In all these directions, therefore, St. John gives effect to the idea of the Prologue that the nature of Christ was a Logos nature. His acceptance of this doctrine involves him in a new reading of the Gospel history — a reading which in some respects is artificial and inadequate. The life of Jesus becomes that of a heavenly being, and all traces of moral struggle (as in the Temptation and the Agony) disappear from it. The attributes of faith in God and infinite .sympathy with men are re- placed by metaphysical attributes, which are sup- posed to belong more essentially to the Divine nature. Jesus is the revelation of God because He is the eternal Logos, who manifests in an earthly life the absolute being and self-dependence of God. This, liowever, is to divest the revelation of its real worth and meaning. AVhat y\e desire to know and what was actually revealed to us in the life of Jesus, is the moral character of God, and of this the Logos doctrine can render no
account. In so far as the Fourth Evangelist has subordinated his conception of Christ to a philo- sophical speculation, we cannot but feel tliat he defeats his own purpose. He desires so to assert the majesty of Christ that men niaj' be drawn to believe in Him as the Son of God, and enter into life-giving fellowship witii Him. But in the endea- vour to exalt the Lord's Person by means of the Logos liypothesis, he obscures those very elements in the Divine life which constitute its true glory.
4. It is necessary at the same time to recognize that much was gained for Christian theology by the adoption of this hypothesis. (I) A middle term was discovered between Christianity and the forms of Hellenic thought, and a wider develop- ment was thus rendered possible. The new religion could now interpret itself to the Grseco-Koman A\orld, and assimilate whatever was congenial to its S2:>irit in the intellectual life of the time. With the help of the categories which it henceforth borrowed from Greek philosophy, it was enabled in many ways to convey its message more clearly and adequately. (2) The claim of Christianity to be the absolute religion was definitely formulated in the Logos doctrine. Jesus was identified not merely with the Jewish Messiah, but with the eternal Word who had been with God from the beginning. His revelation was not one out of many, but the su^jreme and final revelation. This idea is prominent throughout the Prologue, in M'hich the ' true Light ' is contrasted with the manifestations of God through John the Baptist and Moses. These, although burning and shining lights, were only ' for a season ' (5^). (3) By identifying Him with the Logos, St. John declared, in a manner that could not be mistaken, the uniqueness of Jesus, and assigned Him His central place as the object of Christian faith. The Logos category was in itself insufficient, and tended to confuse Christianity with metaphysical issues which were alien to its real import. But it pro- vided a form within which the innermost truth of the religion could maintain itself for ages follow- ing. Jesus Christ in His own Person is the revela- tion of God, and believing on Him we have life through His name.
5. The vital and permanent message of the Fourth Gospel is little afiected by any estimate we may form of the value of tlie Logos hypothesis. It is evident that, while the Evangelist o.stensibly sets out from a yjhilosophical theory, he derives in reality from a religious experience. From the im- pression created in liim by the earthly life of Jesus, still more from tlie knowledge he had received of Him in inward fellowship, he lias arrived at the conviction tliat this is the Christ, the Son of God. He avails himself of the doctrine of the Logos, the highest that the thought of his time aflbrded him, in order to express this conviction, and in some measure explain it. But the speculative idea belongs to the form, not to the essence of St. John's teaching. It represents the attempt to interpret, in terms of an inadequate philosophy, a truth which has been gras^ied by faith. See also art. Divinity of Christ, vol. i. p. 478^
Liter ATT'RE, — Aall, Geschichte der Lofjoitidee (2 vols., 1896, 1899); Heinze, Die Lehre voin Logos in der firiech. Philosophie (1872) ; Drummond, Philo Judoena ; .J. Reville, Le Qtmtrii-ine ^vangile (1901), and La doctrine dti Logon dans le kiine ivang. et dans les oeuvres de Philon (1881); Grill, Unlersiichungen uher die Entstehung des vierlen Kcang. (1902) ; Bousset, Die Relig. des Judenthums (pp. 40.5-431) ; Simon, Der Logos (1902) ; Meyer, Der Prolog des Johannesevang. (1902) ; Baldensperger, Der Prolog des vierten Evang. (1898) ; Harnack, (jber dan Verhdltniss, etc. (1892); Kaftan, Das Verhdltniss des erangel- ischen Glaubens zur Logoslehre (1896) ; art ' Logos ' in Hasting^s'
DB. E. F. Scott.
LONELINESS. — To speak of the isolation of Christ would give a wrong impression as far as
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the everyday circumstances of His life are con- cerned. He was most often either in crowds, teach- ing and healing, or else r^eekiug loneliness without success ; He was lonelj' in the same sense as that in which Nazareth and Syria were lonely — placed close to the world's highways, j'et living a life of their own (cf. G. A. Smith, HGHL, p. 432 ; Edersheim, Life and Times of Messiah, i. 147). \A"e may notice four aspects of what maj^ be called the loneliness of Christ.