Logos

LOGOS (Λόγος, Latin Verbum). - Title attributed by St. John the Apostle to the Only-Begotten Son of God, who became man in the Incarnation (v.).

Etymologically λόγος derives from λέγειν (in Latin legere). In Greek the semantic evolution passed from the idea of the root leg "to gather for oneself" to those of "to choose, to understand, to reason, to count, to recount, to speak." Among secular writers, the original meaning of λόγος ("gathering") survives in compounds (σύλλογος "assembly," πολύλογος "gathered again," etc.). The isolated term λόγος occurs with the derived meanings of "reason," "account," in the phrases "to render reason" or "to render account," and among philosophers in the more complex meaning of "reason," the intellectual faculty, or of another intellectual entity; among all, in the most common meaning of "word" with the nuances of "discourse," "conversation," "saying," etc. In the Greek version of the Septuagint (v.) λόγος sometimes translates the Hebrew ἀδάβη ("word," "thing"). In the New Testament it occurs both in the meanings of secular Greek and in the Christian ones of "word of God," "divine commandment," "biblical saying," "Revelation," "evangelical preaching," and in St. John with the meaning of "divine Word" 6 times (Jn. 1:1 [three times]; 1:14; 1 Jn. 1:1; Rev. 19:13; 1 Jn. 5:7 is not to be considered: v. COMMA GIOVANNEO).

I. THE TEXTS

It is appropriate first to examine the texts in which the term occurs with some specification.

In Apoc. 19:13 there appears a crowned horseman, with a "name written, which no one knows except himself. He is clothed in a garment soaked in blood, and his name is called: the L. of God (ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ)." Here the L., or Word of God, is presented clearly as a Person, identified with Jesus Christ, who shed his blood in the Passion and who now reigns glorious in Heaven. To the risen and glorious Christ alludes also 1 John 1:1: "What was in the beginning, what we contemplated; and our hands touched concerning the Word (λόγος) of life" (ibid. 1:4).

In the prologue of the Fourth Gospel (John 1:1-18) the L. is presented in his relations with God, with the world and with men. Here are its salient features: in v. 1 the term λόγος occurs three times: "In the beginning was the L., and the L. was with God, and the L. was God," that is: the L. is eternal (he already existed before creation, cf. Gen. 1:1), is a person distinct from God the Father, of whom he will be called the Only-Begotten (John 1:14, 18), is God (θεός ἦν ὁ λόγος). The anticipation of the predicate (θεός) accentuates this characteristic of the L.: his consubstantiality with the Father. V. 2 summarizes, in parallelism, the truths indicated in v. 1. Vv. 3-5 present the L. as creator of the universe and as source of life and light for men. The creative action of the L. extends to all things, none excepted. "In him was life (cf. 1 John 1:4) and the life was the light of men" (v. 4). This concerns especially the spiritual, supernatural life and light, which then (v. 14) will be called "Grace and truth"; the "darkness did not succeed in stifling" the light of the L. who was coming into the world.

The precursor John the Baptist (v.) was not the true light, but only a witness of the L. light (vv. 6-8). "There was the light, the true one, the one that enlightens every man who was coming into the world" (v. 9). "The world," that is, worldly men, and even "his own," the Jews, did not wish to receive him, but to those who received him the L. "gave the power to become children of God," infusing in them the life of Grace by which they are "born of God" (vv. 10-13).

V. 14 reveals the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word: "And the L. became flesh (καὶ ὁ λόγος ἀφ' ἐγένετο) and dwelt among us." The L. who is God, a Person distinct from the Father, subsisting in him, without undergoing changes became man, that is, assumed in the unity of his divine Person the complete human nature (soul and body).

Here, as in his first epistle (1 John 1), the Evangelist proclaims his testimony and that of the Apostles: "And we contemplated (assisting at his miracles, especially at his transfiguration, his Resurrection and Ascension) his glory; glory such as belongs to the Only-Begotten (μονογενής) from the Father, full of Grace (divine life) and of truth (divine light)."

The precursor attests the divine pre-existence of the L. (v. 15) and the Evangelist adds: "And from his fullness we all received, and Grace for Grace (χάριν ἀντί χάριτος, v. 16)." Our Grace derives from that of the L., corresponds to his. "For the Law was given (as an exterior gift) through Moses, the Grace and the truth through Jesus Christ was produced" (v. 17). Here the L. is clearly identified with Jesus Christ, a historical figure: he is God and man together.

