Pastophoria

Pastophoria has been applied in ecclesiastical language to different purposes:

(1) It designates that which was borne on a shrine.

(2) A small chapel (paston), the sacristy of the Greek chapel (from πάσσω, in the sense of an embroidery which was wrought upon the curtain that hung before it). It comprehended the διακονικόν and σκηνοφυλάκιον.

(3) The watcher's chamber.

The ancient (i.e. classical) Greeks used the term to denote the residence within an Egyptian temple appropriated to the Pastophori (q.v.). The same word occurs in the Septuagint translation of the Old Testament, where in Eze 40:17 it is used for the chambers in the outward court of the Temple. Jerome, in commenting upon the passage, says that in the translations of Aquila and Syminachus it is rendered Gazophylacium and Exedra, and signified chambers of the treasury, and habitations for the priests and Levites round about that court of the Temple. This explanation of the word was probably derived from the writings of Josephus, who mentions the pastophorium as a part of the Temple at Jerusalem, constituting the treasury, in which the offerings ,of the people were deposited. Jerome, in another passage in his commentary on Isaiah, terms the pastophorium the chamber or habitation in which the ruler of the Temple dwelt. It is plain, therefore, that the word must have been employed in a very extensive signification.