~ 96 ~
the world.' The word[1] which I have translated thus is frequently used both for the alphabet (or rudiments of knowledge) and also in a physical sense, sometimes for what we call the 'elements,' but still more for the heavenly bodies, particularly the signs of the Zodiac or the planets. There has always been much questioning as to which of these two meanings the word bears in our passages, but whichever is right must be right for all four occasions on which it recurs. Both interpretations can claim high authority both in ancient and modern times. Our Revised Version has definitely committed itself to the first, by translating the word as 'rudiments' in the body of the text, and relegating the ambiguous 'elements' of the old Version to the margin. The main objection to this, to my mind, is the addition of 'the world' in three out of the four cases. 'Rudiments of the world' is a strange expression for an elementary degree of knowledge or enlightenment. But it is perhaps no stranger than many others in the Pauline epistles, and I am far from feeling certain that this first interpretation is wrong. But the second at any rate deserves careful consideration.
Those who adopt this second explanation have, I think, generally supposed that Paul denounces the observation of days, months and years as bondage to the heavenly bodies, because we measure time by them. This has always
- ↑ στοιχεῖα.
