Logos (Christianity)

Stephen L. Harris claims that John adapted Philo's concept of the Logos, identifying Jesus as an incarnation of the divine Logos that formed the universe.[7]

While John 1:1 is generally considered the first mention of the Logos in the New Testament, arguably, the first reference occurs in the book of Revelation. In it the Logos is spoken of as "the Word of God", who at the Second Coming rides a white horse into the Battle of Armageddon wearing many crowns, and is identified as King of Kings, and Lord of Lords:^[19:11-16]

He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God . . . And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, "king of kings, and lord of lords".[8]

John 1's subject is developed in the First Epistle of John (1 John).[9][10][11][12] Similar to John 1:1-5, 1 John 1:1 also refers to “the beginning” (archeés) and to “the Word” (ho lógou). 1 John 1 does not refer to the creation (cf. John 1:3) but expands on two other concepts found in John 1:4, namely that of “life” and of “light” (1 John 1:1-2, 5-7). It therefore seems as if only the first clause of 1 John 1:1 "What was from the beginning" refers to the pre-incarnate Word. The rest of 1 John 1 describe the incarnate Word:[12]

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.

— 1 John 1:1 (NIV)

Like John 1:1-5, Luke 1:1-2 also refers to "the beginning" and to "the word:"

Luke 1:1-2 … compile an account of the things accomplished among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the beginning (Greek archē) were eyewitnesses and servants of the word (Greek logos).

— Luke 1:1-2 (NASB)

David Lyle Jeffrey[13] and Leon Morris[14] have seen in "the word" a reference to Jesus Christ. However, this reference did not depict the same significant theology of the Logos as depicted in gospel of John. In it's context, it's referring to the gospel message about Jesus and his teaching, rather than a title or identity for him.[15][16][17]

Certain references to the term logos in the Septuagint in Christian theology are taken as prefiguring New Testament usage such as Psalm 33:6, which relates directly to the Genesis creation narrative.[lower-alpha 1] Theophilus of Antioch references the connection in To Autolycus 1:7.[18]

Irenaeus of Lyon explained Psalm 33:6 as that the “One God, the Father, not made, invisible, creator of all things” “created the things that were made” “by (the) Word” and “adorned all things” “by (the) Spirit.” Irenaeus added, “fittingly is the Word called the Son, and the Spirit the Wisdom of God.”[19]

Origen of Alexandria likewise sees in it the operation of the Trinity, a mystery intimated beforehand by the Psalmist David.[20] Augustine of Hippo considered that in Ps.33:6 both logos and pneuma were "on the verge of being personified".[21]

τῷ λόγῳ τοῦ κυρίου οἱ οὐρανοὶ ἐστερεώθησαν καὶ τῷ πνεύματι τοῦ στόματος αὐτοῦ πᾶσα ἡ δύναμις αὐτῶν

By the word logos of the Lord were the heavens established, and all the host of them by the spirit (pneuma) of his mouth

— Psalm 33:6

The first extant Christian reference to the Logos found in writings outside of the New Testament belongs to John's disciple Ignatius (c 35-108), Bishop of Antioch, who in his epistle to the Magnesians, writes, "there is one God, who has manifested Himself by Jesus Christ His Son, who is His eternal Word, not proceeding forth from silence,"[22] (i.e., there was not a time when he did not exist). In similar fashion, he speaks to the Ephesians of the son as "possessed both of flesh and spirit; both made and not made; God existing in flesh; true life in death; both of Mary and of God; first passible and then impassible"[23]

Following John 1, the early Christian apologist Justin Martyr (c 150) identifies Jesus as the Logos.[24][25][26] Like Philo, Justin also identified the Logos with the Angel of the Lord, and he also identified the Logos with the many other theophanies of the Old Testament, and used this as a way of arguing for Christianity to Jews:

