ELNE
ELNE, - A city in France in the eastern Pyrenees, an episcopal see from the 6th century to 1601. It is the ancient Illiberis, named after the river of the same name, situated on the coastal road between Gaul and Spain, 6 km from the Mediterranean, near the promontory Pyraeneum, on a height in the great plain of Roussillon, 13 km from Perpignan. Already much diminished in importance at the time of Trajan (Pliny, *Natural History*, III), it revived in the 4th century under the name of Helena, whence the present name.
The existence of the diocese is attested in the year 571 by the chronicle of John of Biclar, who records in that year the bishop Domo (PL 72, 864). Then a group of bishops of E. are known who took part in various Councils of Toledo, such as Benenatus in 589, Acutolus in 633 and in 638, Clarus in 683; Solomon is mentioned in a diploma of Lothar of 834 and in one of Louis the Pious of 836; then there is a long episcopate of Riculf at least from 886 to 915 (Jaffé-Wattenbach, 3554).
Subject to the incursions of the Saracens, the city was restored by the bishops Berengarius IV and Arnold I, but was sacked by Philip the Bold in 1285.
The cathedral of E., dedicated to St. Eulalia of Mérida, was built in the 12th century on the site of a previous building which seems to have imitated the Holy Sepulchre of Jerusalem. In the adjoining cloister there are sarcophagi and remains of other monuments. The episcopal residence was transferred from Clement VIII to Perpignan on 1 September 1601.
In the territory of the diocese flourished the abbey of St. Mary at Arles-sur-Tech, founded by the Benedictine Castellanus near an ancient thermal building in 778. The abbey was enriched with privileges by Louis the Pious in 821, by Charles the Bald and by Louis the Stammerer. Pope John VIII made the abbey immediately subject to the Holy See. Under Abbot Aimericus the abbatial church was consecrated in 957, where his successor Arnold brought, in the same year, the relics of the martyrs Abdon and Sennen. The building was rebuilt in the 11th century and consecrated in 1046; only the façade remains; a new Romanesque church was consecrated in 1157; the fine Romanesque cloister attached to it is from the 13th century.
Clement VIII in 1592 united with the abbey that of St. Andrew of Sorède. From 1722 it was united to the episcopal table of Perpignan and suppressed in 1790.
The abbey possesses the missal of the 12th century now in the Library of Perpignan (ms. no. 4; G. M. Tourret, *Les anciens missels du diocèse d'Elne*, in *Mémoires de la Société nationale des antiquaires de France*, 46 [1885], pp. 32-44).
ELÔHÎM (Vulgate Deus)
A generic Hebrew name for the God of Israel, used as "El (q.v.), of which it is a synonym and a plural form (F. Zorell), with the interrogative h as in "d'ahôth." In general, while Jahweh expresses the relations of God with Israel, "El is the name of God in relation to the world or to the nations.
The plural form, preferred in the Bible (about 2500 times), indicates the fullness of the power of the one God: *pluralis virium = virtutum*: *congeries potentiarum* (W. Gesenius - E. Kautzsch, § 124 g); cf. the plural of Gen. 1:26: "God has such fullness of being that He can deliberate with Himself, as several persons deliberate among themselves" (M.-J. Lagrange, in *Revue biblique*, 5 [1895], p. 387). And "El is constructed as a singular (W. Gesenius - E. Kautzsch, § 132 h, 145 h). This is confirmed by the letters of c.-l'Annah (96, 4 sqq.; 97, 3; 235, 2; 267, 10; 281, 2), the texts of Boghazköi (I, 5) and of Ras Shamra (I AB, II, 13, 24; 31; III-IV, 32, 41; etc.), in which the plural *ilum* is constructed with the verb in the singular and refers to the sole Pharaoh, to him and Assyria (II Chron. 35:21 sqq.; B. Alfrink), or to a single god; and the *ilhm* of Ras Shamra, synonymous with "El, often expresses the Supreme Being.
A late derivation from "El is the singular "Elbah, used only in poetry (57 times, of which 34 in Job).