Petach-Philippine Islands
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
THE AGES DIGITAL LIBRARY REFERENCE CYCLOPEDIA of BIBLICAL, THEOLOGICAL and ECCLESIASTICAL LITERATURE Petach - Philippine Islands by James Strong & John McClintock To the Students of the Words, Works and Ways of God: Welcome to the AGES Digital Library. We trust your experience with this and other volumes in the Library fulfills our motto and vision which is our commitment to you: MAKING THE WORDS OF THE WISE AVAILABLE TO ALL — INEXPENSIVELY. AGES Software Rio, WI USA Version 1.0 © 2000 2 Petach SEE PETHACH. Petachia(s), Moses Ben-Jacob a learned rabbi who flourished towards the latter half of the 12th century (Regensburg), is the author of the µl;wo[h; bWBsæ, also called hy;j]tiP] ri bWBsæ, in which he relates his travels, made between 1075 and 1090 through Poland, Russia, Tartary, Syria, Mesopotamia, ancient Syria, Persia, etc., and wherein he describes the manners and usages of his co- religionists. It was first printed at Prague (1595), and reprinted by Wagenseil, entitled Itinerarium cum versione Wagenseilii, in his Sex exercitationes varii argumenti (Altorf, 1687; Zolkiew, 1792). It has been translated into French, with notes, by E. Carmoly, Tour de Monde de Petachia de Ratisbonne, traduit en Francais et accompagne du texte et des notes historiques, geographiques, et litteraires (Paris, 1831); into German by D. Ottensosser, with a Hebrew commentary (Furth, 1844); into English by Dr. A. Benisch. See First Bibl. Jud. 3:79 sq.; Wolf, Bibl. Hebr. 1:888; 3:956; Basnage, Histoire d s Juifs, page 655 (Taylor's English transl.); Gratz, Gesch. der Juden, 6:259, 424; Zunz, Zir Geschichte u. Literatur, page 166; the same author in Asher's edition of Tudela's Itinerary, volume 2, No. 40, 43, 44, 47; Etheridge, Introd. to Hebr. Lit. page 214; Da Costa, Israel and the Gentiles, page 187. (B.P.) Petani a sort of cakes used anciently in Athens in making libations to the gods. They were substituted for animal sacrifices by the command of Cecrops. Petavel, Alfred F. a Swiss Protestant clergyman of note, was born near the close of the last century. He studied at the university in Berlin, and was the first recipient from that high school of the doctorate in philosophy. He was greatly instrumental in the establishment of the Swiss Missionary Society, and subsequently took no inconsiderable share in the doings of the Evangelical Alliance. The principal work, however, to which he devoted his best time, his talents, his energies, and his whole heart, was to bring the Jewish people into a more intimate personal contact with the Christians, and it is especially in this respect that his influence has extended beyond his little 3 country. He was a zealous member of the Universal Israelitish Alliance and of the Evangelical Alliance. He did not, at first, impress one as a pastor, a missionary, an apostle, a father of the Church, but rather as one of those individials described in the book of Genesis, who walked with God, who communed with him, like a patriarch or a seer. He died at the age of eighty. The addresses which he delivered were collected under the title of Discourses on Education. His Daughter of Zion, his Letter to the Synagogues of France, and many other writings, will always remain as imperishable records of the zeal which animated him for the re- establishment of the Jews as a people. Petavius, Dionysius (also called DENIS PETAU), one of the most celebrated of French scholars, and iifluential in the councils of the Jesuits, to whose order he belonged, was born at Orleans Aug. 21, 1583. His father, who was a man of learning, seeing strong parts and a genius for letters in his son, took all possible means to improve them to the utmost. He used to tell his son that he ought to qualify himself so as to be able to attack and confound "the giant of the Allophylae;" meaning the redoubtable Joseph Scaliger, whose abilities and learning were supposed to have done such service to the Reformed. Young Petavius seems to have entered into his father's views; for he studied very intensely, and afterwards levelled much of his erudition against Scaliger. He joined the study of mathematics with that of belles- lettres; and then applied himself to a course in philosophy, which he began in the College of Orleans, and finished at Paris. After this he maintained theses in Greek and in Latin, which he is said to have understood as well as his native language, the French. In maturer years he had free access to the king's library, which he often visited in order to consult Latin and Greek manuscripts. Among other advantages which accompanied his literary pursuits was the friendship of Isaac Casaubon, whom Henry IV called to Paris in 1600. It was at his instigation that Petavius, young