There is no mention of the Great Syn. in Philo, Josephus, or the Ajiocrypha, not to speak of the OT itself. Nothing can be built on 1 Mac 14-', where ixeyiXr] avfayayii is not a technical term, but means simply ' a great gathering.' Only once in the Mishna (Pirlfe Aboth, i. 1) are the Men of the Great Sj-nago^ue (i^";!7 ncp •c'jn) mentioned : • Moses delivered the Torali to Joshua, Jo.sliua to the Elders, the Elders to the Prophets, and the Prophets to the Men of the Great S.ynagogue. These spake three words : Be cautious in pro- nouncing judgment. Make many disciples. Build up a hedge around the Torah.' Simon the Just is said (ib. 2) to have been 'of the remnants of the Great Synagogue (':.i 'd 'Trc).' This last statement does not imply that the Great Syn. had existed for centuries, for, although the Simon who was surnanu^i ' tlie Just ' was probably high priest c. 200 B.C., the author of the above notice is more likely to have identified him with Simon I. (c. 300). Now we know that the utmost confusion prevailed amongst the Jews as to the chronology of the period between the Ucturn from Exile and the conquestsof Alexander the Great. Hence it would be nothing extraordinary to find Simon, a con- temporary of Alexander, represented as a member of the same body as Ezra ; and, in the other direction, to find Joshua, Zerubbabel, Hnggai, Zechariah, Malachi, and even Daniel, introduced as members. As far, then, as the testimony of Pir/cc Aboth goes, it wouhl seem to favour the conclusion that the Great Syn., whatever it was, continued only for a single generation, instead of having a succession for centuries. It is noteworthy that the Talm. treati.se Peak (ii. 6) omits the Great Syn. as a ccmnecting link, and the succes-sion passes direct from the Prophets to the ZugOth or ' Pairs.'
In Baba bathra (14i) we read that the Men of the Great Syn. wrote Ezekiel, the Minor Prophets.
644 SYNAGOGUE, THE GREAT
SYRACUSE
Daniel, and Esther; and in the Aboth of B. Nathan (a post-Talra. treatise) they are said to have secured the acceptance of Proverbs, Canticles, and Ecclesiastes, winch had been formerly dis- puted. In Pesachim (50b) it is said that they fostered the work of copying the Torali and tephillim and vu'zuzuth (see Dt 6»'-). In an im- portant passage of Midrash TanchuTna (26c() certain corrections in the text of the OT, introduced in order to prevent misunderstanding, are also traced to the Men of the Great Syn., who are reported elsewhere (Jerus. Berakh. ii. 4) to have drawn up certain prayers, in particular the Shcmoneh Lsreh, or 18 Blessings {blrakfuith). To them are attri- buted also the directions for the reading ot the Book of Esther, and the keeping of Purim not on the 14th and loth, but on the 11th, 12lh, and 13th of the month Adar (Makkoth 23; Jerus. Mec,. i.). It is not, however, till the 16th cent, that we meet with the notion that the Men of the Great Svna-'ojrue collected the sacred books, and hxed the daSon of the OT. This notion makes its first appearance in the pages of the Massorcth Hammassoreth (1538) of Elias Levita, a Jewish contemporary of Luther.
The whole question of the Great Syn. was thorou'^hly investigated by Kuenen (see Literature at end), whose conclusions are accepted by the oreat majority of modern scliolars. The institu- tion, as it appears especially in media;val Judaism, is held by Kuenen to be simply a characteristic transformation of the great assembly described in Neh 8-10. Just as the Talmud represents the Sanhedrin as an assembly of scribes, because such were the schools at Jamnia and Tiberias, so the Great Synagogue, instead of being a popular assembly once called together for a defanite pur- pose, is converted into a permanent institution discharging functions similar to tliose of the scribes at a later period.
That a dim reminiscence of the original identity of the Great Svn and the convocation of Neh S^IU still lingered on even m Rabbinical circles, may be gathered fro™ some of the references For inswnce, in Midraah Ruth we read, \V hat did the Mi-" «' the Great Syn. do? They wrote a book and spread it out in the court of the temjjle. And at dawn of d?)' 'Jey '•ose and found it sealed. This « iMaf >« irrittm tn AeA 938.' A^in. there occurs in Dt lOi' this collocation, 'God the great, the strong, the terrible (((-lijni ni33,T Siijn Sxn).' It U repeatedly stated in the Talmud (e.g'. Jerus. Berakh. ii. 4) that this formula, which hail fallen into disuse, was again brought mto currency by tne Men of the Great Synanogue. It seems impossible to doubt that Kuenen is right in finding an allusion here to Neh 9>-, where all these epithets are found: Similar Talin. stat-ments api.ear to allude la Neh 95- «■ '■ '8. Once more, the variety of sUlement as to the number of members that constituted the Great bj-n. (sometimes 120, sometimes 85) may be explained from Neh 8-10. There were 84 that sealed the covenant, according to Neh lOi-a, and the number ii may be obtained either by adding the name of Ezra (who is not mentioned), or by supposing that a name has dropped out ot the list (either in v 1« or in v.*. where the Pesh actuallv supplies an extra name, Shephatiah). If, on the other hand, we wish to obtain th« number 120, this may be done, ■ ely, by combining the above list with the lists