The question is often asked, How far was the writer in his view of the Logos influenced by cur- rent philosophical speculations, and more especially by those of Philo? In seeking an answer we must
keep in mind the fact that when the Gospel was written the name Logos was a familiar one, alike in Jewish and in non-Jewish circles,
The air was
Se
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full of such doctrines as Philo’s, and that of the Logos in its essential features not only existed in Alexandria before his day, but must also have gained currency in Palestine, seeing there was constant communication between Egypt and that country. Consequently, it is not surprising that the author of the Gospel uses the name without explanation as one which his readers would be pre- pared to understand. Two extreme views have been propounded, and, as frequently happens, the truth would seem to lie somewhere between them. The first is, that the philosophy of the time had no influence whatever on the Prologue to this Gospel, and was not kept in view by the writer. In this case the name Logos is not regarded as derived from the Schools, but as having sprung up solely within the Church, in the sense of oratio=‘ word,’ ‘revelation.’ But, if we thus exclude the meaning ratio and confine it to oratio, we cannot put a satisfactory construction on the words év dpxt fv 6 Adyos. For though we may regard creation as a self-revelation of God, wrought through the Logos, who was as Logos at the beginning of the world, yet if, as we believe, 7v denotes the pre-temporal existence of Christ, we cannot accept the narrowed meaning. It is only as Noyos évdudGeros that the term can denote His eternal existence before time ; and this we find to be an outstanding truth in the record of the Logos made flesh. The other and opposite view, that the writer merely expands and embodies the teaching of Philo, is likewise untenable. Even those who deny the Johannine authorship must reject it, for the two conceptions, if in some respects similar, are yet essentially at variance. While the idea of an Incarnation is utterly destructive of Philo’s doctrine of the Logos, it is the central truth of the Christian faith that God’s revelation is not com- pleted until it is embodied in a human life. On the assumption that the Gospel is St. J ohn’s, this view is incredible. Can we suppose that the disciple whom Jesus loved, who drew from the Saviour the principles that gave character to his life, who pondered deeply and long what he had seen and heard, would have founded his conception of his Master on the crude notions of an expiring philo- sophy? The matter, then, would seem to stand thus: The author derived his view of Christ’s Per- son from Christ’s life and teaching, and his own reflexion upon them, guided by the illumination of the Holy Spirit. Like St. Paul, he might have expressed these views independently of any philo- sophical system. At the same time he recognized in the name and conception of the Logos a suitable vehicle for his own thought, and adopted it accord- ingly. In other words, he recognizes and declares that there is a great Truth after which men had been thus groping, that there isa Divinity work- ing in the world, as the Greek had faintly per- ceived, and that there is need for a revealer of the invisible God, as the Jew had come to feel.
Very noticeable in connexion with St. John’s solution of an enigma which had become more and more complicated as time went on, 18 the contrast between the firm tread of Scripture and the hesi- tating vagaries of the unaided human intellect. In the Prologue to this Gospel there 1s a note of certainty, of finality, of quiet confidence, and of powerful persuasiveness, which is foreign to Alex- andrian theosophist and Jewish Targumist alike. The Logos became flesh: in this simple yet mo- mentous declaration he conveyed to the world the secret of the inner life of the Godhead as he had learned it from the Holy Spirit working in the soul of one who had been so intimately associated with Jesus, and who, more than any other of the Apostles, was capable of being animated by the mind of the Master. That which he had seen and
heard, and which had never faded from his adoring consciousness, he announced to men not only as an answer to their problems, but also as the redemption of their souls. The two loftiest ideas in OT reve- lation are those of Wisdom and the Messiah, and, although the Jews had no proper conception of this, and latterly even lost the consciousness of it, the two ideas were essentially one. It was his knowledge of this that enabled St. John to unlock the mystery which would yield to no other key. To as many as received Him on the footing of His being at once the Word and the Anointed of God, the Eternal Word gave power to become the sons of God. The jarring note in the Evangelist’s account of this glorious gospel is the record that ‘he came unto his own, and his own received him not.’ Itneeded the lurid light of the cross to show the harmony and inseparableness of these two ideas, and to prove that Christ, as combining in His own Person everything ascribed to the Logos and the Messiah, is made unto us ‘wisdom from God, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption’ (1 Co 1°).