In the letters to the
early Christian churches of
Smyrna and
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Sin ...
in
Revelation 2:9 and
3:9, reference is made to a synagogue of Satan ( gr, συναγωγή τοῦ Σατανᾶ, ''synagoge tou satana''), in each case referring to a group
persecuting the church "who say they are
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites"" ...
and are not".
The verse has often been used to justify hatred against all Jews or particular subsets of modern Jews,
which academic scholars generally view as ignorant of the biblical context based on the fact that the suspected author of Revelation was likely Jewish.
Passages from Revelation
Other uses
Similar language is found in the
Dead Sea Scrolls
The Dead Sea Scrolls (also the Qumran Caves Scrolls) are ancient Jewish and Hebrew religious manuscripts discovered between 1946 and 1956 at the Qumran Caves in what was then Mandatory Palestine, near Ein Feshkha in the West Bank, on the ...
, where a small persecuted Jewish sect considered the rest of
Judaism apostate, and called its persecutors "the lot of
Belial
Belial ( he, , ''Bəlīyyaʿal'') is a term occurring in the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament which later became personified as the devilSee the reference to "Beliar" in ''The Ascension of Isaiah'', at EarlyChristianWritings.com', specifically at 1 ...
" (Satan).
The phrase is also used in a fragment of a
lost work
A lost work is a document, literary work, or piece of multimedia produced some time in the past, of which no surviving copies are known to exist. It can only be known through reference. This term most commonly applies to works from the classical ...
on
Dioscorus I of Alexandria found at the
Monastery of Saint Macarius the Great in 1923 and identified by American theologian
William Hatch. Hatch believes the term refers to the
Council of Chalcedon, which Dioscorus attended in 451 and from which he was deposed and exiled for his
Monophysitism
Monophysitism ( or ) or monophysism () is a Christological term derived from the Greek (, "alone, solitary") and (, a word that has many meanings but in this context means "nature"). It is defined as "a doctrine that in the person of the incar ...
.
In 1653, Quakers Elizabeth Williams and
Mary Fisher attacked members of
Sidney Sussex College at Cambridge as "Antichrists" and called their college "a Cage of unclean Birds and a Synagogue of Satan." For this, they were publicly flogged.
Billy Graham
William Franklin Graham Jr. (November 7, 1918 – February 21, 2018) was an American evangelist and an ordained Southern Baptist minister who became well known internationally in the late 1940s. He was a prominent evangelical Christia ...
used the phrase "synagogue of Satan" to refer to the Jews in a private 1973
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 180 ...
conversation with President
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon (January 9, 1913April 22, 1994) was the 37th president of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. A member of the Republican Party, he previously served as a representative and senator from California and was ...
. When tapes of the conversation were released many years later, Graham apologized for what were deemed by many to be antisemitic remarks.
The encyclical ''
Etsi multa'', written by
Pope Pius X
Pope Pius X ( it, Pio X; born Giuseppe Melchiorre Sarto; 2 June 1835 – 20 August 1914) was head of the Catholic Church from 4 August 1903 to his death in August 1914. Pius X is known for vigorously opposing modernist interpretations of ...
in 1873, refers to
Freemasonry
Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...
as "the synagogue of Satan".
See also
*
Antisemitism and the New Testament#Book of Revelation
References
{{Authority control
Book of Revelation
Satan
Christianity and antisemitism
Synagogues
New Testament words and phrases