slew the eagle. The myth is one of the deepest significance,
reflecting an old belief, and one which has on it the seal of Christ, as
sanctioned of Heaven, that the world was made for man and not man for
the world, only there is included within it an expression of the jealousy
with which Heaven watches the use mankind make of the gifts that, out of
her own special store, she bestows upon them. Prometheus is properly the
incarnation of the divine fire latent from the beginning in the soul of
man.

PROPAGANDA, a congregation, as it is called, at Rome, originated by
Gregory XIII., and organised in 1622 by Gregory XV., the object of which
is to propagate the faith of the Church among heathen nations and in
countries where there is no established hierarchy, connected with which
there is a college at Rome called the Congregatio de Propaganda Fide,
where pupils are instructed for different fields of missionary
enterprise.

PROPERTIUS, SEXTUS, a Latin elegaic poet, born in Umbria; went to
Rome and became a protege of Maecenas; devoted himself to the cultivation
of the poetic art; came under the spell of a gifted lady, to whom, under
the name of Cynthia, he dedicated the first products of his muse, and
whom he has immortalised in his poems; in his elegies he follows Greek
models; his poetry, and the poetic quality it displays, have been much
admired by Goethe (51-14 B.C.).

PROPHECY, properly not a forecasting of particular events and the
succession of them, but so far as it refers to the future at all is an
insight into the course of things in the time to come from insight into
the course of them in days gone by or now, and that is believed to be the
character of Hebrew prophecy, founded on faith in the immutability of the
divine order of things.

PROPHETS. See PRIESTS, HEBREW PROPHECY.

PROSELYTES, converts from heathenism to Judaism, of which there were
two classes: Proselytes of the Temple, those who accepted the ceremonial
law and were admitted into the inner court of The temple; and Proselytes
of the Gate, who accepted only the moral law, and were admitted only into
the outer court. They were a numerous class after the Dispersion, and
were reckoned at hundreds of thousands.

PROSERPINA, the daughter of Zeus and Demeter, who was carried off
while gathering flowers by PLUTO (q. v.), became Queen of Hades,
and is represented as sitting on an ebony throne beside him wearing a
crown. According to later tradi