14 Ac 1212- 25 135, 13 1537.39. «c; ExpT XXvl 372.
15 Ac 187 ; HDB ii. 829 ; Ramsay, St. Paul the Traveller, p. 2.16.
IS Ac 139 ; Deissmann, Bible .Sttidies, p. 313, with the refer- ences therein to 1 and 2 .Mac. and Jos. ; Ramsay, St. Paul fiic Traveller, p. 81 ; HDB iii. 897.
SYNAGOGUE.— 1. The name.— The name 'syna- gogue ' [avvayuiyri, Aram. KFif")?, Heb. npjj, 'as- sembly,' like iKK\i)ala, LXX for either .Tiy or 'jnB, 'congregation') denotes primarily the religious community of Jews (Sir S-J'-^", Lk "l-2", .Ac <J- 'iG" ; also used by the Juchco-Christians [Kpiphan. //fcr. XXX. 18; llarnaek, rtf/ Hermns Mam/, xi. 9]) but became afterwards the regular term for the Jewish place of worship. Aram. (<i?y"^?3 (see E. Levy, Neuhehr. inn/ thri/d. Wbrtcr/iurh iibcr die Talmud- im und Mii/iYi.ic/iim, Leipzig, 1876-89, s.u.)=Heb. ncjsn n-3, ' tlie house of the congregation ' (Mislina throughout) ; so Philo, ed. Mangey, ii. 458 ; Jos. A}tt. XIX. vi. 3, BJ H. xiv. 4-5, VH. iii. 3; Cod. Theodos. xvi. 8. Often Trpoaivxri is used lor oIkos vpoaevxn^, 'house of prayer' (LXX to Is 56' and 60' ; Philo, ed. Mangey, ii. 523, 535, 568, 596. 60(J ;
Jos. Vita, 54 ; Ac 16"), for npoaevKT-qpu
(I'hilo,
ed. Mangey, ii. 168), and for crafl/3oT(roi'= 'Sabbath place ' in an edict of Augustus (Jos. A nt. xvi. vi. 2). Through the Pauline writings iKKK-qala. (Er. (glise.) became the exclusive name for the Christian Church in the double sense of congregation and house of worship (Schiirer, GJVn.' [Leijizig, 1S9S] 433, 443 ; but cf. F. Spitta, Zur Gesc/dc/itc mid Lilteratur des Urchristentums, ii. [Gottingen, 1896] 343).
2. Origin, — Like the beginnings of all great movements in history, the origin of the institution is wrapped in obscurity. The ancients ascribed it to Moses (Philo, ed. Mangey, ii. 168; Jos. c. Apw7i. ii. 17 ; Ac 15-', Targ. Ex IS^" ; cf. Targ. Jg S-, 1 Ch W\ Is V\ Am 5'=). But the Mosaic system of sacrifices had no provision made for regular prayers ; and so the identification of ' the house of the people' (Jer 39* [see Kashi and l^imhi]) with the synagogue is without foundation. "The synagogue is a new creation for which the Exile alone ottered the conditions (see Wellhausen, Isr. und j'ud. Gesch,.^, pp. 149, 194). As the prescribed sacrifices could not be ottered on foreign soil, which was regarded as ' unclean ' ( Am 7", Ezk 4"), another organized form of worship became an imperative necessity. In place of the priesthood, whose ex- clusive domain was the Temple with its sacrificial cult, a new class of men in the Exile voiced the needs of the people, accentuating the significance of prayer and song as the more spiritual elements of the Divine service, and at the same time appealed to the people, like the prophets of old, by words of warning and consolation, ottering public instruction through the Word of God, whether spoken or read. Such a class of men were the 'andvim, ' the meek ones,' /la.iidim, 'the godly ones,' or k^dO.ihitn, 'the holy ones,' of the Psalms ; they had devotional assemblies of their own (Ps 1' 26'= 89' 107'- 111' 149'). To them, in fact, the Psalm literature owes in the main its origin, and they coined the language of prayer (see I. Loeb, La Litt(ratm-e def! pnnvres dnn.>: la Bible, Paris, 1892) ; hence the abundance of prayers in the post-Exilic literature (1 Ch 17i»-=7 29'»-"', 2 Ch 6'''-^= 14" 20''-'2, Ezr 9"-", Neh S'-^, Dn 2'-''-23 9*■'^ also Is m""^), not to mention the apocryphal books such as the Maccabees, Enoch, Judith, etc. Music and song likewise occupy a prominent place in the Chronicles and the Psalms, while they are ignored in the Priestly Code. The very fact that the Exilic seer sjieaks of ' an house of prayer for all peoples' ([s 56'; cf. LXX to Is 60') indicates the existence of places for devotional assemblies of the people in the Exile. King Solomon's dedication prayer, which was composed in the Exile (1 K S*'-), also shows that the exiled Jews prayed 'in the land of the enemy' with their faces turned towards Jerusalem, exactl.v as di<l I);iniel (Dn 6'"). Such devotional assemblies were held on the banks of rivers (Ps 137' ; cf. Kzk F, Dn 82), the Sabbath, which assumed a higher
542
SYNAGOGUE
SYNAGOGUE
meaning in tlie Exile (see Wellhausen, loc. cit.), as well as the feast and fast days ottering the in- centives to tlie same (Is 58^- '\ Zee V ; cf. 2 K 4-'»). To such assemblies the writings of Devitero-Isaiali were in all likeliliood addressed (cf. L. Herzfeld, Geschichte des Vulkcs Israel, Leipzig, 1871, i. 13'2) ; and the composition of the prophetical books in their present shape, with the message of comfort at the end of each portion or book, if not also that of the Pentateuch (cf., for instance, Lv 27^' as the conclusion of the Holiness Code), seems to have been made with such devotional assemblies in view . Whether the new religious spirit which emanated from Persia under Cyrus exerted a re-awakening influence on Judaism, as E. Meyer [Geschichte des AUcrthuins, Stuttgart, 1884-1901, iii._ 122-200) asserts, or not, it is certain that Parsiism had a large share in tlie shaping of the synagogal liturgy, as pointed out by Graetz (Geschichte det- Jiiden, ii. [1876] 409-418, note 14) and J. H. Schoii {He- Haluz, vii. [1863], viii. [1869]).