God at Bethel, Genesis xxxv. 2, to refer to a washing of their whole bodies;' he mentions Selden as showing from several Jewish commentators that when the washing of garments is mentioned, Lev. xi. xiv., and in various other places, the washing of the whole body is intended; and again adverts to Maimonides and the Babylonian Talmud on the subject of the three things' required of a proselyte, because they were originally required of the Jews. Of these, says Maimonides, Baptism was in the wilderness, just before the giving of the law, as it is written, Sanctify them to-day and to-morrow and let them wash their clothes.' Dr. W. concludes his list of Jewish authorities with the words of R. Solomon, who lived in the twelfth century, Our rabbins teach that our fathers entered into covenant by circumcision and baptism, and sprinkling of blood.' St. Gregory Nazianzen, Cyprian, Basil, and Tertullian, are then brought as early Christian witnesses of this baptism amongst the Jews. St. Gregory speaks of Moses giving a baptism or washing with water only, and that before that they were baptized with the cloud and the sea, as St. Paul reasons;' Cyprian of the baptism of the law and of Moses;' which Basil compares with that of John and Christ. 'Before them all, however,' observes Dr. Wall, Tertullian complains of the devil aping or imitating the things of God,' in the rites of Ceres and Apollo, which were accompanied with baptism; and which divine baptism,” so imitated, Dr. Wall says, must intend the Jewish baptism. Such are the entire authorities of Dr. Wall for his first and most important position, that Jewish proselyte baptism was not only in existence before our Saviour's time, but even from the beginning of the Mosaic dispensation. II. Dr. Wall secondly proposes to show, that the infants of proselytes born previous to their conversion to Judaism were baptized with their parents, and admitted as proselytes. The Babylonian Talmud is here again his first authority; then follows a passage from the text of the Mishna. This is a compendium of Jewish traditions collected by R. Jehuda Hakkodesh, in the middle of the second century of the Christian era, and the most authentic depository of the oral law said to be delivered by Jehovah to Moses, together with the written law, during the forty days he was in Sinai. When Moses returned to his tent, according to Maimonides, he was attended by Aaron, to whom he recited the text (which alone was written) and taught the interpretation which he thus received; Eleazar and Ithamar then entered, to whom he repeated the sacred communications; then the seventy elders, to whom he again repeated the whole; afterwards entered the congregation at large, to whom it was once more repeated; and being thus heard by Aaron four times, by his sons three times, by the seventy elders twice, and by the congregation once, it became firmly and proportionally fixed in their memories. Rabbi Moses Kotsensis, quoted by Dr. Wall in a former page, says, If the oral law had not been added to the written law, the whole law would have been obVOL. XVIII. scure and unintelligible. For in the first place there are Scriptures contrary to each other; and, in the next place, the written law is imperfect, and comprehends not all that is necessary to be known.' 'He that has learned the Scripture and not the Mishna is a blockhead,' according to one of the maxims of ‘he Gemara. According to the Mishna, on which the Talmuds contain Glosses or Comments, a girl born of heathen parents and made a proselyte after she is three years and a day old, shall not have 'such and such privileges,' as Dr. Wall quotes it. That is, as the whole passage runs, a certain matrimonial dowry. The Babylonian Talmud says, that if she be made a proselyte before that age she shall have it; and the Gemara or Comment of this Talmud that they are wont to baptize such a proselyte in infancy upon the profession of the house of judgment; for this is for its good.' The Mishna itself, as quoted by Dr. Wall, has not a word respecting baptism or dipping, or how the proselyte was to be made such, nor the Jerusalem Talmud on the place. But they are wont to baptize,' says the above Gloss of the sixth century, because none is made a proselyte without circumcision or baptism.' It then speaks of the appointment of three men as a kind of sponsors for the education of the child. Maimonides quotes this passage, therefore Dr. Wall quotes him again here; and from Selden the rule, originally found in the same Gemara or Gloss, that a male child was not to be considered capable of giving his own consent to become a proselyte until he was thirteen years old and a day; but a female might give her consent, or be