LOGOS (Gk. X6-yos. logos, word). A term used in the fourth Gospel to designate the divine per son who became incarnate in Jesus Christ. The idea appears first in the New Testament in the writings of Paul, particularly in the Epistles to the Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians. The preexistent Christ is there described as the agent of creation and its goal: as being in the form of God, of which He emptied himself for the work of redemption: and as restored to the glory of the divine throne after the resurrection. John's doctrine is peculiar only in the form of its ex pression. which he seems to have borrowed from the current phraseology of the times, and thus, at one remove, from Philo. Scarcely more. however, is common to the Evangelist and the philosopher than the term. Philo's fundamental thought is that of dualism. God and the world, spirit and matter, are separated by a deep cleft. The opera tion of God upon matter is effected through inter mediate beings. which are sometimes called logoi, of which the Logos is the chief, and which are scarcely personal. The Logos is the active rea son of God, and consequently His power. He is on the one hand the thought of God, and on the other the expression of that thought. He is God himself in His relation to the world. also the archetype of the world, and the unity of the powers operating in it. Hence He can be placed at the side of God and over against the world: and He can also, as comprising the spiritual con tents of the world. be set over against God. Hence He is designated,by the use of terms which reappear in the New Testament, as the eldest and first-born of these forces, the eldest angel or archangel, the highest creature, the image, repre sentative, and impression (Heb. i. 3) of God, the high priest, the one 'through whom' (John i. 3) the world was created. or more properly molded. John's doctrine is totally different. There is no dualism. but God is the one infinite and eternal spirit, the creator of the world in the sense of being its ultimate and personal cause. The Logos is also eternal. in some sense distin guished from God and in some sense identical with Him. possessed, therefore. of a quasi-per sonality, in which lie becomes the agent of the creation, and of His own volition shines in the darkness. collies into the world. becomes flesh,
and declares the Father. He speaks His message out of divine and eternal knowledge. lays down His life of His own will, returns to the glory which Be had with the Father before the world was, and will come again to judge the world. He is ethically one with the Father. hut lie is mere than this, for whoever sees Him sees the Father.
And personal faith in Him, which involves the taking of His will as the law of life, is the con dition of acceptance with God and of eternal sal vation. Once again, in the narrative of the un belief of Thomas, John employs of Him the wore 'God.' The word Logos may have been ehosen by John, as it probably was by Philo, because of suggestions in the Old Testament; 'God said' Men. i. I ), the reference to wisdom in Prov. Viii. 22, and the later use of memo' I word ) in the Talmud and Midrash. But the oriffn of the doctrine was in the revelation by ;Testi: Christ of Ibis own nature and His relation to the Father. Probably on account of its conneethms with the philosophic terminology of the day, the word Logos was taken up by Justin Martyr, the first apologist, and by him introduced into the cour • of doctrinal development. While predominantly considered from the first as the eternal ground of the being of Christ, who appeared in this world for our salvation, philosophical interests often laid especial emphasis upon the Logos as the explanation of the world, and thus the Logos Christology tended to degenerate into a cosmol ogy. This interest was uppermost in Arianism, and was met by Athanasins, who laid fresh em phasis upon the idea of redemption through the Logos become flesh. The deeper theological ques tion as to the relation of the Logos, as the divine in Christ, to the Father was the main topic of all that series of discussions which culminated at Nica'a (325) and led necessarily to the formula tion of the doctrine of the Trinity (q.v.). Con sult: Liicke, Commentar libel. die Nehriften des Erangelisten Johannes (3d ed.. Bonn. 1840-56) ; Durum', Development of the Doctrine of the Per son of Christ (Edinburgh, 1862-651 Ilarnaek, History of Dogma (London. 1895-1900) ; \Vest cott, Revelation of the Father (London• I SS4).