Professor

Use in the book

The church-revenue argument gives the first principal religious use. Those who appropriate clerical income are said to leave parsons without maintenance, increase ignorance and cause a decay of Christian Professors. The following question asks who will undertake theological study if its labour yields nothing to live on. The connection is between material support, learning and Christian religious life, not merely a fall in the number of academic officeholders.

In the consolation of a distressed believer, the wish to be a true Professor has a hopeful force. The person loves God’s children and saints, does not hate or persecute them, and wishes to be as they are and as the person formerly was. Burton treats this desire as a good sign of conversion and pardonability. His conclusion remains you are, or surely will be, reconciled; it does not make present reconciliation the only possible state. The surrounding counsel distinguishes desire from action and repentance in its nature from repentance in God’s acceptance, then places effectiveness in divine mercy.

Religious profession elsewhere can fail to match conduct or coexist with hesitation. The imagined Democritus would see many professed Christians but few imitators of Christ. The later catalogue even places hesitant people who profess religion among what Burton calls atheistical spirits, while explaining that the diversity of religions and clerical misconduct trouble them. That polemical category does not turn their hesitant profession into a straightforward avowal of unbelief, and Campanella is said both to raise and answer the argument.

Academic professors have an independent place in the work’s network of authorities. The Regius Professor’s lecture supports the relation between bodily and spiritual treatment; the note identifies Clayton at the 1621 academic exercises without claiming to have collated the lecture. Religious Professors in famous Universities are devout university teachers invoked to defend disputed reports. Religious describes their piety, not a subject professorship in religious studies, and their status is Burton’s reason for trusting them rather than independent proof of the reports.

Academic authority is also open to criticism. One man professeth for a thousand crowns while deserving, in the Cardano-attributed comparison, fewer than ten; a more deserving person cannot obtain ten. Here the verb refers to paid teaching, with the unfair relation between reward and merit carrying the argument. In the Latin attack on degree conferrals, Doctores and Professores are accused of profiting from hurried ceremonies and wealthy candidates. The continuation expressly praises the many learned and upright members of Church and universities, so the indictment must not become a universal definition of professors.

Medical professors need not hold chairs. Some Iatromathematicall professors are practitioners who combine medicine with astrology. Burton criticizes their certainty about matching healer, patient and treatment time, then questions his own ability to settle the wider matter. Professors and professours in the medicinal controversy are likewise practitioners whose ignorance or claim to treat every disease is attacked. The later turn is decisive: Burton distinguishes abuse from use and honours medicine as a noble science. The criticisms therefore do not amount to his rejection of medical care.

Profession names a field or calling in Burton’s defence of his own undertaking. He is a clergyman by profession and a physician by inclination, explicitly studying medical theory without intending to practise. His earlier question about a clergyman professing medicine tests a professional boundary, not a confession that he bought a church living or a claim that he already practises medicine. Later students turn towards law, medicine and divinity because those professions promise material advantage while other studies lack patrons.

The ordinary declaring sense has several objects. Burton calls himself a professed disciple on the particular issue of plain expression; the modern makes that an explicit declaration. Professed usurers are openly practising usury, an accusation contrasted with religious display. Professed enemies are overt enemies whom walls can exclude, unlike concealed human malice. None of these constructions requires a university office. In the reported history of magic, however, publicly professed is rendered publicly taught because the context names universities and subsequent condemnation.

Two less familiar uses resist a default academic gloss. Private professors occurs amid proposals for supervisors to allocate and regulate land; this edition reads it as private landholders whose interest may conflict with public benefit. The original remains professors, and the interpretation is tied to that setting. In the love discussion, Latin hujus negotii professor represents Socrates as claiming expertise in love despite disavowing other knowledge. Maximus of Tyre is a later admirer rather than a contemporary pupil, and the Latin nominal description becomes a verbal profession of expertise in the modern column.

Related entries

Divine: a clergyman or theologian as a distinct professional role.

Physician: medical standing, practice and duties.

Astrology: the particular art of iatromathematical practitioners.

Exhibition: educational support, lectureships and lectures.

Faith, assurance and presumption: pastoral interpretation of a believer’s desire.

Church patronage: revenues, study and religious livelihood.

