the head of a synagogue: a leading lay member who presided over a local Jewish congregation, its gatherings for worship, and often its building
The word is a compound: the ordinary word for a synagogue with a prefix meaning "chief" or "head" placed in front of it, so it means the head of the gathering. It names the leading figure of a local Jewish congregation. In the New Testament the people who hold it are always lay leaders, never priests or scribes, and they are clearly people of standing: Jairus can send servants to summon Jesus and fills his house with professional mourners, and Crispus in Corinth comes to faith together with his whole household.
The office went hand in hand with wealth, and its duties followed from that standing. A synagogue ruler often paid for the meeting place itself and then oversaw how it was used. In practice the role could include:
- paying for and maintaining the building where the congregation met,
- arranging the Sabbath gathering and choosing who read the Scriptures and who spoke,
- keeping order and disciplining members of the congregation,
- and speaking for the community before visitors and the civil authorities.
Not every leader did all of these, and how much any one of them did varied from place to place.
More than one person could hold the title at the same time in a single congregation, which is why the book of Acts can speak of the synagogue leaders of Antioch in the plural, inviting Paul to address the people. When one such leader objects to Jesus healing on the Sabbath, he scolds the crowd rather than Jesus, a telling detail: he had authority over his own congregation but none over a visiting teacher.
The Gospels can also name the same man with a broader word, ἄρχων, "a ruler," the general term for any official; Matthew and Luke use it for Jairus where Mark uses the specific title, so the wider category and the exact office name the same person.
Disputed
What the office of synagogue ruler actually involved: a defined working religious office, a mark of wealth and social honor, or a combination of the two.
- majorityAn integrated office in which leadership, social standing, and financial patronage went together, so the holder was a well-off lay benefactor of the congregation who also carried real, if variable, responsibilities for its worship and affairs.; Lee I. Levine, The Ancient Synagogue: The First Thousand Years, 2nd ed. (Yale University Press, 2005), ch. 11; Anders Runesson, The Origins of the Synagogue: A Socio-Historical Study (ConBNT 37, 2001); Craig S. Keener, Acts: An Exegetical Commentary, vol. 2 (Baker Academic, 2013), 2033–36; John S. Kloppenborg, Christ's Associations: Connecting and Belonging in the Ancient City (Yale University Press, 2019)
- minorityChiefly an honorary status marker of wealth and family standing rather than a set of duties, on the model of civic honors in the wider Greco-Roman world, shown by title-holders who could not have officiated, including women and a three-year-old child.; Tessa Rajak and David Noy, "Archisynagogoi: Office, Title and Social Status in the Greco-Jewish Synagogue," Journal of Roman Studies 83 (1993): 75–93; Margaret H. Williams, Jews in a Graeco-Roman Environment (WUNT 312, 2013)
- minorityA defined working office responsible for arranging worship, appointing readers, and overseeing the congregation, closely matching the later rabbinic "head of the synagogue."; Wolfgang Schrage, "συναγωγή κτλ.," in Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (TDNT), vol. 7, 844–47; Emil Schürer, The History of the Jewish People in the Age of Jesus Christ, rev. ed. Vermes, Millar, and Goodman (T&T Clark, 1979), vol. 2, 433–36