Section 98
37A. Schlatter, Erläuterungen zum Neuen Testament, Teil 7 (Stuttgart, 61963), p. 275. Compare Josephus’s description of the various Jewish sects (including the Zealots) as φιλοσοφίαι (BJ 2.118-66; Ant. 18.9-25).
38In the Greek text ϰενῆς ἀπάτης comes under the same regimen as φιλοσοφίας. The “philosophy” and the “empty illusion” are identical.
39A “human tradition” might be Jewish or Gentile or both; cf. Mark 7:8, where it is Jewish (see p. 93 above); 1 Pet. 1:18, where the addressees’ former pagan way of life is described as πατϱοπαϱάδοτος (“received by tradition from your fathers”).
40Gk. τὰ στοιϰεῑα τοṽ ϰόσμου (cf. Gal. 4:3). The noun στοɩϰεῖα means primarily things placed side by side in a row; it is used (inter alia) of the letters of the alphabet, the ABCs, and then, since learning one’s ABCs is the first lesson in a literary education, it comes to mean “rudiments,” “first principles” (cf. Heb. 5:12, the “rudiments” of the gospel). Again, since the letters of the alphabet were regarded as the “elements” of which words and sentences are made up, στοιχεῖα comes to denote the “elements” of the material world (as in 2 Pet. 3:10, 12); Philo uses the phrase τὰ στοιχεῖα τóṽ ϰὸσμου in this sense (Age of the World 109). Elsewhere (Contemplative Life 3) Philo speaks of the Greeks who venerate the four στοιχεῖα (earth, water, air, fire) and give them divine names (Demeter, Poseidon, Hera, Hephaestus); in yet another place he says that “some have deified the four στοιχεῖα—earth, water, air and fire—while others have deified the sun and moon and the other planets and fixed stars; others again the heaven alone; others the whole world,” and he mentions the names under which they are worshipped (Decalogue 53). In Wisdom 13:2 the various elements are said to receive worship from those who do not know God, but are called not στοιχεῖα but πϱυτάνεις ϰóσμου (“rulers of the world”). On the Pauline use of στοιχεὶα see, in addition to commentaries on Galatians and Colossians, G. Delling, TDNT 7, pp. 683-86 (s.v.στοιχεῖον); H. H. Esser, NIDNTT 2, pp. 452-53 (s.v.”Law”); E. Percy, Die Probleme, pp. 156-67; J. Blinzler, “Lexikalisches zu dem Terminus τὰ στοιχεῖα τοṽ ϰὸσμου bei Paulus,” in Studiorum Paulinorum Congressus 1961 17-18 (Rome, 1963), II, 429-43; A. J. Bandstra, The Law and the Elements of the World (Kampen, 1964); E. Schweizer, “Die Elemente der Welt Gal 4, 3.9; Col 2, 8.20,” in Beiträge zur Theologie des Neuen Testaments (Zürich, 1970), pp. 147-63.