Difference between revisions of "Logos"

<p> <b> LOGOS. </b> —The conception of Christ as the Logos, or eternal Word, is peculiar to the Fourth Gospel. In the Epp. to Colossians and Hebrews (writings which are likewise touched with the [[Alexandrian]] influence) the [[Logos]] theory of Christ’s Person is in some points implied (cf. Colossians 1:15-18, Hebrews 1:2-4). In Revelation (Revelation 19:13) the ‘Word of God’ is announced as the new and mysterious name which Christ bears when He comes forth to execute judgment. But only in the Fourth [[Gospel]] is the conception deliberately adopted and worked out in its full significance. </p> <p> The idea of a Logos, an immanent [[Divine]] reason in the world, is one that meets us under various modifications in many ancient systems of thought, Indian, Egyptian, Persian. In view of the religious syncretism which prevailed in the 1st and 2nd centuries, it is barely possible that these extraneous theologies may have indirectly influenced the Evangelist; but there can be no doubt in regard to the main source from which his Logos doctrine was derived. It had come to him through [[Philo]] after its final elaboration in Greek philosophy. </p> <p> In the 6th cent. b.c. [[Heraclitus]] first broke away from the purely physical conceptions of early Greek speculation, by discovering a λόγος, a principle of reason, at work in the cosmic process. From the obscure fragments of this philosopher that have come down to us we gather that he was chiefly interested in accounting for the aesthetic order of the visible universe. In the arrangement of natural phenomena, in the adaptation of means to ends, he discerned the working of a power analogous to the reasoning power in man. His speculation was still entangled with the physical hypotheses of earlier times, and on this account dropped out of sight, and had little influence on the greater systems of Greek thought. [[Plato]] and [[Aristotle]] were engaged in the development of the theory of ideas, with its absolute separation of the material world from the world of higher reality. Their work was of profound significance for the after history of Logos speculation, but belongs itself to a different philosophical movement. It was in the reaction from Platonic dualism that the Logos idea again asserted itself, and was worked out through all its implications in Stoicism. </p> <p> The Stoics, animated chiefly by a practical interest, sought to connect the world of true being, as conceived by Plato, with the actual world of man’s existence. They abandoned the theory of supersensible archetypes and fell back on the simpler hypothesis of Heraclitus, that the universe is pervaded in all its parts by an eternal Reason. Man in his individual life may raise himself above all that limits him, and realize his identity with this Logos, which resides in his own soul, and is also the governing principle of the world. The Stoic philosophy not only furnished the general conception of the Logos to later thinkers, but also emphasized the distinction which became of prime importance in the later development. The faculty of reason as it exists in man reveals itself in speech, which is denoted by the same Greek word, λόγος. To the universal λογος [[Stoicism]] ascribed the two attributes that mark the reasoning power in man. On the one hand it is λόγος ἐνδιάθετος,—reason in its inner movement and potentiality,—and on the other hand λόγος τροφορικός,—reason projected and made concrete in the endless variety of the visible world. </p> <p> <b> 1. </b> Philo appropriates the main Stoic conception, but combines it with other elements borrowed eclectically from previous systems of thought. The Logos idea is loosened from its connexion with Stoic materialism and harmonized with a thoroughgoing Platonism, which regards the visible things as only the types and shadows of realities laid up in the higher world. It becomes identical in great measure with Plato’s idea of the Good, except that it is further regarded as creatively active. Philo’s grand innovation, however, is to press the Logos theory into the service of a theology derived from the OT. The same problem which Stoicism had tried to solve had in a different manner become urgent in [[Jewish]] thought. Here also all progress, alike in the moral and intellectual life, was like to be arrested by an overstrained dualism. The effort to conceive of God as absolutely transcendent had resulted in separating Him entirely from the world, of which He had yet to be regarded as the [[Creator]] and Governor. [[Already]] in the later books of the OT, much more in Rabbinical speculation, we can trace the idea of an intermediary between God and the world. ‘Wisdom’ is described in Job and Proverbs, with something more than a poetical personification, as God’s agent and co-worker [[Peculiar]] significance was attached by the later expositors to the various OT allusions to the ‘word’ of God. By His ‘word’ He had created heaven and earth and revealed Himself to the prophets. The actual hypostatizing of the Word in the doctrine of the [[Memra]] was subsequent to the time of Philo, but it was the outcome of a mode of thinking already prevalent in Jewish theology. God who was Himself the High and [[Holy]] One, of purer eyes than to behold iniquity, mediated His action through the Divine Word. It was natural for Philo, with his Hellenic and philosophical culture, to advance a step further and identify the Word of the OT with the Stoic λόγος. </p> <p> The Logos of Philo requires to be understood in the light of this double descent from Greek and OT thought. The Stoic conception, as we have seen, took account of the two meanings of λόγος as reason and uttered speech, but the distinction was of little practical importance. What the Greek thinkers sought to affirm was the rationality of the world. The Logos under all its aspects was simply the principle of reason, informing the endless variety of things, and so maintaining the world-order. To Philo, on the other hand, the idea of reason is combined with that of the outgoing of Divine power. While describing his Logos in terms directly borrowed from Plato and the Stoics, he regards it as in the last resort dynamic, like the creative word in Genesis. This difference between Philo and the Greek thinkers is connected with another and still more vital one. To the [[Stoics]] the eternal [[Reason]] was itself an ultimate principle, and the necessity was not felt of explaining it as the reason of God. The doctrine of the Logos may, indeed, be regarded as an attempt, more or less conscious, to escape from the belief in a Divine Creator. Philo could not content himself with this notion of an absolute Logos. He started from the [[Hebrew]] belief in a supreme, self-existing God, to whom the immanent reason of the world must be related and subordinated. To this clashing of the primary Greek conception