LOGOS lŏg’ ŏs (λόγος, G3364; word, thought, reason, speech, declaration, logic, revelation, reckoning, expression of thought). This term has no equivalent in Lat., Ger. or Eng. It is tr. by the Lat. terms verbum, sermo and ratio, by the French parole and by the Ger. Wort, Sinn, and Kraft. The terms legõ and logos are common in the LXX and NT. In the Johannine writings the term occasionally has a Christological significance (e.g., John 1:1-3, 14; 1 John 1:1; Rev 19:13), a fact which makes it esp. intriguing.

Outline

I. In Greek literature

A. Classical writers. The term logos appears in Homer (Iliad, 15, 393) and Hesiod only in a non-technical sense. Heraclitus of Ephesus (c. 500 b.c.) was among the first to use the term in a distinctive philosophical sense. To Heraclitus the lógos is the continuum in an everchanging cycle of renewal, the divine soul of the world. In a universe of flux the one stable factor is the lógos. In his thought, “all human laws are nourished by the divine law. Though this Word (Logos)—this fundamental law—existeth from all time, yet mankind are unaware of it” (“Fragment” 94). There was in Heraclitus no concept of a transcendent God; only an immanent “law” or “reason” in the world, the “logos.” But, in common with the Heb. prophets, he recognized that the world is a unity, that basic to all human institutions is a spiritual, all-pervasive principle with which man must deal, i.e., the lógos.

Anaxagoras placed greater stress on the Creator’s transcendence and thought of the lógos as intermediary between God and creation, the regulative principle in the cosmos, thus anticipating the Stoics. Plato made little direct contribution to the concept of the lógos, but his doctrine of Ideas lent itself to later refinements of the doctrine. Platonic dualism, with its contrast between the ideal and the expression of the idea in a phenomenal world, has a parallel with thought and its verbalization which is the central idea in lógos. Also the world-soul which the Creator imparted to the cosmos (Timaeus 34) reappears in Jewish and Christian lits. of the early centuries (Wisd Sol; Ep Diognetus). Aristotle reacted against Plato’s dualism by stressing a monistic view of the universe, the transcendence of God and His non-involvement in human affairs.

B. The Stoics. The Stoics, led by Zeno (c. 300 b.c.) revived the tenets of Heraclitus, esp. the idea that the basic element in the cosmos is fire, or “seminal reason” (lógos spermátikos), manifest in all of nature. They believed that Heraclitus and Socrates were “saved” because they adhered to this lógos. Later Stoics distinguished between germinal lógos, the source of ideas and lógos prophárikos, or ideas expressed, but agreed that the two are essentially one. Men, they said, participate in each other because of common participation in the common lógos. In the words of a later thinker, the “Logos is the soul of the world, it pervades the universe as honey fills the honey comb, and links time with eternity” (Cicero, De Natura Deorum, II. 20). The early Stoics believed the lógos to be an all-permeating fiery vapor, materialistic in nature. The later Stoics often resorted to allegorization, such as interpreting Hermes, messenger of the gods, as the lógos. But their lógos was a pantheistic World-soul, a materialistic abstraction rather than a hypostasis, hence had little in common with the Biblical usage of the term. It did, however, help prepare the world for Christianity by its emphasis on the importance of the individual and the basic unity of all mankind, a variety in unity. It helped thoughtful persons to distinguish habitually between thought and the expression of thought in words. Most of all it helped prepare the Gr. world for the acceptance of a mediator between God and man. It also provided Christians with a means of explaining divine revelation via a unique Son.