proselyted in her own name, at twelve years and a day. The opinions of several Jewish and Christian doctors are then quoted, as to the power of infants to retract their baptismal vows; and a quotation by Hammond of a 'saying' from Maimonides (who quotes it from the Babylonian Talmud), that A heathen woman, if she be made a proselyte when big with child, that child needs not baptism, for the baptism of the mother serves him for baptism.' Children born to proselytes after their parents were baptized, they reckoned were clean by their birth." And these are all the proofs of Jewish infantbaptism produced by Dr. Wall, beginning with a Jewish Commentary of the sixth century, and confirmed by subsequent writers. III. Dr. Wall, thirdly, undertakes to prove that gentile infants found exposed, or taken in war, were frequently baptized for proselytes.' So says Maimonides; and by Dr. Wall the baptism of such a child is said to be according to the rule of rabbi Hezekiah, set down in the Jerusalem Talmud. This rule, however, which he recites, relates entirely to the dipping for servitude, or otherwise, or a civil designation totally distinct from the baptism of proselytes, as Maimonides himself states, the former being repeated (anabaptistically) in case of the servant ever becoming free; that is, he was then dipped or dipped himself, for the ten thousandth time perhaps, with a different object in view. See Isuri Biah, c. xiii. ss. 11 and 12, &c. And these are Dr. Wall's authorities for his third conclusion. PROSEUCHE, in antiquity [Gr. πpoσεvxn, prayer], the places of prayer of the Jews, nearly the same as their synagogues. But the synagogues were originally in the cities, and were covered places; whereas, for the most part, the proseucha were out of the cities, and on the banks of rivers; having no covering, except perhaps the shade of some trees or covered galleries. PROSLAMBANOMENE, a musical note in the Greek system. As the two tetrachords of the Greeks were conjunctive, or, in other words, as the highest note of the first served likewise for the lowest note of the second, it is plain that a complete octave could not be formed. To remedy this deficiency, therefore, one note beneath the lowest tetrachord was added, as an octave to the highest of the last tetrachord. Thus, if we suppose the first to have begun on B, the last must have ended upon A, to which one note subjoined immediately beneath the lowest B in the diatonic order must have formed an octave. But it appears from authors who have scrutinised antiquity with some diligence, and perhaps with as much success as the data upon which they proceeded could produce, that the names of the notes in the Greek system, which originally signified their natural station in the scale of ascending or descending sounds, were afterwards applied to their positions in the lyre. Higher or lower, then, according to this application, did not signify their degree of acuteness or gravity, but their higher or lower situation upon this instrument. nothing in hell; but Ascalaphus informing him that he had seen her eat part of a pomegranate, she IV. His fourth is entirely grounded on the was sentenced to continue in Tartarus as Pluto's preceding, viz. that the baptism of proselytes was spouse; but, to mitigate the grief of Ceres, Jucalled by the Jews a new birth, a regeneration, piter ordered her to spend six months on earth, or being born again. He quotes the Babylonian and the other six months in the infernal regions. Gemara and Maimonides in support of this, the Some explain this fable to relate to the corn relatter of whom applies the same phrase to a maining six months in the earth. servant made free.' Dr. Wall thinks that our Lord adopted this phraseology in his conversation with Nicodemus, that St. Paul alludes to it, 2 Cor. v. 16, 17, &c., and that the Fathers continued it in their manner of stating regeneration. This writer afterwards draws a sort of parallel between what he conceives to have been the Jewish and the early Christian modes of baptizing, with regard both to adults and infants; he again quotes the Babylonian Talmud, in reply to Sir Norton Knatchbull, to prove the wise men pronounced' that until he were both circumcised and baptized no gentile could be a proselyte;' this, however, is the statement of but one side of a dispute; and with rabbi Eliezer (who was on the other side) and who pronounced, even at this date, that a gentile circumcised and not baptized was an honorable proselyte, the decision is always held to rest. This is the entire amount of evidence produced, by the doctor. "A more singular instance of confused quotations,' says this writer, 'passing current with the world for proofs, never perhaps