H. S. M.
Foreign Ambassadors (Vol. iv., p. 442.).
—The information solicited in p. 442. has, in some degree, been subsequently given at page 477.; but, I believe, much more distinctly in the Gentleman's Magazine for November and December, 1840, so far, at least, as embracing the French ambassadors to the English court from the fourteenth to the eighteenth century. A personal account of each is there given in reply to the inquiry of Mr. John Holmes of the British Museum, and under the signature of
J. R. (Cork.)
Church, whence derived (Vol. v., p. 79.).
—Theophilus Anglicanus supplies a sufficient answer to MR. GEORGE STEPHENS' inquiries respecting the word church.
There can be no doubt about its etymology. The only question of difficulty seems to be, why did the church of Rome adopt the word ἐκκλησία from the Greeks, and not κυριακὴ? Was it that they had a word of their own, viz. Dominica? or was it, that ecclesia was already a naturalised word? However this may be, Dr. Wordsworth bases upon the fact an important argument, tending to show that the Britons did not receive their christianity in the first instance from Rome:
"We may appeal," he says (Part II. chap. ii.), "to the English word church, which is derived, as has been before said, from the Greek κυριακὴ, a term which no Roman ever applied to the church (which he called ecclesia, and by no other name); and it is not credible, that, if the British church had been derived from Rome, it should have been designated by a title alike foreign to Romans and to Britons themselves."
If this argument be of any value in relation to Britain, it (of course) would not be without its worth to those who ascribe the primary conversion of the Teutonic countries, which MR. STEPHENS mentions, to the early British and Irish missionaries.
J. SANSOM.