contains the prayers and praises of Israel, and that they have become classical and stimulating examples for later generations.

(2) But if in the Psalms Israel speaks to God, it speaks as one who has been taught by the Prophets. The Prophets stood alone, or supported by but a small company of disciples, addressing a deaf or gainsaying nation; the Psalmists identify themselves either with their whole people or at least with a numerous, if oppressed, community. The Prophets upbraid the people with forgetting Jahweh, with forsaking Him for other gods; the Psalmists find difficulty in accounting for the calamities that have come upon their nation, which has not forgotten God, but suffers for its very loyalty to Him (e.g. Ps 44:20 [render ‘If we had forgotten,’ etc.]). The prophet of the Exile endeavours to awaken Israel to its destiny as a missionary nation (Is 40–55 ; cf. art.

SERVANT OF THE LORD); the Israel of many of the Psalms has accepted the role (e.g. 47 , 51, 100). But a full discussion of the manifold influence of the Prophets on the Psalmists is impossible here.

(3) We turn now to the Psalmists’ belief in God: and here it must suffice to draw attention to two features—the breadth of the conception, and the intensity of the consciousness, of God. The early belief of Israel that other gods besides Jahweh existed has left traces in the Psalter, but is probably nowhere present as a living belief. Some of the Psalmists use phrases that originally sprang from a belief in other gods (e.g. 77:13 , 95:3), but the mere use of such phrases proves nothing as to the actual belief of a later generation that may continue to employ them; we continue to use them ourselves; and often the Psalmists refer to other gods only in order to emphasize Jahweh’s supremacy (89:6–8 , 96:4), or to imitate the arguments with which the Deutero-Isaiah had ridiculed the gods of the nations out of existence (e.g. 115 , 135). A deeper effect of the earlier belief may probably be seen in what is in any case a conspicuous and permanently influential feature of the Psalms—the intimacy of the consciousness of God. In Israel the monotheistic idea sprang, not from an abstraction of what was common to many gods previously or still worshipped, but from the expansion of the thought of the same one God whom alone Israel had previously worshipped. While Israel believed the gods of other nations to be real beings set over against Jahweh, it was natural for them to feel a peculiarly close relation to Jahweh, to look upon Him as their possession; the belief in other gods perished, the sense of

Jahweh as a close and intimate Personality survived; and not a little of the enduring power of the Psalms is due to the vivid apprehension of God that resulted. Jahweh is the ‘living God’ as opposed to the unrealities that have been taken by other peoples as gods. Supreme in Nature (Pss 8 , 104, 93) as in History (and such He is to many at least of the Psalmists), Jahweh nevertheless remembers and visits man (Ps 8); He abides though all else perishes (e.g. Pss 46, 102), and to those who possess Him all else sinks into insignificance (Ps 73:25ff.).

At times, indeed, this sense of possessing Jahweh obscures for the Psalmists the full meaning of Jahweh as the one and only God of the whole world and of all mankind. Not all the imprecatory Psalms, as they are termed, show a sense of the universality of Jahweh’s relations.

But in others the universal note rings clear (see, e.g., Pss 47, 65, 67, 100).

(4) This brings us to another feature of the Psalms which has contributed to the influence exercised by them—the hope that is in them, their Messianic outlook. They look beyond the present which for the writers is often full of oppression and affliction, to a future which is sometimes described with some fulness (e.g. Ps 72), but is often merely suggested by the call on God to arise, to awake, to reveal Himself; or by some other brief but pregnant phrase. We cannot here discuss how far the Psalms anticipate a particular Messianic individual; it must suffice to say that the original sense of many passages has been obscured by specific applications to the life of Christ—applications which in some instances have been built on a very questionable Hebrew text or an illegitimate translation, and that in some Psalms (e.g. Ps 2) the ‘Messiah’ is perhaps rather the nation of Israel, supreme among the nations of the world (cf. Dn 7), than an individual ruler or deliverer, whether of Israel or of the world. But where fuller expression is given to the hope, it often takes the form of the establishment of the Kingdom of God, without reference to any other king than God Himself; the overruling thought is of the manifestation of His supreme sovereignty and the consequent promotion of righteousness and equity among all people (so preeminently Pss 96–100) . Even in the broadest form of this thought. it is true that Israel occupies a central position and Zion is to become for the whole world what it has long been for Israel—the centre of religion, the place where Jahweh will be worshipped (cf. esp. Ps 87). No Psalmist has attained to the standpoint of our Lord’s teaching in Jn 4:21f.

