RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Persia Pessimism
Gamla testamentet (1886); Skolungdomens sedliga uppfostran (1888). John O. Evjen.
PERSONS, ROBERT. See Parsons.
PERTH, FIVE ARTICLES OF: Five articles agreed upon in the General Assembly of the Scottish Church at Perth Aug. 25, 1618. They enjoined kneeling at the Lord's Supper, the observance of Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, Pentecost, and confirmation, and sanctioned the private administration of baptism and the Lord's Supper. They were obnoxious to the Presbyterians of Scotland and were adopted only at the command of King James VI. (James I. of England), being a part of his plan to unify the ecclesiastical policy of England and Scotland (see Presbyterians) . They were ratified by parliament, Aug. 4, 1621. The General Assembly at Glasgow in 1638 declared the action at Perth " unfree, unlawful, and null," and condemned the five articles.
Bibliography: P. H. Brown, Hist, of Scotland, ii. 265-271, Cambridge, 1902; W. M. Hetherington, Hist, of the Church of Scotland, p. 125, New York, 1881; C. A. Briggs, American Presbyterianism, pp. 49, 50, 56, ib. 1885; G. P. Hays, Presbyterians, p. 54, ib. 1892.
PERU: A republic of South America, bounded by Ecuador on the north, Brazil and Bolivia on the east, Bolivia and the Pacific Ocean on the south, and the Pacific Ocean on the west; area, 695,730 square miles; population about 3,000,000. Of this, the natives comprise at least one-half, those of mixed blood about one-third. According to article four of the constitution of 1860, the Roman Catholic is the established religion, and no other worship is legally tolerated. Though all the territory is included in the diocesan distribution, some of the Indians in the eastern part are now in the process of being Christianized. The national church is administered by the eight bishops of Iquitos, Chachopoyas, Huanaco, Truxillo, Ayacucho, Cuzco, Puno, and Arequipa; and by the incumbent of the archbishopric of Lima, which was erected in 1546. The government maintains an extensive control of the clergy. Thus, when an episcopal vacancy occurs, the government proposes three ecclesiastics to the joint national legislature, which selects one, subject to the confirmation of the pope. The chapters are supplied by appointees of the State, and the archbishop can not hinder any such from assuming his office. While the State's allowance for the archbishop amounts to $20,000, the remaining dignitaries are ill-supported. The entire parochial clergy receives no state contribution; but its labors are in a great measure supplemented by those of the orders and congregations which have many establishments. Lima alone has thirteen nunneries and eight cloisters for men. The orders represented are mainly the Dominicans, and next, the Franciscans, Barefoot Friars (see Barefooted Monks and Nuns), Augustinians, and Jesuits. There are many lay fraternities in honor of Mary. Congregations of sisters still chiefly attend to the diffusion of elementary instruction, universal compulsory education not being enforced. Excepting the four at Lima, there are few intermediate schools. The University of San Marcos at Lima has a theological de-
partment which provides a six-years' course, after the custom of the orders. Owing to the meager immigration of Europeans and North Americans, there are but few Protestants in Peru. However, there are a German union congregation at Callao, a smaller Anglican congregation at Lima, and one of Presbyterians from the United States at Callao. [Missionary enterprises are carried on by the Regions Beyond Missionary Union, " the Brethren," and the Methodist Episcopal Missionary Society, U. S. The last-named reports 2 stations, 5 missionaries, 39 native workers, 231 communicants, and in all 400 professing Evangelical Christians. There are in Peru a total of 5,000 Evangelical Christians and 500 Jews.] Wilhelm Goetz.
Bibliography: C. R. Markham, Hist, of Peru, Chicago, 1892; E. W. Middendorf, Peru, 3 vols., Berlin, 1895; W. G. Mortimer, Peru, New York, 1901; J. Lee, Religious Liberty in South America; with special Reference to recent Legislation in Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia, Cincinnati, 1907; C. R. Enock, Peru; its former and present Civilization, New York, 1908; G. Guinness, Peru, its Story, People and Religion, London, 1908; Marie R. Wright, The Old and New Peru, A Story of the Ancient Inheritance and the Modern Growth and Enterprise of a Great Nation, Philadelphia, 1909.
PESHITO. See Bible Versions, A, III., 1.
PESSIMISM: A word employed as the antonym of Optimism (q.v.). The term came into use in the first half of the last century. The dissatisfaction with life which the philosophcial theory aims to embody is, however, of long standing. The feeling was voiced in India by Guatama, the founder of Buddhism (d. about 475 B.C.), among the Hebrews in a modified form in the book of Ecclesiastes in the third century B.C., among the Persians in the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (about 1120 a.d.). Arthur Schopenhauer (1860) was the first representative of modern pessimism. According to him the world is as bad as it can possibly be, if it is to continue to exist at all. The ultimate reality of the universe appears only in will — in any blind force of nature and in all organic existence — an endless striving without intelligence or aim. The radical evil of life — the will to live— is to be eradicated by denial of the " principle of individuation " and by the perfect denial of the will to live by means of asceticism, by destroying illusions of pleasure, by charity, by absolute refusal of the sexual impulse, and by total abstinence from food. Eduard von Hartmann (d. 1906) sought to overcome the dualism of will and knowledge in Schopenhauer's philosophy by reducing them to a unity, which he calls the Unconscious. To the working of the irrational will of the Unconscious, he ascribes alike the origin of existence and of evil. Will has broken away from the primitive harmony of the Unconscious, and nature and life are the deplorable consequences. Reason follows after, to undo, as far as possible, the evil which will has produced, and to convince it of the mischief which it has caused and is causing; but, before it succeeds, all history must be traversed, all delusions experienced, all follies committed. He will not say that the world is the worst possible; he will not deny even that it may be the best possible, since we do not know what is possible: but he holds decidedly that it is worse than would have been no world at all. He believes himself able
Pessimism
Peter of Alcantara