with the demands of Hebrew monotheism, we may largely attribute one of the most perplexing peculiarities of the Philonic doctrine. The Logos appears, sometimes as only an aspect of the activity of God, at other times as a ‘second God,’ an independent and, it might seem, a personal being. There can be little doubt that Philo, who never ceased to be an orthodox Jew, had no intention of maintaining the existence of two Divine agents; and the passages in which he appears to detach and personify the Logos must be explained mainly in a figurative sense. The Word which is described as speaking, acting, creating of itself, is the word of God, vividly realized by an imaginative thinker. But this separate existence assigned to the Logos may also be set down in some measure to the composite origin of the idea. The Stoical doctrine of an independent Reason could not be wholly reconciled with the Jewish belief in one supreme God. </p> <p> <b> 2. </b> The Fourth Gospel sets out from a conception of the Logos which to all appearance is closely similar to that of Philo. In the [[Prologue]] the main features of the Philonic doctrine are reproduced one by one;—the eternal existence of the Word, its Divine character (ἦν θεός), its relation to God as towards Him, and yet distinct (πρὸς τὸν θεόν), its creative activity, its function in the illumination and deliverance of men. The [[Evangelist]] assumes that the idea of the Logos is already a familiar one in [[Christian]] theology. It is introduced abruptly, as requiring no explanation, and its different aspects are lightly indicated, by way of reminding the reader of truths sufficiently known to him. We can thus infer that the conception of Philo had already naturalized itself in Christian thought, but there is reason to believe that the author of the Gospel was acquainted more or less directly with the Philonic writings and consciously derived from them.* [Note: the list of parallel passages collected by Grill (pp. 111–138).] </p> <p> To what extent does the Logos idea of Philo change its character as it assimilates itself to the theology of the Gospel? Before an answer can be offered to this question, it is necessary to consider a preliminary difficulty with which Johannine criticism has been largely occupied since the appearance of Harnack’s famous pamphlet.* [Note: Über das Verhältniss des Prologs des vierten Evgl. zum ganzen Werk (1892).] Is the Prologue to be regarded as an integral portion of the Gospel, or is it, as Harnack contends, a mere preface written to conciliate the interest of a philosophical public? The idea of Christ as the Divine Logos is nowhere resumed in the body of the Gospel. Although the term Logos is constantly used, it always bears its ordinary sense of spoken discourse, while the categories of Light, Life, Love are substituted for the Logos of the Prologue. The work, as we have it, is no metaphysical treatise, such as we might expect from the opening verses, if they truly set forth its programme, but a historical document, the narrative of the earthly life of Christ. In spite, however, of Harnack’s powerful argument, the almost unanimous voice of Johannine criticism has declared against him. The statement of his view has led to a closer examination of the Prologue in its connexion with the Gospel, resulting in multiplied proof that the ideas presented at the outset are woven in with the whole tissue of the work. The Prologue supplies the background, the atmosphere, which are necessary to a right contemplation of the history. Nevertheless, while Harnack’s main argument cannot be accepted, it serves to remind us of one fact which cannot be emphasized too much. St. John is not concerned merely with the Word, but with the Word made flesh. After the first few verses, in which he treats of the pre-existent Logos, he passes to the historical Person of Jesus, who is more than the abstract Word. In Him it had become visible, and acted on men through a human Personality. </p> <p> St. John therefore accepts the Philonic conception in order to assimilate it to his account of a historical Person, through whom the Word declared itself under the conditions of human life. It is evident that the conception could not be so adapted without submitting to profound modifications. (1) The Logos, which was to clothe itself in flesh and act on men with the force of a personality, must in its deepest ground be a personal Being. We have seen that Philo, partly in imaginative fashion, partly because of the composite origin of his thought, attributes a semi-independence to the Logos. This prepared the way for a complete personification; but Philo himself thinks only of a Divine principle, the creative reason of God. St. John, however, makes it an essential moment in his conception that the Logos has a ground of independent being within God (πρὸς τὸν θεόν, standing over against Him as a distinct Being). His view even of the pre-existent Logos is coloured by his knowledge of the ultimate Incarnation. (2) The creative activity of the Logos, which in Philo is central and all-determining, falls into the background. Only in John 1:3 (‘All things were made by him’) do we have any clear trace of this aspect of Logos doctrine, and the sequence of thought would still be complete if the brief allusion were omitted. It is thrown out, apparently, by way of acknowledgment of the recognized theory. Some reference to the cosmic significance of the Logos was necessary if any link with previous speculation was to be preserved. The Gospel, in point of fact, knows nothing of the absolute transcendence of God, which Philo’s whole theory is designed to mitigate. It assumes that ‘the world’ is the direct object of God’s love and providence (John 3:16). It maintains that God acts immediately on the human soul and so makes possible the redeeming work of the Logos (John 6:44, John 17:6). (3) In the Gospel, much more emphatically than in Philo, the term λόγος denotes Word as well as Reason. The Greek philosophical meaning is, indeed, discarded, or retained only as a faintly colouring element. The Word is regarded throughout as the expression of God’s will and power, the self-revelation of His inward nature. It does not represent the Divine reason but the Divine energy. Its sovereign attribute is Life, the life which it derives from God and transmits to men. Under the form of Alexandrian speculation St. John preserves the essential Hebrew conception of the living, quickening Word. </p> <p> Thus, in accepting the Philonic idea, St. John does not commit himself to the precise interpretation that Philo placed on it; on the contrary, whether consciously or not, he departs from the characteristic lines of Philo’s thinking. The differences, however, do not alter the main fact that he rested his account of the Christian revelation on a hypothesis which was metaphysical rather than religious. The Jesus who had appeared