(5) From the thought of the Psalmists about God and their hope in Him, we may turn to their thought of men, which is for the most part primarily of Israel, and in particular to their sense of sin.

Judged by their attitude towards sin, the Psalms fall into two great groups: the extreme representatives of each group are very different in thought, tone, and temper; the less extreme approximate more or less closely to one another. In the one group the writers claim for themselves, and, so far as they identify themselves with Israel, for their nation, that they are righteous, and in consequence have a claim on God’s righteousness to deliver them from present afflictions (so, e.g., Pss 7, 17, 26, 28, 44, 86). In the other group, confession is made of great iniquity: the appeal for help, if made, can be made to Gods mercy and lovingkindness alone (see Pss 25, 32, 40, 51, 65, 85. etc.). The first group stand far removed from the early Prophets; but they have considerable resemblance in thought to Habakkuk; the second group, again, differ from the early Prophets; for though both recognize the sinfulness of Israel, yet the Prophets complain that Israel does not recognize its sin, whereas these Psalms make confession of sin on behalf of the nation (cf. the late confession in Is 63:7–64:12).

(6) The view taken of sin in both groups of Psalms is best appreciated by noticing how, with all their difference, they are yet related. Some sense of sin is perhaps never altogether absent from the Psalms that lay claim to righteousness, and a strong sense of relative righteousness generally accompanies the most fervent confession of sin. Even in such Psalms as the 32nd and the 51st, where the difference is most clearly felt between God’s standard and man’s performance, the sense is also present of a sharp difference between those who. In spite of sin, yet pursue after righteousness, and those who constitute the class of ‘the wicked’ or the transgressors.’ This attitude towards sin might doubtless without much difficulty become that of the Pharisee in the parable; but it is also closely akin to the highest Christian consciousness, in which the shadow of sin shows darkest in the light of the righteousness and love of God as revealed in Christ, and which leads the truest followers of Christ, with all honesty, to account themselves the chief of sinners. And it is because the ‘penitential’ Psalms are confessions, not so much of grosser sins open to the rebuke of man, but of the subtler sins which are committed in the sight of and against God only, of the sins which stand in the way of the nation called of God fulfilling its missionary destiny, that these Psalms have played so conspicuous a part in forming the habit and moulding the form of the confession of the Christian man and the Christian Church.

On the poetical form of the Psalms, see POETRY and ACROSTIC. The first edition of T. K. Cheyne’s Book of Psalms (1882) with its fine original translation and tersenotes full of insight, is one of the best books the student can use; in the second edition the translation is based on a very radical re-construction of the Hebrew text, which has not obtained general approval. Other translations are Weilhausen-Furness’s in the Polychrome Bible and S. R. Driver’s Parallel Psalter (Prayer-Book version and a revised version based thereon). The most important Com. in English is by C. A. Briggs (ICC, 1906–7) . Other useful commentaries are W. F. Cobb (with independent translation), Kirkpatrick on AV (in Cambridge Bible) , and W. T. Davison and T. W. Davies on RV (Century Bible) . The most exhaustive treatise on the literary criticism and religious thought of the Psalter is T. K. Cheyne’s Origin of the Psalter (1891: many details implicitly withdrawn or corrected in the author’s later writings; see, e.g., art. ‘Psalms’ in EBi) . For briefer treatment of the literary questions see W. R. Smith’s chapter (vii.) on the Psalter in OTJC, and S. R.

Driver’s LOT.

G. B. GRAY.

PSALMS OF SOLOMON.—See APOCALYPTIC LITERATURE, 3.

PSALTERY.—See MUSIC, etc., § 4.