II. Hebrew authors

A. The OT. While the thought and its expression are both basic in the Gr. idea of lógos, the emphasis was upon its expression of the thought whether in word or in deed. The Heb. term behind the LXX was usually דָּבָר, H1821, or “word.” Usually it appears as “the word of God.” In the creation story God spoke and the world came into existence as a result. “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made” (Ps 33:6; cf. Gen 1). The word alone was the effective agent in creation, “He spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood forth” (Ps 33:9). Sometimes the word was regarded as possessing an entity and intrinsic authority apart from its source. Thus, Isaac could not reverse his “blessing of the first-born,” even though based on a misunderstanding (Gen 27:37). In the same genre, perhaps, was the “law of the Medes and the Persians” which could not be altered, once it was uttered or written (Esth 8:8). The word, then, is the effective agency by which the Creator brought into existence all creation. The same term, dabar, was used to express the manner in which God’s providence sustains the universe after its creation. In Psalm 147:18—“He sends forth his word, and melts them”—and in Psalm 148:8—“Fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling his command”—the immanent word of God is seen as controlling nature. “His word,” says the psalmist, “runs swiftly,” both in nature and in the realm of moral law (Ps 147:15, 19). Sometimes the word was regarded as quasi-personal in nature; “So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty” (Isa 55:11; cf. Ps 147:15). God’s word can also be a means of condemnation (Hos 6:5) or of deliverance (Ps 107:20).

The kinship between word and spirit is indicated in Psalm 33:6 where the parallelism states, “By the word of the Lord the heavens were made, and all their host by the breath (ruach) of his mouth,” a passage prized by early defenders of Trinitarian doctrine. Similar, in its linking of word and Spirit is, “When thou takest away their breath, they die....When thou sendest forth thy Spirit, they are created; and thou renewest the face of the ground” (Ps 104:29, 30). The kinship between deed, word, breath and spirit is obvious; the deed is the result of the word, the spoken word requires breath and the same Heb. term lies behind both “breath” and “Spirit.” God’s word in Heb. thought was more than an expression of His thought; it was also an expression of His will in nature, in human life and in history.

Pre-eminently, however, the “word of God” in the OT is a means of divine revelation. This is particularly true of the prophetic lit. Prior to the kingdom period divine revelation was regarded as conveyed by dreams, by sacred lot (interpreted by the priest) and by the lawgiver. In the postexilic period apocalyptic vision was a common mode of revelation. In the kingdom period the more prevalent mode of divine self-disclosure was by “the word of the Lord” (Amos 7:16).

God “sent a word against Jacob” (Isa 9:8) as a means of divine revelation through His prophets. The initiation of this phase of divine revelation was via Samuel, so much so that he was recognized as Yahweh’s official spokesman (1 Sam 3:1-4:1). For the major prophets this word or audition was almost irresistible; in the words of Jeremiah, it was “as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and I am weary with holding it in” (Jer 20:9; cf. Ezek 33:7; Amos 3:8; Mic 3:8). The audition (“word of God”) was often equated with “vision” (cf. 1 Sam 3:1; Isa 1:1).

In the major prophets the “Word of God” was the oracular disclosure of the mind of Yahweh. Later God’s word was the equivalent of God’s total revelation, the Torah. It was a self-contained body of instruction, a way of life. “Thy word,” said the psalmist, “is a lamp to my feet” (Ps 119:105); by it the young man would be able to “keep his way pure” (119:9). God’s word in such contexts is the equivalent of God’s law; it is parallel with and yet in contrast to the lógos of John 1:17.

B. Wisdom literature. Closely related to the concept of the word is that of wisdom (חָכְמָה, H2683). Wisdom is a form of divine revelation, often elusive (Job 28) and always invaluable. It comes, not as a result of human achievement, but always as a gratuitous self-disclosure of God (Job 28:12-28); it is a gift of grace (Dan 2:21). It was given to craftsmen as manual skill for fabricating the Tabernacle (Exod 36:1), to Joshua was given “the spirit of wisdom” as essential to leadership (Deut 34:9).

Best representative of this gift was Solomon who was commended and rewarded because of his discriminating preference for wisdom as a means of service. This laid the foundation for the third most important portion of the OT, the Wisdom Lit. The Sopherim and wise men came to be the most highly esteemed type of leadership in the nation. While Solomon was the most famous of them, the pioneer seems to have been Ahithophel, a man whose judgment was considered on a par with the disclosures of prophet or priest (2 Sam 16:23). In the Book of Proverbs wisdom is the cardinal virtue the possession of which assures God’s favor.

