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Originally posted by Masonic Light
Originally posted by esther
Forgive me for what may seem like a dumb question, but the way you use "profane", do you mean something similar to "common" or "uninitiated"? Like "sacred" vs. "profane" in religious texts?
Yes, it is from the Latin profanum, meaning "before the temple", i.e., the uninitiated. According to Mackey the Eleusinian Mysteries of Ancient Greece opened with the Kerux giving the proclamation "Depart hence, ye Profane", which signified that only the initiated could remain present.
This is somewhat different than the vulgar use of the word, which is now common, but which also probably originated with the ancient Greeks, i.e., the philosophers. Plato considered the "profane" to consist not only of the uninitiated, but all non-philosophers, and both he and Aristotle often referred to the difference between a priori knowledge and "profane" knowledge; for example, the philosophers considered the existence of divine unity in nature to be a priori knowledge, while the belief that rivers were ruled by nymphs, and the seas ruled by a deity named Poseidon was profane knowledge. Eventually, the word "profane" came to signify anything common place, and is now antiquated in its original meaning, used today in its original sense mostly by Masonic writers and philosophers who call "common sense" by its technical philosophical terms, "naive realism" or "profane realism".
Probably more than you wanted to know.
Fiat Lvx.