PSYCHOLOGY.—The Bible does not contain a science of psychology in the modern sense; but there is a definite and consistent view of man’s nature from the religious standpoint. This being recognized, the old dispute, whether it teaches the bipartite or the tripartite nature of man, loses its meaning, for the distinction of soul and spirit is not a division of man into soul and spirit along with his body or flesh, but a difference of point of view—the one emphasizing man’s individual existence, the other his dependence on God. The account in Gn 2:7 makes this clear. The breath or spirit of God breathed into the dust of the ground makes the living soul. The living soul ceases when the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it’ (Ec 12:7). The soul is not, as in Greek philosophy, a separate substance which takes up its abode in the body at birth, and is released from its bondage at death, but is matter animated by God’s breath. Hence no pre-existence of the soul is taught (except in Wis 7:16, 20), nor is the future life conceived as that of a disembodied soul. Man is the unity of spirit and matter; hence the hope of immortality involves the belief in the resurrection of the body, even though in St. Paul’s statement of the belief the body raised is described as spiritual (1 Co 15:44). The OT has not, in fact, a term for the body as a whole; the matter to which the spirit gives life is often referred to as flesh.’ This term may be used for man as finite earthly creature in contrast with God and His Spirit. Man is ‘flesh,’ or ‘soul,’ or ‘spirit,’ according to the aspect of his personality it is desired to emphasize. The varied senses in which these terms are used are discussed in the separate articles upon them; here only their relation to one another is dealt with. These are the three principal psychological terms; but there are a few others which claim mention.

Heart is used for the inner life, the principles, motives, purposes (Gn 6:5, Ps 51:10, Ezk 36:26, Mt 15:19, 2 Co 3:3), without precise distinction of the intellectual, emotional, or volitional functions; but it can never, as the preceding terms, be used for the whole man. St. Paul, influenced probably by Greek philosophy, uses nous for mind as man’s intellectual activity (Ro 7:23–25), and even contrasts it with the ecstatic state (1 Co 14:14, 15), and adopts other terms used in the Greek schools. Another Greek term, syneidēsis. rendered ‘conscience,’ is used in the NT consistently for what Kant called the practical reason, man’s moral consciousness ( Ac 23:1,

24:16 , Ro 2:15, 9:1, 13:6, 1 Co 8:7, 10, 12, 10:25, 27, 28, 29, 2 Co 1:12, 4:2, 1 Ti 1:5, 19, 3:9, 4:2 , 2 Ti 1:3, Tit 1:15, He 9:9, 14, 10:22, 13:18, 1 P 2:19, 3:16, 21), and is an instance of the influence of the Stoic ethics on ‘the moral vocabulary of the civilized world at the time of the Christian era.’ This distinction of the intellectual and the moral functions of personality is the nearest approach in the NT to the modern science; but the analysis is not carried far. It must be observed that in poetic parallelisms ‘soul,’ ‘spirit,’ ‘heart’ are often used as synonymous, in contrast to ‘flesh’ (Ps 63:1, 84:2, Ec 11:10, 12:7, Ezk 44:7, 9). The Bible distinguishes the material and the immaterial, the creaturely and the creature, man in his individuality and his dependence on God, but always in the religious interest, that he may recognize his own insufficiency, and his sufficiency in God.

ALFRED E. GARVIE.

PTOLEMAIS (Ac 21:7).—The same as Acco (Jg 1:31), now the port ‘Akka, called in the West, since Crusading times. Acre or St. Jean d’Acre. Acco received the name Ptolemais some time in the 3rd cent B.C., probably in honour of Ptolemy II., but although the name was in common use for many centuries, it reverted to its Semitic name after the decline of Greek influence. Although so very casually mentioned in OT and NT, this place has had as varied and tragic a history as almost any spot in Palestine. On a coast peculiarly unfriendly to the mariner, the Bay of ‘Akka is one of the few spots where nature has lent its encouragement to the building of a harbour; its importance in history has always been as the port of Galilee and Damascus, of the Hauran and Gilead, while in the days of Western domination the Roman Ptolemais and the Crusading St. Jean d’Acre served as the landing-place of governors, of armies, and of pilgrims. So strong a fortress, guarding so fertile a plain, and a port on the highroad to such rich lands to north, east, and south, could never have been overlooked by hostile armies, and so we find the Egyptian Thothmes III., Setl I., and Rameses II., the Assyrian Sennacherib, Esarhaddon, and Ashurbanipal, and several of the Ptolemys engaged in its conquest or defence. It is much in evidence in the history of the Maccabees,—a queen Cleopatra of Egypt holds it for a time, and here some decades later Herod the Great entertains Cæsar. During the Jewish revolt it is an important base for the Romans, and both Vespasian and Titus visit it. In later times, such warriors as Baldwin I. and Guy de Lusignan, Richard Cœur de Lion and Saladin, Napoleon I. and Ibrahim Pasha are associated with its history.