in history was identified with the Logos of philosophy, and this identification involved an entirely new reading of His Person and life. St. John does not, indeed, press to its full extent his theory that the Logos became manifest in Christ. [[Behind]] his speculation there is always the remembrance of the actual life, which had arrested him as it had done the first disciples, and been to him the true revelation of God. His worship is directed in the last resort not to the Logos whom he discovers in Jesus, but to Jesus Himself. [[Nevertheless]] the acceptance of the Logos idea imposes on him a mode of thought which is often alien to his deeper religious instinct. On the one hand, he conceives of Jesus as revealing God to men and lifting them to a higher life by His ethical personality. On the other hand, he is compelled to interpret the work of Jesus in terms of metaphysic. God was manifest in Him because He was Himself the Logos, and the life He imparted was the Divine life, different in essence from that of man. The Gospel wavers throughout between these two parallel interpretations of the life of Christ,—that suggested by the history and that required by the Logos hypothesis. Superficially the two conceptions are drawn together, but they are disparate by their very nature and will not admit of a true reconciliation. </p> <p> St. John does not concern himself with the questions that arose in later theology regarding the nature of the union between the Logos and the human Jesus. He assumes the union as a fact incapable of further definition. ‘The Word became flesh,’ appeared in Jesus as a human personality. How and when this [[Incarnation]] was effected, to what extent the Divine nature in Christ could be distinguished from the human,—these are questions which he does not try to answer, and which he probably never asked himself. His silence is mainly to be explained by the practical intention with which he wrote his Gospel. It was not his purpose to discuss the [[Divinity]] of Christ as a theological idea, but to impress it on his readers as a fact, by the knowledge of which ‘they might have life’ (John 20:31). At the same time, the problems which came to light in the course of later controversy are all legitimately suggested by the simple thesis ‘the Word became flesh.’ From St. John’s silence in regard to them we are compelled to infer that he did not reason out his doctrine with any fulness or clearness. He had set himself to combine ideas which in themselves were radically incompatible, and succeeded in doing so only by a certain confusion of thought. </p> <p> <b> 3. </b> The Evangelist, then, sets out from the fact that the historical Jesus was also the Divine Logos. In the body of the Gospel this hypothesis is never directly alluded to, but it is assumed throughout and modifies profoundly the whole picture of the earthly life of Jesus. (1) Peculiar stress is laid on His miracles as the ‘signs’ by which He ‘manifested forth his glory.’ The motive of compassion, to which the miracles are for the most part ascribed by the Synoptic writers, falls into the background. They are regarded as sheer exhibitions of power, intended by Jesus to inspire belief in His Divine claims. The marvellous element is uniformly heightened, in such a manner as to preclude all natural explanations. (2) Apart from direct works of miracle, certain attributes are assigned to Jesus which witness to His possession of the Logos nature. He partakes even on earth of the Divine omniscience (John 1:48, John 2:25, John 4:17, John 11:14). He appears where He will, with something of a Divine omnipresence (John 6:19, John 8:59, John 9:35). There is a majesty about His Person which quells and overawes (John 7:46, John 12:21, John 18:6). An impression is borne home on us in every episode of the history that, while He dwelt with men, He was a heavenly being, who could exercise at will the prerogatives of God. (3) The aloofness of Jesus, as of one who belonged to a different world, is everywhere brought into strong relief. In the Synoptic narratives, what separates Him from other men is His matchless wisdom and moral purity. St. John ascribes to Him a radical difference of nature. He does not participate in human weaknesses and distresses (even His sorrow over [[Lazarus]] is that of a Divine being who stands apart and contemplates the tragedy of our mortal lot). In His intercourse with the disciples He is conscious all the time that He has come from God and returns to God (John 13:3-4). (4) A still more striking emphasis is laid on the absolute freedom, the self-determination of Jesus. While submitting for a time to earthly limitations, He vindicates His higher nature by acting in everything on His own sovereign will, without compulsion from without (John 2:4, John 6:5-6, John 7:6, John 11:33). From the beginning He has fixed His ‘hour,’ and Himself ordains all the conditions that will lead up to it. His enemies are impotent until the hour willed by Himself has come (John 7:30, John 8:20), and meanwhile He goes about His work in perfect security (John 11:9). In this well-marked strain of Johannine thought we have little difficulty in discerning the influence of the Logos idea, penetrating the actual reminiscence of the life of Christ. (5) The Logos character of Jesus, which is thus illustrated on various sides by His actions, comes to clear expression in His spoken words. These are concerned almost wholly with the assertion, under many different types and forms, of the Divine significance of the [[Speaker]] Himself. Hence the peculiar value which is ascribed to them (John 6:63; John 6:68, John 15:3). They convey more clearly and emphatically than actions could do the inner secret of our Lord’s personality. Being Himself the Logos, one in essence with God, He had power to impart the higher life (see Word). </p> <p> In all these directions, therefore, St. John gives effect to the idea of the Prologue that the nature of Christ was a Logos nature. His acceptance of this doctrine involves him in a new reading of the Gospel history—a reading which in some respects is artificial and inadequate. The life of Jesus becomes that of a heavenly being, and all traces of moral struggle (as in the [[Temptation]] and the Agony) disappear from it. The attributes of faith in God and infinite sympathy with men are replaced by metaphysical attributes, which are supposed to belong more essentially to the Divine nature. Jesus is the revelation of God because He is the eternal Logos, who manifests in an earthly life the absolute being and self-dependence of God. This, however, is to divest the revelation of its real worth and meaning. What we desire to know and what was actually revealed to us in the life of Jesus, is the moral character of God, and of this the Logos doctrine can render no account. In so far as the Fourth Evangelist has subordinated his conception