Christians are required to make a profession of their faith— 1, boldly (Rom. i. 10.: 2, explicitly (Matt. v. | 16) ; 3, constantly (Heb. x, 23); 4, yet not ostenta- tiously, but with humility and meekness.
Among the Romanists, profession denotes the enter- ing into a religious order, whereby a person offers him- self to God by a vow of inviolably observing obedience, chastity, and poverty.
Professor, a term commonly used in the religious world to denote any person who makes an open ac- knowledgment of the religion of Christ, or who out- wardly manifests hi- attachment to Christianity. All real Christians are professors, but all professors are not real Christians. In this, as ill all other things of worth and importance, we find counterfeits. There are many who become professors, not from principle, from investi- gation, from love to the truth. 1 ut from interested mo- tives, prejudice of education, custom, influence of con- nections, novelty, etc. as Saul, Jehu, Judas, Demas,the
foolish virgins, etc. See CHRISTIAN.
Profesti Dies. Days without any special ser- vice, in distinction from solemn or officiating days,
which include stations, litanies, fasts, Slid least-day.- OI
festivals.
' i udei penai ce if
sacrament of penanc
or sorrow, confession, and satisf
t The clerical orders ofthe Catholic Church arc divided
il confession, a.- the Catholic >f three parts — contrition
into two classes, sacred and minor orders. The fust con- sists of subdeacons, deacon-, and priests, whn are bound
to celibacy, and the daily recitation of the /;, i
collection of psalms and players, occupying a consider- able time. Tin' minor orders are four iu number, and are preceded by the tonsure, an ecclesiastical ceremony in which the hair is shorn, initiatory to the eccli state.
PROFIAT DURAN
627
PROKOPOV1TCH
Profiat Duran, whose Jewish name was Isaac ben- Moses (surnamed Ephodceus from his principal work "I1BX nUJSO), is noted as a gifted poet, philosopher, and astronomer. He flourished between 1300 and 1412. In the bitter persecution of 1391 he was driven out- wardly to embrace Christianity to save his life. In or- der to throw off the mask of a religion which in the name of love nearly exterminated all his co-religion- ists, Profiat and a friend, who had become an apostate for like reasons, concluded to go to Palestine to confess Judaism. Profiat Duran left first and went to a sea- place in the south of France, awaiting the arrival of his friend. Meanwhile Ben-Giorno met with Paul of Bur- gos (q. v.), who persuaded him to remain steadfastly in his ( Jhristian faith. Ben-Giorno wrote a letter to Duran in lull praise of the bishop of Burgos, expounding his religious belief and exhorting him at the same time to be also true to Christianity. This imbittered Duran i not only against his friend, but especially against the bishop of Burgos, and he answered in a polemical epis- tle, full of bitter sarcasm and irony, entitled ^T\T\ ?X "nr3N3 {Be not like thy Fathers), called by Christians Alteca Boteca, who, misunderstanding its purpose, took it as a defence of Christianity, while in reality aimed against it. The whole letter was equivocal. It was believed at first reading that it was an exhortation to stand fast in the religion he had embraced, but the mys- tery was easily discovered, and it appeared by an atten- tive consideration that Duran meant to oblige his friend to return to Judaism. This celebrated work was first published at Constantinople in 1577 in a collection of other treatises. It was then republished by A. Giinz- biirg in the collection D^niSl yzp (Breslau, 1844). Geiger published a German translation in his Wissen- schaftliche Zeitschrift, iv, 452-458 (Stutt.gard, 1839), and an English translation was published in the Jewish Messenger (N. Y. Sept. 12, 1873). Besides, Duran wrote piMi naiba (The Reproach of the Gentiles'), in 12 chapters, which has not as yet been published. An ex- tract of it, as well as the contents of the chapters, is given in the Catalogue of Michael's Library, p. 364, 3G5 (Hamb. 1848):— ^2N PTOSO (The Work of Ephod) , a Hebrew grammar, divided into 32 chapters, with an in- teresting and elaborate introduction. Endowed with remarkable grammatical tact, he was the first to demon- strate the reflexive or reciprocal instead of the passive meaning of Niphal. His important grammar, which he finished in 1403, of which fragments are printed in the notes to Goldberg's edition of Ibn-Ganach's (q. v.) Se- pher Harikmah (Frankfort-on-the- Main, 1856), in Filipowski's edition of Menachem Ibn-Saruk's Hebrew and Chaldee Lexicon, p. 76 (Lond. 1854), and by Jacob C. Chajim in his Introduction to the Rabbinic Bible, p. 42, 43 (ed. Ginsburg, Lond. 1865), has lately been pub- lished by Dr. Jonath. Friedlander and J. Kohn, with an introduction, notes, and elucidations (Vienna, 1865) : — a Commentary on two sections of Ibn-Ezra's commen- tary on the Pentateuch (De Rossi, No. 835) : — a Com- mentary on Ibn-Ezra's enigma on the quiescent letters : — Comment' 'on The Guide of the Perplexed: — and D.HJH "ISXn on astronomy, in 29 chapters. See Flirst, Bibl. Jud. i, 215; Steinschneider. Catalogus Librorum Hebr. in Biblioth. Bodlej. col. 2 1 1 2-2 1 1 9 ; De Rossi, Dizionario Storico degli A ntori Ebrei, p. 260 sq. (Germ, trans, by Hamberger) ; Ginsburg in Kitto's Cyclop, s. v. ; Griitz, Gesch. tier Juden, viii, 94, 403, etc. (Leips. 1864, p. 86- 89; ibid. 1875, p. 381 sq.) ; Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, p. 690 (Taylor's transl.) ; Lindo, History of the Jeics, p. 195; Finn, Sephardim, p. 386; Kalisch, Hebrew Gram- mar, ii, 31 ; Geiger, Jiidische Zeitschrift (1866), p. 212 ; Steinschneider, Jewish Literature, p. 127, 137 sq. ; Eth- eridge, Introduction to Hebrew Literature, p. 268; Jost. Gesch. des Judenth. u. s. Sekien, iii, 100 ; Gronemann. De Prof alii Durani (Efodali) vita ac studiis cum in alias