In the OT it is mentioned only as one of the cities of Asher (Jg 1:31), while in Ac 21:7 it occurs as the port where St. Paul landed, ‘saluted the brethren, and abode with them one day,’ on his way to the new and powerful rival port, Cæsarea, which a few decades previously had sprung up to the south.

The modern ‘Akka (11,000 inhabitants) is a city, much reduced from its former days of greatness, situated on a rocky promontory of land at the N. extremity of the bay to which it gives its name. The sea lies on the W. and S., and somewhat to the E. The ancient harbour lay on the S, and was protected by a mole running E. from the S. extremity, and one running S. from the S.E. corner of the city. Ships of moderate dimensions can approach near the city, and the water is fairly deep. The walls, partially Crusading work, which still surround the city, are in the ruined state to which they were reduced in 1840 by the bombardment by the English fleet under Sir Sidney Smith. Extending from Carmel in the south to the ‘Ladder of Tyre’ in the north, and eastward to the foothills of Galilee, is the great and well-watered ‘Plain of Acre,’ a region which, though sandy and sterile close to the sea, is of rich fertility elsewhere. The two main streams of this plain are the Nahr Na‘mān ( R. Belus), just south of ‘Akka, and the Kishon near Carmel.

Under modern conditions, Haifa, with its better anchorage for modern steamships, and its new railway to Damascus, is likely to form a successful rival to ‘Akka.

E. W. G. MASTERMAN.

PTOLEMY V. (Epiphanes).—‘Ptolemy’ was the dynastic name of the Macedonian kings who ruled over Egypt B.C. 305–31 ; during the whole of this period Egypt was an independent country; it was not until the great victory of Augustus at Actium (B.C. 31) that Egypt again lost her independence and became a province, this time under Roman rule. Ptolemy v. reigned B.C. 205–182. He married Cleopatra, the daughter of Antiochus III. the Great; this matrimonial alliance between the Ptolemys and the Seleucids is alluded to in Dn 2:43. During his reign Palestine and Cœle-Syria were lost to Egypt, and were incorporated into the kingdom of Syria under Antiochus III.; this is probably what is alluded to in Dn 11:13–18; see Jos. Ant. XII. iii. 3, iv. 11.

W. O. E. OESTERLEY.

PTOLEMY VI. (VII.) (Philometor).—Son of the foregoing, who reigned B.C. 182–146 ; in 170 the kingdom was divided between him and his brother Ptolemy VII. (Physcon); peace was made between them by the Romans, and they continued as joint kings. In the year 170, while Ptolemy VI. was still sole king, he attempted to reconquer the Syrian provinces which had been lost during his father’s reign; the attempt was, however, abortive, and he was defeated by Antiochus IV. It was only through the intervention of the Romans that Antiochus was prevented from following up this victory by further conquests. References to Philometor are to be found in 1 Mac 1:18, 10:51ff., 11:1–18, 15:16–23, Dn 11:25–30; and see Jos. Ant. XIII. iv. 5–9.

W. O. E. OESTERLEY.

PUAH.—1. One of the Hebrew midwives (Ex 1:15). 2. Father of Tola (Jg 10:1). In Gn 46:13, Nu 26:23 [Puvah], 1 Ch 7:1, he is Tola’s brother.

