In the eyes of Jesus all this, however it might be defended by ecclesiastical lawyers, was a desecra- tion of His Father's hou?e, inasmuch as it was a hindrance to true spiritual worship. And the principles He lays down here on the subject of worship and its profanation are far-reaching and penetrating. The Temple at Jerusalem has long s-ince vanished from the world, but the acts and words of Jesus in driving out the profane traffickers still find abundant application. Our Lord con- demns everything that brings the spirit of the Morld into tlie atmosphere of the sanctuary, and turns the house of prayer into a house of merchandise. Much more does He condemn any- thing that associates His Churcli with methods and practices that are not even those of honest merchandise, but have the savour of dishonest gain. See, further. Temple, § 'Cleansing of."
(3) Profaning God's name. — For this form of the sin of profanation the word ' profanity ' is usually reserved, a word that is to be distinguished from blasphemy (wh. see) — though the distinction is not always observed, nor, indeed, possible. Blasphemy (,3Xa(r07jjiita=' evil-speaking") is an insult ottered to (.iod's majesty, and, in particular, a delil>erate re- viling of God and of Divine things. Profanity, on the other hand, is a taking of God's name in vain (Ex 20") — understanding 'name' in the scriptural sense of ' anything wherel>j- God maketh Himself known' (Shorter Cateeh., Qu. 55). Profanity may, and often does, run into blasphemy, but the word finds its proper application in an irreverent treat- ment of holy things without the motive of tlie scotler. When Peter began ' to curse and to swear {KaraOffiaTi^eiv Kai on-vvetv), I know not the man' (Mt 26■^ cf. Mk 14"'), he was not guilty of inten- tional blasphemy ; he was in reality employing the most solemn forms of Jewish asseveration (cf. Nu 5-' ' an oath of cursing,' and see EBi. art. ' Oath '). But he was gtiilty of profanity, for he was invoking the Di\-iiie name in supjwrt of a lie.
There was no kind of profanation against which the Jewish Rabbis were more anxious to guard than the sin of profane language. The hedge they made around the Law was particularly high at this point. Through a mistaken interpretation of Lv -24"^ the}" forbade the very utterance of the name Jahtoeh, and so, in the reading of the OT,
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PEOFESSIOX
Adonai or Elohim was invariably substituted. Partly, no doubt, for similar reasons, there had grown up in the time of Christ a custom of swearing- not by the Divine name, but by heaven or earth or Jerusalem or the Temple (Mt 5'^^"'*' 23^"'-"'') — though there emerges here, alongside of the desire to avoid the use of God's luime, the consideration that such oaths were less binding than those in which God was directly invoked (contrast the high priest's adjuration ' by the living God ' at the trial of Jesus, Mt 2(5"^). And here again, as in His cleansing of the Temple, our Lord showed how poor and mean the thoughts of the Rabbis were on the subject of profanation. That .system of diluted oaths was a miserable piece of casuistry at the best. For an oath has no meaning if it is not an invocation of the Divine Being Himself as a witness ; and, besides, heaven is God's throne and the earth His footstool, Jeilisalem is the city of the Great King, and the Temple the place of His indwelling (S^*^- 23^'"'-)- Moreover, those legal refinements lent themselves to all sorts of false- hood and deceit in the intercourse of men, and thus became a prostitution of the holiest realities to wicked ends. And so Jesus lays down the general principle, ' Swear not at all ' (5^^). Make no dis- tinctions among your statements by the use of a graduated scale of oaths, as if, while you are bound to be truthful in regard to some of tlie things you say, you are otherwise free to shade oti' your language into the veriest falsehood by diminishing grades of protestation. ' But let your communica- tion be. Yea, j^ea ; Nay, nay' (Mt 5^', cf. Ja 5^-). See, further. Oaths.
Literature. — The Lexx. s.m. iiiffr,},6u, fiifivMi, ^i.a.tr^fiiJi.ia.; Hastings' DB, artt. ' Oath,' ' Temple ' ; EBi, ait. ' Oath ' ; PRE'^, art. ' Eid bei den Hebraern ' ; Edersheim, LT ; Schiirer, BJP 11. ii. 90-12n ; R. W. Dale, Ten Commaitdinents, p. 61 ff . ; J. O. Dykes, Manifesto of the King, p. 265 ff. ; F. J. Coffin, ' The Third Commandment ' in J EL xix. (1900) 166.
J. C. Lambert. PROFESSION.— In Biblical usage, to ' profess' is to make a public declaration (Mt 7"^ Dt 26^) ; then to take a certain stand or attitude ( 1 Ti 2"^ ' which becometh women profes.sing godliness ') ; and, lastly, to make an unjustifiable pretension or claim (Ro P^ 1 Ti 6-1, Tit l'«). In general, profession and confession are so closely related that one Greek word {opLoXoyew) is employed indifferently for both ; and the AV has not clearly distinguished between them. Yet they are by no means identi- cal ; for while both words imply the utterance or declaration of faith or of fact, confession invari- ably implies that there is harmony between what is declared and the inward thought or feeling of the speaker, while profession carries no such im- plication.