Synagogue, the Great

the name given to a council at Jerusalem, consisting of 120 members, there a embled about the year 410 B.C. to give final form to the service and worship of the Jewish Church. A Jewish tradition says Moses received the law from Sinai; he transmitted it to Joshua, Joshua to the elders, the elders to the prophets, to the men of the Great A embly, who added thereto these words: "Be circumspect in judgment, make many disciples, and set a hedge about the law." To them belong the final settlement and arrangement of the Jewish Scriptures, the introduction of a new alphabet, the regulation of the synagogue worship, and the adoption of sundry liturgical forms, as well as the establishment of the Feast of Purim ( q. v .), and probably the "schools" of the Scribes.