Synagogue of Satan
A biblical phrase used to describe persecuting groups.
The phrase 'Synagogue of Satan' appears in the Book of Revelation, where Jesus addresses the churches of Smyrna and Philadelphia, referring to a group that persecutes believers and claims to be Jewish but is not. The passage has historically been used to justify antisemitism, though many evangelical Christian scholars dispute this interpretation, noting that the author of Revelation was likely Jewish.
Quick Facts
- Biblical references
- Revelation 2:9 and 3:9
- Groups addressed
- Churches of Smyrna and Philadelphia
- Phrase used
- Synagogue of Satan (συναγωγή τοῦ Σατανᾶ)
- Notable later user
- Billy Graham
- Year of graham conversation
- 1973
- Encyclical title
- Etsi multa
Facts from the source article.
Other uses
Similar language appears in the Dead Sea Scrolls, where a persecuted Jewish sect called its opponents 'the lot of Belial' (Satan). A fragment of a lost work on Pope Dioscorus I of Alexandria, found at the Monastery of Saint Macarius the Great in 1923 and identified by theologian William Hatch, uses the phrase; Hatch believed it referred to the Council of Chalcedon, from which Dioscorus was deposed for his miaphysitism. In 1653, Quakers Elizabeth Williams and Mary Fisher called Sidney Sussex College at Cambridge 'a Cage of unclean Birds and a Synagogue of Satan' and were publicly flogged.
Billy Graham used the phrase in a private 1973 conversation with President Richard Nixon, referring to 'one of two types of Jews'; when the tapes were released, Graham apologized for what were seen as antisemitic remarks. Pope Pius IX's 1873 encyclical Etsi multa refers to Freemasonry as 'the synagogue of Satan'.
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