PROCHET, MATTEO: Italian Waldensian; b. at Lucerna San Giovanni (30 m. s.w. of Turin) Sept. 28, 1836; d. at Rome Feb. 16, 1907. He was educated at the Waldensian college of Torre-Pellice, and, after serving the required year in the army, he studied theology at Florence and spent a semester in the Presbyterian College, Belfast. After serving as an evangelist in Lucca and Pisa (1861-66), and Genoa (1866-70), he was the first Protestant clergyman to enter Rome after its capture by Victor Immanuel, and there founded a Waldensian church (1870), of which he was pastor till 1875, although in 1871 he had been appointed president of the Italian Evangelization Committee, a position which he retained until 1906, when he was compelled to retire from active life on account of the age limit. He must be regarded as almost the pioneer in the modern active Protestant propaganda in Italy.

PROCKSCH, OTTO: German Protestant; b. at Eisenberg (34 m. s.w. of Leipsic), Saxe-Altenburg, Aug. 9, 1874. He was educated at the universities of Tübingen, Leipsic Erlangen, and Göttingen (Ph.D., Leipsic, 1899), and at the seminary for preachers in Leipsic (1898-1900). In 1901 he became privat-docent for Old-Testament exegesis at

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the University of Königsberg; was made extraordinary professor at Greifswald in 1906, and ordinary professor in 1909. He has written Ueber die Blutrache bei den vorislamischen Arabern and Mohammeds Stellung zu ihr (Leipsic, 1899); Geschichtsbetrachtung and geschichtliche Ueberlieferung bei den vorexilischen Propheten (1902); Das nordhebräische Sagenbuch (1906); Johannes der Täufer (1907); and Studien zur Geschichte der Septuaginta (1910).

PROCLUS. See NEO-PLATONISM III., § 3.

PROCOPIUS OF CAESAREA: Byzantine historian; b. at Cæsarea in Palestine toward the close of the fifth century; d. probably after 562. After 527 he was the legal companion and secretary of Belisarius in the campaigns in Persia, Africa, and Italy, so that as an eye-witness he described in eight books the wars against the Persians, Vandals, and Goths. More important for ecclesiastical conditions were his six books, Peri ktismatan (De ædificiis Justiniani imperatoris, Paris, 1663, Eng. transl., On Justinian's Buildings, London, 1886); his Anecdota contain only scandals concerning Justinian, Theodora, Belisarius and his wife, and the entire court. Theologically he was orthodox; to him Christ was God, and Mary the mother of God. He was plainly disinclined to dogmatic partizanship; and Christian and classical elements appear unfused in his writings. As a historian he is of the highest importance. His works have been edited by L. Dindorf in CSHB (3 vols., Bonn., 1833-38); by J. Haury (3 vols., Leipsic, 1905-06); and there is an edition, with Italian translation, of the wars of the Goths by D. Comparetti (2 vols., Rome, 1895-1896), and a German translation in Geschichtsschreiber der deutschen Vorzeit (6th year, vols. ii.-iii., by D. Costi, Leipsic, 1885).

(N. BONWETSCH.)

BIBLIOGRAPHY: F. Dahn, Prokop von Cäsarea, Berlin, 1885; L. von Ranke, Weltgeschichte, iv. 2, pp. 285 sqq., Leipsic, 1883; F. J. Hartmann, Untersuchungen über den Gebrauch des Modi in der Historien des Prokops, Regensburg, 1903; Krumbacher, Geschichte, pp. 230-230 (with fine list of helps); DCB, iv. 487-188.