PRE-EXISTENCB OF SOULS

answer would be a poor one, were it not as absolutely assumed throughout that God's is a will in which there can be no taint of unrighteousness, and that there is nothing in His action which does not admit of vindica-tion to a perfect wisdom and goodness. If God shows His mercy on whom He wills, His right to do so cannot be assailed; if He hardens — not arbitrarily, but through the fixed operation of ethical laws — and glorifies His wrath in the destruction of the hardened, it is not with-out suflScient cause, and only after much long-suffering (v.^). As little does the Apostle attempt to show the compatibility of the Divine foreordination with human freedom, but habitually assumes that the one is not, and cannot be, in violation of the other. The material with which the potter works (v. ") is not, in this case, after all, mere inanimate clay, but beings who can 'reply against God' (v.'"), and are the objects of His long-suffering endurance (v.^^). Sovereignty is seen in this, that even those who refuse to be moulded to higher uses do not escape the hands of God, but are made to subserve His glory, even if it be in their destruc-tion. Doubtless even here a purpose of God is to be recognized. Godet, who is not a rigid predestinarian, says of the instance in v." —

' God might have caused Fliaraoh to be bom in a cabin, where his proudobstinacy would have been displayed with no less self-will, but without any historical consequence; on the other hand, he might have placed on the throne of Egypt at that time a weali, easy-going man, wlio would have yielded at the first shock. What would have happened? Pharaoh in his obscure position would not have been less arrogant and perverse, but Israel would Iiave gone forth from Egypt without iclat' (on Ro 9"- "). Only in this sense, of those wilfully hardened and per-sistently obdurate, is it permissible to speak — if the language should be employed at all — of a decree of leprobation. Scripture itself, with all its emphasis on foreordination, never speaks of a foreordination to death, or of a reprobation of human beings apart from their own sins. See Reprobate. Its fore-ordination is reserved for life, blessing, sonship, inherit-ance. James Okr. PRE-EXISTENCE OF SOULS —

'Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting: The soul that rises with us, our life's star.

Hath had elsewhere its setting,

And Cometh from afar.' — Wordsworth, Intimations of Immortality The idea expressed in these lines has been prominent in many religions — cultured and crude alike. That it had Jewish adherents is clear from (a) Wis S"- 2°, written by some Jewish thinker influenced (as, e.g., Philo, a believer in the same doctrine, was conspicu-ously) by Platonist study; (6) the reference of Josephus to Essene doctrines; (c) the Talmud. That traces occur in the OT is doubtful. The idea can be more easily read into, than gathered out of, such passages as Job 121 (cf. Sir 401), Ec 12', Ps ISQi'. Cf. also Rev 4"''. But something very like it occurs Jn 9^. Had the man been bom blind because of his ovm sint In His reply Christ finds no fault with the question as such. The objection that such an idea would be un-familiar to the disciples is weakened by considerations as to the advanced thought of the Fourth Gospel; moreover, the Book of Wisdom (see above) is clearly re-echoed in NT. Some think that the question rose from Jewish ideas as to pre-natal consciousness. See Gn 25=2 (strife), Lk 1"-" (joy). Non liquet must be the verdict. The subject re-appears in Origen's speculative teaching and, indirectly, in related con-troversies. H. F. B. COMPSTON.

FREPABATION (Gr. varaskevS) .—A term applied by ■the Jews to the day preceding the Sabbath, or any of the sacred festivals, especially the Passover.

PRESBYTER (Gr. presbyteros, 'elder').— The word occurs only once in EV, viz. as a RV marginal alterna-

PRESS, PRESSPAT

tivefor 'elders' in Ac 20"; the Gr. presbyteros, which is of frequent occurrence, being otherwise invariably rendered 'elder.' In this case the Revisers doubtless put 'presbyters' in the margin because the passage furnishes one of the leading proofs for the identity of the presbyter or elder with the bishop or overseer (cf. V." with V.28). For treatment of the subject of the presbyter, see art. Bishop. J. C. Lambert.

PRESBYTERY (Gr. presbytenon) .—In EV of NT the word occurs only in 1 Ti 4», where it denotes the body of Christian presbyters or elders (no doubt those belonging to the church at Lystra; cf. Ac 16'-*) who laid their hands upon Timothy before he set out on his labours as St. Paul's missionary companion. In the Gr. text, however, the word presbyterion is found in two other passages, viz. Lk 226» (AV 'elders,' RV 'assembly of the elders') and Ac 22' (AV and RV 'estate of the elders'), as an expression for the body of Jewish elders who with the 'chief priests' and the scribes composed the Sanhedrin. This twofold use of the word (like the corresponding twofold use of 'elder') affords a strong confirmation of the view, which is otherwise most probable, that the presbytery of the Christian Church finds its roots in the eldership of the Jewish ecclesia.

The presbytery was at first a purely local body (cf. the Letters of Ignatius, passim), corresponding not to the modern presbytery of the Presbyterian Churches, which is a district court composed of ministers and elders drawn from a number of separate congregations, but to the kirk-session or body of elders by which in those churches a single congregation is ruled. Originally the presbytery had no fixed president. The presbyters or elders, otherwise Isnown as bishops (see art. Bishop), whom we meet in the NT seem ofScially to have all stood upon the same footing. But early in the post- Apostolic age one of the congregational presbyter-bishops rose, by what was probably a process of natural evolution (cf. 1 Ti 5", 'Let the elders that rule well be counted worthy of double honour, especially those who labour in the word and in teaching'), to a position of predominance, and was now known as the 'bishop' par excellence, in distinction from the other presbyters (cf. in the Presbyterian and Congregational Churches the precedence of the minister over the elders and deacons respectively, although, properly speaking, a 'minister' is simply a diakonos or deacon). 'The bishop as we meet him in the Letters of Ignatius (e.g. Ephes. 4) is a congregational bishop, the president of a body of congregational presbyters. The monarchical bishop is a later creation.

What was involved in the laying on of the hands of the presbytery in the case of Timothy it is impossible to say with certainty. Probably it was an act corre-sponding to ordination to office (see Laying on op Hands), St. Paul himself being associated with the presbytery in the matter (cf. 2 Ti 1'). On the other hand, it may have been no more than a commendation of Timothy to the grace of God for strength and guid-ance in his new work as a missionary, analogous thus to the action of the prophets and teachers of Antioch in the case of Barnabas and Saul (Ac 13'-'). The laying on of St. Paul's hands (2 Ti 1') may really have been a separate incident, comparable again to the laying on of the hands of Ananias on himself (Ac 9") — not an official act but a gracious benediction (cf. Lind-say, Church and Ministry, p. 143n.). St. Paul without doubt received a consecrating grace from the hands both of Ananias and of those prophets and teachers of the Church at Antioch, but he claimed to be an Apostle 'not from men, neither through man, but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised him from the dead' (Gal 1'). J. C. Lambert.

PRESS, PRESSFAT. — The former occurs in the OT for the usual 'winepress' in Pr3'» (RV 'fats' ; in modern English, 'vats'), Is le'", where alone it is retained in

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