Electa

(2nd Epistle of John)   

A LIFE EXEMPLIFYING LOVE

Life holds no greater lessons than the two outstanding precepts taught in the lesson of the Fifth Point – Electa.  The first is, “Heroic endurance of persecution when demanded in the defense of truth of truth.”   

The name Electa, does not appear in the Bible, but she is referred to the brief story as the Elect Lady.

    The scene of the story is laid in Asia Minor, the peninsula lying between the Black Sea on the north and the Mediterranean Sea on the south.  The date of the writing of this story is between 85 and 95 A.D. 

Persecution comes in many different forms and for various purposes.  Whatever the form, whether it be the faithlessness of a trusted friend, the caustic sneer of an enemy, the outflashing of envy or jealousy on the part of a trusted friend, discourtesy on the part of a superior or just the visitation of some trial that may come to you – whatever my be the form, there is but one safe course to pursue, and that is “bear it with heroic endurance and despair not.”

Electa was noted for her charity and benevolence.  A woman of refinement and wealth who wanted to feed and succor the poor and hungry and to relieve the sufferings of those afflicted with body ills.  She was in truth the great Red Cross nurse, ready at all times to step in where want and misery prevailed, and where relief was sorely needed.  She delighted in using her vast wealth for the relief of mankind.

Her Christian beliefs soon became known throughout the land, and one day she was visited by a band of Roman soldiers who bade her renounce the religion she has adopted. They even presented her with a cross and demanded that she trample it under foot in order to show to the world that she renounced this new-found religion. 

It is said that she opened not her mouth, that she uttered no word of protest, but took the cross in her hands and clasped it with ardor to her breast, and looked toward heaven to show that she put her trust in the God of her religion. 

The scripture text from which this heroine takes her lead is found in the Second Epistle of John, and is only a short letter addressed to “the Elect Lady” and her children.”  The message contains only thirteen short verses and less than three hundred words, and that is all the Bible references that we can find.  The name Electa, like that of Adah, seems to be a creation of Robert Morris, the writer of the Eastern Star Ritual, and it has no significance outside our Order.  Perhaps the words of Robert Morris himself could appropriately be given just at this point.  Brother Morris says:  “The Fifth Point introduced me to the early history of the Christian church, where ‘midst a ‘noble army of martyrs,’ I found many whose lives and deaths overflowed the cup of martyrdom with a glory not surpassed by any of those named in the Holy Writ. This gave me Electa, “the Elect Lady,” friend of St. John – the Christian woman whose venerable years were crowned with the utmost splendor of the crucifixion.  The fact that the name of this estimable woman cannot be ascertained with certainty does not lessen our interest nor the value of the many lessons taught.  The story is true enough, but it is the name only, so to speak, that does not have a basis in fact.  It seems to me that nothing is lost by accepting the statement, ‘the Elect Lady,’ to be an individual. The lesson taught can be widely and wisely applied.

          St. John exhorts her to love.  It is a personal request made by the Master Himself, when He says: “I give unto you a new commandment, that ye love one another as I have loved you.”  “The highest expression of brotherly love is found in obedience to all the commands which God has enjoined in the regulation of the relations between brethren.  The clearest expression of love is obedience to the will of God so far as He ahs revealed His will in definite precepts.

It is in reality a command that she should abide steadfastly in what she now knows and believes and let this knowledge regulate her life.

The growth and activity of the Christian religion was bound to stir up adverse action on the part of the Roman government sooner or later, because of the very nature of it; in fact, it had become quite irritating and pressure had been brought to eradicate it. The splendid mansion of Electa was singled out as one to be visited.  The edict of the Roman government was issued against every one who professed the Christian religion.  All who were suspected of holding to the Faith were commanded to trample upon the cross that was handed to them, as a testimony of this renunciation.  Electa absolutely refused to obey the edict.  She spurned the test, and she and her family were forthwith cast into a dungeon for twelve months.  At the end of the time the judge, who had often shared her hospitality, appeared and offered her another opportunity to recant from Christianity, and again she refused. Thereupon she was dragged forth and savagely scourged nearly to death, and then dragged to a hill where she and her entire family were nailed to the cross. She was the last one to meet the fate, and she was compelled to witness the tragic death of her husband and children.  She is quoted as saying with her expiring breath: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

She professed her faith to the whole world, although she knew what reproaches, and persecutions, even unto death, she must undergo for the stand that she took.  It meant loss of good name, wealth, means of doing good, liberty, family, and death itself.  Yet she was willing to undergo all these things for the love of Christ and for the Christian religion in which she showed such implicit faith. What a rich heritage was hers!  “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building in God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”

Electa, the martyr to her Christian faith, stands out as a striking example of the life and death of the early Christians.  She is also an example of the Eternal Truth as laid down by Jesus when He said: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, and no man cometh unto the Father except by Me.”

“Let us love one another.”

    It is especially fitting that this "Electa Lady", given the individual name of  "Electa" should represent the fifth and honored last Degree in the Eastern Star Ritual.  As the heroine of the fifth point of the Star, she presents the glory and benedictions of patience and submission to the will of god under the stress of wrong treatment and deadly persecution.  Just as Freemasonry emphasizes in all its Ritual, tenets, symbols, and lectures that genuine goodliness requires that one give up life rather than prove unfaithful to truth and duty, so the Rites of the Eastern Star reach their climax with the same truth.

Adah     Ruth    Esther    Martha    Electa