_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.