of Christ to a philosophical speculation, we cannot but feel that he defeats his own purpose. He desires so to assert the majesty of Christ that men may be drawn to believe in Him as the Son of God, and enter into life-giving fellowship with Him. But in the endeavour to exalt the Lord’s Person by means of the Logos hypothesis, he obscures those very elements in the Divine life which constitute its true glory. </p> <p> <b> 4. </b> It is necessary at the same time to recognize that much was gained for Christian theology by the adoption of this hypothesis. (1) A middle term was discovered between [[Christianity]] and the forms of Hellenic thought, and a wider development was thus rendered possible. The new religion could now interpret itself to the Graeco-Roman world, and assimilate whatever was congenial to its spirit in the intellectual life of the time. With the help of the categories which it henceforth borrowed from Greek philosophy, it was enabled in many ways to convey its message more clearly and adequately. (2) The claim of Christianity to be the absolute religion was definitely formulated in the Logos doctrine. Jesus was identified not merely with the Jewish Messiah, but with the eternal Word who had been with God from the beginning. His revelation was not one out of many, but the supreme and final revelation. This idea is prominent throughout the Prologue, in which the ‘true Light’ is contrasted with the manifestations of God through John the [[Baptist]] and Moses. These, although burning and shining lights, were only ‘for a season’ (John 5:35). (3) By identifying Him with the Logos, St. John declared, in a manner that could not be mistaken, the uniqueness of Jesus, and assigned Him His central place as the object of Christian faith. The Logos category was in itself insufficient, and tended to confuse Christianity with metaphysical issues which were alien to its real import. But it provided a form within which the innermost truth of the religion could maintain itself for ages following. Jesus Christ in His own Person is the revelation of God, and believing on Him we have life through His name. </p> <p> <b> 5. </b> The vital and permanent message of the Fourth Gospel is little affected by any estimate we may form of the value of the Logos hypothesis. It is evident that, while the Evangelist ostensibly sets out from a philosophical theory, he derives in reality from a religious experience. From the impression created in him by the earthly life of Jesus, still more from the knowledge he had received of Him in inward fellowship, he has arrived at the conviction that this is the Christ, the Son of God. He avails himself of the doctrine of the Logos, the highest that the thought of his time afforded him, in order to express this conviction, and in some measure explain it. But the speculative idea belongs to the form, not to the essence of St. John’s teaching. It represents the attempt to interpret, in terms of an inadequate philosophy, a truth which has been grasped by faith. See also art. Divinity of Christ, vol. i. p. 478b. </p> <p> Literature,—Aall, <i> Geschichte der Logosidee </i> (2 vols., 1896, 1899); Heinze, <i> Die Lehre rom Logos in der griech. Philosophie </i> (1872); Drummond, <i> Philo Judœus </i> ; J. Réville, <i> Le Quatrième Evangile </i> (1901), and <i> La doctrine du Logos dans le Lème Évang. et dans les œuvres de Philon </i> (1881); Grill, <i> Untersuchungen über die Entstchung des vierten Evang. </i> (1902); Bousset, <i> Die Relig. des Judenthums </i> (pp. 405–431); Simon, <i> Der Logos </i> (1902); Meyer, <i> Der Prolog des Johannesevang </i> . (1902); Baldensperger, <i> Der Prolog des vierten Evang. </i> (1898); Harnack, <i> Über das Verhältniss </i> , etc. (1892); Kaftan, <i> Das Verhältniss des evangelischen Glaubens zur Logoslehre </i> (1896); art ‘Logos’ in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible. </p> <p> E. F. Scott. </p>

<p> <strong> LOGOS. </strong> In classical Greek <em> logos </em> signifies both ‘word’ and ‘reason,’ but in the LXX [Note: Septuagint.] and the NT it is used, with few exceptions, in the former sense only. When it is God’s word that is spoken of, it denotes the declaration or revelation of the [[Divine]] will, and specifically the [[Christian]] gospel as the utterance of the Divine plan of salvation ( <em> e.g </em> . Matthew 13:19-23 ||, Philippians 1:14 ). But in the [[Prologue]] to the Fourth [[Gospel]] ( John 1:1 [3 times] 14, with which cf. 1 John 1:1 [ 1 John 5:7 of AV [Note: Authorized Version.] is spurious; see RV [Note: Revised Version.] ] and Revelation 19:13 ) ‘ <strong> [[Logos]] </strong> ’ (EV [Note: English Version.] <strong> Word </strong> ) is applied to Jesus Christ, and is used to set forth His peculiar glory as the only-begotten Son of God, who is also the Life and Light of men. It is with this Johannine Logos that we have now to deal, and in doing so it seems necessary to consider (1) the content of John’s Logos doctrine; (2) its sources; (3) its place in the Fourth Gospel; (4) its theological significance. </p> <p> <strong> 1. Content. </strong> Three stages appear in the exposition of the Logos doctrine given in the Prologue. ( <em> a </em> ) First ( John 1:1-5 ), the nature and functions of the Logos are set forth in His relations to God, the world, and man. He was with <em> God </em> in the beginning, <em> i.e </em> . He eternally held a relation of communion with Him as a separate personality a personality itself Divine, for ‘the Word was God.’ As to the <em> world </em> , it was made by Him ( John 1:3 , cf. John 1:10 ), perhaps with the further suggestion that from Him it draws continually the life by which it is sustained ( John 1:4 ). But from Him there flows also the higher life of <em> man </em> as a spiritual being possessed of reason and conscience, for His life becomes the universal light of human souls ( John 1:4 , cf. John 1:9 ). ( <em> b </em> ) The second stage of the exposition ( John 1:5-13 ) is a contrast of the Logos with the word of God that came by John the Baptist. John was not the Light; he came only to bear witness of it. The Logos is the true Light, and the mediator of Divine life to all who believe on His name, ( <em> c </em> ) [[Finally]] ( John 1:14-18 ), the author describes the incarnation of the Logos in the flesh, and declares His identity with the historical Jesus Christ, the bringer of grace and truth. In John 1:18 the whole Prologue is summed up. Here the writer returns to the point from which he set out (cf. John 1:1 ), but his readers now understand that the eternal Logos is one with Jesus Christ, the Son of God. </p> <p> <strong> 2. Sources. </strong> (1) For these some have been content to refer to <em> the OT and the post-canonical [[Jewish]] writings </em> . And it is true that a connexion is clearly to be traced. We can hardly mistake a reference in the Prologue ( John 1:1; John 