the Week of Proper 26 / Ordinary 31
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Bible Dictionaries
Proseuchae
Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary
or That the Jews had houses, or places for prayer, called προσευχαι , appears from a variety of passages in Philo; and, particularly in his oration against Flaccus, he complains that their προσευχαι were pulled down, and there was no place left in which they might worship God and pray for Caesar. Among those who make the synagogues and proseuchae to be different places, are the learned Mr. Joseph Mede and Dr. Prideaux; and they think the difference consists partly in the form of the edifice; a synagogue, they say, being roofed like our houses or churches; and a proseucha being only encompassed with a wall, or some other mound or enclosure, and open at the top, like our courts. They make them to differ in situation; synagogues being in towns and cities, proseuchae in the fields, and frequently by the river side. Dr. Prideaux mentions another distinction in respect to the service performed in them. In synagogues, he says, the prayers were offered up in public forms in common for the whole congregation; but in the proseuchae they prayed, as in the temple, every one apart for himself. And thus our Saviour prayed in the proseucha into which he entered. Yet, after all, the proof in favour of this notion is not so strong, but that it still remains a question with some, whether the synagogues and the proseuchae were any thing more than two different names for the same place; the one taken from the people's assembling in them, the other from the service to which they were more immediately appropriated, namely, prayer. Nevertheless, the name proseuchae will not prove that they were appropriated only to prayer, and therefore were different from synagogues, in which the Scriptures were also read and expounded; since the temple, in which sacrifices were offered, and all the parts of divine service were performed, is called οικος προσευχης , a house of prayer, Matthew 21:13 .
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Watson, Richard. Entry for 'Proseuchae'. Richard Watson's Biblical & Theological Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/wtd/p/proseuchae.html. 1831-2.
