* The Logos is called εἰκὼν θεοῦ (de Mundi Opif. c. 8, Mang. 1. 6; de Confus. Ling. c. 20, Mang. i. 419; de Profugis, c. 19, Mang. i. 561; de Somnits, ο. 41, Mang. 1. 656; de Monarch. c. 5, Mang. ii. 225); ὁ πρεσβύτερος υἱός, the cosmos being ὁ νεώτερος υἱός (Quod Deus immut. c. 6, Mang. i. 277); πρεσβύτατος υἱός and πρωτόγονος (de Confus. Ling. c. 14, Mang. i. 414; ibid. c. 28, Mang. i. 427; de Agricult. ο. 12, Mang. i. 305; de Somniis, c. 37, Mang. i. 658). God is its Father, and Wisdom its mother; it is the eldest of things that have had birth, and puts on the cosmos as a garment (de Profug. c. 20, Mang. i. 562). By it God made the world [Leg. Allegor. c. 81, Mang. i. 106; de Migrat. Abr. c. 1, rs i. 437; especially de Cherub, ο. 35, Mang. i. 162, where Philo distinguishes God as the cause by which (τὸ citi ὑφ᾽ od), matter as that from which (iz οὗ), the Logos as that through which (δι᾿ οὖ), and divine goodness as the end on account of which (δι᾽ 8), the cosmos originated). The eternal Logos (ἀΐδιος λόγος) i8 ὁ χαρακτήρ of God (de Plantat. c. 5, Mang. i. 332); ἀρχάγγελο:, μεθόριος (intermediary), ixirns (intercessor) (Quis Rer. Div. Her. c. 42, Mang. i. 501); ἐρμηνεύς ϑιοῦ (Leg. Alleg. c. 73, Mang. i. 128); the high priest (ἀρχιερεύς) of the universe (de Somniis, c. 37, Mang. i. 653), and, as such, free from sins (de Profug. ο. 20, Mang. i. 562), and probably the human priest’s σαράκχλητος (de Vita ὅς, 6. 14, Mang. ii. 155). It is God's vicegerent (Uwapyes, de Agricul. c. 12, Mang. i. 308 ; de Somniis, c. 41, Mang. i. 656), and even θεός in a sub- ordinate sense (Leg. Allegor. c. 18, Mang. i. 128; de Somniis, c. 39, Mang. i. 655). Eusebius (Praeparat. Evang. vii. 18, Mang. ii. 625) states that Philo called the Logos ὁ δεύτερος θεός, He constantly describes it as ὁ δεῖος λόγος, and, in one place (de Profugis, ο. 18, Mang. i. 500), as σοφίας συγή, from which drawing water one may find eternal life instead of death.
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LOGOS 135
of the latter’s contact with matter. Philo’s Logos, moreover, was not identified with Messiah, noi was there a place in his philosophy for an in- carnation, nor in his theology for redemption in the biblical sense.
It is, therefore, perhaps the most probable view that St. John adopted bia Logos phraseology be- cause, in both Jewish and Gentile circles, the term was familiar. It was a leading term by which religious thought was striving to express the idea, though with much misconception, of an all-com- prehensive, all-wise, and directly active revelation of God to the world. Its current uses, among the Jews, rested ultimately on biblical language, and suggested an intimate relation, amounting in some aspects te identity, between the substance and the agent of revelation, as well as between the latter and God Himself. It was, moreover, among Christians as well as Jews, the constant phrase for revelation itself, whether oral or written. Hence, cs earls ed by St. John, it formed a synthesis of several elements of truth. It set forth the Divine Christ as sustaining a central and vital relation to Christianity ; the latter being, on the one hand, the didactic statement of the significance for men of His person and mission, and, on the other hand, the participation of the life with God which He possessed and mediated for believers. As Chris- tianity is the revealed Word of God, so He, out of whose being and mission it has emerged (ef. 1 Jn 1'4), may be called emphatically the Word of God. The term further set forth Christianity as the final and perfect revelation of God to His creatures, since it represents it as the highest manifestation of the same Divine Person who has ever been the medium through whom God has been manifested in the creation and maintenance of the universe. Finally, this term, thus applied to the Divine Son in the whole series of His activities, represented Him as the immediate expression and vehicle of God’s mind and will, while the careful statements of the prologue prevent the term from obscuring the Son’s essential deity and eternal personality, as well as His true humanity after the incarnation. St. John’s doctrine of the Logos therefore may be said to sum up the biblical teaching concerning the person of Christ, and, in doing so, to represent Christianity itself as the final, absolute, and universal religion.
Among post-apost. Christian writers the doctrine of the Logos is prominent, but was often affected by philosophical speculation. Gnosticism was an efiort to unite Christianity with philosophy, and indicates a direction which post-apostolic thought and controversy largely took. In the Gnostic systems, however, the Logos terminology is not conspicuous. But, beginning with Justin Martyr, it is constantly met with in the writings of the Church Fathers. In Justin the biblical idea of God struggled with that of Absolute Being, and the Logos, represented as begotten by the Father before creation, unites the biblical conception of Word with the Hellenic one of Reason; a result which further tended to obscure the apostolic doctrine of salvation. In Theophilus of Antioch also the procession of the Logos from God appears as dependent on the Father’s will, though his eternal relation to the latter is expressed more clearly than by Justin. With Tatian the Logos was the eternal world-principle, ideal in God and hypo- statized at creation. In Athenagoras there or pears a firmer grasp of the biblical doctrine which, at the close of the 2nd cent., was still more ade-