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ELEMENTS
ELEIklENTS
the Spirit, these Jewish believers are, as St. Peter elsewhere calls them, ' an elect race, a roj-al priest- hood, a holy nation, a people for God's own possession ' (2^, where election is seen to be not simply to privilege, but to character and service, to holy living and the setting forth of the Divine glory). Although they are an ' elect race ' they are also in the same context described as 'living stones' (2'), and Hort is right when he says 'the whole spirit of the Epistle excludes any swallowing up of the individual relation to God in the corpo- rate relation to Him ; and the individual relation to God implies the individual election' {First Epistle of St. Peter, I. l-II. 17, 1898, p. 14),
Few as are St. Peter's utterances regarding the doctrine, they entirely support St. Paul, even when, emphasizing the urgency of the matter as a part of practical religion, he bids his readers give diligence to make their ' calling and election sure ' (2 P 11").
6. St. John's doctrine. — It is from St. John that we have the record of our Lord's most impressive teaching on the subject of those M'hom the Father had given Him (Jn 6=»^- ^^ 17'- ^*). In his Gospel he uses iKKiyeffOai, always, hoAvever, as employed in His discourses by the Lord Himself and witli a definite reference to the TAvelve, or to the company of the disciples. In his Second Epistle (vv.'- '^) he has iKKeKTrf. Whether the word desci'ibes an indi- vidual or a society it is not easy to say, but at least it has the same theological signification as in St. Paul and St. Peter. In the Apocalypse (17'**) e/c- XeKTol is used in a very significant connexion, where they that are with the Lamb in His warfare against the poAvers of evil, and in His victory over them, are 'called and chosen and faithful.' They are ' called ' (kXtjtoO in having heard and accepted the gospel message ; ' chosen ' [iKKeKTol] as thus having given evidence of their Divine election ; ' faithful' (iriaToi) as having yielded the loyal devotion of their lives to their DiA^ne Leader, and persevered therein to the end. That ' the elect ' are the same as 'the sealed' (Rev 7*) may be inferred from the manner in which the 144,000 pass unscathed through the conflicts and terrors let loose upon them(14J).
From this passage apparently comes the thought of the ' number ' of the elect as in the Book of Com- 7non Prayer (' Order for the Burial of the Dead ') : 'that it may please Thee to accomplish the number of Thine elect.' The thought appears early in the sub-Apostolic Church, for in Clement's Epistle to the Corinthians he urges them to ' pray with earnest supplication and intercession that the Creator of all Avould preserve uniiarmed the con- stituted number of His elect in all the Avorld through His beloved Son, Jesus Christ, through Avhom He called us from darkness to light, from ignorance to knoAvledge of the glory of His name' (lix. 2; cf. ii. 4, Iviii. 2; Apostol. Const, v. 15, viii. 22). No countenance is given in the Early Church to the idea that 'the elect' may live as they list and at last be saved. ' Let us cleave to the innocent and the righteous,' says Clement of Rome, ' for such are the elect of God ' (oj). cit. xlvi. 4). 'It is through faith,' says Hernias {Vis. III. viii. 3), ' that the elect of God are saved.' ' In love all the elect of God were made perfect,' says Clement again (xlix. 5), ' for without love nothing is Avellpleasing unto God.'
Literature.— C. Hodge, Systematic Theology, 1874, ii. 333 ff. ; H. C. G. Moule, Outlines of Christian Doctrine, 18S9, p. 37ff. ; C. Gore, in l^tudia Diblica, iii. [1801] 37 ff. ; Sanday-Headlam, Uomans->(ICC, 1!)02), 248 £f. ; A. B. Bruce, St. Paul's Concep- tion of Christianity, 1894, p. 310 ff. ; Commentaries on passages noticed above, especially Lightfoot and Hort, ad locc.
Thomas Nicol. ELEMENTS [aroixe'ia, elementa). — cxtolx^Zov is properly a stake or peg in a roAV [aTolxoi) ; then,
one of a series, a component part, an element. The special meanings of o-rotxeta are : {«) the letters of the alphabet ; (6) the physical elements or con- stituents of the universe ; (c) the heavenly bodies ; [d) the rudiments ox principia of a subject ; (e) the elementary spirits, angels, genii, or demons of the cosmos. Each of these meanings, Avith the excep- tion of the first, has been found by exegetes in one or other of the NT passages in which cToix^la occurs. In one case (He 5^") the interpretation (d) is beyond dispute ; the others have given rise to much discussion.
From Plato dowuAvards ffroixela frequently de- notes the elements of Avhich the Avorld is composed. Empedocles had already reckoned four ultimate elements — fire, Avater, earth, and air — but called them pi^db/j-ara (ed. Sturz, 1805, p. 255 fi".). Plato preferred to speak of the flTTOtxeta roO iravrds (Tim. 48 B ; cf. Themt. 201 E). In the Orphic Hymns (iv. 4) the air [ald-qp] is called k6<tij.ov crroixeLov dpiarov. Aristotle distinguished o-roixeta from dpxal (though the terms were often interchanged) as the material cause from the formal or motive [Metaph. IV. i. 1, iii. 1). The Stoic definition of a aToixelov is ' that out of Avhich, as their first principle, things generated are made, and into Avhich, as their last remains, they are resolved ' (Diog. Laert., Zeno, 69). aToix^'ia. has this meaning in Wis 7^^: ' For himself gave me an unerring knowledge of the things that are, to knoAV the constitution of the Avorld, and the operation of the elements' {koX ivipyeiav aroix^lwv ; cf. 19^*). In 2 Mac 7^'^ a mother says to her seven martyr sons : ' It was not I that brought into order the first elements {aroix^iuinv) of each one of you.'