was afforded, than in the authority this Introduction has been allowed in the baptismal controversy. Wall never, it is clear, examined the works on which he ultimately rests this important part of his argument (and upon which so many respectable writers have rested their notions of the matter after him); he does not even seem to have paid the attention of an ordinary compiler to their dates. Thus a writer (Maimonides) of the latter end of the twelfth century, the Babylonian Talmud first published in the sixth century, and the Jerusalem Talmud (which he thinks he is quoting) of the third century, Moses Kotsensis who flourished in the fourteenth, and Drusius, a writer of the sixteenth century, are made to speak in succession as to the existence of a custom disputed in point of date, and evidently as if they were all speaking of the same period. After quoting the last writer he gravely says, 'this custom of the Jews continued after Christ's time, and after their expulsion from the Holy Land.' PROS'ODY, n. s. Į Fr. prosodie; Gr. προPROSO'DIAN. Ο σωδια. That part of grammar which teaches the sound and quantity of syllables, and the measures of verse; one skilled in prosody. Some have been so bad prosodians, as from thence to derive malum, because that fruit was the first occasion of evil. Browne. Many of the rules and observations respecting prosody are taken from Sheridan's Art of Reading. Murray. PROSODY, in grammar, treats of the quantity of syllables, as well as their accent and sound; it has also been held to include the laws of versification. Its most important and popular application is to quantity, although its Greek etymon, πрoσwdia (πρos, wềŋ) would certainly teach us to include accent, and therefore both pause, and tune. We devote, however, a distinct article to VERSIFICATION, to which we refer the reader for much we should otherwise be here disposed to say on the latter topics; and under QUANTITY will be found what relates peculiarly to that subject. See PRONUNCIATION. PROSOPIS, in botany, a genus of the monogynia order, and decandria class of plants: CAL. hemispherical and quadridentate: stigma simple; the legume inflated and monospermous. There is a very noble prospect from this place: on the one side lies a vast extent of seas, that runs abroad further than the eye can reach just opposite stands the green promontory of Surentum, and on the other side the whole circuit of the bay of Naples. Addison. Present, sad prospect! can he ought descry, In chains of craggy hills, or length of dreary coast? To say more of a man than one thinks, with a prospect of interest, is dishonest; and without it foolish. Pope. Claude Lorrain, on the contrary, was convinced, that taking nature as he found it seldom produced beauty; his pictures are a composition of the various draughts which he has previously made from various beautiful scenes and prospects. Reynolds. Prospects, however lovely, may be seen Till half their beauties fade. PROS'PER, v. a. & v. n. PROSPERITY, N. S. PROSPEROUS, adj. PROSPEROUSLY, adv. PROSPEROUSNESS. Cowper. Fr. prosperer; Lat. prospero. To make happy; favor; to be happy or successful: All things concur to prosper our design; All things to prosper any love but mine. Dryden. Those, who are prosperously unjust, are intitled to panegyrick, but afflicted virtue is stabbed with reproaches. Prosperity which depends upon the caprice of others is of short duration. Id. Johnson. PROSSNITZ, or PROSTIEGOW, a trading town of the Austrian States in Moravia, the chief place of the district of Ilanna, and situated in the midst of a very fertile tract. Nine miles S. S. W. of Olmutz. PROSTATÆ GLANDULE, prostate glands. See ANATOMY. Lat. prosterno. of being cast PROSTERNATION, n.s. Dejection; depression; state down; or act of casting down. A word not adopted. Pain interrupts the cure of ulcers, whence are stirred up a fever, watching, and prosternation of spirits. Wiseman. PROSTITUTE, v. a., adj., & n. s. Į French PROSTITUTION, n. s. $ prostiuer; Span. and Port. prositituyr; Lat. prostituo. To sell to wickedness; expose to crimes for a reward bribed or sold to vice: a hireling or mercenary so sold. Commonly used of women sold to whoredom. Prostitution, the act or habit of being prostituted. Do not prostitute thy daughter, to cause her to be a whore. Leviticus xix. 29. Who shall prevail with them to do that themselves which they beg of God, to spare his people and his heritage, to prostitute them no more to their own sinister designs? Decay of Piety. Marrying or prostituting, Rape or adultery. Milton's Paradise Lost. It were unfit that so excellent and glorious a reward, as the gospel promises, should stoop down like fruit upon a full laden bough, to