SYNAGOGUE, THE GREAT, the name given to a council at Jerusalem, consisting of 120 members, there assembled 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 Assembly, 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.

SYNCRETISM, name given to an attempted blending of different, more or less antagonist, speculative or religious systems into one, such as Catholic and Protestant or Lutheran and Reformed.

SYNDICATE, in commercial parlance is a name given to a number of capitalists associated together for the purpose of carrying through some important business scheme, usually having in view the controlling and raising of prices by means of a monopoly or “corner.”

SYNERGISM, the theological doctrine that divine grace requires a correspondent action of the human will to render it effective, a doctrine defended by Melanchthon when he ascribes to the will the “power of seeking grace,” the term “synergy” meaning co-operation.

SYNESIUS, BISHOP PTOLEMAIS, born at Cyrene; became a pupil of HYPATIA (q. v.) and was to the last a disciple, “a father of the Church without having been her son,” and is styled by Kingsley “the squire bishop,” from his love of the chase; “books and the chase,” on one occasion he writes, “make up my life”; wrote one or two curious books, and several hymns expressive of a longing after divine things (375-414).

SYNOD, name given to any assembly of bishops in council, and in the Presbyterian Church to an assembly of a district or a general assembly.

SYNOPTIC GOSPELS, the first three Gospels, so called because they are summaries of the chief events in the story, and all go over the same ground, while the author of the fourth follows lines of his own.

SYRA (31), an island of the Cyclades group, in the AEgean Sea, 10 m, by 5 m., with a capital called also Hermoupolis; on the E. coast is the seat of the government of the islands, and the chief port.

SYRACUSE, 1, one of the great cities of antiquity (19), occupied a wide triangular tableland on the SE. coast of Sicily, 80 m.  SW. of Messina, and also the small island Ortygia, lying close to the shore; founded by Corinthian settlers about 733 B.C.; amongst its rulers were the tyrants DIONYSIUS THE ELDER and DIONYSIUS THE YOUNGER (q. v.) and Hiero, the patron of AEschylus, Pindar, &c.; successfully resisted the long siege of the Athenians in 414 B.C., and rose to