Another Gr. name for the synajrogue is irpoor- '^X'Hi which occurs especially in Philo (in Flaccum, § 6, 7, 14, Leg. ad Gaium, § 20, 23, 43, 46), but is found also elsewhere (3 Mac 7", Ac 16" ; Jos. Vita, 54 ; inscriptions ap. Schiirer, GJV* ii. 443). It appears m Latin (proseucha) in Juv. Sat. iii. 296. As auKaYuTi) is shortened from oTko! avyayuiyijs, so is rpoaevx'/l from o^^•os irpoaevxvs. The corresponding Heb. expression is found in Deutero-Isaiaii, not only in 56' ('nVrn n-a, .I'^Bn n'3), but also in 60', where 'mnEn n-a is ren- dered in the LXX by A oUos r^s irpoatux^s tiov, so that the original reading must have been •r\hsn '1. The Jewish tradition-literature offers only once, in an anecdote of the Bab. Talmud {Gi(tin, 394), the half-Aramaic half-Heb. nSsn '2. Once (Midrash Tehillim on Ps 4) the synagogue is called Qipo
in'rsn, ' his (God's) place of prayer.' Philo has also TrpouevKT-qpiov, ' place of prayer ' {Vita Mosis, iii. 27). In an edict of the emperor Augustus the syna- gog\ie is called aa^^areiov, ' bouse of Sabbath- keeping' (Jos. Ant. XVI. vi. 2), to which corre- sponds in later times the Syr. "iin-i Nnzs' n>3, plur. •zv n'3 (see Paj-ne-Smith, col. 497).
One other term may be mentioned, htif^; nnjj used by the Agada as a personification of the whole body of Israel, the Jewish people. In the Tannaite literature the expression is still rare (see Bacher, Die dlteste Terminologie der jitdischen Schriftauslcgung, p. 85), but it is very frequent Lq the post-Tannaite Agada (from the 3rd cent, on- wards ; see the passages cited under ' Gemeinde Israels ' in the Index to Bacher's Agada der pal. Ajnorder, vols. L ii. iii.). It is the same kind of personification as took place when the analogous terra iKKXtjiria was adopted as a designation for the whole body of adherents of the Christian faith. For the use of the term by the Church Fathers see Schiirer', ii. 432.
ii. Origin and History of the Synagoooi;. — 1. The first beginnings of the synagogue as an institution of Judaism are involved in complete obscurity. The later Tradition represents it, like otlier more recent institutions, as in existence from the earliest times. According to the Pal. Targ. on Ex 18-°, this verse already contains an allusion to the prayers to be repeated in the synagogues ; the Targ. on 1 Ch 16^' states that the great place of ofi'ering at Gibeon was a synagogue. An anonymous jNIidrash {Pesikta, ed. Buber, 1296) makes three contemporary prophets proclaim the word of God in three dili'erent places : Jeremiah in the public squares, Zeplianiah in the synagogues, Huldah among the women. The ' house of the peojile ' ( Jer 39') w-as, according to a Midrash cited by D. Kimchi, the synagogue (see also Bashi's Com. ad loc. ; L. Low, Ocsnm. Schri/ten, iv. 8, wrongly cites here the Targum). Although a tradition of the 2nd cent, tells us that uneducated people were accustomed to call the synagogue n'3 K?y (Simon b. Eleazar, Shxibbath, 32a), this ex- planation of the expression oyn n'3 in Jeremiah cannot be taken seriously. Philo and Josephus (see Schiirer', ii. 429) both believed that the institu- tion of the synagogue goes back to Moses, and the same notion jierhaps finds expressiou in the words of the Apostle James in Ac 15*' ' For Jloses from generations of old {4k yeyeuiv dpxa/wv) hath in every city them that preach him, being read in the sjma- goijues every Sabbath.'
In all probability, the germs of the future in- stitution of the synagogue should be sought during the Babylonian exile. Thus the historical reality is not so very far removed from the view which the Targ. on Ezk 11" attaches to the words o.iS 'nNj BVD C''jp5^, namely, that when Israel was scattered among the nations God gave them the synagogue as a compensation for the loss of the sanctuary. Amongst the exiles torn from their homes, but brought nearer to God and His teaching, the need must have ma<le itself felt of a medium for cultivating, in common, religious emotions and for receiving religious instruction. The absence of the sacrificial cultus during the Exile, the higher significance to which Sabbath observ- ance attained, the regular fast-days (cf. Zee 7', Is 58) augmented this sense of need, which would find satisfaction in gatherings at fixed places and times. All these considerations, which were at work in Babylon, made their influence felt also in Palestine, when Israel after the Ketum struck new roots in the old home, and the religious life, in spite of the fact that the newlj'-built temple at Jerusalem was its central point, gained a basil independent of the sacrificial cultus. In particular,
SYNAGOGUE
SYA'AGOGUE
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the activity of Ezra and his successors the scribes cuiilcd the development of the religious life in a direction which was bound to lead to the rise of synagogues all over the country. Hence we may coiiliuenlly place the origin of the synagogue in Palestine at t!ie period of the Persian domination. There is indeecf no express and iinmistakable mention of the synagogue either in the Persian or in the hrst two centuries of the Greek era. Even the narratives about the religious persecutions under Antiochus Epinhanes are silent as to syna- gogues. At most, tlie 74th Psalm, if it really belongs to the Maccabaean age, may be cited as the earliest source where the synagogue is named ; for '?« "\;'V2 (v.") may very well "be interpreted, with Aquila and the Midrash on Psalms, as a name for the jilaces of assembly throughout the land con- secrated to God, lyc being thus a poetical equiva- lent of rD:3.T n'3 (Low cit«s, in illustration of the expression, iro n-; of Job 3(P ; cf., also, lyi n'3, Abuth, i. 4). — E.xpress notices of the sj'nagogue, so far as these are found in the literature, belong for the most part to the last century of the Second Temple. LJut in all cases where it is mentioned the synagoffue appears as an institution that has Ion" existed, and as the central point of the organ- ized social life of the Jews.