[@Aquanthe]
Thanks for the feed back, its much appreciated! And no worries about the lateness of the review, acceptance was closed then and it was more thrown together for the fun of it.
To address what you brought up
1) I was playing up the illness angle more as a play on him coming from an isolationist community with strong stigmas towards modern society, medication included. So I was modeling its severity (for him atleast) to pre-modern influenza (which was more deadly than it is today). I might have over estimated the scope of illness you two were aiming for. 
And I was attempting to suggest hazmat suits, though Eli at that point would have been too dazed by his illness to recognize them as such. 
No problems with changing this. History as a whole might need some rework to begin with (see point 3). 

2) Was going for an elemental based power to create fodder for Eli to wax poetic on. In the original case, he was likely to compare his abilities to Cocytus, the frozen lake in the ninth circle of hell outlined in Dante's inferno. Additionally, I found it an interesting as a personality comparison for Arthur, who is more free spirited and flexible(by comparison) to the more conservative Eli. 

I've got no problems what so ever in changing it. Christian mythology is such that a lot of things can be modified to be parallels to elemental powers.  Just explaining the thought process there. 

3) The isolation angle was more about why he currently not in the story. Was attempting to suggest that his communities isolation (and social customs as a result of being a religious commune) might lead to conflict with other residents either due to misunderstandings or out right opposition to their own beliefs. I think did that part poorly. While he does have an understanding of social norms, in this rendition they would be somewhat warped by this theology. 

And to be honest, I'm not 100% about the cult angle either. Its a very abnormal upbringing for what this setting would suggest. I did mull around the idea of his being outright amish, but that comes with the problems of either insulting amish traditions (not that many are likely to call me out on that) or beliefs, which is something I'd like to avoid as a matter of politeness.