Wisdom was sometimes personified. In what is prob. the closest literary approximation to the prologue of John’s gospel, wisdom appears in the role of a young woman, entreating young men, in competition with a prostitute (Prov 1:20; 5:3; 7:10; 8:1-3; 9:4). Wisdom is personified as eternally existant and as sharing in the work of creation (Prov 8:22-31; cf. John 1:3; 5:17; Col 1:16; Heb 1:2). Another eloquent personification of wisdom is attributed to Jesus ben Sirach (cf. 180 b.c.). Probably under the influence of Proverbs 8 he wrote of Wisdom, “I came forth from the mouth of the Most High, and covered the earth like a mist....Those who eat me will hunger for more and those who drink me will thirst for more. Whoever obeys me will not be put to shame” (Ecclus 24:3-22; cf. John 4:14; 6:35; 7:16; 17:8; Rom 10:11).

In what is sometimes considered the first important attempt to achieve a synthesis between the Heb. and Gr. emphases, the author of The Wisdom of Solomon (c. 100 b.c.?) thinks of wisdom as personalized. Wisdom is conceived as the quasi-personal agent in creation—“thy wisdom hast formed man” (Wisd Sol 9:2). The similarity and the contrast to the Johannine prologue are apparent in one noteworthy passage, “Thy all-powerful word leaped from heaven: from the royal throne, into the midst of the land that was doomed, a stern warrior carrying the sharp sword of thy authentic command” (Wisd Sol 18:15, 16). The parallel is not with the Incarnate word of John 1:14 but rather with the conquering Word of Revelation 19:13. In this writer the Logos and Wisdom are personalized and are practically identical. Wisdom, like the “advocate” of 1 John 2:1, is the believer’s guide, defender, and deliverer. In alluding to Joseph the writer says, “When a righteous man was sold, wisdom did not desert him, but delivered him from sin” (Wisd Sol 10:13; cf. Gen 39:10-15; Isa 63:9; 1 Cor 10:4). The recreating energy of the immanent Word-Wisdom is eloquently set forth; “Wisdom,” he says, “penetrates all things, for she is the breath of the power of God...in every generation she passes into holy souls and makes them friends of God” (Wisd Sol 7:24-27). Wisdom is described as God’s breath, emanation, reflection, mirror and image (7:25, 26; cf. Col 1:15; Heb 1:3). While this author comes closer than his predecessors to a personification of the Lógos he does not place God so far above the earth that no direct connection is possible. Because the God of the Bible is a living God, not the static deity of the Gr. phil osophers, there was no need of a second God to mediate between Creator and creature. Communication was by the Word.

By some writers the rabbinic concept of the word or memra is viewed as the equivalent of the lógos. The memra was spoken of as the Intercessor before God and as the Helper of the righteous by rabbis Jonathan and Onkelos. However, as G. F. Moore points out (HTR, xv) “memra” was not the equivalent of the “word”; it is rather a buffer word, not a mediating idea or person. It seems unlikely, therefore, that this term was any influence on Johannine usage of the term lógos.

C. Philo of Alexandria. The Hebraic and Hellenic meanings of lógos converged in Philo the Jewish philosopher of Alexandria at the time of Christ. In Philo’s voluminous writings about the lógos may be traced the Gr. emphasis on the lógos as reason and the Heb. emphasis on the lógos as communication, by word and deed. Philo fused the all-pervasive energy stressed by Heraclitus, the metaphysical dualism of Plato, the transcendental monism of Aristotle and the individualism characteristic of the Stoics. For him the lógos was common to these traditions and also to the OT. Under a great variety of titles this impersonal lógos served an intermediate functionary between the remote God and the material universe. Influenced by the Platonic doctrine of ideas he spoke of the lógos as the realm of idea or pattern, yet his Heb. heritage helped him see the lógos as also the embodiment or expression of the ideal. He speaks of the lógos as God’s “first-born son” (protógonos huíos), as God’s “ambassador” (presbeutēs), as man’s advocate (paráclētos) and as high priest (archiereus). Common to all these various facets of the lógos concept in Philo is the role of the lógos as intermediary between God and the world. This same emphasis on the transcendence of God and the nature of matter as evil reappeared, decades after Philo, in the various Gnostic systems of the 2nd cent. a.d. Philo differentiated between the lógos endiáthetos, ideas in God and reason in man and lógos prophórikos, the ideas projected in speech, as did the Stoics before him. The apparent complexity of the cósmos is therefore unified by the lógos or reason behind the phenomena. Like the Stoics and other Greeks, Philo would have recoiled at the idea of the lógos becoming incarnate; his lógos was a personification, never a person as in John.

