Excursus
τὰ στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου
The expression τὰ στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου is found four times in the Pauline epistles (Gal.
4:3, 9; Col. 2:8, 20), and the term στοιχεῖα/στοιχεῖον is used three times elsewhere in the New
Testament (Heb. 5:12; 2 Pet. 3:10, 12). The noun originally meant ‘member of a
row or series’. From there it came to denote the elements from which everything
was formed, and also the rudiments or first principles of a subject, and it is
in these two senses that the word is used in 2 Peter and Hebrews respectively.
However, later it also came to be applied to the stars or their deities, and
thus to denote spiritual beings,2 although such a usage is not
attested in Paul’s time. The earliest unmistakable evidence for the use of στοιχεῖα/στοιχεῖον meaning ‘spirits’ or ‘demons’ is
found in the Testament of Solomon, which was written possibly as late as the
third or fourth century.
Determining the sense
in which Paul used the expression τὰ στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου is problematic, especially as it is not
necessarily used in the same sense in both Galatians and Colossians. For
present purposes the options may be limited to two. Either the Pauline στοιχεῖα are to be understood as ‘the
fundamental principles which provide the basis of everything which is to be
built upon it’, or they are spiritual powers.
1 Elementary Principles
In Galatians 4:3 the
first person plural implies that Paul is probably speaking exclusively of the
Jews. Thus the Jews had been ὑπὸ τὰ στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου … δεδουλωμένοι, which, in the light of 3:23, should be equated
with being confined or imprisoned under the law. This ‘was the time they spent
in the infant class learning their ABCs’, but it was not just a question of
elementary education but also of bondage. τὰ στοιχεῖα must therefore somehow involve
the Law, or ‘legalism as a principle of life’. However, in 4:9, speaking of
gentile Christians, Paul accuses them of returning
again to the στοιχεῖα
by taking up the prescriptions of the law, πῶς ἐπιστρέφετε πάλιν ἐπὶ τὰ ἀσθενῆ καὶ πτωχὰ στοιχεῖα, which obviously means that even
as gentiles they had been under them. Thus ‘Judaism and paganism, both involved
subjection to the same elemental forces.’
Galatians 4:4ff.
indicates that Paul in fact understood the gentiles, like the Jews, to have
been ὑπὸ νόμον, as does 3:13. Evidently the
gentiles had not had the written law
like the Jews but in Romans 2:14f. Paul indicates that the law is written on
the hearts of those who do not have it in written form. Thus, all men may be
said to be under law, and gentile religion, notwithstanding its immense
differences from Judaism, may still be regarded as a form of legalism, an
attempt to live by law. ‘The demonic forces of legalism, then, both Jewish and
Gentile, can be called “principalities and powers” or “elemental spirits of the
world”.’
In Colossians
similarly the στοιχεῖα
may be understood as ‘ “elementary teaching”—teaching by Judaistic or
pagan ritualists, a “materialistic” teaching bound up with “this world” alone,
and contrary to the freedom of the spirit’. 2:16 and 2:20ff. indicate that a
legalistic asceticism is in view, and it is possible that, as in Galatia, some
teachers were trying to insist on the performance of Jewish rites. Thus in 2:8
it is quite conceivable that Paul would contrast the στοιχεῖα understood in legalistic terms,
with Christ, as a rival to him; moreover the juxtaposition of τὰ στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου and ἡ παράδοσις τῶν ἀνθρώπων implies that they should be understood
synonymously, which would support the argument for understanding ἡ παράδοσις τῶν ἀνθρώπων as elementary principles. In
2:20 the στοιχεῖα
are mentioned in the context of references to ascetic practices and explicitly
related to them; it is represented as a contradictory state of affairs that the
believers who have died to the στοιχεῖα still submit to ascetic regulations, which
suggests that τὰ στοιχεῖα and asceticism may have been
understood as essentially identical.
Hence, on this view, τὰ στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου would be the elementary and essentially
legalistic principles common to all non-Christian religion, Jewish or pagan. It
was to these ‘principles’ that the Galatians and Colossians were in danger of
returning. Such an approach corresponds to a known contemporary usage (cf. Heb.
5:12), and makes sense of the passages in question. Moreover the arguments
against it are inconclusive. Thus, first, the claim that the comparison between
the στοιχεῖα and Christ in Colossians 2:8
demands that they be personal beings is invalid for, by the same logic, ἡ παράδοσις τῶν ἀνθρώπων would have to be personal.
Similarly it is untrue that Galatians ‘leaves little doubt that there Paul
thinks of the στοιχεῖα
as personal beings’; in Romans 6–7 personification of the law or sin does not
mean that Paul saw either of them as personal beings. Second, it is argued that
the term στοιχεῖα,
unlike ‘elementary’ in English, did not have pejorative connotations; thus when
Paul uses στοιχεῖα
in a derogatory way, it must refer to spiritual beings he disapproved of, rather than to principles which, simply by being called στοιχεῖα, would have been understood to
be estimable. This ignores however the fluidity of linguistic usage; Paul may
be using the term in a modified way, indeed giving it an ironic turn. Hence,
what he could be implying is that what the world had always regarded as
‘fundamental’ principles are now, through Christ, shown to be merely elementary
teachings. The context in which it was used would give to the word its
particular nuance, and in Hebrews 5:12, where the word στοιχεῖα undeniably refers to first
principles, it certainly ‘has a derogatory ring’. Finally it could be argued
that in Galatians 4:8f. Paul is identifying the στοιχεῖα which enslaved the gentiles with
οἱ φύσει μὴ ὅντες θεοί, suggesting that, for the gentiles at least, τὰ στοιχεῖα were spirits. However, it need
only be inferred from 4:8f. that the Galatians’ bondage to their former gods entailed slavery to the στοιχεῖα, not that those gods were στοιχεῖα.
