Andrew Meredith’s Reviews > Delivered from the Elements of the World: Atonement, Justification, Mission > Status Update

"For Paul, physis and nomos, physics and law, nature and culture, are not finally separable. Human beings can be "naturally" Jews, not simply by birth but by conformity to the nomic regulations and patterns of life of Torah. One can be "naturally" circumcised (Rom 2:27). What we would separate into "ritual" and "natural" Paul joins together. And this expresses an anthropology: Human beings are defined by the social and cultural setting in which they live, move and have their being. Jews are not simply generic human beings who happen to practice and live Jewishly. Conformity to Jewish norms, performance of Jewish rites and adherence to Jewish institutions give them Jewish nature. Against this background, we can make better sense of Paul's use of the scientific phrase "the elements of the world." If human physis is intertwined with human and divine nomos, then the elementary particles of physics are also linked to law, custom and practice. And if physis is so closely linked to nomos, then a change of law might also involve a change of nature and its elements (ta stoicheia)."

"What Paul does with the phrase remains to be seen, but the starting point is to see that he is doing something with a phrase that possesses a prior, recognized public meaning. Ta stoicheia tou kosmou means primarily the organized parts that constitute the system and order of the physical universe. In Greek and in Jewish thought, even in the strictest scientific sense, ta stoicheia are features of a religious and political outlook that included purificatory rites, sacrifices, and intense spiritual disciplines. It is particularly against this latter background that we can understand the Pauline variations on this Hellenic theme."

"Like a minor child under such guardians, "we" were children enslaved (dedoulomenoi) under ta stoicheia tou kosmou (Gal 4:3). Paul's charge is that by reverting to Torah, the Galatians have turned back to those same elementary things rather than accepting the inheritance that has now come to them. But who is the "we"? That it is not generically inclusive is evident from the fact that Paul switches to second person at the end of Galatians 3 (Gal 3:26-29) before returning to the first person at the beginning of Galatians 4. Since Paul is writing about the role of Torah in the history of Israel (Gal 3:23-24; 4:4-5), "we" must mean "we Jews." "Under Torah," "under guardians and managers" and "under ta stoicheia tou kosmou" are parallel descriptions of Israel's childhood. They all refer to the life of Israel prior to Christ, but bring out different aspects of that pattern of life. This supposition is confrmed by the fact that Paul thinks that the Galatians revert to ta stoicheia when they submit to Jewish demands that they be circumcised and maintain purity and food laws prescribed by Torah (Gal 4:9; see Gal 1-2). In a reenactment of the exodus, God sends the Son and Spirit like Moses and the pillar of cloud to bring Israel, his slave-sons, to maturity, to deliver them out from their immature bondage to the elements and to bring them to full sonship. Turning back to the elements is like returning to Egypt."

"Redemption of Israel from the elements is only the beginning. In Galatians 4:8-9 Paul addresses "you," the Gentile Galatians, who once "did not know God" and were "slaves to that which by nature are no gods." This cannot refer to Israel, yet Paul charges that they are in danger of reverting (epistrephete palin) to ta stoicheia as well. If they are turning again to the elements, they must have been under the elements at some time in the past. Jews under Torah are under the elements, but Gentiles who had no Torah were also under some form of ta stoicheia."

"What are the elements? Clearly Paul does not mean what Aristotle or Greek scientists meant. He does not claim that the gospel announces a change in the constitution of the physical world. As with physis, he uses stoicheia to describe a change in the basic constituents of the social and cultural cosmos. We can be more specific. While stoicheia tou kosmou is sometimes linked with attachment to gods or other spiritual beings, it is more often linked to religious practices."

"This point is confirmed by Paul's use of the phrase in Colossians. He has warned about seduction by philosophy and human tradition, which are according to (kata) the stoicheic patterns of life (Col 2:8). He is more specific in Colossians 2:20. The Colossians who died with Christ came out from under (apo) the elements, but they act as if they are still living in the world constituted by the elements (ti hõs zontes en kosmo). Their actions betray their convictions, for they act as if Christ has never come. The world they died to is a world of purity prohibitions: "Do not handle, do not taste, do not touch." A purity system is relevant in a world mapped by the distinction of holy and profane space: Only the pure can draw near to God; only the holy can approach what is holy, for holy things are for holy people."

"Practices of purity imply a cosmos, a way of organizing and construing reality. Distinctions between clean and unclean map the social world into distinct regions. Purity regulations form an economy of signs, a symbolic universe, but the symbolic universe is not self-enclosed. A symbolic map works with the world divvied up in specific ways. Purity regulations trace out a world that comes to seem natural to those who inhabit it."

Rites of purity "are efficacious signs that ensure the coherence, the stability of the social world. Indeed, these practices alone ensure the continuance of the social world they signify. The order of the social cosmos depends on purity practices. Symbolic boundaries exist only if they are maintained in the minds and habits of a people. Israel's temple is a divine shelter because Yahweh comes to dwell there. Priestly guardians and worshipers treat it as inviolable holy space because of the divine presence. Without the presence of Yahweh and the sacred activity of priests, it is just a building. Bodily functions are impure only insofar as they are considered impure."

These practices and boundaries, separating the holy from the profane, the pure from the impure, constitute the basics of religious and social life. They are very appropriately called "elements of the world."

"Paul tries to convince everyone to stop: everything is pure; no more circumcision/uncircumcision; no holy space other than the human being and human community indwelt by the Spirit of Jesus. Paul told everyone that the physics of religion and society had been transformed, and that the end of the old elemental system was the great moment of maturation, when the human race grew up from slaves to sons. A world beyond stoicheic order— that is, a saved world, a world fulfilled as new creation."

"Nothing could express the root character of the change brought by the gospel more stunningly than the language of physics. Jesus did not merely rearrange the surface. The world works differently now, because it is no longer made up of the same stuff. It is as if Paul announced that Jesus transformed the world right down to the quarks. For many Jews and for pagan Gentiles, giving up rules about tasting, touching, handling meant giving up hope for salvation. For Jews like Philo, for Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks and Romans too, the end of ta stoicheia could only mean the end of the cosmos—for some, literally the end. It was unthinkable that human beings could outgrow subjection to ta stoicheia or the practices that express that subjection. Liberation from stoicheia simply means liberation from order itself, for there appears to be no conceivable order besides stoicheic order. For many, the gospel Paul announces is no good news, it seems, but a threatening wave of chaos."