Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 16.djvu/522

* PBOPEETY. 454 PROPHECY. vliich of as- Perso»al rropcrUj : Pollock and Maitlaml. H s- iory of Enqlhh Uuc (2d ed., Hoston and Loudon 18!)9) Pollock and Wright, Essay on Possession in iheVo„„„on Law (Oxford Eng. 1888) ;Ka- leifih, Outline of the Laic of Property (Oxfoid, IS'JO) : Holland. Jurisprudence (9th ed., London anil New York, 1900). PBOPERTY, or Peoprium (in logic). See PHKDH AHIKS. PROPHECY (OF. prophecie, prophetic, Fr. prophetic, from l.at. prophet ia. from Gk. irpoiva.i, prophanai, to say hcloic, from wpb, pro. hcfore + <pipai, phanai, to say). According to the jiopular acceptation, prophecy is essentially prediction, a foretelling of events bv divinely insiiired personages. Inasmuch how- ever as the general ideas on the sub.iect are based upon religious phenomena in Hebrew his- tory, it is hut proper, in order to determine the exact force of the term and its development, to turn to Hebrew usage. Adopting this method we find the earlier terms in Hebrew for prophet (e<i ru'eh. 'seer,' kho^ch, 'one who has a vision ) associated with the prognostication of the future, and there is no reason to dill'erentiate Hebrew prophecy in this stage from the belief common to all peoples in a low state of culture assigns to certain individuals the power eertaining the will of the gods in whose hands the future of an individual or of a coinmunity lies. Such beliefs were common among Semites closely alliliated with the Hebrews. In Baby- lonia we find soothsayers, sorcerers, witches, and magicians recognized as necessary elements of society, and various classes of omen-priests con- nected with the Babylonian temples: kfihin, the Arabic equivalent of' the Hebrew word for priest (kOhrii), is used to designate the 'soothsayer.' The various classes of soothsayers enumerated in Pent, xviii. !M4 show not only the prevalence of this belief among the Hebrews up to a compara- tively late period, but also the power which the soothsayers continued to exercise even after the period when the Hebrews entered upon a line of religious development destined to mark theni off sharply from their fellow Semites. The Hebrew 'prophet' accordingly traces his origin back to the 'seer,' that is. to the magician, sorcerer, and soothsayer; if he stands out in history as a personage distinct from the 'seer,' it is because there is afterwards added in his case a i|uality of a higher order. It is not difficult to determine what this quality is. In the proper historical sense, the term 'prophet' is applicable only to the series of teachers and exhorters who arose among the Hebrews in the eighth century n.c, and through whose influence a new conception of Deity and of the relation of the national god Yahweh to his people was evolved. W'liile also concerned with 'prophecy' in the sense of foretelling the future, they dealt not with individuals, but with the nation as a whole or with the two sections of the people — ■ the northern Kingdom of Israel, and the southern Kingdom of .Tudah. ]lore than this, the pro- phetic functions which they exercised, or claimed to exercise, were incidental to their main task, which was to impress upon the people the sense of responsibility for their acts to a Deity, yvho governed, not by caprice, but by high standards of right, purity, and Justice, and who was there- fore to be approaelicd. not by gifts and sacri- fices, but by a contrite heart and a genuine spirit of devotion. The prognostications indulged in by those prophets of whose utterances we pos- sess fragments in the 'iJi'Dphetical' division of the Old Testament are largely concerned with threats of divine punishment for disobedience to Yah- weh's will and decrees. They are accordingly based ui)on the profound conviction of the prophet that wrong-doing is certain to be pun- ished : and in this respect their prophecies ditlcr essentially from the attempts of soothsayers and diviners to determine by means of omens and oracular devices the course that will be taken by events and to ascertain the will of the gods. This view of the prophetical calling among the Hebrews applies to the prophets from Amos to the anonymous Malaehi, including therefore the brilliant galaxy Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. At the same time it must be acknowledged that, even in the case of these exhorters, survivals of the more primitive prophetic functions are to be discerned. While discarding the oracular meth- ods of the soothsayers, they yet stand forth as interpreting certain signs and symbols in con- nection with Yalnveh's purposes, and above all they claim, or are represented as claiming, to have had visions in which the future — generally of the nation — was revealed to them. No doubt it was this claim and the belief in their extraor- dinary powers that lent them a large measure of the influeiiee that they e.xerted. And it is not necessary to assume that the prophets of the higher order no longer believed in the super- natural phases of their calling. They deeply felt that they were speaking in Y'alnveh's name and they were essentially the children of their day in accei)ting the position that Yahweh made his will known to his people through certain individ- uals singled out for the purpose. The importance, therefore, of the Hebrew prophets c(nisists in their paving the way for a new and far higher conception of prophecy, which, becoming in time more and more dissoci- ated with mere foretelling propensities, made the prophet the moral and religious teacher par ex- ecllcnee. The highest expression, of prophecy in this sense is to be seen in the announcement of a glorious age when with the complete recon- ciliation of Y'ahweh with his people a new period is to be ushered in. marked by the triumijh of right and justice, and when the worship of Y'ah- weh will be freed from all impurities and un- worthy features. Tliat this new era was closely bound up with strictly national ideals repre- sents a natural limitation, the absence of which would have placed both the prophets and proph- ecy entirely beyond the intellectual and religious horizon of their times. As late as the advent of .Jesus, the Jlessianie period (as the new era was designated) was bound up in the minds of the masses with the restoration of the Jewish kingdom, and though Y'ahweh long ere the days of .Jesus had ceased to be a merely national deity, vet even the Ood recognized as supreme and" single in the universe was bound by special ties to a particular people: and even when the Messiah was no longer pictured as an earthly king, the limitation of Hebrew prophecy appears in the position accorded to Jerusalem, which, as the chosen seat of the universal Ciod. was to be the spiritual centre of mankind— the gathering place to which all nations would make pilgrimage.