Profane
(, trodden under foot; profanus, outside the shrine)
The word denotes not simply what is common (see, Clean), but a temper which despises sacred things (1Ti 1:9); cf. profane language. Esau was profane (Heb 12:16) because he despised his spiritual birthright. St. Paul is accused of profaning the Temple (Act 24:6) by bringing Gentiles into it. It is the temper of those who know the good and yet despise it. In the early days of Christianity we do not find this sin remarked on, because Christianity was then novel and unrecognized, and hostility to it was passionate rather than profane. But later, as in 1 and 2 Tim., when it became a tried institution with recognized doctrine (1Ti 4:6), and had a clientele amongst men, then there was room for this sin. The term profane is applied especially to those who under cover of Christianity foist their own errors and deceits upon the Church. Judaism from behind and Gnosticism coming on in frond are the worst offenders. They simulated Christianity and brought their mischief into its very centre. Thus profane fables (1Ti 4:7) recalls the foolish stories of Rabbinical preaching (Tit 1:10; Tit 1:14). Profane babblings and oppositions of knowledge falsely so-called (1Ti 6:20, 2Ti 2:16), if they are not Gnostic, are leading to Gnosticism, its hair-splittings, cloud of words, pride of knowledge, unnatural asceticism, and moral looseness. Gnosticism, with all that led up to it, was peculiarly profane, because it brought into the meekness of Christianity the dialectical pride of the West and the caste feeling of the East; it pretended to have special knowledge; it made purity into a formal distinction between matter and spirit (see Clean); it indulged in capricious philosophical views of Christian truth, and became a masquerade of sacred things.
Literature.-A. Edersheim, LT_4, 1887, i. 448; F. J. A. Hort, Judaistic Christianity, 1894, p. 138; W. Mceller, History of the Christian Church, Eng. tr._, i. [1892] 129-153; J. B. Lightfoot, Colossians and Philemon, new ed., 1879, pp. 73-113; for analysis of present-day Gnosticism, P. T. Forsyth, Positive Preaching and Modern Mind, 1907, pp. 118-123.
Sherwin Smith.
Fuente: Dictionary of the Apostolic Church
PROFANE
A term used in opposition to holy; and in general is applied to all persons who have not the sacred character, and to things which do not belong to the service of religion.
Fuente: Theological Dictionary
Profane
(, chandph, Jer 23:11; , Heb 12:16). To profane is to put holy things to vile or common uses; as the money- changers did the Temple, by converting a part of it into a place of business (Mat 21:12), and as those do who allow secular occupations to engross any part of the Sabbath under the old, or of the Lord’s day under the new dispensation (Exo 20:8-10). Esau, for despising his birthright and its privileges, is styled by the apostle a profane person (Heb 12:16). The term is also used in opposition to holy. Thus the general history of ancient nations is styled profane, as distinguished from that contained in the Bible; profane writings are such as have been composed by heathens, in contradistinction from the sacred books of Scripture, and the writings of Christian authors on sacred subjects.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Profane
PROFANE.To profane is to make ceremonially unclean, to make unholy. And so a profane person (Heb 12:16) is an ungodly person, a person of common, coarse life, not merely of speech.
Fuente: Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible
Profane
In the general sense of this word we readily understand that by doing any act contrary to God’s holy law, such as breaking the Sabbath, touching holy things with polluted or defiled hands, and the like, we profane them. But while these things are plain enough, and cannot well be mistaken, there are some other cases where the word to profane is used in Scripture, that may not be so generally apprehended.
In the law of Moses we find this precept, Deu 20:6 “And what man is he that hath planted a vineyard, and hath not yet eaten of it? let him go and return unto his house, lest he die in the battle, and another man eat of it.” In the margin of the Bible the word is rendered, instead, of eaten, hath not made it common, that is, profaned it. And agreeably to this we find the general precept concerning the fruit of the vineyard, Lev 19:23-25 “And when ye shall come into the land, and shall have planted all manner of trees for food, then ye shall count the fruit thereof as uncircumcised: three years shall it be as uncircumcised unto you: it shall not be eaten of. But in the fourth year all the fruit thereof shall be holy to praise the Lord withal. And in the fifth year shall ye eat of the fruit thereof, that it may yield unto you the increase thereof; I am the Lord your God.” It should seem very evidently by these Scriptures, that things were considered uncircumcised and unclean in the first product of them; but after the time limited they were no longer unclean, but were now brought into common use, and were profane; that is, were to be considered fit for common use. So that the word profane means common. Hence the prophet Jeremiah was, commissioned to tell the people, that when the Lord returned again the captivity of his people, “they should yet plant vines upon the mountains of Samaria, and that the planters should plant and eat them as common things.” In the margin of the Bible it is, shall profane them. (Jer 31:4-5) The sense is, that they should enjoy them in common as privileged things.