The prologue concludes by presenting the incarnate L. as subsisting in the divine intimacy of the Father, of whom he is the only Son God, and as revealer of the Divinity: "God no one has ever seen: the Only-Begotten-God (μονογενής θεός, this is the best reading of the Greek) who is in the bosom of the Father, he himself revealed him to us" (v. 18).

II. THEOLOGICAL DOCTRINE

The theological doctrine of the Johannine texts on the Logos, and especially in the prologue of the Fourth Gospel, is exceedingly rich. The central point of this doctrine is the identification of the divine Logos with the historical Christ, the Savior. In the rest of the Fourth Gospel Jesus is never called Logos (evidently the Savior never expressly appropriated this title to himself), but the same truths expressed in the prologue recur there in their historical context.

The eternal pre-existence of the Logos, affirmed in the prologue (John 1:1), is attested for Jesus Christ in the Fourth Gospel both by John the Baptist (ibid. 1:30) and by Jesus himself

(ibid. 8:58). His personal distinction from the Father (ibid. 1:1) is proclaimed in the passages of the Fourth Gospel that present Jesus as God's own Son. This, indeed, is the explicit purpose of the Gospel (ibid. 20:28; cf. 1:37; 3:17, 35, 36; 5:19-26; 6:40; 8:35, 36; 14:13; 17:1). The identity of nature (ibid. 1:1), or consubstantiality, between the Logos and the Father is clearly attested by Jesus himself (ibid. 10:30; 17:22).

That Jesus is life and the source of spiritual, supernatural life for men is clearly taught in the Fourth Gospel (ibid. 3:15; 5:24, 26, 40; 6:27-51; 8:12; 10:10; 11:25; 14:6; 17:2-3; 20:31). Jesus is light and the source of light (ibid. 3:19-21; 12; 9:5; 12:35-46) and of truth (ibid. 5:33; 14:6; cf. I John 1:6-8; III John 3). The Incarnation is attested in Jesus' discourse to Nicodemus (John 3:13-21), where the characteristic titles of Only-Begotten (Μονογενής; ibid. 3:16, 18), of light of truth (ibid. 3:19-21), announced in the prologue, and of the descent of the Son of God from Heaven (ibid. 3:31-36) recur.

The Greek λόγος, rendered by Tertullian and by ancient Latin versions as Sermo or Ratio, and better by the Vulgate as Verbum, lends itself excellently to expressing the theological doctrine concerning the Son of God made man.

Theologians, following St. Thomas (Sum. Theol. 1ª, q. 34), develop the analogies between the human logos and the divine Logos as follows: just as man, knowing himself, intellectually begets an interior logos (λόγος ἐνδιάθετος, verbum mentis), a concept that is, as it were, its image, so God the Father, knowing himself perfectly, and in himself all things, intellectually begets, ab aeterno, his interior Logos, the Only-Begotten God (John 1:18), who is its most perfect image (cf. II Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15). In man thought is a transient accident; in God, by contrast, it is a Person, subsisting eternally in the one divine nature, common to the Father and the Son. Just as in man the spoken word (λόγος προφορικός, verbum oris) is the means by which he manifests his own thought, so, analogously, in the Godhead the incarnate divine Logos is the revealer of the divine mysteries, communicating the light of truth and the life of Grace (John 1:14-18).

III. INFLUENCES AND DEPENDENCIES

Before investigating possible dependencies on profane sources, it is useful to search the inspired writings, which were certainly known to St. John, for the possible sources of his teaching on the L.

Various texts of the Old Testament give special prominence to the divine word. In Gen. 1:1-27 the creation is described as the work of the Words of God with the repeated formula "And God said." This concept is reaffirmed in Ps. 32 (33): "He spoke and it was done, he commanded and it was created" (v. 9, cf. v. 6; Eccli. 42:15; Sap. 9:1-2 with the term λόγος). Elsewhere the "word of God" is described as sent by him: "He sent his word and they were healed" (Ps. 106:20; cf. 147:14-18; Is. 9:8; 55:10-11). These are rhetorical personifications, which nonetheless permitted deeper intuitions. The "word of God," under the title of λόγος, is personified more strongly in Sap. 18:14 ff.: "When... the night was midway in its course, thy almighty Word (λόγος) leaped from Heaven, from thy royal throne, as a relentless warrior."

