Passive Obedience of Christ. See Obedi- ence, and Sufferings of Christ.
Passive Po'wer, a phrase employed to denote a power of producing change, not actively, but negatively. Dr. Williams, who has revived the use of it in theolog}-, understands bj' it what some philosophers have denomi- nated malum metaphysicum, by which is meant the im- mediate cause of defectibility, mutability, or limitation in creatures. Every created being and property must
necessarily be limited. Limitation is as essentially an attribute of a creature as infinity is of the Creator. This limitedness implies defectibility, fallibleness, and muta- bility. It is to this principle, which is entirely of a negative character, that evil is ultimately to be referred. It is not communicated to the creature by his Maker, nor could any act of will or power prevent its connec- tion with any created nature, any more than such an act of will or power could change the very essence of creatureship, or cause an uncaused being. As the prin- ciple is not communicated or caused by the Creator, so neither are its results. They can be traced no higher than to the being in whom they are developed. To himself alone must every one ascribe them; to himself as a creature, in relation to the principle; but to him- self as sinful in relation to the moral results. Gilbert, Life of Dr. Williams, note C.
Passive Prayer, among the mystic divines, is a total suspension or ligature of the intellectual faculties, in virtue whereof the soul remains of itself, and, as to its own power, impotent with regard to the producing of any effects. The passive state, according to Fenelon. is only passive in the same sense as contemplation ; i. e. it does not exclude peaceable, disinterested acts, Init onl}' unquiet ones, or such as tend to our own interest. In the passive state the soul has not properly any activity, any sensation of its own. It is a mere flexibility of the soul, to which the feeblest impulse of grace gives motion. See Mysiicisji.
Passmore, Joseph C, D.D., an American clergyman of the Protestant Episcopal Church, was born at Lan- caster, Pa., and was a descendant of the Rev. S. Cook, a missionary of the Virginia Society for Propagating the Gospel, at Shrewsburv, N. J., in 177G. Passmore was ed- ucated at Dr. Muhlenberg's school, Flushing, N. Y. He studied law, and removed to Vicksburg, Miss. At the age of twenty-six he was chosen professor of rhetoric and philosophy in St. James College, Maryland, and re- mained as professor and vice-rector eighteen years. He was ordained deacon by bishop Whittingham in 1848, and priest by the same bishop, in Grace Church. Elk Ridge Landing, June 3, 1849. In 18G2 he accepted a professorship at Racine (Wis.) College, and later added to this task the rectory of St. John's, Elkhorn, Wis. He died at Racine Aug. 12, 18GG. He published a Poem, and a Life of Bishop Butler, and also edited an edition of his Sermons, with a preface. A sketch of the life of the Rt. Rev. Bishop Bowman in vol. xiv of the Church Review is from his pen, and bears the marks of his schol- arly tastes and his pure and noble spirit. See Ch. Rev. 1866; Appleton's Annual Cyclop. 18GG, p. C12.
Passoire is in ecclesiastical language a cullender, or strainer, for the wine and water when poured into the chalice. It dates from the 7th century.
Passover, the first and most important of the three great annual festivals — the other two being Pentecost and the Feast of Tabernacles — on which the male pop- ulation appeared before the Lord in Jerusalem. (The present article is founded on that of Ginsburg in Kitto's Cyclopredia, with large modifications, and additions from other sources, especially from Clark's article in Smith's Diet, of the Bible.) See Festival.
I. Name and its Signification. — The Heb. word MGS, Pesach (from HGB, pasdch, to pass through, to leap, to halt [2 Sam. iv, 4; 1 Kings xviii, 21], then tropically to pass by in the sense of sparing, to save, to shoio mercy [Exod. xii, 13, 23, 27; Isa. xxxi, 5]), denotes — 1. An overstepping, passover, and is so rendered by Josephus (Ant. ii, 14, 6, innpjiaaia), Aquila (vTripftami:'), and the English version. 2. It signifies the paschal sacrifice, by virtue of which, according to the divine appointment, the passing over, or saving, was effected (Exod. xii, 21, 27, 48; 2 Chron. xxx, 15). 3. It designates X\\e paschal meal on the evening of the 14th of Nisaii, wliile the seven following davs are called nSi'sn 5il, the feast .
PASSOVER
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PASSOVER
of unkavened bread (Lev. xxiii, 5, 6), and hence the ex- pression nosn n~n"D'3. the, morrow of the Passover, for the 15th of Nisan (Numb. xxxLii, 3 ; Josh, v, 1 1). It is used sviiecdochically for the whole festival of xtnleav- ened bread, which commenced with the paschal meal (Dent, xvi, 1-3; comp. also Ezek. xlv, 21, where nOS is explained bj' n"i:2"> m"3'a jn), written fully Sn nosn (Exod. xxxiv, 25). The whole feast, including the paschal-eve, is also denominated riSJatl 5n, the festival of unleavened bread, »/ ioprrj roJi' c'l^ifi oji', t'l/xtpai rwv aZvuiov, festum azi/morum (Exod. xxiii, 15; Lev. xxiii, C : 2 Chron. viii, 13 ; Ezra vi, 22 ; Luke xxii, 1,7: Acts xii, 3; xx. G; Josephus, War, ii, 1, 3) ; or simply niS'Sn, rd d'Cvim (Exod. xii, 17; Mark xiv, 1). The simple name Pesach (HOB = <paa'iK ; Sept. 2 Chron. xxx, 15; XXXV, 1, 11; Aramaean NnOQ=: ro Tvaaxa ; Mark xiv, i), however, is the one commonly used by the Jews to the present day to denote the festival of unleavened bread; and it is for this reason that this appellation is retained untranslated in the Sept. and N. T.