Synagogue and church in the Roman Empire: the insoluble problem of toleration

The Greek terms 'synagoge' and 'ekklesia' were ordinary words for a meeting or assembly. They were not cultic terms. Nor do they imply an association, let alone a community. But they have in either case come to do so, and the words also came to refer to the buildings where the community met. The common ground between synagogue and church has been actively explored in recent decades, with emphasis on how gradual the parting of the ways must have been. But Roman observers seem not to have noticed such a parallel, even though Greek philosophy later understood the intellectual link between Moses and Christ.