be plucked by every idle and wanton hand, that heaven should.be prostituted to slothful men. Tillotson. At open fulsome bawdry they rejoice, Base prostitute! thus dost thou gain thy bread. Dryden. An infamous woman, having passed her youth in a most shameless state of prostitution, now gains her livelihood by seducing others. Addison's Spectator. Affections, consecrated to children, husbands, and parents, are vilely prostituted and thrown away upon a hand at loo. Addison. Their common loves, a lewd abandoned pack Prior. Nor is only a resolved prostration unto antiquity a powerful enemy unto knowledge, but any confident adherence unto authority. Browne. Stake and bind up your weakest plants against the winds, before they come too fiercely, and in a moment prostrate a whole year's labour. Evelyn. The truths, they had subscribed to in speculation, they reversed by a brutish senseless devotion, managed with a greater prostration of reason than of body. South. The drops falling thicker, faster, and with greater force, beating down the fruit from the trees, prostrating and laying corn growing in the fields. Woodward's Natural History. A sudden prostration of strength, or weakness, at met him one day, and, observing the logs packed up with mathematical exactness, took him under his protection, maintained him, and taught him philosophy. He afterwards himself taught with reputation at Athens, but was at length banished thence for the alleged impiety of his doctrines. Of this he was accused by different persons, and among others by one of his scholars, viz. Eualthus, who asserted that in one of his books he had said, concerning the gods I am wholly unable to determine whether they have any existence or not; for the weakness of the human understanding, and the shortness of human life, with other causes, prevent us from attaining this knowledge.' Similar opinions were also to be met with in some of his other writings, and, on this account, they were ordered to be collected and burnt in the market-place. He had unquestionably an inclination to scepticism. Adopting the doctrine of Democritus, that the atoms of which bodies are composed are in perpetual motion, Protagoras conceived that external objects are liable to such continual fluctuation that nothing can certainly be known of them; and hence he concluded that nothing can be pronounced to exist, but that which is at any instant perceived by the senses; and that since these are perpetually varying, things themselves accordingly vary, so that, upon the same evidence, that of the senses, contradictory opinions may be advanced. On his banishment from Athens he visited the islands in the Mediterranean, where it is said that he was the first philosopher that lectured for money. He died in a voyage to Sicily, in a very advanced age. He commonly reasoned by dilemmas, and left the mind in suspense with respect to all the questions he proposed. Plato wrote a dialogue against him. He flourished about A. A. C. 400. PROTATICK, adj. Fr. protatique; Gr. TроτаTIKос. Previous. There are protatick persons in the ancients, whom they use in their plays to hear or give the relation. Dryden. PROTEA, in botany, the silver tree, a genus of the monogynia order, and tetrandria class of plants; natural order forty-eighth, aggregate. There is one quadrifid petal surrounding the germ: CAL. none; the receptacle is paleaceous. There are thirty-six species, all natives of the Cape of Good Hope; of which the most remarkable are: 1. P. argentea, commonly called silver tree, with a strong upright stem, covered with purplish bark, dividing into several branches which grow erect, garnished with broad, shining, silvery leaves, which make a fine appearance when intermixed with other exotics. Through the whole year it exhibits its glossy white or silvery leaves. It has at first a very uncommon and beautiful appearance, and sometimes in the course of twelve or fifteen years reaches the height of twenty feet, which it never exceeds. These trees are generally planted near some farms, and very seldom grow wild. 2. P. conifera, with linear, spear-shaped, entire leaves, grows to the height of ten or twelve feet, with a straight regular stem. The branches naturally form a large regular head. The leaves are long and narrow, of a shining silver color; and, as they remain the whole year, make a fine appearance in the green-house. 