Famous Synagogues.—The roll begins with the Basilica of Alexandria, destroyed when the Jewish community was swept away in a whirl wind of persecution (about 116 of the common era). He who never beheld it, to paraphrase the description in the Talmud (Sukkah, 10 h), never saw the majesty of Israel. It rose like a basilica, colonnade within colonnade, filled at times with a throng of people twice as great as out of Egypt with Moses. There, too, were golden chairs inlaid with precious stones corresponding in number with the 70 elders of the Sanhedrim, each of which seats cost 25,000, 000 golden denarii. In the centre on an eleva tion of wood stood the choir-leader. Each guild had its own place, so that a stranger might recognize his trade and join his coworkers. So large was the edifice that the responses of the congregation were directed by a flag signal. Spain had numerous synagogues of importance. When Cordova fell in 1148 its magnificent synagogues were destroyed. In Toledo at its height of prosperity, there were many splendid synagogues, two of nrincely magnificence, which still exist after varied transformations. The Samuel Abulafia synagogue (1357), El Transito, later transformed into a church, was built partly in the Gothic, partly is the Moorish style. It consisted of several naves separated from each other by columns and arches; the upper part of the walls was decorated with delicately cut arabesques, within which, in white char acters on green ground, can still be read the 80th Psalm in Hebrew. On the north and south sides are inscriptions in bas-relief, recit ing the merits of the founder and of Don Pedro of Castile. Once the treasurer and adviser of Don Pedro, Abulafia died under the torture, three years after his synagogue was completed (1360), happily unconscious that the edifice about a century and a half later, with the ex pulsion of the Jews from Spain, was to be converted into a church, to remain to our time an ornament to the old Castilian city. Such changes were common in the Middle Ages. The first synagogue in the north of Europe was built in 1598 by the Portuguese Jews of Amsterdam — a historic community with its memories of Spinoza. When the Portuguese synagogue was originally erected in London in 1702, the Quaker architect who would receive no compensation except the actual cost (f2,750) of the building, incorporated in the roof a beam from a royal ship presented by Queen Anne. Prague can point to a synagogue, around which fanciful legends cluster, which in parts dates back to the 12th century, and Worms, as fruitful in legend, can show a portion of its old syna gogue which was not later than the year 1100. Stately was the Venice synagogue, built in the 16th century, with a splendor of ornamentation that attests its wealth and taste.
Under the Ban.— If books have their fates, synagogues would also seem to have had their destinies, which were not always of the happiest kind. Their forcible conversion into churches was often a sign of the times. As early as the 5th century Theodosius II prohibited the Jews from building new synagogues. A century later Justinian I renewed that decree with increased severity. When the of Genoa asked per mission of Theodonc to put their synagogue into better repair he granted it grudgingly, but later showed his liberality in condemning the Roman commune to make compensation for the synagogue which a mob in that city had burned. Pope Gregory I razed to the ground a syna gogue in Sicily. Caliph Omar I was as intol erant, including the church in his orders. Omar II (717-20) wrote to his governors: not pull down a church or a synagogue, but do not allow new ones to be built within your prov inces." At the Council of Oxford (1222) Stephen Langton forbade the Jews of England to build synagogues. Alfonso X of Castile (1252-84) may have called the reader of prayers in a 'Toledo synagogue, Don Zag, an eminent astronomer, This sage,* but his code of laws contains a prohibition against building new synagogues. Pope Eugenius IV, in a letter to the bishops of Leon and Castile (1442), also decreed that Jews should build no more syna gogues. As late as 1612 in Hamburg Jews were not allowed to have synagogues, but such re strictions did not last long. They were per mitted in a few years to meet for religious worship on their threat that otherwise they would leave Hamburg in a body, with their capital and business connections. On the other hand, instances are not rare of kindlier con sideration. Chrysostom may have fulminated against the synagogues of Antioch and called them infamous theatres and dens of robbers, but Theodosius the Great (379-95) ordered the bishop of Callinius in northern Mesopo tamia, who had caused a synagogue to be burned down, to have it rebuilt at his own expense.
