Elemental spirits

In a 1996 article in Novum Testamentum , Clinton Arnold argues that the  stoicheia (“elementary principles,” Galatians 4:3 and elsewhere) are demons.  His arguments in favor of a personal understanding of the stoicheia are strong if not entirely persuasive, but his argument that Paul portrays the stoicheia as entirely malevolent powers  are weaker.

He notes the “Second Exodus” imagery of Galatians 4; the stoicheia are lords that enslave, lords from which Jesus and the Spirit liberate Jews and Gentiles.  But in context slavery is a condition of childhood (Galatians 4:1); slavery is the condition of minority and immaturity.  Calling the elemental things “weak and poor” (v. 9) doesn’t necessarily imply that they are evil, any more than saying that pre-resurrection human flesh is “weak” (1 Corinthians 15) implies that the flesh is evil.  Paul says that the Galatians were slaves to what are not gods (v. 8), but that is not necessarily the fault of the idols that the Galatians worshiped.  If they gave honor to guardian angels that should have been reserved for God, that’s not the angels’ fault.

Arnold is on stronger ground when he points out that the stoicheia are on the side of flesh and world in Paul’s schematization of history.  The stoicheia belong to the old order of things.  But so too does the Torah, and Paul thinks that the Torah, in itself, is righteous, holy, and good.

Even if Arnold is correct that the stoicheia are equivalent to personal “principalities and powers,” I’m inclined to see them in the light of the creation, fall, redemption scheme that Yoder and Walter Wink use when talking about the powers: Created by Christ, they turned against Him, but have been subjected and restored through Christ’s death and resurrection.