LOGOS
to which the order visible in the universe is due is (
Greek characters) or
(Greek characters) not (Greek characters). It is in the pseudo-Platonic Epinomis
that (Greek characters) appears as a synonym for (Greek characters). In Aristotle,
again, the principle which sets all nature under the rule of
thought, and directs it towards a rational end, is (Greek characters), or the
divine spirit itself; while (Greek characters) is a term with many senses,
used as more or less identical with a number of phrases,
(Greek characters), &c.
With the Stoics, however, the Logos doctrine reappears in great breadth. It is a capital element in their system. With their teleological views of the world they naturally predicated an active principle in connexion with it, living in it and determining it. This operative principle is called both Logos and God. It is conceived of as material, and is described in terms used equally of nature and of God. There is at the same time the special doctrine of the (Greek characters), the seminal Logos, or the law of generation in the world, the principle of the active reason working in dead matter. This parts into (Greek characters), which are akin, not to the Platonic ideas, but rather to the (Greek characters) of Aristotle. In man, too, there is a Logos which is his characteristic possession, and which is (Greek characters), as long as it is a thought resident within his breast, but (Greek characters) when it is expressed as a word. This distinction between Logos as ratio and Logos as oratio, so much used subsequently by Philo and the Christian fathers, had been so far anticipated by Aristotle's distinction between the (Greek characters) and the (Greek characters). The Logos of the Stoics is a reason in the world gifted with intelligence, and analogous to the reason in man.[1]
In the period between the Stoics and Philo there are few names of distinct interest in this connexion. But in the Alexandrian philosophy the Logos doctrine assumes a leading place, and shapes a new career for itself. The chief representative of this school is the Hellenized Jew, Philo (born about 25 B.C.). With him God is absolute and incorporeal perfection, apprehensible only by reason, and incapable of contact with matter. An intermediate agent, therefore, is affirmed, the Logos or idea of ideas. This Logos is not eternal in the sense in which God is eternal, but has its being from Him. It is His elder son, as the world is His younger. It resides with God as His wisdom, and is in the world as the divine reason. It is God's instrument in creation and in revelation. Both in the world and in man it is twofold. In man it subsists as the (Greek characters) or immanent reason, and as the (Greek characters) or uttered reason. In the case of the world there is the Logos which has its residence with the archetypal ideas, and there is the Logos which appears in the form of many (Greek characters) or rational germs of things material. Philo's doctrine is moulded by three forces – Platonism, Stoicism, and the Old Testament. His Logos is the representative of the world to God as well as of God to the world. It is described as the "image of God" ((Greek characters), i. 6) and the "archetypal man" ((Greek characters), i. 427), as the "son of God" and the "high priest" ((Greek characters), i. 653), as the "first-born son" ((Greek characters), i. 414), the "man of God" ((Greek characters), i. 411), &c. It wavers all the while between attribute and substance, between the personal and the impersonal.
In the later developments of Hellenic speculation nothing essential was added to the doctrine of the Logos. Philo's distinction between God and His rational power or Logos in contact with the world was generally maintained by the eclectic Platonists and Neo-Platonists. By some of these this distinction was carried out to the extent of predicating (as was done by Numenius of Apamea) three Gods: – the supreme God; the second God, or Demiurge or Logos; and the third God, or the world. Plotinus explained the (Greek characters) as constructive forces, proceeding from the ideas and giving form to the dead matter of sensible things (Enneads, v. 1, 8, and Richter's Neu-Plat. Studien).
2. The doctrine of the Logos in Hellenic thought thus remains substantially a doctrine of the Logos as reason. The other side, the doctrine of the Logos as word, belongs as essentially to Hebrew thought. The roots of this conception lie in the Hebrew Scriptures. The God who is made known in the Old Testament is one who reveals Himself actively in history. He is exhibited, therefore, as speaking, and by His word communicating His will. The word of the God of revelation is represented as the creative principle (Gen. i. 3; Psalm xxxiii. 6), as the executor of the divine judgments (Hosea vi. 5), as healing (Psalm cvii. 20), as possessed of almost personal qualities (Isaiah lv. 11; Psalm cxlvii. 15). Along with this comes the doctrine of the angel of Jehovah, the angel of the covenant, the angel of the presence, in whom God manifests Himself, and who is sometimes identified with Jehovah or Elohim (Gen. xvi. 11, 13; xxxii. 29-31; Exod. iii. 2; xiii. 21), sometimes distinguished from Him (Gen. xxii. 15, &c.; xxiv. 7; xxviii. 12, &c.), and sometimes presented in both aspects (Judges ii., vi; Zech. i.). To this must be added the doctrine of Wisdom, given in the books of Job and Proverbs. As the Word of God is represented in the theocratic sections of the Old Testament as the creative principle of the world, so Wisdom appears with somewhat similar functions in these books. At one time it is exhibited as an attribute of God (Prov. iii. 19). At another it is strongly personified, so as to become rather the creative thought of God than a quality (Prov. viii. 22). Again it is described as proceeding from God as the principle of creation and objective to Him. In these and kindred passages (Job xv. 7, &c.) it is on the way to become hypostatized.
The Hebrew conception is partially associated with the Greek in the case of Aristobulus, the predecessor of Philo, and, according to the fathers, the founder of the Alexandrian school. He speaks of Wisdom in a way reminding us of the book of Proverbs. The pseudo-Solomonic Book of Wisdom (generally supposed to be the work of an Alexandrian flourishing somewhere between Aristobulus and Philo) deals both with the Wisdom and with the Logos. It fails to hypostatize either. But it represents the former as the framer of the world, as the power or spirit of God, active alike in the physical, the intellectual, and the ethical domain, and apparently objective to God. Points of affinity between the Hellenic and Hebrew conceptions are also seen in the books of Maccabees (see, e.g., 2 Macc, iii. 38). In these instances, however, and even in Philo, the Hebrew elements are only partially grasped and appropriated. In the Targums, on the other hand, the three doctrines of the word, the angel, and the wisdom of God converge in a very definite conception. In the Jewish theology God is represented as purely transcendent, having no likeness of nature with man, and making no personal entrance into history. Instead of the immediate relation of God to the world the Targums introduce the ideas of the Mêmrâ (word) and the Shechînâ. This Memra, or, as it is also designated, Dibbûrâ, is an hypostasis that takes the place of God when direct intercourse with man is in view. In all those passages of the Old Testament where anthropomorphic terms are used of God, the Memra is substituted for God. The Memra proceeds from God, and retains the creaturely relation to God. It does not seem to have been identified with the Messiah.[2]
