Logos (Christianity)

In Christianity, the Logos (Greek: Λόγος, lit. 'word, discourse, or reason') is a name or title of Jesus Christ, seen as the pre-existent second person of the Trinity. In the Douay–Rheims, King James, New International, and other versions of the Bible, the first verse of the Gospel of John reads:
In these translations, Word is used for Λόγος, although the term is often used transliterated but untranslated in theological discourse.
According to Irenaeus of Lyon (c. 130–202), a student of Polycarp (c. pre-69–156), John the Apostle wrote these words specifically to refute the teachings of Cerinthus, who both resided and taught at Ephesus, the city John settled in following his return from exile on Patmos. 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, 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.
A figure in the Book of Revelation is called "The Word of God", being followed by "the armies which are in heaven" (Rev 19:13–14).
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.
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:
John 1's subject is developed in the First Epistle of John (1 John). Similar to John 1:1-5, 1 John 1:1 also refers to the beginning (archē) and to the Word (ho lógos). 1 John 1 does not refer to the creation (see 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 describes the incarnate Word:
Like John 1:1-5, Luke 1:1-2 also refers to the beginning and to the word:
David Lyle Jeffrey and Leon Morris 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 the gospel of John. In context, it is referring to the gospel message about Jesus and his teaching, rather than his title or identity.
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. Theophilus of Antioch references the connection in To Autolycus 1:7.
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." He added, "fittingly is the Word called the Son, and the Spirit the Wisdom of God."
Origen of Alexandria likewise sees in it the operation of the Trinity, a mystery intimated beforehand by the Psalmist David. Augustine of Hippo considered that in Psalms 33:6 both logos and pneuma were "on the verge of being personified".
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," (i.e., there was not a time when he did not exist). In similar fashion, he speaks to the Ephesians of the son being "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".
Following John 1, the early Christian apologist Justin Martyr (c. 150) identifies Jesus as the Logos. 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:
In his Dialogue with Trypho, Justin relates how Christians maintain that the Logos,
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.
Theophilus, the Patriarch of Antioch (died c. 180) in his Apology to Autolycus also 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:
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 (sophía) of God 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" 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."
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". Therefore the early Christian apologist Athenagoras (c. 133 – c. 190), in his Embassy or Plea to the emperors Marcus Aurelius and his son Commodus in defense of Christianity (c. 176), makes 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, saying,
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,
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, and who before his incarnation appeared to men in the theophany, conversing with the pre-Mosaic Patriarchs, with Moses at the burning bush, with Abraham at Mamre, and elsewhere, manifesting to them the unseen things of the Father. After these things, the Logos became man and suffered the death of the cross. In his Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching, Irenaeus defines the second point of the faith, after the Father, as this:
Irenaeus writes that Logos is and always has been the Son, is uncreated, eternally-coexistent and one with the Father, to whom the Father spoke at creation saying, "Let us make man." As such he distinguishes between creature and creator, so that
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."
According to Irenaeus, John wrote John 1:1-5 to refute errors proclaimed by Cerinthus. The latter taught "that the world was not made by the primary God, but by a certain Power far separated from him. ... 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." Furthermore, Cerinthus made a distinction between "Jesus, the Son of the Creator" and "the Christ from above" and said that "after [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."
Irenaeus wrote that John wrote these verses to refute these errors and to state:
Therefore, while Cerinthus claimed that the world was made by "a certain Power far separated from" an almighty God, John, according to Irenaeus, by means of John 1:1-5, 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.
The mixing of Egyptian pagan and Christian thought was characteristic of Alexandrian learning and featured in the works of Cyril of Alexandria and Didymus the Blind.
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.
The First Council of Constantinople of 381 decreed that the Logos is God, begotten and therefore distinguishable from the Father, but, being God, of the same substance (essence).
Photinus denied that the Logos as the Wisdom of God had an existence of its own before the birth of Christ.
