Naos
(ναός, the Greek technical name for a temple) is used to designate the body of the church. SEE NAVE. The earlier Christians were averse to using this word with reference to their worship, on account of the use of it by the heathen. It was their boast that they had neither temples nor altars. But this is to be understood only relatively, by way of distinction between Jewish and heathen rites. When the danger of sympathizing either with Judaism or heathen idolatry had ceased, and a suspicion of such union could not be supposed to exist, Christians felt less hesitation in calling their churches temples, especially as this was the name rendered familiar to them by the Old-Testament Scriptures. The words ναός and templum are of frequent occurrence in the writings of Lactantius, Ambrose, Eusebius, and Chrysostom, and the phraseology was common in the 4th century. See Neale, Hist. (tst. Ch. Introd. (see Index in volume 2); Coleman, Christian Antiquities (see Index); Walcott, Sacred Archaeology, s.v.
The Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature was edited by John McClintock and James Strong. It contains nearly 50,000 articles pertaining to Biblical and other religious literature, people, creeds, etc. It is a fantastic research tool for broad Christian study.
John McClintock was born October 27, 1814 in Philadelphia to Irish immigrants, John and Martha McClintock. He began as a clerk in his father's store, and then became a bookkeeper in the Methodist Book Concern in New York. Here he converted to Methodism and considered joining the ministry. McClintock entered the University of Pennsylvania in 1832 and graduated with high honors three years later. Subsequently, he was awarded a doctorate of divinity degree from the same institution in 1848.WikipediaRead More