Places to read

1. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 27–29; note 300professed intellectual allegiance and Latin professores as teachers.
2. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 15–22practising medicine, academic title and Burton’s profession/inclination distinction.
3. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 8–17profession, conduct and openly practised usury.
4. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 36–38; note 942Latin profiteri a trade.
5. Democritus Junior to the Reader · paragraphs 17–20private professors interpreted as landholders.
6. Human Excellence, the Fall, Miseries and Infirmities; Their Causes · paragraphs 20–22; note 1397promises made in sickness and Latin profitemur.
7. Human Excellence, the Fall, Miseries and Infirmities; Their Causes · paragraphs 36–38professed enemies contrasted with hidden malice.
8. Subsection 3 Witches and Magicians: How They Cause Melancholy · paragraphs 37–39magic said to have been publicly taught.
9. Subsection 4. The Stars as a Cause. Signs From Physiognomy, Metoposcopy and Chiromancy · paragraphs 22–24devout university professors as sources.
10. Subsection 15 Love of Learning or Excessive Study With a Digression on the Misery of Scholars and Why the Muses Are Melancholy · paragraphs 32–34financially advantageous professions.
11. Subsection 15 Love of Learning or Excessive Study With a Digression on the Misery of Scholars and Why the Muses Are Melancholy · paragraphs 16–19Christian Professors and diverted church revenues.
12. Subsection 15 Love of Learning or Excessive Study With a Digression on the Misery of Scholars and Why the Muses Are Melancholy · paragraph 39; note 3548Latin Professoribus as professors of law receiving honours.
13. Subsection 15 Love of Learning or Excessive Study With a Digression on the Misery of Scholars and Why the Muses Are Melancholy · paragraphs 4–9Latin Professores and contextually rendered professionibus, with the exception for good scholars.
14. Member 4. Subsection 1. Physician, Patient, Medicine · paragraphs 7–9astrological medical practitioners and Burton’s qualification.
15. Member 7 Against Rejection, Abuse, Injuries, Contempt, Disgrace, Insults, Slander, Mockery and the Like · paragraphs 5–8; note 7172professeth and profitetur as paid teaching.
16. Member 1 Subsection 1 Medical Treatment by Medicines · paragraphs 10–12; Member 1 Subsection 1 Medical Treatment by Medicines · paragraphs 20–24practitioners criticized, medicine defended.
17. Member 4 Subsection 1 Symptoms or Signs of Love Melancholy in Body and Mind Good and Bad Signs and So Forth · paragraphs 23–25Socrates as a professed expert in love.
18. Its Object, God; What His Beauty Is; How It Attracts. The Parts and People Affected · paragraphs 2–4Christian by profession amid a hostile comparison of churches.
19. General Symptoms: Love of Their Own Sect; Hatred of All Other Religions; Obstinacy and Ill Temper; Readiness to Undergo Any Danger or Adversity for It; Martyrs; Blind Zeal and Blind Obedience; Fasts and Vows; Belief in Incredible and Impossible Things. Particular Symptoms Among Pagans, Muslims, Jews and Christians; and Among Christians, Heretics Old and New, Schismatics, Scholastic Theologians, Prophets, Enthusiasts and So On · paragraphs 37–39; note 12571de professo, expressly, in the original mixed-language margin.
20. Member 2 Subsection 1 Religious Melancholy From Deficiency: Those Affected—Epicures, Atheists, Hypocrites, the Worldly and Complacent, Carnalists, All Impious People, Impenitent Sinners, and Others · paragraphs 1–3hesitant religious profession, not a simple avowal of unbelief.
21. Treatment of Despair Through Medicine, Good Counsel, Consolation, and So On · paragraphs 8–13wishing to be a true Professor, with present-or-future reconciliation.

In this edition

Christian Professors becomes those who profess Christianity; a true Professor becomes a true professing believer. The second passage retains are, or surely will be, reconciled. Elsewhere religious Professors becomes devout professors, and Iatromathematicall professors becomes practitioners of astrological medicine: the modifier supplies the particular art, while professors supplies the people practising it. The expanded phrases must not be assigned whole to the noun alone.

