SYNAGOGUE
380
SYNAGOGUE
wpofftvxvi, house of prayer (cf. Philo, "In Flacc",
gg6.7;"AdGaium", §§20.23.43). This phrase is in the
Septuagint translation of Isaias (Ivi, 7): "My house
shall be called the house of prayer [n'?E,"l p-S] for all
nations." The Latinized proseucha of Juvenal (Sat.,
Ill, 296) means the Jewish house of prayer or syna-
gogue. Josephus (Antiq., XVI, vi, 2) cites an edict
of .\ugustus which calls the Synagogue o-a/S/SaTtiov, the
Sabhalh-house.
II. Origi.m. — Obscurity enshrouds the first begin- nings of the synagogue. The Jerusalem Talmud (in Ex., xviii, 20) dates it from the time of Moses; so, too, the tradition of the Alexandrian Jews, ac- cording to the witness of Philo, "De Vita Mosis" (III, 27) and Josephus, "Contra Apion." (II, 17).
This rabbinical tradition is not reliable. It was prob-
ably during the Babylonian captivity that the syna-
gogue became a national feature of Hebrew worship.
Afar from their Temple, the exiled Jews gathered into
local meeting-houses for pubhc worship. Sacrifice
was denied them; prayer in common was not. The
longer their e.xile from the national altar of sacrifice,
the greater became their need of houses of prayer;
this need was met by an ever-increasing number of
synagogues, scattered throughout the land of exile.
From Babylonia this national system of synagogue
worship was brought to Jerusalem. That the sjTia-
gogue dates many generations earlier than Apostolic
times, is clear from the authority of St. James:
"For Moses of old time [ix yeveCiv apxalwv] hath in
every city them that preach liim in the sj-nagogues,
where he is read every sabbath" (Acts, x\', 21).
III. History. — From the outset of Christianity the synagogue was in full power of its various functions; the New Testament speaks thereof fifty-five times. The word is used to denote the body pohtic of the Jews twelve times: twice in Matthew (x, 17; xxiii, 34); once in Mark (xiii, 9); three times in Luke's Gospel (viii, 41; xii, 11; x.\i, 12), and four times in his Acts (vi, 9; ix, 2; xxii, 19; xx"vi, 11); and twice in the Johannine writings (Apoc, ii, 9; iii, 9). The more restricted meaning of meeting-house occurs forty- three times in the New Testament — seven in Mat- thew (iv, 23; vi, 2. 5; ix, 35; xii, '.t; xiii, .'54; xxiii, 0); seven times in Mark (i, 21, 23, 29, 39; iii, 1; vi, 2; xii, 39); twelve times in Luke's Gospel (iv, 15; 16, 20, 28, 33, 38, 44; vi, 6; vii, 5; xi, 43; xiii, 10; xx, 46), and fourteen times in his Acts (ix, 20; xiii, 5, 14, 42;
xiv, 1; XV, 21; xvii, 1, 10, 17; x\'iii, 4, 7, 19, 26; xix,
8); twice in John (vi, 59; xviii, 20); once in James
(ii, 2). Our Lord taught in the .sj'nagogues of Naza-
reth (Matt., xiii, 54; Mark, vi, 2; Luke, iv, 16), and
Capharnaum (Mark, i, 21; Luke, vii, 5; John, vi, 59).
Saint Paul preached in the synagogues of Damascus
(Acts, Lx, 20), Salamina in Cyprus (Acts, xiii, 5),
Antioch in Pisidia (Acts, xiii 14), Iconium (.xiv, 1),
PhiUppi (xvi, 13), Thessalonica (xvii, 1), Beroea
(xvii, 10), Athens (xvii, 17), Corinth (xviii, 4, 7),
and Ephesus (xviii, 19). It is worthy of note that
despite his frequent use of the Jewish meeting-house,
St. Paul in his stem antagonism never once deigns
to make mention of the synagogue. He designates
Judaism by the term "circumcision", and not, as
do the Evangelists, by the word "sjiiagogue".
And even in speaking of the Jews as "the circum-
cision", St. Paul avoids the received word irepiro^^,
"a cutting around", a word employed by the Alexan-
drian Philo for Judaism and reser\-ed by the Apostle
for Christianity. The sworn foe of the "false cir-
cumcision" takes a current word KaraTo/ui?, "a cutting
down", and with the vigourous die of his fancy,
t imps thereon an entirely new and exclusively
P inline meaning — the false circumcision of Judaism.
\t the time of the destruction of Jerusalem
\ D. 70) there were in the city itself 394 sjiiagogues, ording to the Babylonian Talmud (Kethub. 105 a) ;
t^O according to the Jerusalem Talmud (Megilla73d).
15 ides these sjTiagogues for the Palestinian Jews,
h group of Hellenistic Jews in Jerusalem had its
\-n sjTiagogue — the Libertines, the Alexandrians,
1 e Cyrenians, the CiUcians, etc. (Acts, vi, 9). Jose- I 1 Ub speaks of the synagogue which Agrippa I
I cted in Dora (.\ntiq., XIX, vi, 3), of the Ca>sa- r m sjTiagogue which revolted against Rome (Bell, Jud , II, xiv, 4), of the great sjTaagogue of Tiberias (\ita, 54), and of the sjTiagogue of Antioch in S\ria to which the sacred vessels were borne aw ly in the time of the Seleucid War (Bell. Jud., \ II iii, 3). Philo is authority for the existence, iurmg the first century A. D., of many s>-nagogues in
Alexandria (Leg. ad Gaium, 20), and of not a few in Rome (Ibid., 23). In Northern Galilee, are nu- merous ruins whose style of architecture and inscrip- tions are indications of sj-nagogues of the second and, maybe, the first centurj' .\. D. The Franciscans are now engaged in the restoration of the ruined sj-na- gogue of Tel Hum, the site of ancient Capharnaum. This beautiful and colossal synagogue was probably the one in which Jesus taught (Luke, vii, 5). Of the ruined sj-nagogues of Galilee, that of Kefr Bir'im is the most perfectly preserved. Various Greek inscriptions, recently discovered in Lower Egj'pt, tell of sj-nagogues built there in the days of the Ptole- mies. A marble slab, unearthed in 1902 some twelve miles from Alexandria, reads: "In honour of King Ptolemy and Queen Berenice, his sister and wife, and their children, the Jews (dedicate) this irpoireirx?)". Both the Jerusalem and the Babylonian T;ilmud make mention of numerous Gahlean STOagogues which were centres of rabbinical literan,-. and religious and political influence at Sepphoris, Tiberias, Scythopolis, etc. Every Jewish settlement Wiis obliged by Tal- mudic law to have its synagogue; the members of the comnuniity could oblige one another to the buikling and niaintaiuing thereof; indeed the members of the Jewish conniumity were designated "sons of the sjTi.agogue". For further historj' of the sjTia- gogue, see .Jews and Judaism.
The Great Synagogue is worthy of special mention, as to it is a.ssigned, by Jewish trailition, the important role of forming the Canon of the Old Testament. It is said lo have been founded by Ksdnis in the mi<ldle of the fifth century H. r., and to have been a permanent and legislative as.semblage for two and a half centuries. The Mishuah (Pirke .\both, I, 1)
