THE JEWISH ENCYCLOPEDIA
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Tabernacle and Temple, and that of the synagogue (compare, however, the Baraita). The vulgar crowd commit a deadly sin in calling the sacred shrine simply " chest " (Shab. 32a). In Megillah iii. 1 this gradation of sacredness is given From the proceeds of the sale of a synagogue an Ark may be purchased from those of an Ark, wrappers (for the Torah scroll) from those
Akk of the Law (From
- i
photograph
in
Yad ha-Hazakah,
Hilkot Tefillah,
the Synagogue at Gibraltar.
xi. 14,
the Pentateuch and other parts of the Old Testament in book form) from those of books, a Torah
(compare also Shulhan Aruk, Orah Hayyim, § 153, 2). According to Ta'anit ii. 1 the Ark was portable. Josephus ("Ant." xvi. 6, § 2) mentions inciscroll
'
dentally that the sacred books were kept in the synagogue (oappaTciov); Chrysostom (347-407) refers in "Oratio Ad versus Juclwos," vi. 7 ("Opera," ed.Montfaucon, vol. i.), to the Ark (/u/fordf, the word by which the Septuagint renders the Hebrew p"iK) and in "Orat." i. 5 to the "Law " and the "Prophets" which were kept in the synagogues. Itis only Mai-
in the collection of
of wrappers, books (that signifies, according to Mai-
monides'
Ark of the Law
Hon. Mayer Sulzberger.)
monides (Yad ha-Hazakah, Hilkot Tefillah, x. [xi.] state ex3) and Bertinoro (to Ta'anit ii. 1) who plicitly that the sacred scrolls were preserved in the Ark. A
J. M. C. Architecturally Considered In earlier times and in less important synagogues the Ark was .