I shall give you another testimony, my friends, from the Scriptures, that God begot before all creatures a Beginning, [who was] a certain rational power [proceeding] from Himself, who is called by the Holy Spirit, now the Glory of the Lord, now the Son, again Wisdom, again an Angel, then God, and then Lord and Logos;[27][28]

In his Dialogue with Trypho, Justin relates how Christians maintain that the Logos,

...is indivisible and inseparable from the Father, just as they say that the light of the sun on earth is indivisible and inseparable from the sun in the heavens; as when it sinks, the light sinks along with it; so the Father, when He chooses, say they, causes His power to spring forth, and when He chooses, He makes it return to Himself . . . And that this power which the prophetic word calls God . . . is not numbered [as different] in name only like the light of the sun but is indeed something numerically distinct, I have discussed briefly in what has gone before; when I asserted that this power was begotten from the Father, by His power and will, but not by abscission, as if the essence of the Father were divided; as all other things partitioned and divided are not the same after as before they were divided: and, for the sake of example, I took the case of fires kindled from a fire, which we see to be distinct from it, and yet that from which many can be kindled is by no means made less, but remains the same.[29][30]

In his First Apology, Justin used the Stoic concept of the Logos to his advantage as a way of arguing for Christianity to non-Jews. Since a Greek audience would accept this concept, his argument could concentrate on identifying this Logos with Jesus.[24]

Theophilus of Antioch

Theophilus, the Patriarch of Antioch, (died c 180) likewise, in his Apology to Autolycus, identifies the Logos as the Son of God, who was at one time internal within the Father, but was begotten by the Father before creation:

And first, they taught us with one consent that God made all things out of nothing; for nothing was coeval with God: but He being His own place, and wanting nothing, and existing before the ages, willed to make man by whom He might be known; for him, therefore, He prepared the world. For he that is created is also needy; but he that is uncreated stands in need of nothing. God, then, having His own Word internal within His own bowels, begot Him, emitting Him along with His own wisdom before all things. He had this Word as a helper in the things that were created by Him, and by Him He made all things . . . Not as the poets and writers of myths talk of the sons of gods begotten from intercourse [with women], but as truth expounds, the Word, that always exists, residing within the heart of God. For before anything came into being He had Him as a counsellor, being His own mind and thought. But when God wished to make all that He determined on, He begot this Word, uttered, the first-born of all creation, not Himself being emptied of the Word [Reason], but having begotten Reason, and always conversing with His Reason.[31]

He sees in the text of Psalm 33:6 the operation of the Trinity, following the early practice as identifying the Holy Spirit as the Wisdom (Sophia) of God,[lower-alpha 2] when he writes that "God by His own Word and Wisdom made all things; for by His Word were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the Spirit of His mouth"[32] So he expresses in his second letter to Autolycus, "In like manner also the three days which were before the luminaries, are types of the Trinity, of God, and His Word, and His wisdom."[33]

By the third quarter of the second century, persecution had been waged against Christianity in many forms. Because of their denial of the Roman gods, and their refusal to participate in sacrifices of the Imperial cult, Christians were suffering persecution as "atheists."[34] Therefore the early Christian apologist Athenagoras (c 133 – c 190 AD), in his Embassy or Plea to the Emperors Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus on behalf of Christianity (c 176), makes defense by an expression of the Christian faith against this claim. As a part of this defense, he articulates the doctrine of the Logos, expressing the paradox of the Logos being both "the Son of God" as well as "God the Son," and of the Logos being both the Son of the Father as well as being one with the Father,[35] saying,

Who, then, would not be astonished to hear men called atheists who speak of God the Father, and of God the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and who declare both their power in union and their distinction in order? . . . the Son of God is the Word [Logos] of the Father, in idea and in operation; for after the pattern of Him and by Him were all things made, the Father and the Son being one. And, the Son being in the Father and the Father in the Son, in oneness and power of spirit, the understanding [Nous] and reason [Logos] of the Father is the Son of God. But if, in your surpassing intelligence, it occurs to you to inquire what is meant by the Son, I will state briefly that He is the first product of the Father, not as having been brought into existence (for from the beginning, God, who is the eternal mind [Nous], had the Word in Himself, being from eternity rational [Logikos]; but inasmuch as He came forth to be the idea and energizing power of all material things, which lay like a nature without attributes, and an inactive earth, the grosser particles being mixed up with the lighter...)[36]

