Logos Genesis
Gaetane Eary
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:[8]
He is clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God ... And on His robe and on His thigh He has a name written, ".mw-parser-output span.smallcapsfont-variant:small-caps.mw-parser-output span.smallcaps-smallerfont-size:85%king of kings, and lord of lords".[9]
David Lyle Jeffrey[14] and Leon Morris[15] 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.[16][17][18]
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.[a] Theophilus of Antioch references the connection in To Autolycus 1:7.[19]
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."[20]
Origen of Alexandria likewise sees in it the operation of the Trinity, a mystery intimated beforehand by the Psalmist David.[21] Augustine of Hippo considered that in Psalms 33:6 both logos and pneuma were "on the verge of being personified".[22]
Following John 1, the early Christian apologist Justin Martyr (c. 150) identifies Jesus as the Logos.[25][26][27] 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:
I shall give you another testimony, my friends, from the Scriptures, that God begot before all creatures a Beginning, [who was] a certain rational power [proceeding] from Himself, who is called by the Holy Spirit, now the Glory of the Lord, now the Son, again Wisdom, again an Angel, then God, and then Lord and Logos;[28][29]
... is indivisible and inseparable from the Father, just as they say that the light of the sun on earth is indivisible and inseparable from the sun in the heavens; as when it sinks, the light sinks along with it; so the Father, when He chooses, say they, causes His power to spring forth, and when He chooses, He makes it return to Himself ... And that this power which the prophetic word calls God ... is not numbered [as different] in name only like the light of the sun but is indeed something numerically distinct, I have discussed briefly in what has gone before; when I asserted that this power was begotten from the Father, by His power and will, but not by abscission, as if the essence of the Father were divided; as all other things partitioned and divided are not the same after as before they were divided: and, for the sake of example, I took the case of fires kindled from a fire, which we see to be distinct from it, and yet that from which many can be kindled is by no means made less, but remains the same.[30][31]
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.[25]
And first, they taught us with one consent that God made all things out of nothing; for nothing was coeval with God: but He being His own place, and wanting nothing, and existing before the ages, willed to make man by whom He might be known; for him, therefore, He prepared the world. For he that is created is also needy; but he that is uncreated stands in need of nothing. God, then, having His own Word internal within His own bowels, begot Him, emitting Him along with His own wisdom before all things. He had this Word as a helper in the things that were created by Him, and by Him He made all things ... Not as the poets and writers of myths talk of the sons of gods begotten from intercourse [with women], but as truth expounds, the Word, that always exists, residing within the heart of God. For before anything came into being He had Him as a counsellor, being His own mind and thought. But when God wished to make all that He determined on, He begot this Word, uttered, the first-born of all creation, not Himself being emptied of the Word [Reason], but having begotten Reason, and always conversing with His Reason.[32]
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 (sopha) of God[b] 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"[33] 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."[34]
Who, then, would not be astonished to hear men called atheists who speak of God the Father, and of God the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, and who declare both their power in union and their distinction in order? ... the Son of God is the Word [Logos] of the Father, in idea and in operation; for after the pattern of Him and by Him were all things made, the Father and the Son being one. And, the Son being in the Father and the Father in the Son, in oneness and power of spirit, the understanding [Nous] and reason [Logos] of the Father is the Son of God. But if, in your surpassing intelligence, it occurs to you to inquire what is meant by the Son, I will state briefly that He is the first product of the Father, not as having been brought into existence (for from the beginning, God, who is the eternal mind [Nous], had the Word in Himself, being from eternity rational [Logikos]; but inasmuch as He came forth to be the idea and energizing power of all material things, which lay like a nature without attributes, and an inactive earth, the grosser particles being mixed up with the lighter...[38]
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,
For as all things are subservient to you, father and son, who have received the kingdom from above (for "the king's soul is in the hand of God," says the prophetic Spirit), so to the one God and the Word proceeding from Him, the Son, apprehended by us as inseparable from Him, all things are in like manner subjected.[39]
The Word of God, Son of God, Christ Jesus our Lord, who was manifested to the prophets according to the form of their prophesying and according to the method of the dispensation of the Father: through whom all things were made; who also at the end of the times, to complete and gather up all things, was made man among men, visible and tangible, in order to abolish death and show forth life and produce a community of union between God and man.[47]
Irenaeus writes that Logos is and always has been the Son, is uncreated, eternally-coexistent[48] and one with the Father,[49][50][40][51] to whom the Father spoke at creation saying, "Let us make man."[52] As such he distinguishes between creature and creator, so that
He indeed who made all things can alone, together with His Word, properly be termed God and Lord: but the things which have been made cannot have this term applied to them, neither should they justly assume that appellation which belongs to the Creator.[53]
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."[54]
According to Irenaeus, John wrote John 1:1-5 to refute errors proclaimed by Cerinthus.[55] 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."[56] 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."[56]
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.[59]
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).[citation needed]
Christianity must always remember that it is the religion of the "Logos". It is faith in the "Creator Spiritus", in the Creator Spirit, from which proceeds everything that exists. Today, this should be precisely its philosophical strength, in so far as the problem is whether the world comes from the irrational, and reason is not, therefore, other than a "sub-product", on occasion even harmful of its development or whether the world comes from reason, and is, as a consequence, its criterion and goal.The Christian faith inclines toward this second thesis, thus having, from the purely philosophical point of view, really good cards to play, despite the fact that many today consider only the first thesis as the only modern and rational one par excellence. However, a reason that springs from the irrational, and that is, in the final analysis, itself irrational, does not constitute a solution for our problems. Only creative reason, which in the crucified God is manifested as love, can really show us the way. In the so necessary dialogue between secularists and Catholics, we Christians must be very careful to remain faithful to this fundamental line: to live a faith that comes from the "Logos", from creative reason, and that, because of this, is also open to all that is truly rational.[64]
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