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394

ELPHIN

(Encyclopipdia Biblica, III, 3324, n. 2) endeavours to do awaj' with the metaphorical sense of 'Elohim. In- stead of the rendering "judges" he suggests the trans- lation " God", as witness of a lawsuit, as giver of de- cisions on points of law, or as dispenser of oracles : for the rendering "angels" he substitutes "the gods of the heathen", which, in later post-exilic times, fell to a lower rank. But this interpretation is not supported by solid proof.

According to Renan (Histoire du peuple d'Israel, I, p. 30') the Semites believed that the world Js sur- rounded, penetrated, and governed by the 'Elohim, miiTiads of active beings, analogous to the spirits of the savages, alive, but somehow inseparable from one another, not e\-en distinguished by their proper names as the gods of the Aryans, so that they can be consid- ered as a confused totality. Marti (Geschichte der israelitischen Religion, p. 26), too, finds in 'Elohim a trace of the original Semitic polydemonism ; he main- tains that the word signified the sum of the divine beings that inhabited any given place. Baethgen (op. cit., p. 287), F. C. Baur (Symbolik und Mytholo- gie, I, 304), and Hellmuth-Zimmermarm (Elohim, Berlin, 1900) make 'Elohim an expression of power, grandeur, and totality. Lagrange (op. cit., p. 78) urges against these views that even the Semitic races need distinct units before they have a sum, and dis- tinct parts before they arrive at a totality. More- over, the name 'El is prior to 'Elohim (op. cit., p. 77 sq.), and 'El is both a proper and a common name of God. Originally it was either a proper name and has become a common name, or it was a common naine and has become a proper name. In either case, 'El, and, therefore, also its derivative form 'Elohim, must have denoted the one true God. This inference be- comes clear after a little reflection. If 'El was, at first, the proper name of a false god, it could not be- come the common name for deity any more than Jupiter or Juno could ; and if it was, at first, the com- mon name for deity, it could become the proper name only of that God who combined in him all the attri- butes of deity, who was the one true God. This does not imply that all the Semitic races had from the be- ginning a clear concept of God's unity and Divine at- tributes, though all had originally the Divine name 'El.

ViGOURorx in Diet, de la Bible, s. v.; Kx.\bexbauer, Lexi- con Biblicum (Paris. 1907). II, 63; Kadtzsch in Enciiclopirdia BMica (New York. 1902), III. 3323 sq.; Lagrange, Eludes sur tes religions semitiques (Paris, 1905), 19, 71, 77 sqq.

A. J. M.v.\s. Eloi (Eloy), Saint. See Eligius.

Elphege (or Alphege), S.\i.vt, b. 954; d. 1012; also called (uidwiiie, martyred .\rchbishop of Canterbury, left his widowed mother and patrimony for the mon- astery of Deerhurst (Gloucestershire). After some years as an anchorite at Bath, he there became abbot, and (19 Oct., 9S4) was made Bishop of Winchester. In 994 Elplipge administered confirmation to Olaf of Norway at Andover, and it is suggested that his patri- otic.>;pirit inspired thedecreesof theCouncilof Enham. In 1001). on Ijecoming .Archbishop of Canterbury, he went to Rome for the pallium. At this period Eng- land was much harassed by the Danes, who, towards the end of September, 1011, having sacked and burned Canterbury, made Elphege a prisoner. On 19 .\pril, 1012. at (ireenwich, his captors, drunk with wine, and enraged at ransom being refused, pelted Elphege with bones of oxen and stones, till one Thurm dispatched him with an axe. Elphege's body, after resting eleven years in St. Paul's (London), was translated by King Canute to Canterl)ury. llis principal feast is kept on the 19th of .\pril; that of his translation on tlie Sth of June. He is sometimes represented with an axe cleaving his .skull.

Anglo-.Sajran Chronicle, e<i. Pu'MMEr (Oxford. 1892-99); Thietmah. CtironieJe, in P. L., C.XXXIX, 1384; Osbern, Vila S. Elphcgi in Wharton, Anglia Sacra, II, 122 sqq.; Acta .S'.S.,

f

Cathedral, Sligo

April, II, 630; Bibl. Hag. Lai., 377; Chevalier, Repertoire, I, 1313; Freeman, Norman Conquest, I, v; Bctler, Lives of ttte Sainis, IS April; Stanton, Menology, 19 April; Hunt in Diet. Mat. Biogr., s. v. yElfheall.

Patrick Ryan.

Elphin (Elphinipm), Diocese of, suffragan of Tuam, Ireland, a see founded by St. Patrick. All the known facts respecting its first bishop are recorded in two important memorials of early Irish hagiography, the " Vita Tripartita" of St. Patrick, and the so-called "Patrician Documents" in the "Book of Armagh" (q. v.). On his missionary toiu- through Connaught, w'hich he entered by crossing the Shannon at Drum- boilan, near Bat- tlebridge, ir. the parish of .Ardcarne, in 434 or 435, St. Patrick came to the territory of Corcoghlan, in which was sit ua t ed the place now- called Elphin. The chief of that ter- ritory, a noble Druid named Ono, of the royal Con- nacian race of Hy- Briuin, gave land, and afterwards his castle or fort, to St. Patrick to found a church and monastery. The place, which had hitherto been called, from its owner's name, Emlagh-Ono, received the designation of Elphin, which signifies " rock of the clear spring", from a large stone raised by the saint from the well opened by him in this land and placed on its margin, and the copious stream of crystal water which flowed from it and still flows through the street of Elphin. There St. Patrick built a church called through centuries Tempull Phad- ruig, i. e. Patrick's church. He established here an episcopal see, and placed over it St. Assicus as bishop, and w-ith him left Bite, a bishop, son of the brother of Assicus, and Cipia, mother of Bite. St. Patrick also founded at Elphin an episcopal monastery or college, one of the first monasteries founded by him, and placed Assicus over it, in which office he was succeeded by Bite. Both were buried at Racoon, in Donegal, where St. Patrick built a church and a habitation for seven bishops. The " Septem episcopi de Racoon " are invoked in the Festology of ^Engus the Culdee (q. v.).

The first bishop of Elphin is described in the " Book of Armagh " as the cerd, i. e. the WTight or goldsmith of St. Patrick; and he made chalices, patens, and metal book-covers for the newly foimded churches. Follow- ing the example of their masters, the successors and spiritual children of St. .Assicus founded a school of art and produced beautiful objects of Celtic workmanship in the Diocese of Elphin. Some of these remain to the present day, objects of interest to all who see them. The famous Cross of Cong (see Cros.s). undoubtedly one of the finest specimens of its age in Western Europe, was (as the inscription on it and the .\nnals of Innis- fallen testify) the work of Mailisa MacEgan, successor of St. Finian of Clooncraff near F^llphin, in tlie County Roscommon, and was made at Roscommon luider the superintendenceof Domhnall, son of IManagan O'l )ufly, successor of Coman and Kieran. abbots of Roscommon and Clonmaenoi.se, and Bishop of Elphin. It is held that the exquisite Ardagh Clialice. which was given to Clonmacnoise by Turlough O'Conor, and was stolen thence by the Danes, was made, if not by the same artist, at least in the same school at Roscommon. The Four Masters record (1166) that the shrine of Manchan