Athenagoras further appeals to the joint rule of the Roman Emperor with his son Commodus, as an illustration of the Father and the Word, his Son, to whom he maintains all things are subjected, saying,

For as all things are subservient to you, father and son, who have received the kingdom from above (for "the king's soul is in the hand of God," says the prophetic Spirit), so to the one God and the Word proceeding from Him, the Son, apprehended by us as inseparable from Him, all things are in like manner subjected.[37]

In this defense he uses terminology common with the philosophies of his day (Nous, Logos, Logikos, Sophia) as a means of making the Christian doctrine relatable to the philosophies of his day.

Irenaeus (c 130–202), a student of the Apostle John's disciple, Polycarp, identifies the Logos as Jesus, by whom all things were made,[38] and who before his incarnation appeared to men in the theophany, conversing with the ante-Mosaic Patriarchs,[39] with Moses at the burning bush,[40] with Abraham at Mamre,[41] et al.,[42] manifesting to them the unseen things of the Father.[43] After these things, the Logos became man and suffered the death of the cross.[44] In his Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, Irenaeus defines the second point of the faith, after the Father, as this:

The Word of God, Son of God, Christ Jesus our Lord, who was manifested to the prophets according to the form of their prophesying and according to the method of the dispensation of the Father: through whom all things were made; who also at the end of the times, to complete and gather up all things, was made man among men, visible and tangible, in order to abolish death and show forth life and produce a community of union between God and man.[45]

Irenaeus writes that Logos is and always has been the Son, is uncreated, eternally-coexistent[46] and one with the Father,[47][48][38][49] to whom the Father spoke at creation saying, "Let us make man."[50] As such, he distinguishes between creature and Creator, so that,

He indeed who made all things can alone, together with His Word, properly be termed God and Lord: but the things which have been made cannot have this term applied to them, neither should they justly assume that appellation which belongs to the Creator [51]

Again, in his fourth book against heresies, after identifying Christ as the Word, who spoke to Moses at the burning bush, he writes, "Christ Himself, therefore, together with the Father, is the God of the living, who spoke to Moses, and who was manifested to the fathers."[52]

According to Irenaeus, John wrote John 1:1-5 to refute errors proclaimed by Cerinthus.[53] The latter taught “that the world was not made by the primary God, but by a certain Power far separated from him.”[54] “He represented Jesus as having not been born of a virgin, but as being the son of Joseph and Mary according to the ordinary course of human generation.”[54] Furthermore, Cerinthus made a distinction between “Jesus, the Son of the Creator” and “the Christ from above” and said that “after his (Jesus’) baptism, Christ descended upon him in the form of a dove from the Supreme Ruler.” But, after “Christ departed from Jesus … Jesus suffered and rose again.”[54]

Irenaeus wrote that John wrote these verses to refute these errors and to state:

“That there is one Almighty God, who made all things by His Word,”[53] and “That by the Word, through whom God made the creation, He also bestowed salvation on the men.”[53]

Therefore, while Cerinthus claimed that the world was made by "a certain Power far separated from" "Almighty God," John, according to Irenaeus, by means of John 1:1-5,[53] presented Almighty God as the Creator - "by His Word." And while Cerinthus made a distinction between the man Jesus and “the Christ from above,” who descended on the man Jesus at his baptism, John, according to Irenaeus, presented the pre-existent “Word” and Jesus Christ as one and the same.[55]

In the Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit (also known as the Gospel of the Egyptians), a text from early Christian Gnosticism, the Logos appears as a divine emanation or aeon of the great spirit or Monad and mingles with the primordial Adam.[56]