PUBLICAN.—This term is a transliteration of a Latin word, which strictly meant a member of one of the great Roman financial companies, which farmed the taxes of the provinces of the Roman Empire. The Roman State during the Republic relieved itself of the trouble and expense of collecting the taxes of the provinces by putting up the taxes of each in a lump to auction. The auctioneer was the censor, and the buyer was one of the above companies, composed mainly of members of the equestrian order, who made the best they could out of the bargain. The abuses to which this system gave rise were terrible, especially as the governors could sometimes be bribed to wink at extortion; and in one particular year the provincials of Asia had to pay the taxes three times over. These companies required officials of their own to do the business of collection. The publicans of the Gospels appear to have been agents of the Imperial procurator of Judæa, with similar duties (during the Empire there was State machinery for collecting the taxes, and the Emperor had a procurator in each province whose business it was to supervise the collection of revenue). They were employed in collecting the customs dues on exports. Some Jews found it profitable to serve the Roman State in this way, and became objects of detestation to such of their fellow-countrymen as showed an impotent hatred of the Roman supremacy. The Gospels show clearly that they were coupled habitually with ‘sinners,’ a word of the deepest contempt. A. SOUTER.

PUBLIUS, or Poplius.—The ‘first man’ of Malta, whose father was cured by St. Paul of fever and dysentery by laying on of hands (Ac 28:7f.). The title Prōtos ( ‘first man’) at Malta is attested by inscriptions; it occurs also at Pisidian Antioch (Ac 13:50, cf. 25:2).

A. J. MACLEAN.

PUDENS.—Mentioned by St. Paul as sending greetings from Rome to Timothy (2 Ti 4:21:

‘Pudens and Linus and Claudia’). For the suggested relationship of these persons and identification of the first and of the last, see art. CLAUDIA. Pudens is a common Roman name.

A. J. MACLEAN.

PUL.—1. See ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA, p. 66^a. 2. In Is 66:19 Put is prob. a slip for Put ( wh. see ).

PULSE (zērō‘īm, Dn 1:12; zērō‘nīm, v. 16 RVm ‘herbs,’ cf. Is 61:11 EV ‘things that are sown’) may have been any garden produce. The Eng. word ‘pulse’ belongs to leguminous grains specially, but it is doubtful whether the meaning of the Heb. can be so restricted. In 2 S 17:28 ‘pulse’ is supplied after ‘parched,’ but ‘grain’ would be better. See also Food, § 3.

E. W. G. MASTERMAN.

PUNISHMENTS.—See CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS, §§ 8–11 ,

PUNITES.—The gentilic name from Puvah, Nu 26:23. See PUAH, No. 2.

PUNON.—A station of the Israelites (Nu 33:42, 43). Cf. also art. PINON.

PUR.—See PURIM.

PURAH.—Gideon’s servant or armour-bearer Jg (7:10f.).

PURGE.—To ‘purge’ in AV is simply to ‘cleanse or purify,’ as Ps 51:7 ‘Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean’; Mk 7:19 ‘purging all meats,’ i.e. making all food ceremonially clean.

PURIFICATION.—See CLEAN AND UNCLEAN.

PURIM

1. In the OT.—On the 14th and 15th of the month Adar (March) fell the celebration of the Feast of Purim or Lots. This commemorated the deliverance of the Jews from Haman, who in

B.C. 473 had plotted their extermination throughout the Persian empire (Est 3:7, 9:15–32). In 2 Mac 15:36 it is called ‘Mordecai’s day.’ The observance of this festival was probably not at first universal, but Josephus mentions its occurrence, and it held an established position before the time of Christ. At first no special religious services were enjoined to mark it, nor was there any prohibition of labour. It was a time of feasting and joy, of the giving of presents and alms. In later times it was celebrated by a synagogue meeting on the evening of the 13th and the morning of the 14th, when the Book of Esther was read through, special prayers and thanks were offered, and the congregation ejaculated curses on Haman and blessings on Esther and Mordecai. The rest of the feast was given up to good cheer and boisterous enjoyment of an almost Bacchanalian character. In 1 Mac 7:49 and 2 Mac 15:36, as also in Josephus, the 13th of Adar is recorded as a feast-day in commemoration of the defeat of the Syrian general Nicanor in B.C. 161 . But later ages observed it as the Fast of Esther (cf. Est 9:31, 4:3), the celebration taking place on the 11th, if the 13th happened to be a Sabbath.