Post-apostolic Christian writers struggled with the question of the identity of Jesus and the Logos, but the Church's doctrine never changed its claim that Jesus was the Logos. Each of the first six ecumenical councils defined Jesus Christ as fully God and fully human, from the First Council of Nicea (325) to the Third Council of Constantinople (680–681). Christianity did not accept the Platonic argument that the spirit is good and the flesh is evil, and that therefore the man Jesus could not be God. Neither did it accept any of the Platonic beliefs that would have made Jesus something less than fully God and fully human at the same time. The original teaching of John's gospel is, "In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. ... And the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us." The final Christology of Chalcedon (confirmed by the Third Council of Constantinople) was that Jesus Christ is both God and man, and that these two natures are inseparable, indivisible, unconfused, and unchangeable.
On April 1, 2005, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (who became Pope Benedict XVI just over two weeks later) referred to the Christian religion as the religion of the Logos:
Catholics may use Logos to refer to the moral law written in human hearts. This meaning comes from Jeremiah 31:33 (prophecy of new covenant): "I will write my law on their hearts." Saint Justin wrote that those who have not accepted Christ but follow the moral law of their hearts (Logos) follow God, because it is God who has written the moral law in each person's heart. Although man may not explicitly recognize God, he has the spirit of Christ if he follows Jesus' moral laws, written in his heart.
Michael Heller has argued "that Christ is the logos implies that God's immanence in the world is his rationality".
For Fausto Sozzini, Christ was the Logos, but he denied his pre-existence; He was the Word of God as being His Interpreter (Latin: interpres divinae voluntatis). Nathaniel Lardner and Joseph Priestley considered the Logos a personification of God's wisdom.
The Koine Greek term logos is translated in the Vulgate with the Latin verbum. Both logos and verbum are used to translate דבר‎ (dabar) in the Hebrew Bible.
The translation of the last four words of John 1:1 (θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος) has been a particular topic of debate in Western Christianity in the modern period. The debate mostly centers over the usage of the article ὁ within the clause, where some have argued that the absence of the article before θεός ('God') makes it indefinite and should therefore result in the translation, "and the Word was a god". This translation can be found in the New World Translation of the Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Unitarian Thomas Belsham's 1808 revision of William Newcome's translation. Greek scholars such as Jason BeDuhn have also argued against the traditional translation, going as far as to state that:
Others, ignoring the function of the article altogether, have proposed the translation, "and God was the Word", confusing subject and predicate. Colwell's rule dictates that in this construct, involving an equative verb as well as a predicate nominative in the emphatic position, the article serves to distinguish subject (the Word) from the predicate (God). In such a construction, the predicate, being in the emphatic position, is not to be considered indefinite. Therefore, the most common English translation is, "the Word was God", although even more emphatic translations such as "the Word was God Himself" (Amplified Bible) or "the Word ... was truly God" (Contemporary English Version) also exist. According to the Eastern/Greek Orthodox Bible translation, "and the Word was [what] God [was]", the footnote for this verse explains the difficulty:
Although word is the most common translation of the noun logos, other less accepted translations have been used, which have more or less fallen by the grammatical wayside as understanding of the Greek language has increased in the Western world. Gordon Clark (1902–1985), for instance, a Calvinist theologian and expert on pre-Socratic philosophy, famously translated logos as 'logic': "In the beginning was the Logic, and the Logic was with God and the Logic was God." He meant to imply by this translation that the laws of logic were derived from God and formed part of creation, and were therefore not a secular principle imposed on the Christian world view.
Some other translations, such as An American Translation (1935) and Moffatt, New Translation, render it as "the Word was divine".
The question of how to translate Logos is also treated in Goethe's Faust, with lead character Heinrich Faust finally opting for die Tat, ('deed' or 'action'). This interpretation owes itself to the Hebrew דָּבָר (dabar), which not only means 'word', but can also be understood as a deed or thing accomplished: that is, "the word is the highest and noblest function of man and is, for that reason, identical with his action. 'Word' and 'Deed' are thus not two different meanings of dabar, but the 'deed' is the consequence of the basic meaning inherent in dabar."
The concept of Logos also appears in the Targums (Aramaic translations of the Hebrew Bible dating to the first centuries AD), where the term memra (Aramaic for 'word') is often used instead of 'the Lord', especially when referring to a manifestation of God that could be construed as anthropomorphic.