3. P. nitida, or wageboom, greatly resembles the first sort: the leaves are very silky and white, with erect purple branches. All these plants, being tender exotics, require to be continually kept in the green-house during winter. The second may be propagated by cuttings, which should be cut off in April, just before the plants begin to shoot; the first and third sorts may be propagated by seeds. PROTECT, v. a. Fr. proteger, protecteur; PROTECTION, n. s. Lat. protectus. To shelPROTECTIVE, adj. ter; defend: afford imPROTECTOR, n. s. munity from evil; and in PROTEC TRESS. a modern sense (to avoid 'calling a spade a spade'), to keep as a concubine protection and protector follow these senses: protective is defensive; sheltering: protectress, a woman who protects. Drive toward Dover, friend, where thou shalt meet Both welcome and protection. Shakspeare. King Lear. The king Shakspeare. Id. Is it concluded he shall be protector? All things should be guided by her direction, as the sovereign patroness and protectress of the enterprise. Bacon. Leave not the faithful side, That thee being still shades thee and protects. Milton. Hither the' oppressed shall henceforth resort, Justice to crave, and succour at your court; And then your highness, not for our's alone, But for the world's protector shall be known. gave Waller. The law of the empire is my protection. Kettlewell. Behold those arts with a propitious eye, Addison. The king of Spain, who is protector of the commonwealth, received information from the great duke.. Id. If the weak might find protection from the mighty, they could not with justice lament their condition. Swift. The stately sailing swan guards his osier isle, Protective of his young. Thomson. PROTECTOR is also a title given to the representative of a Catholic nation, or religious order, at the court of Rome, who is often a cardinal. PROTECTORATE, the office of protector; applied in British history to the office held by Oliver Cromwell. PROTEND', v. a. Lat. protendo. To hold out; to stretch forth. Not used. All stood with their protended spears prepared. Dryden. PROTESILAI TURRIS, the sepulchre of Protesilaus, with a temple, at which Alexander sacrificed, situated at the south extremity of the Hellespont, next to the Chersonesus Thracica. PROTESILAUS, a king of part of Thessaly, the son of Iphiclus, grandson of Phylacus, and brother of Alcimede, the mother of Jason. He was the first Greek who landed on the coast of Troy, and the first slain by the Trojans. (Homer, Ovid.) His wife Laodamia, to assuage her grief, requested of the gods that his shade might be permitted to visit her, and, obtaining her request, she expired in his embraces. (Hyginus.) Protesilaus was also called Phylacides, from Phylaće, a town of Thessaly, or rather from his grandfather Phylacus. PROTEST, v. n., v. a., & n. s. Fr. protester; Span. and Port. protestar; Ital. protes tare; Lat. protestor. To make a solemn declaration of one's judgment or resolution; more commonly used of an adverse judgment: to prove; show; call as witness: a protest is a solemn declaration of opinion; particularly the solemn and expressed dissent of a peer of parliament from the opinion of the House of Lords: protestant, one who in any way solemnly proposes or objects his opinion; but particularly one who adheres to the objections of the Reformed against the Church of Rome: protestant, as an adjective, relating to Protestants: protestancy, the profession or religion of Protestants: protestation is the dissent or resolution made or expressed protester, he who makes or issues it. He maketh protestation to them of Corinth, that the gospel did not by other means prevail with them, than with others the same gospel taught by the rest of the apostles. Hooker. Here's the twin brother of thy letter; but let thine inherit first, for, I protest, mine never shall. Shakspeare. The peaking cornuto comes in the instant, after we had protested and spoke the prologue of our comedy. Id. But to your protestation; let me hear What you profess. Id. Winter's Tale. tant. Did I use Id. Julius Cæsar. To stale with ordinary oaths my love To every new protester? This is the first example of any protestant subjects that have taken up arms against their king a protesKing Charles. What miserable subdivisions are there in our protestancy! Bp. Hall. He protests against your votes, and swears He'll not be tried by any but his peers. Denham. If the lords of the council issued out any order against them, some nobleman published a protestation against it. Clarendon. Fiercely they opposed Milton. The conscience has power to disapprove and to protest against the exorbitances of the passions. South. Since the spreading of the protestant religion, several nations are recovered out of their ignorance. Addison. I smiled at the solemn protestation of the poet in the first page, that he believes neither in the fates or destinies. Id. What if he were one of the latest protesters against popery? and but one among many that set about the same work? Atterbury. |