2 Elemental Spirits
While in Galatians 4
there is little difficulty in understanding how pagan religion might be seen as enslavement to the στοιχεῖα understood as spirits (cf. 1
Cor. 10:20), it is less clear how ‘being under the Torah’ might be ‘only
another way of being under the “elements of the world” ’ understood in the
same way. The approach adopted by many commentators is therefore to associate
the στοιχεῖα with the angelic mediators of
the Jewish Law: ‘In Galatians 4:3 some close connection between (or
identification of) these angels and the στοιχεῖα is required.’ Thus being under τὰ στοιχεῖα means by metonymy being under
the Law, and Galatians 4:8f could accordingly be understood to equate the στοιχεῖα with ὁι φύσει μὴ ὄντες θεοί.
Given the emphasis in
Colossians on demonic powers, there is an obvious prima facie case for understanding τὰ στοιχεῖα as spirits, although precise
identification will depend on one’s view of the error (if any) Paul is
opposing. O’Brien suggests they were believed to control entry into God’s
presence; thus in 2:8 they are presented as rivals to Christ, the sole
mediator, while in 2:20 are mentioned the rites they were thought to impose as
the price of access. Wright however argues that Paul is engaging in a polemic
against ‘those who want to lure ex-pagan Christians into full synagogue
membership’. From this perspective the στοιχεῖα are to be understood as ‘local presiding deities,
the national “gods” supposed to rule over the different areas and races of the
world’. The στοιχεῖα
are thus the national ‘gods’ of the Jews, but Christ is head of all nations and
has freed the Colossians from all such national solidarities and associated
deities. Thus, for both O’Brien and Wright, the Christian is free from the στοιχεῖα and from any regulations they
might impose.
Nevertheless,
identifying τὰ στοιχεῖα as elemental spirits encounters
serious difficulties. First, outside the New Testament there is no evidence
that τὰ στοιχεῖα might have such a referent in
the first century. Second, if Paul used the term to refer to spirits similar to
the powers, it is curious that he never includes the στοιχεῖα in his lists of spirit powers,
which were random compilations rather than stereotyped formulae. By his usage
he implicitly differentiates them from the ‘principalities and powers’.
Furthermore, it seems
unlikely that the στοιχεῖα
of Galatians 4:3 are in any way related to the angels of 3:19. This is partly
because the ‘reference to the angels in 3:19 is too incidental’; also because,
while Galatians 3:19 is intended to demonstrate the inferiority of the Law, it
neither implies nor demands a negative evaluation of the mediating angels,
whereas the στοιχεῖα
do seem to be negatively evaluated (cf. especially 4:9); and, finally, because
the fact that these angels mediate the Law does not imply that they enforce it,
such that submission to the Law means slavery to the mediators. If however the στοιχεῖα of 4:3 are not angelic mediators
of the Law, in order to maintain that they are nevertheless spirits one must
account for their sudden and unexplained introduction into the argument, and
identify them. They could perhaps be understood as the ‘gods’ which stand
behind national religions; Paul might have held that demonic beings stood
behind the legalistic perversion of the Jewish religion. However,
there is no explicit, unambiguous evidence that he thought in such terms.
The referent of τὰ στοιχεῖα in Colossians cannot be
determined by the exegesis of Galatians. However, if the evidence favours a
‘non-demonic’ understanding in Galatians, exegesis of Colossians must take that
into account, particularly as such an approach makes as good a sense of the
Colossian texts as the other. Lohse claims that the context in Colossians
demands the ‘demonic’ understanding, but in reality the context is
neutral on the subject. The fact that Colossians is very much concerned with
spirits (it is indeed equally concerned with ‘regulations’ and ‘questions of
food and drink’) is of little weight in assessing the meaning of an ambiguous
word which could ‘fit’ equally well on either understanding. Moreover, whereas
Paul speaks of Christians dying to the στοιχεῖα in Colossians 2:20, nowhere does he say that they
have died to the powers, but he ‘does specifically assert that Christians have
died to the Law (Gal 2:19; Rom 7:14)’.
Thus, although the
issue is finely balanced, the conclusion here is that in Paul’s epistles τὰ στοιχεῖα τοῦ κόσμου should be understood not as spirits but as the
‘elementary principles’ of religion outside of Christ, ‘the legalistic
prescriptions to which heathen religion [and indeed Judaism too] subjects its
adherents’. (Keith Ferdinando, The Triumph of Christ in African Perspective:
A Study of Demonology and Redemption in the African Context [Cumbria, U.K.:
Paternoster Press, 1999], 409–416)
