Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/849

Rh P R P R 825 were spent in Rome, and that he wrote his Chronicon there. The year of his death is unknown ; the chronicle is brought down to 455. Prosper s enthusiastic admiration for Augustine (to whom, how ever, he was not personally known) led him to make an abridg ment of that author s commentary on the Psalms, as well as a collection of sentences for his works, probably the first dogmatic compilation of the class in which the Liber Sententiarum is the best known example. Some of Augustine s theological dicta he also put into elegiac metre (one hundred and six epigrams). Prosper s Chronicon is of value from the year 29 A.D. onwards, some of the sources which he used for that period being no longer extant. The best edition of the Opera is the Benedictine by Le Brun and Mangeant (Paris, 1711), reprinted in Migne s collection. PROSSNITZ (Slavonic, Prostejov), the chief place in the fertile district of the Hanna, in Moravia, Austria, is situated on the small river Rumza, 11 miles south-west of Olmiitz. It carries on manufactures of sugar, cotton, and linen, and is an important centre for the sale of the barley and other produce of the Hanna. It is a town of ancient origin, and in the 16th century was one of the chief seats of the Moravian Brethren. Population in 1880, 16,751. PROTAGORAS of Abdera, the first of the so-called Sophists, who, about the middle of the 5th century B.C., asserted throughout Greece the claims of education or culture in opposition on the one hand to technical instruc tion and on the other to physical research, was an older contemporary of Socrates. At the age of seventy, having been accused and convicted of atheism, Protagoras fled from Athens, and on his way to Sicily was lost at sea. His birth has been plausibly assigned to 481 and his death to 411 B.C. Forty years of his life were spent in the exercise of his popular and lucrative profession in the principal cities of Greece and Sicily. According to Plato (Prot., 318 E), he endeavoured to communicate to his pupils &quot;good counsel or prudence (eu/JovAta), which should fit them to manage their households, and to take part by word and deed in civic affairs.&quot; In short, he professed not to &quot;instruct&quot; but to &quot;educate.&quot; Further, the educa tion which he provided was of a literary sort, oratory, grammar, style, and the interpretation of the poets being among the subjects which he used as instruments. His formal lectures were supplemented by discussions amongst his pupils. He left behind him several treatises, of which only two or three sentences have survived. In Truth, by way of justifying his rejection of philosophy or science, he maintained that &quot;man is the measure of all things of what is, that it is, and of what is not, that it is not.&quot; 1 Besides Truth, and the book Of the Gods which caused his condemnation at Athens, Diogenes Laertius attributes to him treatises on political, ethical, educational, and rhetorical subjects. On the significance of the Sophistical movement, and the part which Protagoras took in promoting it, as well as for bibliographi cal information, see SOPHISTS. PROTECTION. See FREE TRADE and POLITICAL ECONOMY. PROTESTANTENVEREIN is the name of a society in Germany the general object of which is to promote the union and the progress of the various established Pro testant churches of the country in harmony with the advance of culture and on the basis of Christianity. It was founded at Frankfort-on-the-Main in 1863 by a number of distinguished clergymen and laymen of liberal tendencies, representing the freer parties of the Lutheran and Reformed churches of the various German states, amongst whom were the statesmen Bluntschli and Von Bennigsen and the professors Rothe, Ewald, Schenkel, Hilgenfeld, and Hitzig. The more special objects of the 1 The exposition of this maxim contained in Plato s The&tetus, 152 C sq., is plainly not to be ascribed to Protagoras. association are the following: the development of the churches on the basis of a representative parochial and synodal system of government in which the laity shall enjoy their full rights ; the promotion of a federation of all the churches in one national church ; resistance to all hierarchical tendencies both within and without the Pro testant churches; the promotion of Christian toleration and mutual respect amongst the various confessions ; the rousing and nurture of the Christian life and of all Christian works necessary for the moral strength and prosperity of the nation. These objects include opposition to the claims of Rome and to autocratic interference with the church on the part of either political or ecclesiastical authorities, efforts to induce the laity to claim and exercise their privileges as members of the church, the assertion of the right of the clergy, laity, and both lay and clerical professors to search for and proclaim freely the truth in independence of the creeds and the letter of Scripture. When the association was first formed the necessity for it was felt to be great. The separation between the Calvinistic and the Lutheran churches on the one hand, and between the churches of the various states on the other, even when the former separation had been bridged over by the Prussian Union ; the entire absence of any satisfactory system of church government, the autocratic authority of either the monarch or his ministers, or of the clergy, being supreme; the increasing encroachments of the papal power upon the rights of the individual and the state ; the growing estrangement of the educated classes from the church on the one hand, with the manifestation of either ignorance of the fact or a determination to meet it with bitter denunciation on the part of the orthodox clergy on the other, were regarded as urgent calls to action by the liberals. Membership in the association is open to all Germans who are Protestants and declare their willingness to cooperate in promoting its objects. To facilitate its operations, the general association is broken up into a few groups or societies confined to certain geo graphical areas. Every second year (at first every year) general meetings of the entire association are held at some convenient place. At first the governing committee had its permanent seat at Heidelberg, but in 1874 Berlin, as. the new capital of the empire, was chosen. The means used to promote the objects aimed at are mainly (1) the formation of local branch associations throughout the country, the duty of which is by lectures, meetings, and the distribution of suitable literature to make known and advocate its principles, and (2) the holding of great annual or biennial meetings of the whole association, at which its objects and principles are expounded and applied to the circumstances of the church at the moment. The &quot;theses&quot; accepted by the general meetings of the association as the result of the discussions on the papers read indicate the theological position of its members. The following may serve as illustrations : The creeds of the Protestant church shut the doors on the past only, but open them for advance in the future ; it is immoral and contrary to true Protestantism to require subscription to them. The limits of the freedom of teaching are not prescribed by the letter of Scripture, but a fundamental requirement of Protestantism is fiee inquiry in and about the Scriptures. The attempt to limit the freedom of theological inquiry and teaching in the universities is a violation of the vital principle of Protestantism. Only such con ceptions of the person of Jesus can satisfy the religious necessities of this age as fully recognize the idea of his humanity and place in history. The higher reason only has unconditional authority, and the Bible must justify itself before its tribunal ; we find the history of divine revelation and its fulfilment in the Bible alone, and reason bids us regard the Bible as the only authority and canou in matters- of religious belief. The formation of the association at once provoked fierce and determined opposition on the part of the orthodox sections of the church, particularly in Berlin. Attempts XIX. 104