284
PKOPORTION
PROSELYTE
lies beliiiul the use in this Epistle of a term com- mon to apostolic thought generally — as seems prob- able—the meaning would be thai the i)ropitiatiou Christ ottered so dealt with sin that there no longer remained in tlie Divine mind an obstacle to sin's forgiveness (cf. Holtzmann, Neatest. Thcul.'^, Tiibingen, 1911, ii. 300, favouring this view, and Stevens, Christian Dcetrinc of Srilmtion, p. 84, criticizing it). The particular contribution, how- ever, made by the writer of Hebrews to the apos- tolic teaching on prointiation is the discussion of tlie conception that the projiitiation offered by Christ is capable of dealing with all and every kind of sin as a barrier between God and man, and not with sins of ignorance and infirmity alone ; the key to the discussion is that Christ's is a 'better sacriHce,' which perfects the imperfect, abolishes the typical, and lifts the whole signili- cance of propitiation from the circle of legal and ceremonial ideas into the realm of abiding ethical and s]>iritual realities ; Jesus, ' who through the eternal Spirit oii'ered himself without blemish unto God,' thus becomes the author of eternal salvation — a salvation whose characteristic is finality ; ' through his own blood, (he) entered in once for all into the holj' place, having obtained eternal redemption' (cf. He 9""").
The Fathers of the Apostolic and the sub-Apos- tolic Ages adhered in their interpretation of pro- pitiation to the sacrificial language of the OT and to the usage of NT terms by the apostles (cf. Polycarp, ad Phil. i. 8 ; Clement of Kome, ad Cor. i. 7, 32).
LlTERATPRE.— H. Schultz, OT Theology^, Edinburgh, 1895, ii. 87 ff.; D. W. Simon, The Hfideiiiption of Man'^, London, 1906, p. 31 £f. ; J. Denney, The Death of ChrtM, do., 1902 ; G. Smeaton, The, Apostles' Doctyine of Atemement, Edinburj^h, 1870 ; J. J. Lias, The Atonement in the Light of Modern Diffi- culties, London. 1884 ; T. V. Tymms, Tlie Christian Idea of the Atonement, do., 1904, pp. 191-251; F. R. M. Hitclicock, The Atonement and Modern Thought, do., 1911, p. 132 ff. ; W. F. Lofthouse, Ethics and Atonement, do., 1906, p. 148 ff. ; A. B. Bruce, St. Paul's Conceptioti of Christianity, Edinbur^rh, 1894, p. 167 ff. ; G. B. Stevens, Christian Doctrine of Salna- lion, do., 1905, pp. 61ff., lOSfl., HT Theology, London, 1899, pp. 412 If., 589 f. ; B. F. Westcott, Epistles of St. JohnS, do., 1892, p. 85 f.; Sanday-Headlam, 7CC, 'Romans '5, Edinburgh, 1902, p. 92 f.; H. Cremer, Bihl.-Theol. i^icons, do., 1880, p. 91 ft. ; arte. ' Propitiation ' in HDB and DCG.
Frederic Platt. PROPORTION.— Tlie Greek word ava\oyia. is of frequent occurrence in classical writings, but in the NT it is found only in Ro 12', ' Whether prophecy [let us prophesy] according to the proportion of faith ' (A V ; RV ' according to the propmtion of our faith ' ; RVm ' according to the proportion of the faith '). Interpreters are divided as to whether 'the faith' is to be taken subjectively (Meyer, Sanday - Headlani) or objectively (Vaughan, Liddon). The first alternative would mean that they wlio had received the gift of prophecy were to exercise it in consistency with the e.xteiit (or limits) of their own f.aith, the measure of which had been allotted to them (v.^) ; the second, in harmony with ' the faith ' as referring to the gospel as a whole. The latter is very attractive, but the usage of the NT is against it. There is no instance in the Epistles of St. Paul of the use of rj irfffTis in the sense of 'the gospel.' It is, however, found in Jude ''• -", and is one of the indications of its late date. The AvaKoyla t^s Trfffreus must be taken as parallel with, and not different from, ixirpov TrJo-Teus (v.*). (For an elaborate examination of ' Analogy considered as a guide to Truth ' see the work of J. Buchanan, published under that title, Edinburgh, 1864.) John Reid.
PROSELYTE — 1. Meaning of the term The
word >rpo(T7)Xirros is not found in classical Greek. It is still an open question whether those who formed the word from irpoaipxa/^ai thought of the verb in
its primary sense of ' advenio,' or in its religious sense of '(deum) adeo' (cf. He 7^, rovs irpoaepx- o/i4vovs 5t' avTov t{^ 06(^). In the former case, TrpoaTjXiTos originally meant ni/uena, 'new-comer' (for which the classical equivalent is fTTTjXi/s) ; in the latter, it meant ' proselyte ' in the sense of ' one who comes or draws near to God.' In his exhaustive study of TTpoffriXiTo^ in the LXX (Ex/>, 4th ser., x. 26411'.), W. C. Allen argues from the fact that the word is correctly used in a majority of cases for the "la to whom certain rights were conceded in Israel (Oxf. Ileb. Lex., s.v. 13 2 [p. 158*]), that its meaning was from the first that of 'proselyte '—the meaning of ' stranger ' being secondary, and arising from the proselyte's having his home 'in a strange land' (like the I.sraelites themselves in Egypt : hence they are called irpoir^Xuroi, Ex 2'2=' 23", Lv IQ*", Dt I0'»). The statement of Philo {de Monarch. I. 7, TOlTovs di KaXei 7rpOff7]\vrovs dwd Tou irpoa€\ri\v6^yat Kaivrj Kal <pi.\o0i(f Tro\LTel(f), and also the words of Jo- sepluis {A7it. XVIII. iii. 5, vop.ipiOis 7rpoa€\Ti\v0vLa rots 'lovSaiKoli), are in favour of this view. What pre- vents us, however, from giving it our full adhesion is that the LXX does not use trpoarfKvTos in all the passages where 13 seems to mean or to approximate in meaning to ' proselyte,' but has sometimes irapoiKos. This, of course, may be due to ditl'erent hands having been employed in the work of trans- lation. Valuable for guidance is W. R. Smith's note (OTJC-, p. 342) : 'In the Levitical legislation the word Ger is already on the way to assume the later technical sense of proselyte ' (cf. Driver, ICC, ' Deuteronomy,' p. 165).