The Byzantine emperor, Arcadius (395-408), protected the synagogues when they were at tacked by the clergy in Illyria. Cyril of Alex andria, whose zeal led to Hypatia's death, aroused the mob to destroy his synagogue; but Theodosius compelled the clergy and mob of Antioch to restore the synagogues to their owners. In 1419 Pope Martin V issued a bull, in whose preamble it was expressly stated that Jews should not be molested in their synagogues and (their laws, rights, and customs be not as sailed"—and he was not the only Pope who pro tested against bigotry. In the days of Innocent III a complaint was made at Sens that the synagogue was higher than the church, which offended the sensibilities of the churchmen. In the 14th century in Rome, church and synagove were built in close proximity, without arousing the ire of the populace. Five centuries later in many cities in the United States, churches are invited to occupy synagogues at times of emergency, and Jewish and Christian ministers, with their congregations, join in service on national holy days.
Synagogue is no dis tinct Jewish architecture—the synagogue's form has varied with its environment and the archi tect's artistic genius. Jewish law, it is true, concerns itself with the height and the position of the edifice—it must be higher than private dwellings and must face the east; otherwise there is no restriction. Hence there can be synagogues octagonal and quadrilateral al though the cruciform arrangement would be hardly admissible The readiness with which prevailing styles were adopted is proved by the remains of synagogues in Palestine, which Kitchener in the 'Quarterly Statement) for July 1877 of the Palestine Exploration Fund reduces to 14, of which 11 are known and 3 doubtful. He finds that these show similarity in plan and detail of ornamentation, with the same class of moldings, and pointing to same date of erection. He concludes that the Roman emperors Antonius Pius and Alex ander Severus, who were great builders and restorers of temples in Syria, inspired and aided the erection of these synagogues, which were built by Roman labor. (The dressing, size and nature of the inasoory is certainly Roman? Kitchener gives as their date 150-300 of the common era. The Worms synagogue is Ro manesque, the Old New synagogue at Prague, Gothic. The Santa Maria la Blanca in Toledo, formerly a synagogue, but changed into a church in 1405, is built after most approved Moorish Spanish design. The plan is that of a basilica, the ground floor tiled, being an oblong square about 90 by 65 feet, divided into five naves or aisles, divided by four rows of octagon pillars, nine in each row. Horseshoe arches of peculiar Moorish pattern rise from these columns. Over the arches, whose spandrils are carved into elegant rose patterns, is placed a second arcade ornamented with pure Byzantine work, appear ing like stonelace. A third series of stalactite archlets rests upon double pillarets, crowned by an elaborate frieze reaching to the roof, which though of wood has the durability of rock, and black with age, still shows traces of gold orna mentation. In 1550 this building was used as a Magdalen asylum, and at the French invasion in 1792 was appropriated for military barracks. In Trani, Sicily, is a Gothic Catholic church, which was originally a synagogue— in the early centuries the Jews of Sicily were numerous and prominent. In Poland and parts of Russia are wooden synagogues, whose flat roofs show in dubitable signs that they could harbor cannon, when the Jews were forced to defend them selves. The variety of synagogue architecture illustrated in the splendid new places of worship that now adorn the chief cities of Europe— such as Strassburg, Berlin, Paris, Vienna, Flor ence, Turin, Munich, Warsaw, Cologne, Buda pest, etc., — shows that the synagogue to-day is as adaptive as of old and runs the gamut of every style from the Classic to the Renais sance. This freedom and eclecticism are seen at their best in the United States, where within the past few decades in particular a large num ber of magnificent new synagogues have been erected—the reform congregation calling them preferably utemples? The oldest American synagogue is at Newport, R I. (1762), in the Colonial style of the period, built of brick, with a carved stone cornice and porch. Witb the increase in population and wealth, the syna gogues have rapidly improved in size and beauty. The styles have been largely Moorish, as in Temple Emanu-El, New York, but the Byzantine, Romanesque, Renaissance and Classic, with their various blendings, are also represented. The first regular synagogue in New York was erected in Mill street in 1729, a simple structure which was later taken down and more pretentiously rebuilt.