Synagogue

Synagogue (συναγωγή; other equivalent terms are προσευχή or προσευκτήριον, i.e. chapel; Heb. אֵל מוֹעֵד, or assembly of God; Aramaic בי כנשתא, כנשתא), in the Jewish place of worship in post-Biblical and modern times. However obscure the origin of these establishments, they eventually became so important and characteristic as to furnish a designation of the Jewish Church itself in later literature.

It may be well to note at the outset the points of contact between the history and ritual of the synagogues of the Jews, and the facts to which the inquiries of the Biblical student are principally directed. 1. They meet us as the great characteristic institution of the later phase of Judaism. More even than the Temple and its services, in the time of which the New Test. treats, they at once represented and determined the religious life of the people. 2. We cannot separate them from the most intimate connection with our Lord's life and ministry. In them he worshipped in his youth and in his manhood. Whatever we can learn of the ritual which then prevailed tells us of a worship which he recognized and sanctioned; which for that reason, if for no other, though, like the statelier services of the Temple, it was destined to pass away, is worthy of our respect and honor. They were the scenes, too, of no small portion of his work. In them were wrought some of his mightiest works of healing (Mt 12:9; Mark 23; Lu 13:11). In them were spoken some of the most glorious of his recorded words (4:16; Joh 6:59); many more, beyond all reckoning, which are sot recorded (Mt 4:23; Mt 13:54; Joh 18:20, etc.). 3. There are the questions, leading us back to a remoter past. In what did the worship of the synagogue originate? What type was it intended to reproduce? What customs, alike in nature, if not in name, served as the starting-point for it? 4. The synagogue, with all that belonged to it, was connected with the future, as well as with the past. It was the order with which the first Christian believers were most familiar, from which they were most likely to take the outlines, or even the details, of the worship, organization, and government of their own society. Widely divergent as the two words and the things they represented afterwards became, the ecclesia had its starting- point in the synagogue.

I. Name and its Signification. — The word συναγωγή, which literally signifies a gathering, is not unknown in classical Greek (Thucyd. 2, 18; Plato, Republ. 526 D), but became prominent in that of the Hellenists. It appears in the Sept. as the translation of not less than twenty-one Hebrew words in which the idea of a gathering is implied (Tromm, Concordant. s.v.). But, although the word is there used to denote any kind of gathering, heap, mass, or assemblage, such as a gathering of fruits (for the Heb. אסŠ, אסיŠ, Ex 23:16; Ex 34:22), of water (מקום, מקוה, Ge 1; Ge 9; Le 11:36), a heap of stones (גל, Job 8:17), a band of singers (מחול, Jer 31:4,13), a mass or multitude of people or soldiers (אספה, חיל, Isa 24:22; Eze 37:10), a tribe or family (בית, 1Ki 12:21), etc., yet its predominant usage in this version is to denote an appointed meeting of people either for civil or religious purposes, thus being synonymous with ἐκκλησία. This is evident from the fact that the Sept. uses συνάγωγή 130 times for the Hebrew עֵדָה, and twenty-five times for קָהָל, which in seventy instances is rendered in the same version by ἐκκλησία. The synonymous usage in the Sept. of these two expressions is also seen in Pr 5:14, where ἐκκησία and συναγωγή stand in juxtaposition for the Hebrew קהל and עדה. In the books of the Apocrypha, the word, as in those of the Old Test., retains its general meaning, and is not used specifically for any recognized place of worship. For this the received phrase seems to be τόπος προσευχῆς (1 Macc. 3, 46; 3 Macc. 7:20). In the New Test., however, we find συναγωγή, like ἐκκλησία, used metonymically, more especially for an appointed and recognized Jewish place of worship (Mt 4:23; Mt 6:2,5; Mt 9:35, etc.). Sometimes the word is applied to the tribunal which was connected with or sat in the synagogue in the narrower sense (Mt 10:17; Mt 23:34; Mr 13:9; Lu 21:12; Lu 12:11). Within the limits of the Jewish Church it perhaps kept its ground as denoting the place, of meeting of the Christian brethren (Jas 2; Jas 2). It seems to have been claimed by some of thepseudo-Judaizing, half-Gnostic sects of the 'Asiatic churches for their meetings (Re 2; Re 9). It was not altogether obsolete, as applied to Christian meetings, in the time of Ignatius (Fp. ad Trall. c.v; ad Polyc. c. 3). Even in Clement of Alexandria the two words appear united as they had done in the Sept. (ἐπὶ τὴν συναγωγὴν ἐκκλησίας, Strom. 6:633). Afterwards, when the chasm between Judaism and Christianity became wider, Christian writers were fond of dwelling on the meanings of the two words which practically represented them, and showing how far the synagogue was excelled by the ecclesia (August. Enarr. in Psalm 80; Trench, Synonyms of N.T. § 1). The cognate word, however, σύναξις, was formed or adopted in its place, and applied to the highest act of worship and communion for which Christians met (Suicer, Thesaur. s.v.).