Latin forms are distinguished by grammar and layer. Marginal professores is accusative plural after aspernabatur and means teachers of the previously named art of oratory. Marginal Professoribus is dative plural: teachers of law receive imperial honours. Body Professores is nominative plural, joined with Doctores as the subject. Professor is singular and hujus negotii gives the field of professed expertise. The related professionibus is ablative plural after ex; academic ceremonies remains a contextual rendering pending collation, not a securely established universal gloss.

The deponent verb also needs its construction. Profiteri is an infinitive in practising a trade; profitemur is first-person plural: while ill, we declare what we will be; profitetur is third-person singular, here holding paid teaching employment. These are original marginal Latin with supplied editorial translations, not extra English body occurrences. The mixed-language margin’s de professo becomes expressly. None of these forms independently proves the truth of what is professed.

Existing routes include Iatromathematicall professors in Astrology, the Regius Professor’s lecture in Exhibition, and professed usurers in Usury. Divine already explains Burton’s clerical profession and medical inclination. These are shared contexts; the present article expands the professor and profess family rather than claiming new discoveries of those passages.

The supplied editor explains Julian, the fourth-century emperor called the Apostate by Christian writers, as the persecuting precedent in the church-revenue comparison. The marginal references are Nicephorus, book 10, chapter 5, and Coke’s Reports, part 2, folio 44; both passages remain to be checked in full.

professor; professing believer

Someone who professes a religion, without necessarily holding an academic office.

Grammar: Personal noun Professor or plural Professors; true qualifies the desired religious character.

Original text: “Christian Professors”. In the modern column: “those who profess Christianity”. The decline of professing Christians accompanies ignorance when clerical support is diverted. Burton argues from withheld clerical revenues to loss of learning and religious life; this is not a count of lost university chairs. The agent noun is unfolded as people who profess; Christian supplies Christianity.

Original text: “a true Professor”. In the modern column: “a true professing believer”. The sufferer wishes to be like God’s children and saints rather than hating or persecuting them. Burton treats this desire as a good sign, concluding you are, or surely will be, reconciled; present and future remain alternatives. Believer makes the religious object explicit; true preserves the desired sincerity.

professor; academic teacher

A university or public teacher, often identified by institution or subject.

Grammar: English personal noun Professor or plural Professors, with institutional or subject complements.

Original text: “our Regius Professor of physick”. In the modern column: “our Regius Professor of Medicine”. A lecturer supplies authority for the agreement of medical and spiritual care. The note identifies Thomas Clayton and the 1621 academic exercises; the precise lecture wording remains uncollated. Physick becomes Medicine; the academic title is retained.

Original text: “religious Professors in famous Universities”. In the modern column: “devout professors at famous universities”. The sources’ scholarly position and piety support Burton’s defence of including disputed reports. Burton appeals to authority while calling the stories trifles; his disparagement of Roma people in the contrast remains a hostile stereotype. Religious becomes devout; it describes the professors’ piety, not a university subject called religion.

professors; practitioners

People who profess or practise an art, here medicine or astrological medicine, not necessarily university officeholders.

Grammar: Plural personal nouns professors, Professors and printed professours.

Original text: “some Iatromathematicall professors”. In the modern column: “some practitioners of astrological medicine”. A subset of astrological physicians is criticized for excessive certainty. Some is retained; Burton states his judgement, then questions his ability to settle the broader controversy. Professors supplies practitioners; Iatromathematicall supplies of astrological medicine.

Original text: “ignorance of Professors”. In the modern column: “practitioners’ ignorance”. Professional ignorance is one element in the hostile catalogue of medical failings. The attack is not the final verdict: the passage distinguishes medicine’s use from abuse and affirms its value. Practitioners’ is the modern possessive counterpart of of Professors.

Original text: “as our professours do”. In the modern column: “as our practitioners do”. The charge concerns practitioners who undertake to treat every disease. Burton’s preceding Herodotus transition conflates Babylonian public advice with Egyptian specialization; the supplied note flags it, and the next unit checks the attack. Practitioners renders professours without imposing an academic chair.

private professors

In this particular land-management passage, private landholders or occupiers concerned with their own property.

Grammar: Plural noun phrase; a contextual interpretation of the printed professors, not a universal meaning assigned to the academic noun.

