CHAPTER XXXII.

SYNAGOGUE WORSHIP.

1. Synagogue Worship contrasted with that of the Church.-2. The Structure and Arrangements of a Synagogue.-3. Synagogue Worship Beautiful, Musical, and Reverent.-4. Responsive and Congregational Worship.-5. Silent Prayers and Adorations.-6. The Various Means by which Responsive and Congregational Worship is maintained in the Synagogue: (1) Rubrics; (2) Responding on a low Musical Note (F); (3) Occasional Silence of the Reader and Choir, while the Congregation continue the chants without assistance; (4) Central Position of the Reader and Choir; (5) Early Training of the whole Congregation-a Jewish Confirmation.

1.-Synagogue Worship contrasted with that of the

Church.

THE WORSHIP in the majority of well-ordered modern English churches is probably not inferior in decorum to any form of public worship in any country or religion. Among the nations, our own has always been considered to be, in social intercourse, beyond comparison the most stiff, formal, and decorous; and we have now, for more than a quarter of a century, given much special attention to decorum in worship. Consequently, our Services, although often cold and lifeless, have, in perhaps the majority of Churches, reached the very crest and zenith of human attainment, in the matter of ceremonial order and decorum. We are not only shocked by the slightest disorder or want of precision in the Services but we are almost ashamed of showing any emotion, or express

ing any enthusiasm. If only we can secure decorum, we are infinitely tolerant of that worst of all violations of true order-death where there should be life, icy coldness where there should be genial warmth, congregational dulness and silence where there should be hearty congregational responding. Decorum, however, although a very necessary and excellent thing in worship, is not everything. Up to a certain point, it greatly helps devotion: but when carried to a pedantic excess, it is simply a form of pedantic self-consciousness; and then it terribly hinders devotion, and chills it almost to death.

We are far inferior to the Jews, and to many other Oriental nations, in the devotional warmth and heartiness with which we render our Public Services. This is not exclusively, or mainly, occasioned by our more phlegmatic temperament, but by other and less satisfactory causes. One of these causes is a lamentably general ignorance of the first principles of Devotional Ritual. Another cause is a host of utterly crude and mistaken devotional methods, habits and ideas, adopted by our people in ignorant and comparatively modern times. Another cause, which is in no small measure the occasion of our devotional shortcomings, is the prevalence amongst us of the depressed, dreary, unjoyous, unhopeful spirit of medieval worship. We have had a Reformation more than three centuries ago: but neither we, nor any of those great religious bodies around us. which consider themselves more perfectly reformed than ourselves, have as yet succeeded in exorcising from public worship the dumb and melancholy demoniac of pre-Reformation times. As against Romanism, we are all good Protestants: but we have too often wasted our energies by protesting in wrong directions.

I know few things more depressing than to pass from the hearty congregational responding and chanting of a

well-ordered Synagogue on the Saturday morning, to the all-pervading frigidity, the stiffness, the formality, the devotional timidity, and the comparatively silent assembly of worshippers, in the neighbouring Parish Church on the Sunday. The church choir may be excellent-alone in its glory in the distant chancel or the western gallery: the service may be what is called faultlessly rendered: several members of the congregation may be heard responding and chanting with less than the accustomed irregularity and nervousness: the church may be beautiful, spotlessly clean, and well. arranged; and the precision, order, and decorum of everybody and everything may be absolutely funereal,but where is the penitents' earnest cry? where is the mighty help which one voice can give to another, and which one heart can give to another in fervent and united besiegings of the throne of grace? where is the "joyful noise" of full-hearted, and rich full-voiced thanksgiving, benediction, and praise? and above all, where are the low soft chants, the quiet periods of rest and reflection, the hushed solemnity of the silent prayers and silent adorations-the sweet contrasts, interludes, and reliefs, which are, so to speak, the golden settings of the other parts of the worship? Alas! they are almost entirely absent: their place knows them no more in our modern Christian worship; and unspeakably great and distressing is the devotional loss which their absence occasions to us all.

Synagogue worship became general in all Jewish communities from the time of the Babylonish Captivity. The hours of worship in the synagogue were the same as those in the Temple, namely, about 9 a.m. and 3 p.m.;1 and the Devotional Ritual of the synagogue was

1 The 3 p.m. Service in the Synagogue was a union of two Services, viz., those of the afternoon and evening.

carefully modelled after that in the Temple. To our own day the Jews have reverently preserved the ancient prayers, hymns, doxologies, and lessons, and almost all the ancient devotional usages, of their Synagogue Worship: which we must therefore regard as a wonderfully interesting and trustworthy illustration of the ancient worship in the Tabernacle and Temple. But the Synagogue Services have another and more sacred claim upon our attention. Synagogue Worship was at once the last Chapter in the history of Jewish worship, and the first Chapter in the history of Christian' worship. The Synagogue was, so to speak, the Providentially prepared mould into which the first fervent torrents of Primitive Christian devotion were poured, in almost all lands. While, therefore, we are studying the Jewish Synagogue and its worship, we are indirectly making ourselves acquainted with many of the most striking characteristics of the primitive Christian Church and its worship.

2.-The structure and arrangements of a Synagogue.

The rule of the Jewish Church was, that a synagogue was to be erected in every place where there were ten persons of full age, and free condition, always at leisure to attend the service.2 Synagogues were large or small, magnificent or plain, according to the numbers, wealth, and liberality of the worshippers. Capernaum had its beautiful synagogue of white marble. Damascus had 10 synagogues: Tiberias had 13; and Jerusalem is said to have had no fewer than 480 synagogues.

Synagogues were built, if possible, on the highest

1 See the authorities cited by Geikie, Life and Words of Christ, I. p. 567.

2 Prideaux, Connection of the History of the Old and New Testament, Part I. Book vi., p. 536. 3 Farrar, Life of Christ, II. p. 5

ground in or near the cities to which they belonged;1 and they were always rectangular in form, after the plan of the Tabernacle and Temple. In all countries, except Galilee, the synagogues were so constructed that the worshippers as they entered, and as they prayed, looked towards Jerusalem.2 In Galilee the synagogues were of course built North and South; that is, they pointed towards Jerusalem, but their entrances seem to have been at the South end. This arrangement, which was quite local and exceptional, made it necessary for the worshippers to enter with their backs towards Jerusalem. In prayer, they doubtless turned round, so as to look through the open doors, towards the Holy City.

Small synagogues were like small rectangular churches: they had one entrance, always (except in Galilee) in the end remote from Jerusalem; and they had a nave and (at the Jerusalem end of the nave) a Shrine. A passage ran up the centre of the nave to the Reader's Platform (which was almost in the middle of the building), and thence to the steps of the Shrine. Large synagogues had three entrances in the end remote from Jerusalem. The great central entrance opened with folding-doors into the central nave: a smaller entrance on each side opened into a side aisle. Over the doors were sculptures of the golden candlestick, the pot of manna, the paschal lamb, or the vine. The synagogue was always covered with a roof; and was often provided with a porch, in which hung one tablet with prayers for the reigning prince, another with the names of the excommunicated, and below these poor-boxes for the alms of the congregation. A large synagogue was

1 Smith's Dict. of the B., III. p. 1398, Art. Synagogue.

2 Vitringa, De Synagoga Vetere, pp. 178, 457.

3 See Capt. Wilson's Reports (Nos. 2, 37, 38) on the Synagogues in Galilee in Palestine Exploration, I. p. 188, &c.