---

The names proseuche and synagogue were sometimes confounded; though at other times the distinction between them is observed. This distinction consists in the first word being used of the place of assembly, and the latter of the assembly itself. But however frequently these names were interchanged, they seem on the whole to have been used to designate different buildings, the first a temporary and tentative place of worship, the second a regular and acknowledged edifice, much as among ourselves a mission chapel is distinguished from a parish church. Wheresoever, from the paucity of their numbers, the Jews were not able to establish a synagogue, which required a certain number of men competent to bear the offices necessary to constitute a synagogue, there near a stream, as seems to have been the almost invariable practice in heathen countries, a proseuche was established — a humble dwelling partly covered, in part open to the sky, which in after times might give place to a grander edifice, and was not exclusively devoted to worship as the synagogue was. Thus at Thessalonica and Antioch and elsewhere we find synagogues mentioned; at Philippi, where there is no appearance of any Jewish colony, there is only "a place for prayer."

(W. Denton, M. A.)

---

---

KJV: And on the sabbath we went out of the city by a river side, where prayer was wont to be made; and we sat down, and spake unto the women which resorted thither.

WEB: On the Sabbath day we went forth outside of the city by a riverside, where we supposed there was a place of prayer, and we sat down, and spoke to the women who had come together.