Even clearer are the personifications of the Wisdom of God (ḥokmāh, σοφία) found in Prov. 8-9 and in Eccli. 24. In Sap. 7:21 the personified divine Sophia is even called "artificer of all things," and further on (vv. 25-26) "a breath of the power of God, a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty... a reflection (ἀπαύγασμα) of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the activity of God and an image of his goodness."

In the New Testament the mystery is clearly revealed. Interesting are the connections between the writings of St. Paul and the sapiential writings of the Old Testament. The concept of reflection (splendor) and image applied to the divine Wisdom in Sap. 7:25-26 is taken up in Hebr. 1:3, applied to the Son of God made man, and more clearly in II Cor. 4:4 and Col. 1:15. This last text has, in its entire context (Col. 1:13-17), undeniable affinities with the book of Wisdom and with the prologue of St. John; there "image" corresponds to L. and Jesus Christ is presented clearly as the Son of God, preexistent, creator, made man, redeemer. To Io. 1:14 correspond Col. 2:9 and Phil. 2:6. In these passages of the Pauline epistolary the doctrine later systematized by St. John in his prologue is already clearly taught, in which the eternal L. dominates, distinct from the Father, God, creator, incarnate Jesus Christ.

Other elements recur in I Pt. 1:23: "You were regenerated, not from corruptible seed, but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides." The word (L.) of God that regenerates, of which St. Peter speaks, concerns preaching, and perhaps the formula of Baptism; nonetheless the encounter with Io. 1:13 regarding supernatural birth is symptomatic. "The earth emerged from the waters subsists through water by virtue of the Word of God" (II Pt. 3:5); it runs parallel with Io. 1:2 which speaks of the creating L.

From these inspired texts and from the living word of the divine Master who, even in the Synoptics, attested to the perfect mutual knowledge between the Father and the Son (Mt. 11:27) and to his Trinitarian life, St. John must have drawn the essential elements of his doctrine. Some hold that John drew from the Greek philosophers elements for his L.

According to Heraclitus (v.), the L. would be a kind of divinity immanent in the cosmos, a universal cosmic law, eternal, identifiable in fire (held to be a rational element): this L. would fix the destiny of all mutable things (cf. M.-J. Lagrange, Le L. d'Héraclite, in Revue biblique, 32 [1923], pp. 96-107).

Plato (v.) and Aristotle (v.) did not accept these doctrines of the L. in their systems. Nevertheless some Platonic elements on the intelligible cosmos, considered as the exemplary and efficient cause of the sensible cosmos, on the soul of the cosmos and on the gods of the second order, had some influence on the subsequent history of the doctrine of the L. Likewise the Aristotelian concept regarding nature as an immanent principle of motion, conceived as a rational divine force that makes the universe consist in itself, offered the Stoics some elements for their doctrine on the L.

The later Stoics applied the title of L. to the so-called "soul of the cosmos." For Seneca (Ad Helviam, 8, 3) the L. is "a divine spirit equally diffused in all things great and small, forms matter, turns it," governs it, is the universal law that leads everything to the appointed end: the human intelligence is a participation in the universal L. When man speaks, he manifests with the uttered L. (λόγος προφορικός) what is communicated to him in the interior L. (λόγος ἐνδιάθετος; cf. Zeno, in Galen, De Hipp. et Plat. plac., 2, 5).

The influence of Greek philosophy on the Johannine doctrine of the L., maintained especially by the rationalists M. Lidzbarski, R. Reitzenstein, B. Bauer, W. Bousset, does not withstand objective analysis. The only point of contact between John and this philosophy consists in the use of the term L. and in attributing to it some special relationship with the divinity and with the world. But none of those philosophers, not even the Stoics closest to John (Epictetus, Seneca), considers the L. as a special wisdom of God, much less as a person or as an intermediary whom God uses in creation.

Others, with A. Loisy, sought the sources of the Johannine doctrine on the L. in the writings of Philo (v.).

Despite some similarities, the substantial divergences are such as to exclude a true dependence.

Both for Philo and for John, the L. is called God and Son of God; for both the L. has a part in the formation of the world; it is mediator between God and men, it is revealer. However, Philo's L. is an abstract idea, devoid of personality; it is called God (θεός) in the broad sense of a divine being, not in the proper sense; it is also called son of God by participation, like the world which is God's "younger son," while the L. is his "elder son." For St. John, on the other hand, the L. is the Only-begotten Son of God in the proper sense, is a divine Person who assumes human nature in himself, is Jesus Christ himself. Philo's L. is simply an orderer of matter, supposed to be preexistent, whereas St. John's L. is himself preexistent to matter, the true creator of all things. Philo's L., unlike that of St. John, is by no means a source of life and supernatural light, is not the redeemer of the world.

