Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 12.djvu/547

 PROPOSITIONS

481

PROSE

God continues to select certain instruments like unto the Prophets of the Old Law to make known His will in an extraordinary manner and to foretell coming events: such, for instance, are the Prophets of Antioch (Acts, xiii, 1, 8), Agabus, the daughters of the Evan- gelist Philip, etc. And among the charismata (cf. Prat, "La th6ologie de Saint Paul", 1 pt., note H, p. 180-4) conferred so abundantly to hasten and fortify the incipient progress of the faith, one of the principal, next after the Apostolic, is the gift of prophecy. It is granted "unto edification, and exhortation, and com- fort" (I Cor., xiv, 3). The writer of the "Didache" informs us that in his day it was fairly frequent and widespread, and he indicates the signs by which it may be recognized (xi, 7-12). Finally the Canon of the Scriptures closes with a prophetic book, the Apoc- alypse of St. John, which describes the struggles and the victories of the new kingdom while awaiting the return of its Chief at the consummation of all things.

CoRNELY, Historica el cril. introd. in N. T. libros sacros, 11, 2 (Paris, 1897), diss. Ill, i, 2(57-305; Gigot, Special Introd. to the Study of the Old Testament, II (New York, 1906) 189-202.

Jean Calais.

Propositions Condemned. See Censures, The- ological; ExCOM.MUNIC.\TION.

Propriiun. — The Proprium de tempore and the PToprium Sanctorum form in the present liturgy the two principal portions of our Breviary and Missals; the first comprises the parts appointed for the days of the year having special Masses or Offices (introits, prayers, lessons, responses, versicles, antiphons, etc.); the second is devoted to the Offices of the Saints. The Proprium de tempore begins with the first Sunday of Advent and ends with the last Sunday after Pentecost. It includes, after Advent, the parts assigned for the Christmas season (six Sundays) ; Septuagesima, three weeks; Lent, six weeks; Paschal time, fifty days; Pentecost, and the twenty-four Sundays after. Most of the Sundays comprising this cycle, and often week- days, have special Offices which composed the Pro- prium de tempore.

The Proprium Sanctorum comprises all the saints' days with special Offices, from St. Andrew on 30 November. The Offices of the saints, like those de tempore, are composed of lessons, antiphons, responses, hymns, or other liturgical passages special to these saints' feasts. It is unnecessary to remark that this arrangement is not primitive. Ages passed before the present liturgical cycle was evolved. In the Liturgical Books before the ninth or eighth century, the Sundays after Pentecost form groups, called after some solemn festival, St. John the Baptist, the Apostles, or St. Michael; the season of Septuagesima did not yet exist, at least in its entirety. A century or two later the Christmas season had not been evolved, even the weeks of Advent had practically no special Offices. In the first ages of the Church, except for the Feast of Easter, Christmas Day, and Sundays, the liturgical cycle did not exist. The Divine Office and the Liturgy of the Mass were performed with the help of the books of the Old and the New Testaments, and consisted in the chanting of psalms or canticles, readings, exhortations, and impromptu prayers. The liturgical cycle, that is, the feasts of the year or of the martyrs exerted hardly any influence on the Liturgy, and in this sense it may be said that in the beginning there was neither a Proprium, de tempore nor a Proprium Sanctorum. Probst (op. cit. infra) thinks that it was at Rome, in the fourth century under Pope Damasus, that this liturgical "reform" took place, especially in arranging the liturgical prayers to suit the season and the feasts of the saints. "This may be accepted with some reservations, as it is indisputable that even then the cycle had exerted its influence on the liturgy, in certain special circumstances. It seems certain that the origin of the Common of the Saints is the same as that of the Propria, and that it was at XII.— 31

first a Proprium; for instance, the Common of the Apostles was originally the Proprium of the Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul; and the Common of a Martyr was originally the Proprium of St. Stephen and St. Lawrence.

Zacharia, Onomasticon, s. v. Missa de Sanctis, de tempore, 37, 40; Probst, Liturgie des vierten Jahrhunderts und der en Reform (MUnster, 1893); Hotham in Diet. Christ. Anliq., a. v. Office, the Divine; BAtJMER-BlRON, Histoire du breviaire, I, 256, 424 sq.; 11,48, 203, 343, 454, etc. ; Baudot, The Roman Breviary (Lon- don, 1909). F. Cabrol.

Proschko, Franz Isidor, well-known Austrian author, b. at Hohenfurt, Bohemia, 2 April, 1816; d. at Vienna, 6 February, 1891. Throughout his life he was engaged in various departments of the public service. A monument was erected on his grave [in his honour (1906) .] Of his numerous writings, always characterized by a CathoUc spirit, the most important are : "Leuchtkaferchen" (1849) and "Feier- stunden" (18.54), books for the young; "Hollenmas- chine" (2 vols., 1854), "Der Jesuit" (2 vols., 1857), "Die Nadel" (2 vols., 18.58), and "Pugatschew" (2 vols., 1860), historical romances; "Ausgewahlte Erzahlungen und Gedichte" (1873). His complete works were edited in six volumes ("Franz Isidor Proschko, Gesammelte Schriften", 1901-09) by his daughter, Hermione (b. at Linz, 29 July, 1851), who is also a distinguished Catholic writer, and whose works include: " Heimatkliinge " (poems, 2nd ed., 1879); "Unter Tannen und Palmen" (1880); "Aus Oesterreichs Lorbeerhain" (1891); "In Freud und Not" (1893); "Gott lenkt" (1895).

Thomas Kennedy.

Proselyte (7rpo<n)\uTos; n3, stranger, or new- comer; Vulgate, advena). — The English term "pros- elyte" occurs only in the New Testament where it signifies a convert to the Jewish religion (Matt., xxiii, 15; Acts, ii, 11; vi, 5; etc.), though the same Greek word is commonly used in the Septuagint to designate a foreign sojourner in Palestine. Thus the term seems to have passed from an original local and chiefly political sense, in which it was used as early as 300 B. c, to a technical and religious meaning in the Judaism of the N. T. epoch. Besides the proselytes in the strict sense who underwent the rite of circum- cision and conformed to the precepts of the Jewish Law, there was another class often referred to in the Acts as "fearers of God" (Acts, x, 2, 22; xiii, 16, 26), "worshippers of God" (Acts, xvi, 14), "servers of God" (Acts, xiii, 43; xvii, 4, 17). These were sym- pathetic adherents attracted by the Monotheism and higher ideals of the Jewish religion. St. Paul ad- dressed himself especially to them in his missionary journeys, and from them he formed the beginning of many of his Churches.

Allen in The Expositor, X (London, 1894), 267-75; Davidson, They that fear the Lord in Expository Times, III (1892), 491 sqq.

James F. Driscoll.

Prose or Sequence. — I. Definition and Gen- eral Description. — The Sequence (Sequentia) — or, more accurately as will be seen further on, the Prose (Prosa) — is the liturgical hymn of the Mass, in which it occurs on festivals between the Gradual and the Gospel, while the hymn, properly so called, be- longs to the Breviary. The Sequence difi'ers also in structure and melody from the hymn; for whilst all the strophes of a hymn are always constructed ac- cording to the same metre and rhythm and are sung to the same melody as the first strophe, it is the peculiarity of the Sequence, due to its origin, that (at least in those of the first epoch) each strophe or pair of strophes is constructed on a different plan. A sequence usually begins with an independent in- troductory sentence or an Alleluia (an intonation with its own melody) ; then follow several pairs of strophes, each pair with its own melody; in the earlier periods