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God’s
Word in the Old and New Testaments – Dabar
and Logos
Dabar – from the Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew
Lexicon:
- Speech,
word, speaking, thing.
- Speech.
- Saying,
utterance.
- Word,
words.
- Business,
occupation, acts, matter, case, something, manner
(by extension.)
Logos – from the Liddell-Scott-James Greek
Lexicon:
- Logos;
logos, ho: (A) the word or that by which
the inward thought is expressed (Latin: oratio),
and, (B) the inward thought itself (Latin: ratio.)
- Latin:
vox, oratio, that which is said or spoken.
- Latin:
ratio, thought, reason.
- Ho
LOGOS, the Logos or Word, comprising
both senses of Thought and Word.
(New Testament.)
The logos is God's reason, purpose,
and plan. It is what is what we call the "Word
of God", whether spoken, written or conceived
in His mind. The Old Testament uses the Hebrew
word dabar in the same way that the New
Testament uses the Greek word logos.
The
Biblical Use of Dabar
The Words of Men and Women:
Genesis 44:2.
And put my cup, the silver cup, in the sack's
mouth of the youngest, and his corn money. And
he did according to the dabar
that Joseph had spoken
God’s Law and commandments:
Deuteronomy 4:2.
Ye shall not add unto the dabar
which I command you, neither shall ye diminish
ought from it, that ye may keep the commandments
of the LORD your God which I command you.
God’s creative work:
- Genesis
1:3, 6, 14-15.
And God said, Let there be light: and there
was light... And God said, Let there be a firmament
in the midst of the waters, and let it divide
the waters from the waters... And God said,
Let there be lights in the firmament of the
heaven to divide the day from the night; and
let them be for signs, and for seasons, and
for days, and years: And let them be for lights
in the firmament of the heaven to give light
upon the earth: and it was so.
- Psalm
33:6.
By the dabar of the LORD were
the heavens made; and all the host of them by
the breath of his mouth.
God’s purpose, as expressed
through prophecy and fulfilled in world events:
Jeremiah 32:8.
So Hanameel mine uncle's son came to me in
the court of the prison according to the dabar
of the LORD, and said unto me, Buy my field, I
pray thee, that is in Anathoth, which is in the
country of Benjamin: for the right of inheritance
is thine, and the redemption is thine; buy it
for thyself. Then I knew that this was the dabar
of the LORD.
The
Biblical Use of Logos
Consistent with the Biblical Use of Dabar:
- Matthew
13:19.
When any one heareth the logos
of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then
cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that
which was sown in his heart. This is he which
received seed by the way side.
- John
5:24.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth
my logos,
and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting
life, and shall not come into condemnation;
but is passed from death unto life.
- John
8:51.
Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep
my logos,
he shall never see death.
- John
15:3.
Now ye are clean through the
logos
which I have spoken unto you.
- John
15:25.
But [this cometh to pass], that the
logos
might be fulfilled that is written in their
law, They hated me without a cause.
- John
17:20.
Neither pray I for these alone, but for them
also which shall believe on me through their
logos.
- Acts
2:41.
Then they that gladly received his
logos
were baptized and the same day there were added
about three thousand souls.
- Acts
4:4.
Howbeit many of them which heard the
logos
believed; and the number of the men was about
five thousand.
- Acts
4:29.
And now, Lord, behold their threatenings: and
grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness
they may speak thy logos.
The
Logos – Pre-existent Christ, or Personification
of God’s Word?
The conclusion which seems to emerge from our
analysis thus far is that it
is only with verse 14 that we can begin to speak
of the personal logos. The poem uses rather impersonal
language (“became flesh”), but no Christian would
fail to recognize here a reference to Jesus –
the word became not flesh in general but Jesus
the Christ.
Prior to verse 14 we are in the same realm as
pre-Christian talk of wisdom and logos, the same
language that we find in the wisdom tradition
and in Philo, where as we have seen we
are dealing with personifications rather than
persons, personified actions of God rather than
an individual divine being as such.
The point is obscured by the fact that we have
to translate the masculine "logos" as "He" throughout
the poem.
But if we translated "logos" as "God's utterance"
instead, it would become clearer that the
poem did not necessarily intend the "logos" in
verses 1-13 to be thought of as a personal divine
being. In other words the revolutionary significance
of verse 14 may well be that it marks . . . the
transition from impersonal personification to
actual person.
Dunn, James D. G. (1980), Christology in
the Making.
Notice the point that Dunn is making - the logos
became Christ. He correctly observes that
verse 14 involves “the transition from impersonal
personification to actual person.” Until
this happened, Christ did not literally exist. As
an expression of the logos, he too, is a
part of God’s creation – and by extension, he too,
is a part of God’s self-expression.
This is amply demonstrated by the words of Isaiah
55:11, which prefigure the successful mission
of Christ as the pinnacle of God’s logos:
So shall my dabar
be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall
not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish
that which I please, and it shall prosper in the
thing whereto I sent it.
Is
the Logos of John 1 "He" or "It"?
A Review of Protestant Bibles Before the KJV:
- The
Geneva Bible – 1560.