In koinē Gr. the term lógos is common in non-literary documents where it normally means “reckoning” (MM). Accountability or responsibility was also conveyed by this term. The lógos concept is not prominent in the DSS.

III. NT usage

A. Synoptic gospels and Acts. The “seed” in the parable of the soils is identified as the Word (lógos) of God (Mark 4:14), in this instance the preaching of Jesus or the proclamation of God’s truth (cf. John 17:8). This is in harmony with the prevailing OT view that the word of God is the preaching of the prophets. It is more than words (rhemata). The teaching of Jesus is regularly termed the lógos (Matt 7:24, 26, 28; 8:16; 13:19; 19:1). It is also the revelation of the Gospel of the Son of God; the Word is the Good News concerning Christ (13:19, 21-23; Mark 2:2; 4:14, 33; Luke 5:1; 11:28; Acts 10:36). This included also the preaching of the apostles (Mark 16:20 KJV; Acts 4:1, 2, 29, 31 RSV; 6:2, 4, 7; 8:4, 14, 25; 10:36, 44; 11:1, 19). The term appears in Mark 8:32 where after Peter’s confession of faith Jesus began a new phase of His instruction, that of His approaching decease, and He spoke the word (lógos) openly. The significance is that the word of the Gospel culminates in the death and the resurrection of the Messiah.

The total Christian message is often termed “the word” (Luke 1:2, 4; Acts 1:1; 2:41; 4:4; 6:2, 4, 7), esp. as this message centers in Christ. Thus, the apostles asked and received boldness to “speak the ‘word of God,’” i.e., to preach the Gospel with courage (Acts 4:29, 31). The Twelve determined to give priority to the ministry of the word (6:2, 4). The Samaritans were the first, other than Jews, to embrace “the word of God” (8:4, 14, 21, 25). Cornelius was among the first Gentiles to respond to “the word” (10:29, 36, 44). The message which Paul brought to Jews and Gentiles of Asia Minor and Europe was the same “word of God” or “good news,” as at Antioch (13:5, 7, 15, 26, 49), later at Ephesus (19:10, 20) and Berea (17:11, 13). It is obvious that the authors of the synoptics and Acts found it natural to regard the teachings of Jesus and the good news of the Christian preachers as a continuum of the message of the OT prophets.

B. Pauline epistles. The Pauline usage is perhaps less distinctive than that of Luke-Acts and John. He continues the equating of the lógos with the Gospel as is noteworthy in the synoptics and Acts. His presentation of Jesus Christ is essentially the same as that of John, but unlike John he does not link the person of Christ with the lógos in any technical sense. When describing God’s Word, i.e., the Gospel message, he employs this term lógos in a manner consistent with the gospels (Rom 9:6; 2 Cor 1:18; 2:17; 4:2; 5:19; 6:7). Whether he was familiar with Philonic lit. is debatable. Several passages in his epistles reveal Paul’s awareness of the issues in Alexandrian speculation. The letter to the Colossians reflects Paul’s concern with an incipient Gnosticism which stressed the contrast between Creator and creature and the necessity for intermediate beings. Paul insisted the sole adequacy of Christ—He is the fullness (pleróma) of the Godhead (Col 2:9). The believers have their fullness in Christ alone without angels (demiurgoi) or other mediators (Col 2:10-15). For Paul the Gospel is good news concerning Jesus the Christ (1 Cor 1:23; 2 Cor 4:1-6; Gal 3:1), who is both the power and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:24; Eph 3:10-12).