Others sought the sources of the Johannine doctrine on the L. in the Jewish writings that personify the Law (Tōrāh), the Cloud (Šekhīnāh) and especially the Word (Memrā') of the Lord.

The formula "Memrā' of 'Adhōnaj," which could correspond to "L. of the Lord," occurs only in the Aramaic paraphrases of the Bible, called Targūmīm, written after Christ, but already transmitted orally before Christ. H. L. Strack and P. Billerbeck (Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud und Midrasch, II, Munich 1924, pp. 302-33) count 179 in the Targum of 'Onqēlōs, 321 in the I Targum of Jerusalem and 99 in the II (p. 305 ff.).

But the analysis of the passages in which this formula occurs (sometimes replaced by the synonymous "dibbārā' of 'Ādhōnaj") shows that it is one of the many rabbinic expedients for avoiding the pronunciation of the name of Yahweh. To avoid anthropomorphisms, the targumists, instead of "God" or Yahweh, write "Word of the Lord" (Memrā' of 'Ādhōnaj). This substitution normally occurs also where the Bible says that Yahweh walks, speaks, acts outwardly, governs the world, reveals himself, creates. It may be that the use of Memrā' among the Palestinian Jews is a version of the term L. used by the Alexandrian Jews and especially by Philo; sometimes the Memrā' is likewise personified as a divine hypostasis, or, more frequently, as a divine emanation transmitted to the prophets; but even in these cases these are rhetorical personifications. Even when they said "word of God," the rabbis meant "God." Moreover, the rabbis never qualify the Messiah as the Memrā' of the Lord. Others bring into play as the supposed sources of this doctrine the syncretism that flowed into the mystery religions, into the Hermetic or Mandaean writings; but these are purely verbal resemblances, with quite different ideas. Mandaeism (v. MANOEI E MANOEISMO) then underwent influences from Christianity, not vice versa.

The essential doctrinal elements contained in the prologue of the Fourth Gospel derive from the Revelation handed down, in a rather obscure form, in the Old Testament, and more clearly in the living word of Jesus and in the writings of the apostles Paul and Peter. From these revealed data, the Evangelist condensed into the marvelous hymn that opens his Gospel the fruit of his contemplations.

One may think that the choice of the word L. rather than another (image, wisdom, splendor of God, or else ῥῆμα, νοῦς, ἰδέλ), is due to a special revelation, or, better, to a deliberate choice on his part for the purpose of conferring an unmistakable Christian imprint on the term λόγος, of which so much was made in the Hellenistic philosophical and religious world; it offered to cultured Hellenists a means of channeling their speculations up to the summit of the divine mystery.

213 (with an extensive bibliography); H. Simon-G. Dorado, Praelectiones Biblicae: Novum Testamentum, I, 6th ed., Turin 1944, nos. 185-96 (with bibliography); F. Prat, s. v. in DB, IV, cols. 323-29; E. Krebs, s. v. in LThK, VI, cols. 628-31; A. Debrunner-H. Kleinknecht-O. Procksch-G. Kittel, Abyss. etc., in G. Kittel, Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Test., IV, pp. 69-140; J. Lebreton, Histoire du dogme de la Trinité, I, 7th ed., Paris 1927; II, 3rd ed., ibid. 1928; L. Tondelli, Gesù secondo s. Giovanni, Turin 1944.

Per la parte teologica i trattati dogmatici sulla S.ma Trinità e sul Verbo Incarnato. Per la questione delle fonti cf. M.-J. Lagrange, Le L. d'Héraclite, in Revue biblique, 32 (1922), pp. 96-107; id., Vers le L. de St Jean, ibid., pp. 161-84, 321-17.

Sul L. di Filone v. J. Lebreton, Histoire du dogme de la Trinité, I, 7ª ed., Parigi 1927, pp. 209-51, 636-44; M.-J. Lagrange, Le L. de Philon, in Revue biblique, 32 (1922), pp. 321-71.

On the influence of the Johannine doctrines of the Logos on tradition, v. A. Michel, Verbe, in DThC, XV, coll. 2633-72.

Pietro De Ambroggi