S re-existence is not in the line of Revelation, most ivines are reluctant to admit that it is taught in these [lassages. Dr. Davidson on Job 1'-" says, 'The words " my mother's womb" must be taken literally ; and " return thither " somewhat in- exactly, to ilescribe a coiulition similar to that which iircci'iled eiitninceuiioii life anil light.' And as for I's 13'.)", Oehler, Dillmann, and .Schultz pre- fer to interjiret it of the formation of the hadi/ in a place as dark and mysterious as the dejitlis of the earth. The passage in Jn !!'■' simply rcinesentB the earlier creed of the disciples. There is no evidence that it formed part of their mature Christian faith. .J. T. Mak.shall.
PREPARATION DAY (^ Ta/>a<r«n)). — In the Gos|iels the day on wHeli Clirist died is called ' the
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PKESBYTER
PRESENTLY
Preparation' (Mt 27«-, Mk IS*', Jn 19"), 'the day of (the) Preparation ' (Lk 23"), ' the Jews' Prepara- tion (day) ' (Jn 19*^), 'the Preparation of the j)ass- over ' ( Jn 19"). In Mk and Lk it is further dehned by the clauses, 'that is, the day before the Sabbath ' ^-vurdp^aTov), and 'the Sabbath drew on.' 'The Prej<*'-<ition' therefore appears to have been the rejpilai name for the sixth day of the week as ' Sabbatn ' was for the seventh. This is confirmed by Jos. (Ant. yiW. vi. 2), where it is said that Augustus relieved the Jews from certain legal duties on the Sabbath and on ' tlie Preparation which preceded it from the ninth hour.' In Jth 8° mention is made of Trpora,ij3aTa as well as ffd^^ara, and also of irpovovfMTjflat (day preceding the festival of new moon); cf. also the LXX in Ps 92 (93) title : eit ttji' i]fi^pav toS Tpocra^^irov. In the Talm. also the sixth day is called NfCin;; (evening), and the same word is used in tlie Syriac Gospels (ilruhhtd); whOo, in ecclesiastical WTiters beginning with the Teaching of the Apostles (viii.), Tapij.<TKevi) is the regular name for Friday, as it still is in modem Greek. The title naturally arose from the need of preparing food, etc., for the Sabbath (see Sabbath). It was apparently applied first to the afternoon of the sixth day and after- wards to the whole day.
The phraseology in Jn \9* (' it was the Prepara- tion of the Passover ') is, however, held by many expositors to indicate that by this term St. John meant the preparation for the paschal feast, i.e. Nisan 14. Some conclude that he used the term difi'erently from the Synoptists, and as equivalent to the rabbinic np=ri y^ (passover-eve) ; this bein" part of the alleged difference between him and them as to the date of Christ's death. Westcott (Introd. to Gosp. 1875, p. 339), on the other hand, argues tliat the Synoptists also meant 'preparation for the passover.' But the latter view forces their language, and St. John's phrase may properly mean ' the Preparation (day) of the paschal feast,' i.e. the Friday of passover-week. This is made the more probable by the Synoptists' use of it, and by its appearance, as the name for Friday, in so early a work as The Teaching of the Apostles. Its use in Jn 19"- *^ also best accords \vith this interpretation.
G. T. PURVES.
PRESBYTER.— See Bishop, CHtJKCH Govern- ment, and following article.
PRESBYTERY (Trp(a?m(piov).—T\i& Gr. word is used in NT for the Jewisli Sanhedrin (Lk 22^'^, Ac 22'). See SANHEDRIN. It also occurs once where the connexion shows that it refers to the body of elders in a church, Timotliy receiving a spiritual gift through the imposition of the hands of the presbytery (1 Ti 4'*). Tliis implies a certain cor- porate unity in the collective action of the elders. vVlierever the eldership appears in NT tliere is a plurality of elders. We have no means of dis- lovering how many there were in each presbytery. Tlie only numerical reference to the subject in NT is descriptive of the heavenly presbytery (Rev i* etc. ), where the number ' twenty • four ' is evidently mystical, referring perhaps to the double of the ' twelve,' which is drawn from the twelve tribes of Israel, or the twelve patriarchs together with the twelve apostles, or to the twenty-four courses of the priests (Simcox, 7?««. p. 31). Probably the number would vary according to the size of the church, as the number of elders in a synagogue varied accord- in"; to the population of Jews in its locality.
We have no evidence that in the earliest times there was a presbytery in every church. The references to dLscipfine in Romans, Galatians, and osp. in 1 and 2 Corinthians, show that if presby- tei'es existed in the churches addressed they were not very prominent or powerful. The silence of
St. Paul on the subject suggests the inference that at Corinth, at all events, and possibly also else- where, no presbytery had yet been formed. On the South-Galatian theory, however, .\c 14'-^ wculd indicate that there must have been elders in the churches to which the Ep. to Gal. was sent. At first the presbytery was almost, if not entirely, con- fined to Jewish churches (Hatch in Diet. Chr. Ant. art. 'Priest,' p. 1099 f.). Still the title irpea^urepoi and the organization of local government in Gr. cities, still more the use of this title in religious guilds, must have prepared for the acceptance of a presbj'tery in Gentile circles of Christians (Lbning, Vie Gemeindeverfassung, p. 9). Even among the Jews, however, it does not appear that there were elders in connexion with every synagogue (Schiirer, HJP II. ii. 27). It is reasonable, therefore, to con- clude that at first the organization of a presbytery proceeded more rapidly in some churches than in others.