Let us add one Scripture more in proof. Our blessed Lord, in the days of his flesh, walking through the cornfields, and his disciples eating of the ears of corn on the Sabbath-day, were reproved by the pharisees for it. The Lord made this answer: “Have ye not read in the law, how that on the Sabbath days the priests in the temple profane the Sabbath, and are blameless?” (Mat 12:5) Now it doth not appear from what we meet with in the law, that the priests did any thing particularly on the Sabbath-day of defilement; therefore the profaning Christ speaks of cannot mean what, in the common acceptation of the word, we should call profaneness. But if we interpret this expression of our Lord concerning profaning the temple by the analogy of Scripture, and not our ordinary sense of the word, it would follow that the priests were considered blameless in the temple in using the Lord’s blessings, of what kind soever they were, to the Lord’s glory, when the three years of their uncircumcised state had passed as appointed by the Lord. Then those things were, as the prophet Jeremiah had observed, to be eaten as common or profane things.
If these observations serve to throw a light on the Scriptural word profane, they also serve to give a clear apprehension of our Lord’s meaning concerning the profaneness of the priests in the temple, and remaining blameless. In this sense the whole is clear; but without it there is a great difficulty in accepting the word profane in the ordinary way of somewhat that is defiled, and the priests defiling the temple, and yet being free from blame.
The sense of the name given to Esau is upon this ground plain and intelligible. He is called a profane person, who for one morsel of meat sold his birthright. (Heb 12:16) The expression of profane person doth not simply mean a defiled person, for in this sense all the Jacobs of God are unclean and defiled as well as the Esaus; but the profaneness means, the low esteem which Esau had to the birthright of the promise in Christ, which he despised, and to shew his contempt of it sold it for a morsel of present food. He regarded not Christ.
Will the reader indulge me with humbly offering one thought more on this subject? We find by the law that the fruits of the trees in Canaan were prohibited for three years, and the reason given was, that they were uncircumcised; but that then in the fourth year, after a circumcision had taken place, all the fruit was declared holy unto the Lord; and the fifth year the fruits were deemed profane for use. I do not presume to speak decidedly upon the subject-I rather write humbly to enquire than to decide; but I would venture to ask, whether these things were not typical of the Lord Jesus Christ and his salvation? When, by the three years of Christ’s ministry and death, redemption-work was completed, and believers by the circumcision of the Spirit are brought into a state of regeneration and justification before God, all the fruits of the Spirit are like the plants upon Samaria; they shall then profane them as common things; they shall do as the priests did, and be blameless; they shall enter into the full enjoyment of them as common things. “To the pure all things are pure.” What God hath cleansed we are commanded not to call common or unclean. (Tit 1:15; Act 10:15)
Fuente: The Poor Mans Concordance and Dictionary to the Sacred Scriptures
Profane
pro-fan (verb , halal, adjective , halal, , hol; , bebeloo, , bebelos): From profanus, before (i.e. outside) the temple, therefore unholy, polluted, secular, is of frequent occurrence (verb and adjective) in both the Old Testament and the New Testament. It occurs as the translation of hol in the King James Version only in Ezek (22:26, the Revised Version (British and American) common; 42:20; 44:23; 48:15, the Revised Version (British and American) for common use); as the translation of halal in Lev 21:7, Lev 21:14, the Revised Version margin polluted; and Eze 21:25, where, for the King James Version thou profane wicked prince of Israel, the Revised Version (British and American) has thou, O deadly wounded wicked one, the prince of Israel. To profane (halal) is seen in Lev 18:21; Lev 19:8; Neh 13:17, Neh 13:18; Psa 89:39; Isa 43:28; Eze 22:8, Eze 22:26, etc. Profaneness in Jer 23:15 (hanuppah) is in the American Standard Revised Version ungodliness. In the New Testament profane occurs in the sense of unholy, godless, regardless of God and divine things (1Ti 1:9; 1Ti 4:7; 1Ti 6:20; 2Ti 2:16; Heb 12:16), and to profane, or violate, in Mat 12:5; Act 24:6. The verb is frequent in Apocrypha in 1 Macc (1:43, 45, 63; 2:34, etc.; also in 2 Macc 8:2; 10:5; compare 2 Esdras 15:8; Judith 4:3, 12; 1 Macc 1:48; 2 Macc 4:13). In numerous cases the Revised Version (British and American) substitutes profane for other words and phrases in the King James Version, as for to prostitute (Lev 19:29), an hypocrite (Isa 9:17), pollute (Num 18:32; Eze 7:21), etc.