1:3-4; John 1:10 ) to the creative word of God in [[Genesis]] 1:1-31 . In the Psalms and Prophets, again, a personification of the word of [[Jehovah]] is common ( <em> e.g </em> . Psalms 33:6 , Isaiah 55:11 ). And in the Wisdom literature, both canonical and apocryphal, this personifying tendency is carried still further ( Proverbs 8:22-31 , Sir 24:1-34 ), though it is God’s Wisdom, not His Word, that becomes His representative, and a full personification of the Word does not meet us till we have reached a point in Jewish history where Greek influences have begun to make themselves felt ( Wis 9:1; Wis 16:12 ). All this, however, is very far from explaining the Johannine Logos doctrine. The most that can he said is that the doctrine of the Prologue reflects a tendency of Jewish thought, finding its roots in the OT, to conceive of the Divine self-revelation as mediated by the personified Wisdom or Word of Jehovah. </p> <p> (2) Some have held that John’s Logos doctrine was derived entirely from <em> the JudÅ“o-Alexandrian philosophy </em> , and specifically from the teaching of <strong> Philo. </strong> From early times there had grown up among the [[Greeks]] a conception of the Logos as the Divine [[Reason]] manifested in the universe, and explaining how God comes into relation with it. To this Logos philosophy Plato’s doctrine of ideas had contributed, and afterwards the Stoic view of the Logos as the rational principle of the universe. In his efforts to blend [[Judaism]] with Hellenism, [[Philo]] adopted the term as one familiar alike to [[Jews]] and to Greeks, and sought to show by means of allegorical interpretations that the true philosophy of God and the world was revealed in the OT. And St. John, it is supposed, simply appropriated this teaching, and by means of an idealizing treatment of Christ’s life constructed in his Gospel a philosophical treatise on the doctrine of Philo. The theory breaks down on any examination. To Philo the Logos was the principle of Reason; to St. John He was the Divine revealing Word. Philo’s Logos is not really personal; St. John’s certainly is. Philo does not identify the Logos with the Messiah; to St. John He is no other than the Christ, the [[Saviour]] of the world. Philo sees in the flesh a principle opposed to the Godhead; St. John glories in the fact of the Incarnation. With Philo the antithesis between God and the world is a metaphysical one; with St. John it is ethical and religious. St. John cannot, then, have derived his doctrine of the Logos from Philo. But he undoubtedly used the term because Philo had made it familiar to Græco-Jewish thought as a means of expressing the idea of a mediation between God and the universe, and also because he himself had received certain formal influences from the Philonic philosophy (see, <em> e.g </em> ., the value be assigns to knowledge; his crystallization of the gospel into such general terms as light,’ ‘truth,’ ‘life’; his constant antithesis of light and darkness). Apart, however, from such formal influences and the convenience of a familiar and suggestive term, the real source of the Johannine logos doctrine is still to seek. </p> <p> (3) That source is assuredly to be found in <em> the actual historical personality of Jesus Himself </em> as we find it set forth in the rest of this Gospel. More and more it becomes impossible for the careful student of this book to treat it as a philosophical romance in which a purely idealizing treatment is given to the figure of Jesus; more and more the substantial historical truth of the presentation becomes evident. And, assuming the substantial truth of the narrative, it seems clear that St. John uses his Logos conception, not ‘to manufacture the Light of the World out of the [[Messiah]] of Israel,’ but to set forth, in a way that would appeal to the men of his own place and time, Christ’s real relations to God and the universe as these had been attested by His words and deeds, by His dying and rising from the dead, and by all the facts of His self-revelation. We must bear in mind, moreover, that while the term ‘Logos’ was a new one to be applied to Christ, the place of dignity and power assigned to Him by John was by no means new. Both St. Paul and the author of Hebrews had taught the doctrine of Christ’s eternal Sonship, and of His functions as the creator of the universe and the revealer of the Father ( Philippians 2:5-11 , Colossians 1:13-20; Colossians 2:9 , Hebrews 1:1-4 ), and the teaching of both, already familiar and widely accepted in the Church, is subsumed in the Johannine doctrine of the Logos. </p> <p> <strong> 3. Place in the Fourth Gospel. </strong> The attempt has been made to distinguish between the Logos doctrine in the Prologue as Hellenic, and the Gospel itself as Palestinian; and it has been maintained that the influence of the Logos idea does not extend beyond the Prologue, and that it was merely intended to introduce to Greek readers the story of the Jewish Messiah with a view to making it more attractive and intelligible. We may remind ourselves, however, of Strauss’s comparison of this Gospel to the seamless robe of Jesus, a judgment which has been verified by nearly every critical student of whatever school. It is true that when we pass beyond the Prologue the word ‘Logos’ is not repeated. The author nowhere puts it into the mouth of Jesus, one evidence surely of his historical fidelity. But, all the same, the doctrine of the Prologue manifestly works right through the narrative from beginning to end (see such passages as John 3:13-21; John 6:53-58; John 7:28-29; John 8:12; John 8:14; John 8:16; John 10:29 ff; John 12:44-50; John 14:6-11; John 17:5; John 17:8; John 17:24 etc.). It is very noticeable that in John 20:31 , where, before laying down his pen, the writer reveals the motive of his work, he really sums up the great ideas of the Prologue as he declares that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing we may have life through His name. The Logos, then, is not a mere catchword, put forth in order to seize the eye and arouse the interest of the Greek reader. The Logos idea underlies the whole Gospel, and has much to do with the author’s selection of his materials. In the Prologue, as in any other well-written introduction, the plan of the work is set out, and the Logos doctrine is stated there because it supplies the key to a right understanding of the history that follows. </p> <p> <strong> 4. Theological significance. </strong> From the time of Justin, and ever since, the Logos doctrine of St. John’s Prologue has served as the material of many a Christian metaphysic. It is no doubt inevitable that this should be the case; but we must be careful not to make St. John responsible for the theological constructions that have been woven out of his words. If an injustice is done him when his doctrine of the Logos is supposed to be nothing more than