(4.) The conformity extends, also, to the times of prayer. In the hours of service this was obviously the case. The third, sixth, and ninth hours were, in the times of the New Test. (Acts iii, 1 ; x, 3, 9), and had been, probably, for some time before (Psa. Iv, 17; Dan. vi, 10), the fixed times of devotion, known then, and still known, respectively as the tihacharith, the Minchuh, and the '.4 rahith ; they had not only the prestige of an au- thoritative tradition, but were connected respectively with the names of Abraham. Isaac, and Jacob, to whom, as to the first originators, their institution was ascribed X.— F
(Buxtorf, De SyiKir/of/. p. 280). The same hours, it is well known, were recognised in the Churcli of the second, probabh' also in that of the first, century (Clem. Al. Strom. loc. cit. ; TertuU. De Orat. c. xxv). The sacred days belonging to the two systems seem, at first, to present a contrast rather than a resemblance; but here, too, there is a symmetry which points to an original connection. The solemn days of the synagogue were the second, the fifth, and the seventh ; the last, or Sabbath, being the conclusion of the whole. In whatever way the change was brought about, the transfer of the sanctity of the Sabbath to the Lord's day involved a corresponding change in the order of the week, and the first, the fourth, and the sixth became to the Christian society what the other days had been to the Jewish.
The following suggestion as to the mode in which this transfer was effected involves, it is believed, fewer arbitrary assumptions than any other [see Sabbath], and connects itself with another interesting custom, coinmon to the Church and the synagogue. It was a elewish custom to end the Sabbath with a feast, in which they did honor to it as to a parting king. The feast was held in the synagogue. A ciq^ of wine, over which a special blessing had been spoken, was handed round (Jost, Gesch. des Judenth. i, 180). It is obvious that, so long as the apostles and their followers contiiuied to use the Jewish mode of reckoning — so long, i. e., as they fra- ternized with their brethren of the stock of Abraham — • this woidd coincide in point of time with their Sflin'oi' on the Ji)-st daj^ of the week. A supper on what we should call Sunday evening would have been to them on the second. By degrees [see Lord's Sui'PiiR] the time became later, passed on to midnight, to the early dawn of the next day. So the Lord's supper ceased to be a supper really. So, as the Church rose out of Judaism, the supper </ave its holiness to the coming, instead of derinwj it from the parting day. The day came to be Kf/pia/cj;, because it began with the ^tiirvov KvpioK('ii\ Gradually the Sabbath ceased as slich to be observed at all. The practice of observing both, as in the Church of Rome up to the fifth century, gives us a trace of the transition period. See Sunday.
(.0.) From the synagogue, lastly, came many less con- spicuous practices, which meet us in the liturgical life of the first three centuries. Ablution, entire or partial, before entering the |)lace of meeting (Heb. x, 22; John xiii, 1-15; Tertnll. IM Orat. c. xi) ; standing and not kneeling, as the attitude of prayer (Lid<e xviii, 11 ; Ter- tidl. ibid. c. xxiii) ; the arms stretched out (Terfull. ibid. c. xiii) ; the face turned towards the Keblah of the east (Clem. Al. Strom, loc. cit.) ; the responsive Amen of the congregation to the prayers and benedictions of the elders (I Cor. xiv, 16). In one strange exceptional custom of the Church of Alexandria we trace the wilder tvpe of Jewish, of Oriental devotion. There, in the closing responsive chorus of the prayer, the worshippers not only stretched out their necks and lifted up their hands, but leaped with wild gestures (jovq re TroSag tTTtytipof^ieT), as if they would fain rise with their pray- ers to heaven itself (Clem. Al. Strom. vii,40). This, too, reproduced a custom of the synagogue. Three times did the whole body of worshippers leap up simidtaneously as they repeated the great tei-sanrtns hymn of Isaiah vi (Yitringa, p. 1100 sq. ; Buxtorf, ch. x).
VIII. Literature. — Jerusalem Merjillah, c. iii; Mai- monides, lad Ha-Chezaka Hilchoth Tephilu ; Yitringa, De Synar/ogn Vetere (Weissenfels, 1726); Zunz, Die gottesdienstlichen Vortrage der Juden (Berlin, 1832), p. 366 sq. ; id. Die Ritus des synof/ogalen Gottesdienstes (ibid. 1859); Edelmann, //j^f/yow Leb (Konigsb. 1845); Herzfeld, Geschichte des Volkes Israel (Nordhausen, 1855, 1857), i, 24-30, 127,391-394; ii, 129-134, 183-223; Jost, Geschichte des Judenthums (Leipsic, 1857-58), i, 38 sq., 168 sq., 262 sq. ; Duschak, lUustrirte Monatsschrift fur die fjesammten Interessen des Judenthums (Lond. 1865), i, 83 sq., 174 sq., 409 sq. See also Burmann, Exercitt. Acad, ii, 3 sq.; Reland, Antiq. Sacr. i, 10; Carpzov,
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SYNAGOGUE
Appar. p. 307 sq. ; Tlartmann, Verhiml. des A. T. mit d. Xeuen, p. -I'Id sq. ; liniwii, A iitiquitks of the Jctrs, i, o90 sq. ; W\cn,Modtrn J uduisin,c\\.yi\K; Iho monographs of liornitz, />'6 Vet. Si/naffO(/is (Vitemb. 10.50); Leovardic, JJe Hi/iKif/ofja et Ecclesia (s. 1. et an.) ; Kheiit'erd, De Otio- sis Syiuupgce (France. 1G8G) ; id. A rchixynaijo(jus Otiosus (ibid. 1688); Tentzcl, De J'roseuchis iSamar. (Yitemb. 1682) ; and the dis-sertations cited by Darling, Cyclup. Biblioff. col. 1811. See Wousiiir.