Fuente: International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
Profane
bebelos (G952) Profane, Defiled
koinos (G2839) Common, Unclean
Bebelos suggests a trodden and trampled spot that is open to the casual step of every intruder or careless passer-by, or in the words of Thucydides, a chorion (G5564) bebelon (profane place). Adyton, a spot fenced and reserved for sacred uses that is not to be approached lightly, is exactly the opposite of bebelos. In the language of the Song of Solomon, an adyton is “a garden enclosed, a spring shut up, a fountain sealed” (Son 4:12). Perhaps the “profaneness” of a person or thing may be described negatively as the absence of any higher consecration, rather than as the active presence of the unholy or profane. Bebelos often is used with amyntos, anorgiastos, and as such with arcendus a sacris. In a similar way, artoi (G740) bebeloi (1Sa 21:4) are simply unconsecrated common loaves as contrasted with the showbread that the high priest had declared holy. The Latin profanus refers only to what is left outside of the temenos (sacred enclosure), to that which is pro fano (in front of the sanctuary) and which thus lacks the consecration of the temenos (sanctuary). And in English this is what we mean when we contrast sacred and profane history. The term profane history does not imply a positive profaneness but only that such history is not sacred; it is not a history that primarily deals with the kingdom of God and the course of that kingdom. At first this was the way bebelos was used. Only later did bebelos come to be contrasted with hagios (G40; Eze 22:6) and with hosios (G3741) and to be used with anosios, graodes and anomos.Only this later meaning allowed bebeloi to be used within the space of a few lines as a synonym for “defiled hands” (2Ma 5:16).
What is the relationship between bebelos and koinos? Before bringing koinos into such questionable company, let us observe that there are many honorable New Testament uses of koinos and its derivatives, such as koinonia (G2842) and koinonikos (G2843).In secular Greek, Dio Chrysostom characterized Socrates as koinos kai philanthropos (cf. G5363), one who did not give himself airs or withdraw from friendly conversation with others. Koinos also is capable of an even higher application to Christ, for some complained that he ate with publicans and sinners (Mat 9:10-11). In this noblest sense of the term, Christ was koinos. Although this is interesting to note, our primary concern here is with the use of koinos and koinoo (G2840) to refer to sacred things, which is an exclusively Jewish Hellenistic usage. If it were not for two exceptional examples (1Ma 1:47; 1Ma 1:62), one might claim that this usage was restricted to the New Testament. By comparing Act 21:28; Act 24:6, we have implicit evidence that at the time Acts was written such a use of koinos was unfamiliar and probably unknown to the heathen. Paul’s Jewish adversaries, when addressing their fellow countrymen, made this charge: “He has defiled [kekoinoke] this holy place” (Act 21:28). But in bringing this same accusation against Paul before Felix, a heathen, Paul’s opponents changed their words to “he tried to profane [bebelosai] the temple” (Act 24:6). The other language would have been out of place and perhaps even unintelligible.
Also note how in the New Testament koinos gradually encroached on bebelos’s original meaning, so that later the two words came to share this meaning. This resulted in koinos gradually assuming the larger share and being used more often. It is not difficult to see how bebelos gradually was pushed aside after the Septuagint was written. The Jews favored koinos, which replaced bebelos, because the former word, by virtue of its contrast with ekloge (G1589, selection) depicted the Jewish people as a “special people” who had no fellowship with anything unclean. Since koinos indicated less defilement than bebelos, it brought out more strongly Israel’s separation from anything common. That which was ceremonially unclean more and more broke down the barrier that separated it from that which was morally unclean, thus doing away with any distinction between them.
Fuente: Synonyms of the New Testament
Profane
an epithet applied to those who abuse and contemn holy things. The Scripture calls Esau profane, because he sold his birthright, which was considered a holy thing, not only because the priesthood was annexed to it, but also because it was a privilege relating to Christ, and a type of the title of believers to the heavenly inheritance, Heb 12:16. The priests of the race of Aaron were enjoined to distinguish between sacred and profane, between pure and polluted, Lev 10:10; Lev 19:7-8. Hence they were prohibited the use of wine during their attendance on the temple service, that their spirits might not be discomposed by excitement. To profane the temple, to profane the Sabbath, to profane the altar, are common expressions to denote the violation of the rest of the Sabbath, the entering of foreigners into the temple, or the want of reverence in those that entered it, and the impious sacrifices that were offered on the altar of the Lord.