Original text: “private professors”. In the modern column: “private landholders”. Private holders are contrasted with supervisors allocating and regulating land for the public good. Burton’s imagined commonwealth criticizes many private holders while rejecting full equality and preserving ranks. The supplied edition renders the unusual printed phrase contextually from the preceding land allocation.

profession; calling

An occupation, vocation or recognized field of practice; also a declared religious allegiance in an appropriate context.

Grammar: English singular profession and plural Professions; by profession describes the role claimed or held.

Original text: “by my profession a Divine, and by mine inclination a physician”. In the modern column: “a clergyman by profession, a physician by inclination”. Burton distinguishes his clerical calling from his medical interest. He explicitly denies an intention to practise medicine; this is not a claim to medical qualification. Profession and inclination remain different grounds for the two descriptions.

Original text: “those three commodious Professions of Law, Physick, and Divinity”. In the modern column: “the three lucrative professions of law, medicine and divinity”. Students turn to financially advantageous callings because other studies lack support. Burton reports an economic pressure rather than declaring all study outside these fields worthless. Professions remains professions; commodious contributes lucrative, and Physick medicine.

Original text: “by his profession a Christian”. In the modern column: “professes Christianity”. A declared religious allegiance is distinguished from conformity to Burton’s own church. The following characterization of Ethiopian Christianity is Burton’s hostile generalization, not a neutral account. The nominal phrase by his profession a Christian becomes a verb with Christianity as its object.

profess; practise or teach

To practise an art, teach it publicly, or hold paid teaching employment, as determined by the object and setting.

Grammar: Verb forms professe, professed and professeth; the last is third-person singular present, not a past tense.

Original text: “professe physick”. In the modern column: “practise medicine”. A hypothetical clergyman’s right to practise is defended against a professional objection. A rhetorical question about professional boundaries; Burton later disclaims his own intention to practise. Practise renders professe; medicine renders physick.

Original text: “Magick hath been publikely professed”. In the modern column: “magic was publicly taught”. The setting is alleged former institutional teaching of magic. Burton reports historical tolerance followed by condemnation, while some still defend it; this is not an endorsement of the art. Publicly taught interprets the passive publicly professed in the university setting.

Original text: “One professeth (Cardan well notes) for a thousand Crowns”. In the modern column: “As Cardan rightly observes, one man holds a professorship for a thousand crowns”. Paid teaching is contrasted with the teacher’s alleged lack of merit. Cardano-attributed contrast of salary and desert; it is not a promise about the scholar’s actual worth. The whole construction expands professeth as holds a professorship; the salary comes from for a thousand Crowns.

profess; avow

To declare or avow a belief, allegiance or identity; professed means openly acknowledged or declared, not necessarily sincere.

Grammar: Verb profess or professeth; past participle professed used adjectivally; religious and secular objects determine what is avowed.

Original text: “I am therefore in this point a professed disciple of Apollonius”. In the modern column: “On this point, therefore, I declare myself a disciple of Apollonius”. Burton declares an intellectual allegiance in his defence of plain expression. The supplied note flags the problematic Socratic affiliation and does not treat Apollonius as Socrates’s contemporary pupil. The participial description becomes I declare myself; on this point limits the allegiance.

Original text: “professed Christians”. In the modern column: “professed Christians”. Declared Christian identity is contrasted with imitation of Christ in conduct. The opening conditional imagines Democritus viewing modern religious behaviour. The phrase is retained; the ethical contrast supplies the critique.

Original text: “professed usurers, gripers”. In the modern column: “openly practise usury and extortion”. Openly practised usury and extortion contradict conspicuous religious display. Others distinguishes these alleged hypocrites from the preceding followers moved by zeal or fear. Professed supplies openly; the agent nouns become practices under the modern verb practise.

Original text: “professed enemies”. In the modern column: “avowed enemies”. Known enemies can be kept outside walls, unlike hidden malice. The contrast is overt hostility against secret schemes within Burton’s general account of human injury. Avowed renders professed; it does not mean trained or professional enemies.