In the beginning was the Worde, and the Worde
was with God and that Worde was God. The same
was in the beginning with God. All things were
made by it
,
& without it was made nothing that was
made.
- Tyndale’s
Bible – 1525.
In the beginning was that Word, and that Word
was with God: and God was that Word. The same
was in the beginning with God. All things were
made by it ,
and without it, was made nothing: that
made it.
- Tyndale’s
New Testament – 1530.
In the beginnynge was the worde, and the worde
was with God: and the worde was God. The same
was in the beginnynge with God.
All thinges were made by it
,
and with out it, was made nothinge, that
was made.
- Matthew’s
Bible – 1537.
Used “it ”
instead of “him" in John 1:3-4.
- Coverdale’s
Bible – 1539 & 1540.
In the begynnynge was the worde, and the worde
was with God, and God was ye worde. The same
was in the begynnynge with God.
All thinges were made by the same
,
and without the same was made nothinge
that was made.
- The
“Great Bible” of 1539.
Used “it ”
instead of “him” in John 1:3-4.
- The
Bishop’s Bible – 1568.
Used “it” instead of “him” in John
1:3-4.
There is no justification for seeing the logos
as a "he" instead of an "it." The sheer consistency
of the OT and NT militates against such a proposal.
John’s
Prologue – Jewish Language; Jewish Concepts
Patristic theology of whatever school abused
these texts by taking
them out of context and giving them a meaning
which John never intended.
Functional language about the Son and the Spirit
being sent into the world by the Father was transposed
into that of eternal and internal relationships
between Persons in the Godhead and words like
"generation" and "procession" made into technical
terms, which New Testament
usage simply will not substantiate…
John is a typical representative of the New Testament,
not the anomalous exception,
with one foot in the world of Greek philosophy,
that he is so often presented.
Robinson, J.A.T. (1984), Twelve More New Testament
Studies.
Dr Robinson was a former Bishop of the Anglican
Church in Woolwich during the 1960s
The opening sentences of John's Gospel,
which might sound like the philosophy of Philo,
could be understood by an educated Jew or Christian
without any reference to Philo. Therefore we
should not argue from Philo's meaning of "word"
as a hypostasis that John also meant by "word"
a pre-existing personality. In the remainder
of the Gospel and in I John, "word" is never to
be understood in a personal sense...
It means rather the "revelation" of God which
had earlier been given to Israel (10:35), had
come to the Jews in Holy Scripture (5:38) and
which had been entrusted to Jesus and committed
by him to his disciples (8:55; 12:48; 17:6;
8, 14, 17; 1 John 1:1) and which would now be
preserved by them (1 John 1:10; 2:5, 14.)
The slightly personifying way in which the word
is spoken of as into the world (1:9-14) is
typical of the personifying style of the Old Testament
references to the word (Isa. 55:11; Psa. 107:20;
147:15. cp. 2 Thess. 3:1.) It cannot be proved
that the author of the prologue thought of the
word as a real person. Only the historical Jesus
and not the original word is said to be the Son
(John 1:14, 18.) But in this Son there dwelt
and worked the eternal revelation of God.
Wendt, Hans (1907), System der Christlichen
Lehre.
Dr Wendt was a former Professor of Systematic
Theology at the University of Jena in Germany.
John’s
Prologue – Pre-existence in the Jewish Mind
That any expression or vehicle of God's
will for the world, His saving counsel and purpose,
was present in His mind, or His 'Word'
from the beginning is a natural way of saying
that it is not fortuitous, but the due unfolding
and expression of God’s own being. This attribution
of pre-existence indicates religious importance
of the highest order.
Rabbinic theology speaks
of the Law, of God's throne of glory, of Israel
and of other important objects of faith, as things
which had been created by God, and were already
present with Him, before the creation of the world.
The same is also true of the Messiah.
It is said that his name was present with God
in heaven beforehand, that it was created before
the world, and that it is eternal.
But the reference here
is not to genuine pre-existence in the strict
and literal sense. This is clear from the fact
that Israel is included among these pre-existent
entities. This
does not mean that either the nation Israel or
its ancestor existed long ago in heaven, but that
the community Israel, the people of God, had been
from all eternity in the mind of God, as a factor
in His purpose.
Mowinckel, S. (1954), He Who Cometh.
The importance of setting these texts within
the historical context of meaning and of recognizing
conceptuality in transition is indicated by the
correlative recognition that these developments
in earliest Christology took place within and
as an expression of Jewish-Christian monotheism.
In contrast, the too quick resort to the 'obvious'
or 'plain' meaning actually becomes in
some cases a resort to a form of bitheism or tritheism.
Dunn, James D. G. (1989), Christology in the
Making (2nd edition), foreword.
What
is Meant by “The Word was God”?
If John says that the logos was...
...meaning that the logos was with
God (by which he confirms that the logos
was not literally the person of God, Who
in this passage is obviously the Father) and then
goes on to say that...
...the logos was divine, we cannot
interpret “theos en ton logos” as a literal
reference to God Himself without presenting Christianity
with (a) two separate Gods, or (B) Modalism (an
ancient heresy which taught that the Father, Son
and Holy Spirit are all the same person.) We must
therefore understand that “theos en ton logos”
is a purely qualitative statement - it refers
to the fact that the logos (being the reason,
purpose and plan of God) was divine.
