[(? a. Fr. ecclesiaste), ad. (through L.) Gr. ἐκκλησιαστής one who takes part in an ECCLESIA (= sense 3 below); used by the LXX. to render Heb. qōhéleth one who addresses a public assembly.]
1. ‘The Preacher,’ i.e., Solomon considered as the author of the Book of Ecclesiastes. In first quot. applied to the author of Ecclesiasticus, the reference being to xxxiii. 19.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Wyfs Prol., 651. Thanne wolde he, vp-on his Bible seke That ilke prouerbe, of Ecclesiaste Where he comandeth, and forbedeth faste Man shal nat suffre his wyf go roule aboute.
1873. Contemp. Rev., XXII. 536. The happiness that allures me, says the Ecclesiast, is a mockery.
2. † a. [suggested by 1.] One who performs public functions in church (obs.). b. (Suggested by ECCLESIASTIC.] A church administrator.
c. 1386. Chaucer, Prol., 708. He [the Pardonere] was in churche a noble ecclesiaste.
1866. F. W. Newman, Relig. Weakness Prot., 40. We see a great ecclesiast.
3. A member of the Athenian Ecclesia.
1849. Grote, Greece, II. l. VI. 382. Present to the mind of every citizen in his character of dikast or Ekklesiast.
1872. Symonds, Grk. Poets, Ser. I. i. (1877), 30. The whole Athenian nation as dikasts and ecclesiasts were interested in Rhetoric.