Paul’s Christology, moreover, is essentially the same as that of the fourth gospel and the Epistle to the Hebrews. Paul repeatedly speaks of the uncreated Christ becoming incarnated—He voluntarily impoverished Himself for others (2 Cor 8:9); He emptied Himself (Phil 2:5-11) by assuming the “form of a servant.” He existed with God the Father from eternity (Rom 10:6; Gal 4:4) and is recreating man in His image (eikōn) or moral likeness (1 Cor 2:16; 15:49; 2 Cor 3:18; Eph 4:24; Phil 2:5; Col 3:9). Although Paul does not employ the term lógos in a technical Christological sense his corresponding term is ἐικόν—God-likeness.

C. Hebrews. In this anonymous epistle the doctrine of the logos is focused in 4:12—the “word of God is living and active...discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” The author is familiar with Alexandrian exegesis and nomenclature as evidenced by the use of such concepts as angels, shadow, substance, pattern, and the paradox of seeing the invisible. The similarity to the prologue of John’s gospel is esp. apparent in the opening verses. Christ is present as the Son who is the effulgence of God’s glory and who bears the stamp of God’s nature, a relationship as intimate as that between die and matrix, also as God’s heir and agent in creation (Heb 1:1-3; cf. John 1:1-3). By such language the author seeks to set forth the closest possible relationship to the Father without losing the Son’s identity. The word (lógos) in this letter is both the apostolic preaching (Heb 2:2-4), the illumination of the Spirit (4:2), the teaching of dedicated leaders (5:13; 13:7) and the epistle itself (13:22). In no Christian document is the paradox of Jesus’ deity and humanity expressed more emphatically than here (1:1-3; cf. 2:14-18; 5:7-9). Although the relationship of the Son to the Father is essentially the same as set forth in Paul and in John, the term lógos is not used to describe this relationship to the extent that it is in Philo and in John. The term occurs eleven times in the epistle as a designation of divine revelation but is not explicitly related to the embodiment of that revelation in the Son.

D. Johannine literature

1. Epistles and Apocalypse. If the Apocalypse is included in this category the term appears where the Messianic warrior with the “sword” in his mouth is called the lógos of God (Rev 19:13). It appears to be a symbolic presentation of the preaching of the good news, stated in numerous other places, as indicated above.

The First Epistle of John speaks of the “lógos of life,” in language strikingly similar to John 1:1-18. In this context the expression could either refer to the preaching of the good news or to the incarnate Christ; it prob. includes both. The former is consistent with the NT as a whole, the latter is consistent in the Johannine Prologue which it so closely resembles in other respects. The best texts do not include 1 John 5:7—“the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost” (KJV)—but the v. at least reflects the sentiments of many in the ancient church.

2. The fourth gospel. The term lógos occurs forty times in this gospel but only in John 1:1-3, 14 is the term explicitly equated with the Christ. With the term lógos, however, is linked “truth” (alētheia)—“thy word is truth” (17:17). Elsewhere Jesus says, “I am the way, the truth and the life” (14:6). Since “things equal to the same thing are equal to each other,” the conclusion is clear—Jesus is the lógos. This, of course, is consistent with the Prologue, where the identification is explicit and emphatic.

a. The relation of the Logos to the Father. The author goes back of the Genesis account to origins in eternity—“In the beginning was the word.” The word was pros ton theón—in God’s presence, implying movement toward God and yet distinct from God; it expresses perpetual intercommunion or fellowship. He is one with God in essence, yet distinct personally—“the word was God.” The “word” is divine; the article is omitted before theós in this statement, indicating that God is more inclusive than the lógos while the Godhead is not limited to lógos. The relationship to God is as intimate as language can describe it and still retain individual identity. The thought is essentially that of Paul (Col 1:15-20; cf. 1 Cor 15:24); and of the author of Hebrews (1:1-3). This usage marks an advance over the thought of the Pauline corpus and the letter to the Hebrews in that it was successful synthesis of the prophetic doctrine of divine revelation, the later personification of wisdom, and the Alexandrian emphasis on reason and truth. The prologue expresses Christian revelation on a Hebraic background, using contemporary idiom to make it more appealing.

