EIGHTH DAY
ELECT, ELECTION
of Christian art. William Blake, Charles Holroyd, Eugfene Girardet, Anthony van Dyke, William Dobson, and many others have painted the scenos by the -way with a circumstance and detail which are indebted, where not wholly imaginary, to the accounts of the Apocryphal Gospels. The reality would doubtless ditl'er widely from the tranquil and easy conditions under which it has usually been depicted, and from which most readers have formed their mental conceptions of the event. The simple reticence of the Gospel narrative is in strik- ing contrast to the luxuriance and prodigality of miracle of the Apocryphal story. All that can be affirmed with certainty is that the flight would be conducted in haste and with the utmost secrecy, and pi"obably for the most part under cover of night. See also Flight.
LlTPRATURE.— For liotes OH the Oo?pel narrati\o sf>n the Com- 1S53.
Farrar, Christ in Art, pp. 263-273.
A. S. Geden.
EIGHTH DAY On the eighth day after birth,
as is well known, Jewish male infants received the rite of circumcision, and, at all events by the time of our Lord, their proper name also, in memory of the change in Abraham's name (see Hastings' /)/?, art. 'Circumcision'). Acioidin^lN SI . Luke recdids the fact that both Jesus Clni-i rl'') :<n<\ Ui< fore. runner John the Bapti-i l" i \\'if eiriuuiriseil and named on the eiglith day (i I. I'll :!', A<- 7^ etc.) ; for thus it became them ' to fnllil till ri^'hteousness ' (i.e. to ob.serve all the requirements of the ancient Law in the spirit as well as in the letter). See, further, art. CIRCUMCISION. C. L. Fkltok.
ELDER. — In the Gospels the term ' elder ' (irpeir- /Surepos) does not occur in the later Christian sense, denoting an officer of the Church (as in Ac 14'-'" 20", Tit P, Ja 5'*, 1 P 5'). In the Gospel of St. John tlie word occurs only once, and that in the doubtful passage concerning the adulteress (Jn 8"), where it has not any official sense, but simply means older jn years. In the Synoptics there is more frequent use, mostly in the official .sense. The few cases of unofficial meaning of the term are : Lk 15-', where it describes the ' elder brother ' in the parable of the l»rodigal : and Mt 15", Mk ■ja. 6^ where it means 'the elders' of a former age, the men of old from whom customs and maxims are handed down. In all the other passages (Mt 16-' 2P» 26''- "• "• =» 2V-^- '-■ ^' ■", Mk 8=' 1 1'-' 14«- ■'\ T,k 9" 20' 22*2) the term ' elders '—invariably plural- bears the official meaning current among the Jews of our Lord's time. What is that meaning ?
In the OT and Apocr. there is frequent mention of 'elders' in the official sense (see, c.rj., Gn 50', Ex3'8-'s, Lv4'^ Nu 1P», Dt31=», Jos 20^ Jg 8'^ 1 S 16*, 2 S 5^ 1 K 20', Ezr 5^ Ezk 8', Jth 6=', 1 Mac 7'' 1 1^, Sus8- '8 etc. ). From a study of these and similar passages it appears that in all the history of Israel, from the Egyptian bondage down to the time of Christ, ' elders' appear as an official class ; but the descriptions and statements are not explicit enough to give a definite idea of how they were appointed to office, or of their exact func- tions. It is not improbable that they were chosen as representatives of the people ; and the duties of the offic^e appear to have been threefold— advisory, executive, judicial. Further, there is a distinction between local ' elders' (those of a city) and 'the elders of Israel,' 'elders of the congregation,' ' elders of the people,' as they are variously called. We are now to inquire how far this OT use of the word is illustrated in that of the Gospels.
One passage only (Lk 7") seems to indicate the local 'elders' — those of Capernaum, the scene of
the event described ; and even here the turn of the expression, 'elders of the Jews,' might possibly jiuiut to national 'elders' present or resident ait Ctipeniauni. But on the whole it seems more niitiiral to take the term here in its local sense, in all the remaining piissages cited above, the reference is to the luitioiial ' elders.' From Vit- ringa (rfc -S'yMttjr. ^V^ III. i. 1) downwards, NT scholars have held with iijiparent unanimity that tlie tcnii designates the members of the Sanliedrin (wh. scri. riiis view is sustained by the connexion tiiiil j^-iH i.itK.ii (if the term, — u.sually with ' scribes ' and 'child priests,' — and by Lk 22^', where the Sanhedrin is called ' the presbytery,' or assembly of 'elders' (irpeirpvTipiov, cf. Ac 22^). There are various forms of expression : sometimes ' elders ' simply, and sometimes 'elders of the people,' com- monly associated with 'chief priests and scribes.' This is held by some to indicate that there were three orders or grades in the Sanhedrin, the ' elders ' being the lay element, or representatives of the people. This may be the case, but is at best only an inference, neither contradicted nor supported.
LiTERATDRE.— Hastinfts' DB, art. 'Elder,' and the lit. there mentioned ; Jewish Miuuc. and lit. ; Gtimm-Thayer, lexicon of the XT ; Cremer, Biblico-Theol. Lex. ; Vitringa, de St/n. i'et. ; Schiirer, HJP ; Morrison, The Jews under Homaii Rule ;