ELECT LADY. -See John (Epistles).
EL-ELOHE-ISRAEL ("-v-p: 'rhs Vx).— Upon the 'parcel of ground' whicii he had bought from the RCnd-Hamor, Jacob erected a. Tna^fibdh (so W vW. ,
682
EL ELYON
ELEMENT
Kautzsch - Socin, Ball, Dillm., etc.), and built an altar, giving to the latter the name El-elohe- Israel, 'El, the god of Israel,' Gn332"(E). This appears a strange name for an altar, hence Delitzsch ((((? loc.) supposes it to be meant, as it were, of its inscription. The LXX reads ^jr£Ko\^<raTo rbf 0{ov 'lapaiiX, ' he called upon the God of Israel ' ; and it is just possible that this is correct, and that we should emend the MT ^s S'? trjjj'i to Sn^ ki.P'!. See God. J. A. Selbie.
EL ELYON (iV^y Sn) occurs in RVm of Gn 14"- 19. au. a „.iiere KV (text) has ' God most High,' and AV ' the most high God.' It is probably a proper name, the appellation of a Canaanite deity. In v.*^ ' I have lift up mine hand unto J", God most High,' there can be little doubt that the introduc- tion of the word ' J" ' and the identification of tlie latter with El Elyon are due to a redactor (so Ball, Kautzsch-Socin, Hommel, etc.). The word J" is wanting in the LXX {Oebp rbv O^iotov), and tlie collocation of names reminds one of ' Jahweh- Elohim ' of Gn 2*-3. See further under GoD.
It has been proposed by Sayce to identify El Elyon with the ' mighty king ' referred to in the letters of Ebed-tob (or, as Hommel writes the name, Abdi-khiba) to the Pharaoh Amenflphis (c. B.C. 1400). This 'mighty king' is indeed gener- ally supposed to be the king of Egypt ; but Hommel, while agreeing with Driver, against Sayce, that an earthly potentate is meant, argues, from the use of the term in the letter of Rib-Adda of Gebal, that it cannot be intended to designate the Pharaoh, but was more probably the king of the Hittites. He suggests, further, that the title 'mighty king' had originnlbj a religious significance. He remarks tliat tlie thrice- repeated asseveration of Abdi- khiba, that he owed his exalted position not to his father or his motlier, but to the ' arm of the mighty king,' sounds like the eclio of some ancient sacreil formula. ' To the Pharaoh, of course, the "mii^hty king" meant nothing more than his rival tlie king of the Hittites; but in Jerusalem the original signihcance of the words " not my father and not ray mother, but the arm of the mighty king" (i.e. of El Elyon), must still have been per- fcittly familiar.' It is well, however, to remember that this is pure conjecture. There is no reason why a title lilce the ' mighty king ' should not have been applied to more monarchs than one. In the letters of Abdi-khiba it may refer to the Hittite king, as elsewhere it may designate the king of Egypt or tlie kin" of Babylon, but that it has ever anything to do with El Elyon remains to he proved.
LiTKKATUHE.— Dillm. and Del. on On U ; Kittel, Hiet. of nebTfws, i. 179 t. I Hommel, Anc. Ueb. Tradilion (1807), 161 ff., InOff., 226; a series of papers in the Expository Times, vols, vii.-viii. (1896-97), on 'Melchizedek,' by Sayce, Driver, and HommeL J. A. SeLBIE.
ELEMENT. — A word, with its original uroixfiov (always in pi.) and its derivative (rroixf'wiris, entirely confined in sacred literature to the Apocr. and n't. AV renders the Greek variously : six times as 'elements' (Wis 7" 19'S Gal 4»- », 2 P y- "=), twice as ' rudiments ' (Col 2s- -"»), once as ' princiides ' (He 5'-), once {aTOix^twcris) as ' members ^ (2 Mac 7*^). RV gives ' elements ' in Wis, 2 Mac, and 2 P ; elsewhere (St. Paul and He) ' rudiments.' In the untranslated (LXX) Apocr. it occurs once, 4 Mae 12", plainly meaning elements. In Wis, as in 2 P, it means unmistak- ably the physioAl elements of which the cosmos is composed; in 2 and 4 Mac those of which the human body is composed ; in Hebrews its dehning genitives show that it stands with them for the elements of Christian knowledge. All these signi-
fications march with the usage of the word IB secular Greek and follow from its original signi- fication— that which stands in a (rroixos, ' row,' ' series ' ; then (1) in pi. the letters of the alphabet, not as written signs, but as the primary elements of words (Plat., Aristot.) ; (2) the primary elements of the universe (from Plat, downwards) ; (3) as suggested by tlie usage in Xenoph. {Mem. II. i. 1) and Aristot. (see Bonitz, Index Arist. p. 702), — where it occurs as the simplest elements of an argument or demonstration, — but definitely only in later Greek from Cornutus (Ist cent. A.D.), Plut., Diog. L., downwards, the primary elements, the first principles, of knowledge, almost always with a defining genitive or a guide from tne context determining wliat the knowledge is.
The passages in St. Paul alone remain. Gal 4'- ', Col 2'- ^. In each of these there is the defining genitive toS KSa^ov, except in Gal 4*, where, how- ever, the ToO K&a 11.0V of v.' clearly fixes the context. The first natural impression, therefore, is that the oToixf'o in all these places should be interpreted in the same way ; and the second is that, as toC Kbujiov is not a branch of instruction, like Xoylwv in He, or dper^j in Plut. (Z>e puer. educ. 16), the basis of the interpretation should be physical, as with the other instances in biblical literature (of. for the influence of Wis upon St. Paul, Sanday- Headlara, Romans, p. 51), rather than ethical; ' elements of the material world ' (cf. Philo, De Vita Contempl. ii. 472), rather than ' elements [ol religious knowledge] furnished by the material world ' (Lightfoot), or ' elements [of religious knowledge] characteristic of the non-Christian world,' i.e. elements of religious truth belonging to mankind in general (Meyei). The 'religious knowledge ' and ' religious tiuth,' with theii' alleged relation to toG Kbaixov, seem to be imported to help interpreters out of a difficulty.