Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 9.djvu/369

 LOGOS

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LOGOS

k propos of any theological teaching, but in an aix>ca- lyptic vision, the content of which has no suggestion of PhiJo but rather recalls Wisdom, xviii, 15.

In the Gospel of St. John the Logos appears in the very first verse, without explanation, as a term famil- iar to the readers; St. John uses it at the end of the prologue (i, 14), and does not mention it again in the Gospel. From this Hamack concludes that the men- tion of the Word was only a starting-point for the Evangelist, and that he paj^ed directly from this Hel- lenic conception of the Logos to the Christian doctrine of the only Son ("Uel^er das Verhaltniss des Prologs des vierten Evangeliums zum ganzen Werk" in "Zeit- schrift fttr Theol. und KircTie", II, 1892, 189-231). This hypothesis is proved false by the insistence with which the Evangelist comes back on this idea of the Word; it is, moreover, natural enough that this techni- cal term, employed in the prologue where the Evan- gelist is interpreting the Divine mystery, should not reappear in the sequel of the narrative, the character of which might thus suffer change.

WTiat is the precise value of this concept in the writ- ings of St. John? The Logos has not for him the Stoic meaning that it so often had for Philo: it is not the im- personel power that sustains the world, nor the law that regulates it; neither do we find in St. John the Platonistic concept of the Logos as the ideal model of the world; the Word is for him the Word of God, and thereby he holds with Jewish tradition, the theology of the Book of Wisdom, of the Psalms, of the Prophet- ical Books, and of Genesis; he perfects the idea and transforms it by showing that this creative Word, which from all eternity was in God and was God, took flesh and dwelt among men.

This difference is not the only one which distin- guishes the Johannine theology of the Logos from the concept of Philo, to which not a few have sought to liken it. The Logos of Philo is impersonal, it is an idea, a power, a law; at most it may be likened to those half- abstract, half-concrete entities, to which the Stoic mythology had lent a certain personal form. For Philo the incarnation of the Logos must have been ab- solutely without meaning, ouite as much as its identifi- cation with the Messias. For St. John, oh the con- trary, the Logos appears in the full light of a concrete and living personahty; it is the Son of God, the Mes- sias, Jesus. Equally great is the difference when we consider the r61e of the Logos. The Logos of Philo is an intermediary: "The Father who engendered all has given to the Logos the signal privilege of being an in- termediary {luShpwt) between the creature and the creator ... it is neither without beginning {iyivtirot) as is God, nor begotten (tcmtt^i) as you are [mankind!, but intermediate {fjJetween these two extremes rQius rer. divin. hseres sit, 205-06) . The Word of St. John is not an intermediary, but a Mediator; He is not intermediate between the two natures. Divine and hu- man, but He unites them in His Person; it could not be said of Him, as of the Logos of Philo, that He is neither 6rf4rriTos nor 761^7x6?, for He is at the same time one and the other, not inasmuch as Ho is the Word, but as the Incarnate Word (St. Ignatius, *'Ad Ephes.", vii,

2).

In the subsequent history of Christian theology

many conflicts would naturally arise between these rival concepts, and Hellenic speculations constitute a dangerous temptation for Cnristian writers. They were hardly tempted, of course, to make the Divine Logos an impersonal power (the Incarnation too defi- nitely forbaac this), but they were at times moved, more or less consciously, to consider the Word as an intermediary being between God and the world. Hence arose the subordinationist tendencies found in certain Ante-Nicene writers; hence, also, the Arian heresy (see Nic^A. CouNaL op).

IV. The Looob in Anctent Christian Literature. —The Apostolic Fathers do not touch on the theology

of the Logos; a short notice occurs in St. Ignatiuf- only (Ad Magn., viii, 2). The Apoloeists, on the con- trary, develop it, partly owing to meir philoeophie training, but more particularly to their desire to state their faith in a way familiar to their readers (St. Jus- tin, e. g., insists strongly on the theology of the Logos in his Apology'' meant for heathens, much less so in his ' ' Dialogue with the Jew Tryphon") . This anxiety to adapt apologetic discussion to the circumstanceB <h their hearers had its dangers, since it was possible that in. this way the apolo^i^ might land well inside the lines of their adversaries.

As to the capital question of the generation of the Word, the orthodoxy of the ApologSts is irreproach- able: the Word was not created, as the Arians held later, but was born of the very Substance of the Father according to the later definition of Nicaea (Justin, "Dial.", 128; Tatian, "Or.", v; Athenagoras, "Legat.", x-xviii; Theophilus, "Ad Autolyc", II, x; TertuUian, " Adv. Prax.', vii). Their theology is less satisfactory as regards the eternity of this generation and its neces- sity; in fact, they represent the Word as uttered by the Father when the Father wished to create and in view of this creation (Justin, " II Apol.", 6— cf . " Dial.", 61- 62; Tatian, "Or.", v, a corrupt and doubtful text; Athenagoras, " Legat.", x; Theophilus, " Ad Autolyc", II, xxii; Tertullian, " Adv. Prax.", v-vii). WTien we seek to understand what they meant by this "utter- ance", it is difficult to give the same answer for all; Athenagoras seems to mean the role of the Son in the work xhology seem to be responsible for this atti- tude: the philosophers of the Portico distinguidied between the innate word (MidBerot) and the uttered word (xpoiftopiKSs); bearing in mind this distinction, the aforesaid apologists conceived a development in the Word of God after the same fashion. After this period, St. Irenajus condemned very severely these attempts at psychological explanation (Adv. Hffires., II, xiii, 3-10; cf. II, xxviii, 4-6^, and later Fathers rejected this unfortunate distinction between the Word MidOtrot and vpwpopuc&s [Athanasiua (7), "Expos. Fidei", i, in P. G., XXV, 201— cf. "Orat.", II. 35, in P. G., XXVI, 221; Cyril of Jerusalem, "Cat.", IV, 8, in P. G., XXXIII, 465— cf. "Cat.", XI, 10, in P. G., XXXIII, 701— cf. Council of Siimium, can. viii, in Athan., "De Synod.", 27— P. G., XXVI, 737].

As to the Divine Nature of the Word, all apologists are agreed, but to some of them, at least to St. Justin and Tertullian, there seemed to be in this Divinity a certain subordination (Justin, "I ApoL", 13— cf. "II Apol.", 13; Tertullian, "Adv. Prax.^', 9, 14, 26).

The Alexandrian theologians, themselves profoimd students of the Logos doctrine, avoided the above- mentioned errors concerning the dual conception of the Word (see, however, a fragment of the"Hypoty- poses", of Clement of Alexanckia, cited by Photius, m P. G., cm, 384, and Zahn, "Forachungen cur Ge- schichte des neutest. Kanons", Erlangen, 1884, xiii, 144) and the generation in time; for Clement and for Origen the W^rd is eternal like the Father (Clement, "Strom.", VII, 1, 2, in P. G., IX, 404, 409; and " Adumbrat. in Joan.", i, 1, in P. G., IX, 734; Origen, "De Princip.", I, xxii, 2 sqq., in P. G., XI, 130 sqq.: "In Jer. Hom.", IX, 4, in P. G., XIII, 357; "In Jo>, ii, 32, in P. G., XIV, 77; cf. Athanasius, "De decret. Nic. syn.", 27, in P. G., XXV, 465). As to the nature of the Word their teaching is less sure: in Client, it is true, we find only a few traces of Bubordinationism ("Strom.", IV, 25, in P. G., VIU, 1366; "Strom.",