the fruitage of his study of Philo, another injustice is committed when it is assumed that he is setting forth here either a metaphysic of the Divine nature or a philosophy of the Incarnation. It is plain, on the contrary, that in all that he says it is the religious and ethical interests that are paramount. He uses the Logos conception for two great purposes, to set forth Jesus (1) <em> as the [[Revealer]] of God </em> , and (2) as <em> the Saviour of men </em> . The first of these ideas, as has been said, is one that we find already in the [[Pauline]] [[Epistles]] and in Hebrews; but by his emphasis on the relations of Fatherhood and Sonship St. John imparts a peculiarly moral meaning to the essential nature of the God who is revealed in Christ. But it is above all for a soteriological purpose that he seems to employ the Logos idea. The Logos, who is Identified with Jesus Christ, comes forth from the bosom of the Father, bringing life and light to men. He comes with a gospel that supersedes the Law of Moses, for it is a gospel of grace as well as of truth. Himself the Son of God, He offers to all who will believe on His name the right to become the children of God. And so, while the Logos is undoubtedly the agent of God’s creative will, He is still more distinctively the mediator of God’s redeeming purpose. It is therefore as a religious power, not as a metaphysical magnitude, that St. John brings Him before us. The [[Evangelist]] shows, it is true, as Kirn points out, that the absoluteness of Christ’s historical mission and His exclusive mediation of the Divine saving grace are guaranteed by the fact that the roots of His personal life reach Back into the eternal life of God. His Logos doctrine thus wards off every [[Christology]] that would see in Jesus no more than a prophetic personality of the highest originality. But, while the Logos idea ‘illuminates the history with the light of eternity, it can reveal eternity to us only in the ligbt of history, not in its own supernatural light’ ( <em> PRE </em> <em> [Note: RE Real-Encykl. für protest. Theol. und Kirche] </em> 3 xi. 605). </p> <p> J. C. Lambert. </p>

<p> Among the Greek philosophers, especially the Stoics, <i> logos </i> came to mean the rational principle that gave order to the cosmos. It could therefore be equated with God. Human reason, in turn, derived from this universal <i> logos </i> . [[Philo]] of [[Alexandria]] used this concept in his efforts to interpret [[Jewish]] religion for those versed in Greek philosophy. In Philo's writings, <i> logos </i> was the mediating agency by which God created the world and by which revelation comes to God's people. The logos became a distinct entity, specifically the “word of God” active in creation and revelation. </p> <p> In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, <i> logos </i> translates the word <i> dabar </i> , which could mean “word,” “thing,” or “event.” In [[Hebrew]] thought, the <i> dabar </i> was dynamic and filled with a power that was transmitted to those who received it. The term was often used to designate God's communication to his people, as at the beginning of many of the writings of the prophets: “The word of the Lord came.” The whole of the Law, or all of Scripture, could then be referred to as God's Word. </p> <p> Toward the end of the Old [[Testament]] period Wisdom was increasingly personified as the Word of God that mediated between God and the world (see Proverbs 8:22-31 ). Wisdom of Song of [[Solomon]] 9:1-2 ). Wisdom (sophia) was preexistent, God's first creation, His instrument and agent in all the rest of creation. God became increasingly aloof in Jewish theology and dealt with His creation only through this subordinate being and through His angels. </p> <p> In the New Testament <i> logos </i> is used both with common and with technical meanings. It is used for empty words ( Ephesians 5:6 ) and evil words (3 John 1:10 ), but it could also refer to the teachings of Jesus (Matthew 24:35 ). Jesus preached the word (Mark 2:2 ) or the word of God (Luke 5:1 ), and judgment would be determined by one's response to Jesus' words (Mark 8:38 ). The gospel, the message about Jesus, could then be called “the word” (1 Thessalonians 1:6; Luke 1:2; Titus 1:2-3 ) or “the word of God” (Acts 8:14; 1 Thessalonians 2:13 ). The word carries God's power to save (1 Corinthians 1:18 ). Those who receive the word are called to be faithful to it (Titus 1:9 ) and to be “doers of the word” (James 1:22 ). </p> <p> In the Johannine writings Jesus himself is called the <i> logos </i> ( John 1:1 ,John 1:1,1:14 ). Paul called Jesus the “wisdom of God” (1 Corinthians 1:24 ) and spoke of His preexistence (Philippians 2:6; Colossians 1:15-16 ); but only in the Johannine literature do we find the full development of an understanding of Jesus as the logos or wisdom of God that became incarnate. As the preexistent <i> logos </i> , the Son of God was the agent of creation. In contrast to earlier wisdom speculation, John affirmed that the <i> logos </i> was with God and was God. The <i> logos </i> was not created. [[Elsewhere]] in the [[Gospel]] of John, we find <i> logos </i> used with qualifiers such as “of God” ( John 10:35 ), “of Jesus” (John 18:32 ), “my word” (John 8:43 ), or “his word” (John 8:55 ). Revelation 19:13 calls Jesus the “word of God,” and 1 John 1:1 speaks of Him as “the word of life” (compare Hebrews 1:2 ), but only in the prologue of the Gospel is <i> logos </i> used of Jesus in the absolute sense. [[Throughout]] John's Gospel Jesus spoke and acted as the incarnate <i> logos </i> , continuing God's creative and redemptive work. Hence, He could change water to wine, create eyes for a man born blind, and breathe the Spirit into His disciples (John 20:22 ). </p> <p> John was probably dependent upon the developments in the use of logos that are evident in Jewish wisdom speculation and in Philo's writings, but John's distinctive contribution was the adoption of this concept to illuminate the identity and role of Jesus more fully. The Gospel of John declares that the logos of whom the philosophers and sages spoke had come in human form in Jesus of Nazareth. See [[Christology Christ]]; [[Creation]]; [[Philo Judaeus]]; Prophets; Wisdom. </p> <p> R. [[Alan]] Culpepper </p>

<p> (1): (n.) A word; reason; speech. </p> <p> (2): (n.) The divine Word; Christ. </p>

