LOGIA. – A Greek term (λόγια) that normally indicated in profane literature “sayings, divine oracles” (Herodotus, VIII, 60, 3; Thucydides, II, 8, 2); likewise in the Septuagint, in Philo, and among the Apostolic Fathers. In the New Testament it indicates the revelations made by God to Moses (Act. 7, 38), the revelations contained in the Old Testament, especially the messianic prophecies (Rom. 3, 2), Christian Revelation (Hebr. 5, 12), and the sayings of the charismatic persons (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 five 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, on the other hand, coordinated l. in the Hebrew language (τὰ λόγια συνετάξατο; some manuscripts have συνεγράφατο); and each 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), Matthew (v.) did not write our entire first Gospel, but only a collection of the sayings (λόγια) of the Lord, which subsequently served as a source (in German Quelle, abbreviated Q), combined with Mark (or with a Proto-Mark) for the composition of the Synoptic Gospels (v. SINOTTICI, VANGELI).
From the comparison cited between Papias’s expressions concerning Mark and Matthew, one may 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 known to us, did coordinate them. Others reply that, for Papias, the term λόγια means sayings and deeds: this may 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 an orderly manner 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 “Jesus says” (λέγει Ἰησοῦς), found in two Oxyrhynchus papyri published in 1897 and 1904. These are excerpts from the canonical and apocryphal Gospels collected for liturgical or catechetical purposes; others call them agrapha (v. AGRAPHON).