For PERSPECTIVES Vol. 1 No. 1 [September-October 1998]
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Churches or Synagogues?
Did not early Christians meet in synagogues? If so, why do Christians now refer to their meeting places as churches and not synagogues?
–P. McNair Minnetonka, MN
The Greek word �kkles�a, translated “church” in English language editions of the New Testament, means “assembly,” “congregation,” “group of people,” or the “community” but not a building or assembly hall. Its derivation is from the association of two Greek words �k denoting “out of" and kale�n meaning “to call.” In a literal sense �kkles�a referred to a class of individuals “assembled” or “called together.” In Christian parlance, the word came to refer to the group of individuals called together from the world to form the people of God and the community of faith. In a non-religious sense, it implied the calling of an assembly by a crier or herald for an event such as a town meeting.
Quite early the less formal designation “church” �kkles�a became an abbreviated form for the designation of the congregation-at-large (II Corinthians 11:8, Ephesians 5:23, I Timothy 3:5) as well as specific congregations (I Corinthians 14:23, 34; Revelation 2:1, 8, 12, 18; 3:1, 7, 14) but was still used in the sense of an assembly. In this sense the more appropriate description of a Christian congregation in English would be "the assembly" and that is the form followed in the Romance languages.
The normal gathering places, or meeting locations, of local Christian congregations were synagogues not churches. The Greek word synagogue simply means “a gathering” or “a bringing together” and is the Greek equivalent for the Hebrew edah or for bet knesset, meaning “a gathering place.” The term could infer a group (Revelation 2:9; 3:9) but more often refers to a gathering place where such a group would meet (Matthew 23:6; Acts 6:9, 9:20, 13:14). Jews of the first century preferred synagogue to describe their local meeting places.
The writers of the New Testament generally used the word synagogue with respect to its meaning as a meeting place, e.g., “in the synagogues” (Acts 9:20 NASB), “the chief seats in the synagogues” (Matthew 23:6 NASB), “they went into the synagogue and sat down” (Acts 13:14 NASB). They did not refer to their community as a “synagogue” in the sense of an assembly or congregation. Rather, Judeo-Christians met in synagogues but saw themselves as the new elect people of God or assembly of God. New Testament writers did not use the word synagogue to describe their assembly. Nevertheless, they did use synagogue in reference to various Jewish and opposing “christian” sects (Revelation 2:9).
The English word “church” is problematic and comes to us from paganism. Ebenezer Brewer in his Dictionary of Phrase and Fable under the entry “church” states that “the etymology of this word is generally assumed to be from the Greek, Kurious oikos (house of God); but this is most improbable, as the word existed in all the Celtic dialects long before the introduction of Greek. No doubt the word means ‘a circle.’ The places of worship among the German and Celtic nations were always circular (Welsh, cyrch; French, cirque; Scotch, kirk; Greek, kirkos, etc.). Compare Anglo-Saxon circe, a church, with ‘circol,’ a circle” (Brewer, 1910, p. 252).
In Homer’s Odyssey the sorceress Kirke, a daughter of Helios and Perse who lived on the island of Aeaea, was an enchantress who turned men into swine. In Greek mythology Helios, god of the sun and light, as an omniscient figure was all seeing and all knowing. Perse personified the underworld aspects of the moon. The sun and moon, presumably, came together in an ancient solar eclipse. The disk of the sun blackened by the disk of the moon produced a glowing ring of fire—the flaming circle (Kirke, Circe). Echoes of this fiery circle are present in nimbus and halo symbolism. This is the symbolic ring of light, shown around the head of divinities, dignities, and saints, emanating a bright glow. A full disk mirrors sun god symbolism.
The word church, in Middle English chireche, chirche, kirke, and in Anglo-Saxon circe, cirice, cyrice, finds its derivation in neither �kkles�a nor kyrios but in kirke. The Romance languages do not reflect this derivation as �kkles�a—Greek: �kkles�a; Latin: ecclesia—provides the basis for contemporary words for “the assembly,” e.g., French: �glise; Italian: chiesa; Portuguese: igreja; Spanish: iglesia.
–editor
Page last edited: 12/31/05 08:10 AM
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