<p> (Λόγος, a word, as usually rendered), a special term in Christology, in consequence of its use as such by the apostle John, especially in the opening verses of his Gospel. An excellent article on the subject may be found in the brief but lucid exposition given in Bengel's Gnomon (Amer. edit. by Profs. Lewis and Vincent, page 536 sq.). (See [[Word]]). </p> <p> 1. Rendering. — The general meaning of [[Logos]] in every such connection is THE WORD, said symbolically of the law-giving, creative, revealing activity of God. This is naturally suggested here by the obvious reference to [[Genesis]] 1:1; Genesis 1:3. </p> <p> Many have seen in this term but a bold personification of the wisdom or reason of God. as in Proverbs 8:22. But this sense of Logos does not occur in the New Test., and is excluded by the reference to the history of creation. Besides, the repeated "with God" (Proverbs 8:1-2) compels us to distinguish the Logos from God; the words " became flesh" (Proverbs 8:14) cannot be said of an attribute of God; and the Baptist's testimony, Proverbs 8:15, in direct connection with this introduction (compare also such sayings of Christ as in chapters 8:58; 17:5), show clearly that John attributes personal pre-existence to the Logos. Similarly, every attempt to explain away this profound sense of Logos is inadequate, and most are ungrammatical. (See [[Wisdom Personified]]). </p> <p> Thus the fundamental thought of this introduction is, that the original, all- creating, all-quickening, and all-enlightening Logos, or personal divine word, became man in Jesus Christ. (See [[Incarnation]]). </p> <p> 2. Origin and History of the Idea. — </p> <p> (1.) John uses the term Logos without explanation, assuming that his readers know it to bear this sense. Accordingly, we find this conception of it not new with him, but a chief element in the development of the Old- [[Testament]] theology. In the [[Mosaic]] account, God's revelation of himself in the creation was, in its nature, spirit (Genesis 1:2), in contrast with matter, and in its form, a word (Genesis 1:4), in contrast with every involuntary materialistic or pantheistic conception of the creative act. The real significance, under this representation, of the invisible God's revelation of himself by speech became the germ of the idea of the Logos. With this thought all [[Judaism]] was pervaded; that God does not manifest himself immediately, but mediately; not in his hidden, invisible essence, but through an appearance — an attribute, emanation, or being called the angel of the Lord (Exodus 23:21, etc.), or the word of the Lord. Indeed, to the latter are ascribed, as his work, all divine light and life in nature and history; the law, the promises, the prophecies, the guidance of the nation (compare Psalms 33:6; Psalms 33:9; Psalms 107:20; Psalms 147:18; Psalms 148:8; Isaiah 2:1; Isaiah 2:3; Jeremiah 1:4; Jeremiah 1:11; Jeremiah 1:13, etc. Even such poetic personifications as Psalms 147:15; Isaiah 4:11, contain the germ of the doctrinal personality of the Word). (See [[Angel]]). </p> <p> (2.) Another important element of [[Hebrew]] thought was the wisdom of God. The consideration of it became prominent only after the natural attributes of God — omnipotence, etc. — had long been acknowledged. The chief passages are Job 28:12 sq.; Proverbs 8, 9. Even the latter is a poetic personification: but this is based on the thought that Wisdom is not shut up at rest in God, but active and manifest in the world. It is viewed as the one guide to salvation, comprehending all revelations of God, and as an attribute embracing and combining all his other attributes. This view deeply influenced the development of the Hebrew idea of God. At that stage of religious knowledge and life, Wisdom, revealing to pious faith the harmony and unity of purpose in the world, appeared to be his most attractive and important attribute-the essence of his being. One higher step remained; but the Jew could not yet see that God is love. </p> <p> (3.) In the apocryphal books of [[Sirach]] (chapters 1 and 24) and [[Baruch]] (Sirach 3 and Sirach 4:1-4), this view of Wisdom is developed yet more clearly and fully. The book of Wisdom (written at least B.C. 100) praises wisdom as the highest good, the essence of right knowledge and virtue, and as given by God to the pious who pray for it (chapters 7 and 8); see especially Wisdom of [[Solomon]] 7:22 sq., where Wisdom has divine dignity and honors, as a holy spirit of light, proceeding from God, and penetrating all things. But this book seems rather to have viewed it as another name for the whole divine nature than as a person distinct from God. And nowhere does it connect this Wisdom with the idea of Messiah. It shows, however, the influence of both Greek and Oriental philosophy on [[Jewish]] theology, and marks a transition from the Old Test. view to that of Philo, etc. (See [[Book Of Wisdom]]). </p> <p> (4.) In Egypt, from the time of [[Ptolemy]] I (B.C. 300), there were [[Jews]] in great numbers, their head-quarters being at [[Alexandria]] (Philo estimates them at a million in his time, A.D. 50), and there they gradually came under the influence of the [[Egyptian]] civilization of that age, a strange mixture of Greek and Oriental customs and doctrines. (See [[Alexandrian]] Schools). Aristobulus, about 150 B.C., seems to have endeavored to unite the ancient doctrines of Wisdom and the Word of God with a form of Greek philosophy. This effort, the leading feature of the Jewish- Alexandrian school, culminated in Philo, a contemporary of Christ, who strives to make Judaism, combined with and interpreted by the Platonic philosophy, do the work of the idea of Messiah, affording by the power of thought a complete substitute for it. This attempt to harmonize heathen and Jewish elements, while it led in him to a sort of anticipation of certain parts of [[Christian]] doctrine, explains how he himself vacillates between opposite and irreconcilable views. (See Platonism). </p> <p> (5.) [[Philo]] represents the absolute God as hidden and unknown, but surrounded by his powers as a king by his servants, and, through these, as present and ruling in the world. (These powers, δυνάμεις, are, in Platonic language, ideas; in Jewish, angels.) These are different and innumerable; the original principles of things; the immaterial world, the type of which the material is an image. The two chief of these in dignity are the θείς, God, the creative power, and the Κύριος, Lord, or governing power of the Scriptures. But all these powers are essentially one, as God is one; and their unity, both as they exist in God and as they emanate from him, is called the Logos. Hence the Logos appears under two relations: as the reason of God, lying in him — the divine thought; and as the outspoken word, proceeding from him, and manifest in the world. The former is, in reality, one with God's hidden being; the latter comprehends all the workings and revelations of God in the world, affords from itself the ideas and energies by which the world was framed and is upheld, and, filling all things with divine light and life, rules them in wisdom, love, and righteousness. It is the beginning of creation; not unoriginated, like God, nor made, like the world, but the eldest son of the eternal Father (the world being the younger); God's image; the creator of the world; the mediator between God and it; the highest angel; the second God; the