The origin of the Purim feast is a matter of dispute. It is difficult to identify any known Persian word with pur (Est 3:7, 9:26), which gave the festival its name. Various theories have been put forward, of which the most noteworthy are: (a) that which derives it from a Persian spring festival; (b) that which regards it as a transformation of an old Zoroastrian festival of the dead; (c) that which traces its origin to a Babylonian New Year’s festival.

2. In the NT.—Some have supposed that the nameless feast mentioned in Jn 5:1 was Purim. But this is not convincing, for (a) Purim was never one of the great national solemnities which called for attendance at Jerusalem: it was observed locally and not only at the capital; (b) Christ would naturally go up for the Passover in the next month. And it is more probable that the Passover is the feast here intended. Cf. art. CHRONOLOGY OF NT, I. § 2.

A. W. F. BLUNT.

PURITY.—1. Ceremonial purity is acquired by the due observance of external rites. The Jewish law prescribed various regulations by means of which outward defilement might be removed and the ‘unclean’ person be restored to fellowship with God. But the OT recognizes that moral purity is essential to acceptable worship of the Holy God (Ps 24:4); the question of Eliphaz expresses the conviction of those who know how absolute is the Divine holiness: ‘Shall a man be pure before his Maker?’ (Job 4:17 RVm); only to the man who ‘purifies himself’ can such a God reveal His glory (Ps 18:26, the verb is reflexive). The writer of the Ep. to the Hebrews reminds Christians who were familiar with the OT ceremonial of purification that the voluntary sacrifice of the Son of God is the means of purification under the new and better Covenant; ‘the blood of Christ’ removes the inward defilement which unfits sinful men for the service of the living God (9:13f.).

2. In the NT ‘pure’ has the more restricted meaning of ‘chaste’ in a few passages. Underlying the true reading of 2 Co 11:3, ‘the simplicity and the purity that is toward Christ,’ is the metaphor of v. 2 (RV), ‘I espoused you to one husband, that I might present you as a pure virgin to Christ’ (cf. Tit 2:5, 1 P 3:2). The same noun is tr. ‘pureness’ in 2 Co 6:8 (RV); cf. 1 Ti 4:12, 5:2 ; also, for the wider meaning of the verb, Ja 4:8, 1 P 1:22, 1 Jn 3:3; and of the adjective, Ph 4:8, 1 Ti 5:22, Ja 3:17. See, further, art. HOLINESS.

J. G. TASKER.

PURPLE.—See COLOURS, § 5.

PURSE.—See BAG.

PUT, PHUT.—A people counted amongst the sons of Ham (Gn 10:6, 1 Ch 1:8), and frequently mentioned in the prophets as an ally of Egypt (Jer 46:9, Ezk 27:10, 30:5, 38:5, Nah 3:9). It has been suggested that it represents (1) the people of Punt (rather Pwone in Egyp.), i.e. the African coast of the Red Sea with Somaliland, etc.: warriors may perhaps have been obtained thence for Egypt; or (2) Libya, whose people were called by the Egyptians Paiat ( in the times of the Hebrew prophets the Libyans were the backbone of the semi-native army); or (3) the bowbearing allies pidati ( ?); (4) being generally associated with Lud = Lydians (once in Nah. Lubim), it is thought that Put may be a name for the Carians or other pre-Hellenic peoples of Asia Minor or the Ægæan islands.

F. LL. GRIFFITH.

PUTEOLI (modern Pozzuoli).—In ancient times an important harbour and emporium, especially for Eastern trade, on the W. coast of Italy near Naples. It was founded by Greeks at a very early period. Such cities were specially sought by Jews and other foreigners, and Christians would early be living there, as St. Paul and his party found them on reaching this port at the end of their voyage from the East (Ac 28:13).