as he was, undertook an edition of The Works of Synesius; that is, to correct the Greek from the manuscripts, to translate that part which yet remained to be translated into Latin, and to write notes upon the whole. He was but nineteen when he was made professor of philosophy in the University of Bourges; and spent the two following years in studying the ancient philosophers and mathematicians. In 1604, when Morel, professor of Greek at Paris, published The Works of Chrysostom, some part of Petavius's labors on Synesius was added to them. (From the title of this 4 work we learn that he then Latinized his name Poetus, which he afterwards changed into Petavius. His own edition of The Works of Syneius did not appear till 1612.) He entered the Society of the Jesuits in 1605, and did great honor to it afterwards by his vast and profound erudition. He became zealous for the Roman Catholic Church; and there was no way of serving it more agreeable to his humor than by criticising and abusing its adversaries. Scaliger was the person he was most bitter against; but he did not spare his friend Casaubon whenever he came in his way. There is no occasion to enter into detail about a man whose whole life was spent in reading and writing books, and in performing the several offices of his order. The history of a learned man is the history of his works; and by far the greater part of Petavius's writings were to support popish doctrines and discipline. But it must be confessed that in order to perform his task well he made himself a universal scholar. He died at Paris December 11, 1652. In 1633 he published an excellent work entitled Rationale Temporum; it is an abridgment of universal history, from the earliest times down to 1632, digested in chronological order, and supported all the way by references to proper authorities. It went through several editions; many additions and improvements have been made to it, both by Petavius himself, and by Perizonius and others after his death; and Le Clerc published an abridgment of it as far down as to 800, under the title of Compendium Historiae Universalis, in 1697 (12mo). Petavius's chef-d'oeuvre is his "Opus de Theologicis Dogmatibus, nunc primum septem voluminibus comprehensum, in meliorem ordinem redactum, auctoris ipsius vita, ac libris quibusdam numquam in hoc opere editis locupletatum, Francisci Antonii Zachariae ex eadem Societate Jesu extensium principum Bibliothecae Praefecti dissertationibus, ac notis uberrimis illustratum" (Ven. 1757, 7 volumes, fol.). It is full of choice erudition, but unfortunately his death cut it short, and it lacks completeness. Besides other services, Petavius deserves to be acknowledged as the first theologian who brought into proper relations history and dogmatics. Muratori regards him as the restorer of dogmatic theology. In the opinion of Gassendus (Vit. Pereschii) Petavius was the most consummate scholar the Jesuits ever had; and indeed we cannot suppose him to have been inferior to the first scholars of any order, while we consider him waging war, as he did frequently with success, against Scaliger, Salmasius, and other like chiefs in the republic of letters. His judgnent, as may easily be conceived, was inferior to his learning; and his controversial writings are full of that sourness and spleen which appears so manifest in all the prints of his countenance. Bayle has 5 observed that Petavius did the Socinians great service, though unawares and against his intentions. The Jesuit's original design, in the second volume of his Dogmata Theologica, was to represent ingenuously the doctrine of the first three centuries. Having no particular system to defend, he did not carefully state the opinions of the fathers, but only gave a general account of them. By this means he unawares led the public to believe that the fathers entertained false and absurd notions concerning the mystery of the Three Persons; and, against his intentions, furnished arguments and authorities to the Antitrinitarians. When made aware df this, and being willing to prevent the evil consequences which he had not foreseen, he wrote his Preface, in which he labored solely to assert the orthodoxy of the fathers, and thus was forced to contradict what he had advanced in the Dogmata. (Comp. Bull, On the Trinity.) See Werner, Geschichte der apologet. und polem. Literatur, volume 4; idem, Geschichte der katholischen Theologie (Munich, 1866); Dupin, Nouvelle Bibliotheque des Auteurs ecclesiastiques, s.v.; Simon, Hist. crit. des principaux Commentateurs; Alzog, Kirchengeschichte, 2:435; Christian Remembrancer, 55:484. (J.H.W.) Pe'ter (Pe>trov, a rock, for the Aram. ap;yKe), originally SIMON SEE SIMON (see below), the leader among the personal disciples of Christ, and afterwards the special apostle to the Jews.