LOGISTIC. [PROPORTIONAL.] LOG'OS, A67es, the Greek for a word, is used as a theological term.
1. The Jewish doctrine of the Logos.
The phrase, the Word or Memra of Jehovah ZtiT VV, occurs repeatedly in the Chaldee Targums, where it commonly stands in the place of (Jehovah) in the Hebrew original. There are, however, passages in which this phrase appears to denote a distinct personal existence ; and many eminent critics, among whom are Bertholdt and 1Vegscheider, are decidedly of opinion that the Targumists intended it to apply to the Messiah ; "plainly showing it to have been their belief that the Shechinah, or Word, as some of them indeed expressly say, would employ the future Messiah, when he should be born, as the instrument of his gracious designs, and would be joined to him in a personal union." (Bertholdt, Christol. Jud.') Philo often speaks of the Logos, but his views on the subject are involved in much obscurity. lie seems, however, to have had the idea of a two-fold Logos ; the one denoting a conception in the divine mind according to which the world was created ; the other a personal exist ence, the Son of God, partaking of the divine nature, though inferior to the Supreme God, the Creator of the world (&vum/ryes), presiding over the universe, the instructor and guide of man, the High Priest and Mediator between God and man. These two ideas of the Logos he often confounds together. The passages from Philo are collected in Dr. J. P. Smith's Scripture Testimony to the Messiah,' book ii., cap. vii., sect. 4.
See also the descriptions of Wisdom and the Word of God in Prov. viii.; Wisdom of Solomon,lx. 15-19; xi. 1-4 ; xviii 15 (compare 1 Cor., xii. 4, 9, where the same actions are attributed to Christ); and in other parts of the Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus.
These opinions are thought by some to represent the ancient Jewish doctrine respecting the word of God, corrupted by a mixture of heathen philosophy ; and by others to have been wholly borrowed either from the Platonic philosophy or from the Magian doctrine of divine emanations and 2Eons.
2. Vie Christian doctrine of time Logos.
The only examples of the theological use of this word in the New Testament are found in the writings of John (Gospel, c. i.; 1st Epistle, i. 1 ; Rev., xix. 13). These passages are generally allowed to refer to Christ ; but the sense in which Logos is to be taken, and tho nature of the connection between this Logos and the person of Christ, aro subjects of much dispute.
The Trinitarian expositors assert that these passages can mean nothing else than that the Logos is a distinct personal subsistence, which has existed from all eternity in a union of nature and of essence with God, which created the universe, and which was joined with a human nature to form the person of Christ.
The Arian doctrine represents the Logos as an emanation from the Deity, superior to all other created beings, and which supplied the place of a human soul in the person of Christ.
Most Unitarian dieines consider it to be used either for God himself, or as an abstract term for the wisloru and intelligence of God which was fully imparted to Christ to fit him for his mission.
Thom, who attribute to the Logos a personal existence give different teases for the origin of the name. Some explain it. to mean the sprats or teacher, by metonymy, as Christ Is called by John the Light, the Way, the Truth, the Life ; others interpret it the promised oar; sod others consider that as speech (alert) is s. medians of rational com munication. so the name Logos is given to the Mediator between God and man, one who speaks to man in the name of God.
(The Lexicons Of Schlemmer, Wahl, and Bretschnelder, is foto ; Kulnoel, (.dimmest. is Lib. Hist. X. T., Prolegomena fa Johan., sect. 7; Locke ow the Epistles of John, in the Itiblical Cabinet, p.102; Dr. J. 1'. Smith's Script are Tretissony to the Messiah; Lardncr's Letter on the Logos, Worts. voL