b. The relation of the Logos to the world is that of Co-creator and creation. The relation to the cosmos is not spelled out in the detail one sees in Paul (Col 1:15-20, et al.) but it is embraced in John’s all-inclusive affirmation—“all things came into existence through (dia) his agency” (John 1:3). The following statement reiterated and emphasized this—“no single thing was created without him” (1:3 NEB). Just as the word of God spoke into existence every created thing in the Genesis account so John affirms the same of the Lógos. It is astonishing that the first-generation Christians who had known Jesus of Nazareth “after the flesh” could have become convinced that He was also the One who had caused the universe itself to have come into existence. The difference between Creator and creation is brought out by the contrast in the verbs “being” and “becoming.” “The eternally existing One caused to come into existence in time everything else that exists.”

c. The relation of the Logos to mankind is the main concern of John, as of the other evangelists. “The lógos became flesh,” an idea abhorrent to the Gnostics, as to holders of metaphysical dualism generally. Some hold with R. Bultmann that John’s ideas are borrowed mainly from pagan ideologies, esp. Iranian Gnostic systems, but the evidence is insufficient and the theory is rendered untenable by recent archeological discoveries.

The Word is equated with the Truth and with Light in Johannine thought. As is characteristic of the fourth gospel, abstract ideas become concrete and personalized in Christ. The good news in this book becomes a person. Hence, the doctrine of the resurrection becomes identified with Jesus—“I am the resurrection and the life” (11:25). The same is true of “the way” (14:6), the manna from heaven (6:31, 50), the truth and the word. What in the rest of the NT is the message of God’s good news (lógos) in the fourth gospel is the person of Christ. Yet this gospel is not different in its emphasis; it only makes the link between messenger and message more complete, expressed in an idiom which transcends national and sectarian boundaries and becomes universal in its appeal. The message becomes incarnate and personalized in Jesus of Nazareth, not only for a season but for all time. Boldly drawing upon contemporary nomenclature and yet defying one of the basic convictions of prevailing dualism, the evangelist declares that the eternal lógos became flesh in history (1:14) in what is perhaps the most characteristic affirmation of the Gospel. In the words of Irenaeus, “He became what we are that He might make us what He is” (cf. John 1:14; 2 Cor 5:21; Phil 2:7-11; Heb 2:14).

IV. Early Christian literature

At the close of the 1st cent. the lógos doctrine was the antidote to Gnostic dualism and docetic heresies (e.g., 2 John 7). The apologists including Justin, Tatian, Theophilus and Athenagoras sought to demonstrate that orthodoxy was opposed to pagan theosophies and yet at the same time was in agreement with elements of truth in such pagan ideologies as Stoicism, esp. as represented by Epictetus. Justin argued that Christ is the Spermátic Lógos who issued from the Father as divine revelation. Clement of Alexandria emphasized the immanence of the Lógos concept, that Christ was in the world before the historic Incarnation preparing mankind for His Advent. Additional strength was afforded the lógos doctrine by Athanasius during the Trinitarian controversy. However, the Nicene Creed did not include the term and later the Synod of Sirmium (a.d. 451) condemned the doctrine of endiathétos and lógos prophóríkos. The idea still holds its appeal for idealists and certain mystics. In general, the lógos doctrine serves to indicate the power of the Gospel to gather up and transform contemporary concepts which contain elements of truth. A weak and uncertain Gospel would have avoided any use of alien symbols for fear of losing its distinctiveness. In much the same spirit Clement of Alexandria could refer to himself as a “Christian Gnostic.” The genius of the author of the fourth gospel is that he did not disdain the use of a term which promised to extend the appeal of the Truth.

Bibliography G. Vos, “The Range of the Logos-Name in the Fourth Gospel,” PTR (1913), 557-602; W. R. Inge, “Logos,” HERE, VIII (1914), 134-138; A. Alexander, “Logos,” ISBE, III (1930), 1911-1917; Kittel, ed., “Lego, logos,” TWNT, IV (1933); R. G. Bury, The Fourth Gospel and the Logos Doctrine (1942); K. E. Lee, The Religious Thought of St. John (1950), 74-108; E. C. Hoskyns, The Fourth Gospel (1956), 154ff.; O. Cullmann, “Jesus the Word,” The Christology of the New Testament (1959), 249-269; J. N. Sanders, “Word,” IDB, IV (1962), 868-872.