Original text: “profess religion, but timide & hæsitanter”. In the modern column: “profess religion, but timidly and hesitantly”. Religious profession can coexist with doubt induced by diversity and corrupt religious agents. Atheistical spirits is Burton’s broad polemical designation, here covering hesitant believers; Campanella both presents and answers the argument. Profess religion is retained; the Latin adverbs specify the hesitant manner.

professor; professores

A teacher or professed expert, including a person claiming mastery of a particular subject.

Grammar: Latin professor: nominative singular masculine; Professores: nominative plural subject; professores: accusative plural object; Professoribus: dative plural recipient.

Original margin: “ejus professores”. Supplied note translation or expansion: “its teachers”. Teachers of rhetoric are criticized for educating the tongue rather than the mind. Original Latin in the Philostratus-labelled margin; the note distinguishes Burton’s singular attribution from the comparison text’s young followers. Its refers to the art of oratory; teachers renders professores.

Original margin: “Jurisque Professoribus”. Supplied note translation or expansion: “professors of law”. Teachers of law join grammarians and logicians as recipients of imperial honours. The Erasmus-labelled margin idealizes former scholarly patronage; the exact letter is unlocated. Professoribus supplies professors; Juris supplies of law, and -que joins the class to the preceding recipients.

Original text: “Doctores enim & Professores”. In the modern column: “For doctors and professors”. Academic officers are accused of self-interested degree conferrals. Burton cites Junius, whose exact passage is uncollated; the passage explicitly exempts good Church and university members. Professores remains professors; Doctores supplies the separate doctors.

Original text: “hujus negotii professor”. In the modern column: “he professed expertise in this business”. Socrates is represented as an expert in love while disclaiming other knowledge. Burton attributes the comparison to Maximus of Tyre, a later admirer, not a contemporary disciple. The Latin noun becomes an English verbal construction; hujus negotii supplies in this business, not professor alone.

profiteor

To profess, declare, practise or teach; the local construction determines which activity is meant.

Grammar: Latin deponent verb: profiteri present infinitive; profitemur first-person plural present indicative; profitetur third-person singular present indicative.

Original margin: “artem aliquam profiteri”. Supplied note translation or expansion: “practising any trade”. The margin reports nobles’ disdain for trade. Clenardus-attributed original Latin with an editorial translation; the national and class generalizations are reported polemic. Profiteri supplies practising; artem aliquam any trade.

Original margin: “quales nos futuros esse infirmi profitemur”. Supplied note translation or expansion: “as we profess, when ill, that we will be”. Sick people declare what they will become; philosophy would preserve that intention in health. The margin and Burton’s English paraphrase differ; the note identifies Pliny’s recipient as Maximus, not printed Marius. The future infinitive futuros esse supplies will be, while infirmi describes the professing speakers when ill.

Original margin: “Ille profitetur mille coronatis”. Supplied note translation or expansion: “One holds a professorship for a thousand crowns”. The Latin expresses paid teaching in the unequal-reward comparison. Cardano-attributed margin; the salary contrast does not establish the profession’s whole value. Holds a professorship interprets profitetur; the crowns belong to the ablative salary phrase.

professio; academic ceremony

In this passage, a formal academic ceremony or degree conferral, under a qualified contextual interpretation.

Grammar: Latin ablative plural professionibus after ex; frequentibus and tumultuariis qualify those occasions.

Original text: “ex professionibus frequentibus, & tumultuariis potius quam legitimis”. In the modern column: “through frequent academic ceremonies, hasty rather than properly conducted”. The accused officers profit from frequent and disorderly degree proceedings. The note explicitly leaves this rendering subject to collation of Junius; the interpretation should not be generalized to every professio. Academic ceremonies is the edition’s contextual interpretation of professionibus; the adjectives supply frequency and the contrast in manner.

de professo

Expressly, deliberately or as an avowed undertaking.

Grammar: Latin adverbial phrase: de with ablative professo, used within an original English marginal sentence.

Original margin: “That writ de professo against christians”. Supplied note translation or expansion: “Who wrote expressly against Christians”. The margin identifies deliberate anti-Christian writing by the named adversaries. The comparison occurs in anti-papal polemic attributed to Benzo; the note flags uncertain identities and a mismatched Socrates reference. Expressly supplies de professo; against Christians corresponds to the English remainder.