prescribed to themselves is as follows-to render for the most part by ovvaywyń (Exod. xii. 3; Lev. iv. 13; Numb. i. 2, and altogether more than a hundred times), and, whatever other renderings of the word they may adopt, in no single case to render it by eκкλŋσía. It were to be wished that they had shown the same consistency in respect of

p; but they have not; for while èкλησía is their standing word for it (Deut. xviii. 16; Judg. xx. 2; 1 Kin. viii. 14, and in all some seventy times), they too often render this also by ovvaywyn (Lev. iv. 13; Numb. x. 4; Deut. v. 22, and in all some five and twenty times), thus breaking down for the Greek reader the distinction which undoubtedly exists between the words. Our English Version has the same lack of a consistent rendering. Its two words are Its two words are 'congregation and 'assembly;' but instead of constantly assigning one to one, and one to the other, it renders

TV now by congregation' (Lev. x. 17; Numb. i. 16; Josh. ix. 27), and now by,' assembly' (Lev. iv. 13); and on the other hand, p only sometimes by assembly' (Judg. xxi. 8; 2 Chron. xxx. 23), but much oftener by 'congregation' (Judg. xxi. 5; Josh. viii. 35).

There is an interesting discussion by Vitringa (De Synag. Vet. pp. 77-89) on the distinction between these two Hebrew synonyms; the result of which is summed up in the following statements: Notat proprie p universam alicujus populi multitudinem, vinculis societatis unitam et rempublicam sive civitatem quandam constituentem, cum

vocabulum ex indole et vi significationis suæ tantum dicat quemcunque hominum cœtum et conventum, sive minorem sive majorem' (p. 80). And again: Zuvaywyn, ut et Ty, semper significat cœtum conjunctum et congregatum, etiamsi nullo forte vinculo ligatum, sed ǹ èkkλŋola [= np] designat multitudinem aliquam, quæ populum constituit, per leges et vincula inter se junctam, etsi sæpe fiat ut non sit coacta vel cogi possit' (p. 88).

Accepting this as a true distinction, remembering too the probable etymological connexion between and the Greek kaλeiv, and thus its relationship, once removed, with exkλnoia, as indeed also with the old Latin 'calare,' and our own 'call,' we shall see that it was not without due reason that our Lord (Matt. xvi. 18; xviii. 17) and his Apostles claimed this, as the nobler word, to designate the new society of which He was the Founder, being as it was a society knit together by the closest spiritual bonds, and altogether independent of space.

Yet for all this we do not find the title èκKANσlα altogether withdrawn from the Jewish congregation; that too was "the Church in the wilderness" (Acts vii. 38); for Christian and Jewish differed only in degree, and not in kind. Nor yet do we find ovvaywyn wholly renounced by the Church; the latest honorable use of it in the N. T., indeed the only Christian use of it there, is by that Apostle, to whom it was especially given to maintain unbroken to the latest possible moment the outward bonds connecting the Syna

gogue and the Church (Jam. ii. 2). Occasionally also by the early Fathers, by Ignatius for instance (Ep. ad Polyc. 4), we find ovvaywyn still employed as an honorable designation of the Church, or of her places of assembly. Still there were causes at work, which could not but induce the faithful to have less and less pleasure in the application of this name to themselves; which led them in the end to leave it altogether to those, whom in the latest book of the canon the Lord had characterized for their fierce opposition to the truth even as "the synagogue of Satan" (Rev. iii. 9). Thus the greater fitness and nobleness of the title ékkλŋoíα has been already noted. Add to this that the Church was ever rooting itself more predominantly in the soil of the heathen world, breaking off more entirely from its Jewish stock and stem. This of itself would have led the faithful to the letting fall of συναγωγή, a word at once of unfrequent use in classical Greek, and permanently associated with Jewish worship, and to the ever more exclusive appropriation to themselves of ẻкkλŋσía, so familiar already, and of so honorable a significance, in Greek ears.

It will be perceived from what has been said, that Augustine, by a piece of good fortune which he had scarcely a right to expect, was only half in the wrong, when transferring his Latin etymologies to the Greek and Hebrew, and not pausing to ask himself whether they would hold good there, as was beforehand improbable enough, he finds the reason for attributing ovvaywyn to the Jewish, and

EKKλnoia to the Christian Church, in the fact that 'convocatio' (= èкêλŋσía) is a nobler term than 'congregatio' (= ovvaywyń), the first being properly the calling together of men, the second the gathering together ('congregatio,' from 'congrego,' and that from 'grex') of cattle.'

The πανήγυρις differs from the ἐκκλησία in this, that in the exkλnoía, as has been noted already, there lay ever the sense of an assembly that had come together for the transaction of busi

ness.

The Tavýуupis, on the other hand, was a solemn assembly for purposes of festal rejoicing; and on this account it is found joined continually with coprn, as by Philo, Vit. Mos. ii. 7; Ezek. xlvi. 11; cf. Hos. ii. 11; ix. 5; the word having given us 'panegyric,' which is properly a set discourse pronounced at one of these great and festal gatherings. Business might grow out of the fact that such multitudes were assembled, since many, and for various reasons, would be glad to avail themselves of the circumstance; but only in the same way as a 'fair' grew out of a 'feria' or

1 Enarr. in Ps. lxxxi. 1. 'In synagogâ populum Israël accipimus, quia et ipsorum proprie synagoga dici solet, quamvis et Ecclesia dicta sit. Nostri vero Ecclesiam nunquam synagogam dixerunt, sed semper Ecclesiam : sive discernendi caussâ, sive quod inter congregationem, unde synagoga, et convocationem, unde Ecclesia nomen accepit, distet aliquid; quod scilicet congregari et pecora solent, atque ipsa proprie, quorum et greges proprie dicimus; convocari autem magis est utentium ratione, sicut sunt homines.' So also the author of a Commentary on the Book of Proverbs formerly ascribed to Jerome (Opp. vol. v. p. 533).

'holy-day.' Strabo (x. 5) notices the business-like aspect which the πavnyúρeis commonly assumed (ἥ τε πανήγυρις ἐμπορικόν τι πρᾶγμα : cf. Pausanias, x. 32. 9); which was indeed to such an extent their prominent feature, that the Romans translated Tavýуvρis by the Latin 'mercatus,' and this even when the Olympic games were intended (Cicero, Tusc. v. 3; Justin, xiii. 5). These with the other solemn games were eminently, though not exclusively, the Tavпyúρes of the Greek nation (Thucydides, i. 25; Isocrates, Paneg. 1). If we keep this festal character of the Travnyupis in mind, we shall find a peculiar fitness in the employment of this word at Heb. xii. 23; where only in the N. T. it occurs. The Apostle is there setting forth the communion of the Church militant on earth with the Church triumphant in heaven,—of the Church toiling and suffering here with that Church from which all weariness and toil have for ever passed away (Rev. xxi. 4); and how could he better describe this last than as a Tavyuρis, than as the glad and festal assembly of heaven?

§ ii.—θειότης, θεότης.

6

NEITHER of these words occurs more than once in the N. T.; Oecóτns only at Rom. i. 20; cóτns at Col. ii. 9. We have rendered both by Godhead; yet they must not be regarded as identical in meaning, nor even as two different forms of the