high-priest and reconciler. </p> <p> (6.) Lü cke concludes that, such being the development of the doctrine of the Logos when John wrote, although there is no evidence that he borrowed his views from Philo, yet it is impossible to doubt the direct historical connection of his doctrine with the Alexandrian. Meyer thinks that if we suppose John's doctrine entirely unconnected with the Jewish and Alexandrian philosophy, we destroy its historic meaning, and its intelligibleness for its readers. It must be admitted that the term Logos seems to be chosen as already associated in many minds with a class of ideas in some degree akin to the writer's, and as furnishing a common point of thought and interest with those speculative idealists who constantly used it while presenting them with new truth. </p> <p> (7.) But any connection amounting to doctrinal dependence of John upon Philo is utterly contrary to the tenor of Philo's own teaching; for he even loses the crowning feature of Hebrew religion, the moral energy expressed in its view of Jehovah's holiness, and with it the moral necessity of a divine teacher and Savior. He becomes entangled in the physical lntions of the heathen, forgets the wide distinction between God and the world, and even denies the independent, absolute being of God, declaring that, were the universe to end, God would die of loneliness and inactivity. The very universality of the conception, its immediate working on all things, would have excluded to Philo the belief that the whole Logos, not a mere part or effluence of his power, became incarnate in Christ. "Heaven and earth cannot contain me," cries his Logos, "how much less a human being." On the whole, it is extremely doubtful whether Philo ever meant formally to represent the Logos as a person distinct from God. All the titles he gives it may be explained by supposing it to mean the ideal world, on which the actual is modeled. At most, we can say that he goes beyond a mere poetic personification, and prepares the way for a distinction of persons in the Godhead. (See [[Philo]]). </p> <p> (8.) John's connection with the doctrines of the later Jews, though less noticed, is at least as important as that with Philo. In the apocryphal books, as we have seen, the idea of the Logos was overshadowed by that of the divine Wisdom; but it reappears, prominently and definitely, in the Targums, especially that of Onkelos. These were written, indeed, after John's [[Gospel]] (Onkelos, the earliest, wrote not later than the 2d century A.D.), yet their distinguishing doctrines certainly rest upon ancient tradition. They represent the Word of God, the Memrah, ממרה, or Dibur, דבור, as the personal self-revealed God, and one with the Shekinah, שכינה, which was to be manifested in Messiah. But it would be absurd to claim that John borrowed his idea of [[Messiah]] from the Jews, who in him looked for, not a spiritual revelation of God in clearer light, to save men from sin by suffering and love, but a national deliverer, to gratify their worldly and carnal desires of power; not even for the divine Word become flesh, and dwelling among men, but for an appearance, a vision, a mere display, or, at most, an unreal, docetic humanity. </p> <p> (9.) The contrast between John's Logos and Philo's appears in several further particulars. The Logos here is the real personal God, the Word; who did not begin to be when Christ came, but was originally, before the creation, "with God, and was God." He made all things (Proverbs 9:3). Philo held to the original independent existence of matter, the stuff, ὔλη, of the world, before it was framed. John's Logos is holy light, which shines in moral darkness, though rejected by it. Philo has no such height of mournful insight as this. This Logos became man in the person of Christ, the Son of God. Philo conceives of no incarnation. Thus John's lofty doctrine of the Messiah is not in any way derived from Jewish or [[Gnostic]] speculations, but rests partly on pure Old-Testament doctrine, and chiefly on what he learned from Christ himself. His testimony to this forms the historical part of his Gospel. (See [[Memra]]). </p> <p> 3. Theological [[Bearing]] of the Term. — The word "Logos" is therefore evidently "employed by the evangelist John to designate the mediatorial character of our Redeemer, with special reference to his revelation of the character and will of the Father. It appears to be used as an abstract for the concrete. just as we find the same writer employing light for enlightener. life for life-giver, etc.; so that it properly signifies the speaker or interpreter, than which nothing can more exactly accord with the statement made (John 1:18), 'No man hath seen God at any time: the only- begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father, hath declared him,' i.e., communicated to us the true knowledge of his mind and character. That the term is merely expressive of a divine attribute, a position which has been long and variously maintained by Socinians, though abandoned as untenable by some of their best authorities, is in total repugnance to all the circumstances of the context, which distinctly and expressly require personal subsistence in the subject which it describes. He whom John styles the Logos has the creation of all things ascribed to him; is set forth as possessing the country and people of the Jews; as the only-begotten (Son) of the Father; as assuming the human nature, and displaying in it the attributes of grace and truth, etc. Such things could never, with the least degree of propriety, be said of any mere attribute or quality. Nor is the hypothesis of a personification to be reconciled with the universally admitted fact that the style of John is the most simply historical, and the furthest removed from that species of composition to which such a figure of speech properly belongs. To the Logos the apostle attributes eternal existence, distinct personality, and strict and proper [[Deity]] — characters which he also ascribes to him in his first epistle — besides the possession and exercise of perfections which absolutely exclude the idea of derived or created being." (See [[Christology]]). </p> <p> 4. Literature. — The following are the principal monographs on this subject: Sandius, De Λόγῳ (in his Interp. Paradox, Amsterd. 1670); Saubert, De voce Λόγος (Altdorf, 1687): Carpzov, De Λόγῳ, Philonis (Helmstadt, 1749); Bryant, Philo's Λόγος (1797); Upham, [[Letters]] on the Logos (Boston, 1828); Bucher, Johann. Lehre evon Logos (Schaffh. 1856). For others, see Danz, Worterbuch, s.v.; Darling, Cyclopaedia, col. 1059; Lange's [[Commentary]] (Am. ed., Introd. to John's Gospel). Comp. also the Meth. Quar. Review, July and October 1851; January 1858; Christian Examiner, January 1863; Am. Presb. Review, January 1840; July, 1864; Stud. u. Krit. 1830, 3:672; 1833, 2:355; 1868, 2:299. (See [[Gospel Of John]]). </p>