Logia

LOGIA. - Greek term (λόγια) that normally indicated in profane literature "sayings, divine oracles" (Herodotus, VIII, 60, 3; Thucydides, II, 8, 2); thus in the Septuagint, in Philo and the Apostolic Fathers. In the New Testament it indicates the revelations made by God to Moses (Acts 7, 38), the revelations contained in the Old Testament, especially the Messianic prophecies (Rom. 3, 2), the Christian Revelation (Heb. 5, 12), the sayings of the charismatics (Rom. 12, 6 ff.; I Cor. 12, 8 ff.; I Pt. 4, 11). St. Polycarp (7, 1) calls the sayings of Jesus "l. of the Lord."

St. Papias wrote a work in 5 books entitled Interpretations of the l. of the Lord (λογίαν κυριακῶν ἐξεγέσεις), in which he comments not only on the sayings, but also on the deeds of Jesus. In the fragments preserved by Eusebius we are informed that Mark (v.) did not wish to make a "coordination of the l. of the Lord" (σύνταξιν τῶν κυριακῶν λογίων); "Matthew instead, in the Hebrew language, coordinated l. (τὰ λόγια συνετάξατο; some manuscripts have συνεγράφατο); each one then interpreted them as he was able" (Eusebius, Hist. eccl., III, 39; F. X. Funk, Patres Ap., I, Paderborn 1905, p. 358; PG 20, 300). From these words of Papias many non-Catholics, following Schleiermacher (1817), have concluded that Matthew (v.) did not write our entire first Gospel, but only a collection of sayings (λόγια) of the Lord, which then served as a source (in German Quelle, abbreviation Q), joined to Mark (or to a Proto-Mark) for the composition of the Synoptic Gospels (v. SYNOPTICS).

From the cited comparison between Papias's expressions regarding Mark and Matthew one can simply deduce that Mark, in the Gospel that has come down to us, did not coordinate the discourses of the Lord, whereas Matthew, in the Gospel we know, did coordinate them. Others reply that for Papias the term λόγια means sayings and deeds: this can be inferred both from the fragments of his work and from the fact that in the same context, speaking of Mark, it is said that he did not write "in order the things said or done by the Lord" (τὰ ὑπὸ τοῦ Κυρίου ἢ λεχθέντα ἢ πραχθέντα).

The Englishmen B. P. Grenfell and A. S. Hunt called λόγια Ἰησοῦ several sayings attributed to Jesus with the formula "says Jesus" (λέγει Ἰησοῦς), found in two Oxyrhynchus papyri published in 1897 and 1904. These are extracts from the canonical and apocryphal Gospels collected for liturgical or catechetical purposes; others call them agrapha (v. AGRAPHON).

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