Even Trinitarians will agree with the fact that
“the logos was divine” is a proper translation of
the text, because they read John 1:1 as “In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God
the Son, and God the Son was with God the Father.”
So we are perfectly justified in reading “theos
en ton logos” as “the logos was divine.”
This form of language is by no means unique to the
classical world. Even today, we speak of “a religious
ethic” or “A godly man” or “a divine ideal” or “the
divine hierarchy” (as in the case of I Corinthians
11:1-3.) In the same way, we make mention of
“secular philosophy”, “contemporary thought”, “atheistic
reasoning”, "a nihilistic concept”, or “the antiquarian
mind.” These are qualitative statements;
they refer to the source and disposition of abstract
ideas - not to literal entities.
With this understood, we can now see that the Original
New Testament (published 1985) gives a clear reading
of the passage in question, without resorting to
theological bias:
In the Beginning was the Word.
And the Word was with God.
So the Word was divine.
It was in the Beginning with God.
By it everything had being.
And without it nothing had being ...
In his own New Testament translation, William Barclay
(a former professor of Divinity and Biblical Criticism
at Glasgow University) makes the following note:
Logos has two meanings, which no one English
word can express. Logos means word, and Logos
means mind. A word is the expression of thought.
Therefore Jesus is the expression of the thought
of God. Or to take the other meaning, in Jesus
we see the mind of God.
[...]
In Jesus the mind of God becomes a person.
Again, in his Gospel
of John, Barclay writes:
In Greek logos means two things: it means 'word'
and it means 'reason.'
[...]
The Logos of God, the mind of God, is responsible
for the majestic order of the world
[....]
He (John) said to the Greeks, "All your lives
you have been fascinated by this great, guiding,
controlling mind of God. The mind of God has come
to earth in the man Jesus. Look at him and you
will see what the mind and thought of God are
like.
[...]
By calling Jesus the logos, John said two things
about Jesus:
(a) Jesus is the creating power of God come
to men. He does not only speak the word of
knowledge; he is the word of power. He did not
come so much to say things to us, as to do things
for us.
(b) Jesus is the incarnate mind of God.
We might well translate John's words, 'The
mind of God became a man'. A word is always
'the expression of a thought' and Jesus
is the perfect expression of God's thoughts
for men.
A
Paraphrase of John 1:1-18
In the beginning, there was a pattern for everything.
The pattern was God’s; the pattern was divine.
The pattern was God’s from the beginning.
Everything that exists, came from that pattern.
There is nothing that exists now, which did not
first exist in the mind of God.
The pattern is both the source of new life and
the meaning of life.
It is a way of being alive in opposition to death,
and death cannot overcome it.
God sent a man named John to tell people about
the possibilities of this way of being alive so
that everybody would trust the agent of God, through
whom this new life would come.
John was not this agent, but he taught people
how to recognise the one who was.
The agent of new life was coming into the world.
To some people, however, this new life is unrecognisable.
Some who could be expected to see the possibilities
of this way of being alive, select death instead.
Others embrace life. They trust what God has to
offer.
God made this offer to His entire creation. Its
source is heavenly, not earthly.
God is not only the source, but also the meaning
of life itself.
God’s divine pattern was embodied in a man who
lived among us.
No man has seen God literally – but they have
seen His only-begotten Son Jesus – the agent of
new life, and the representative of God.
There is no argument for the deity of Christ here.
Indeed, such a concept would serve no purpose
in the context of John's prologue.
John
1:1-14 - a Closer Examination of the Text (Part
I)
God Speaks, and His Will is Performed - the Basic
Message of John's Prologue
John 1:1-3 is known amongst Christians as
“the battleground of the Trinity” – and it is not
hard to see why. At first glance, this passage may
appear to show irrefutable evidence for the deity
and pre-existence of Christ. But a careful analysis
will show that the entire Trinitarian case turns
upon a spurious translation of John 1:1-3,
by means of which the Greek word ”logos”
is subjected to the most astonishing abuse.
As with any other proof text, the most effective
way to refute the Trinitarian claim is to build
up a counter-argument on the basis of first principles,
in addition to the socio-historical context of John’s
Gospel. But before we do anything else, we must
establish that the logos is not a person,
but rather the outworking of God's purpose and
plan. This is even clearer when we read the Genesis
record, in which:
Even a cursory glance at Scripture is enough to
show that the Old Testament creation account never
uses the language that Trinitarianism requires.
Not once does Genesis attempt to persuade
us that this spoken word was a divine person. Not
once is this spoken word referred to as a distinct
entity. It is always described as “the word” of
God – never as God Himself.
Thus, in the words of Psalm 33:6 & 9...
By the word of the LORD were the heavens made;
and all the host of them by the breath of his
mouth... For he spake, and it was done; he commanded,
and it stood fast.
See also Psalm 107:20; 147:15, 18, 19, Hebrews
11:3 (compare with Jeremiah 10:12, 13:5)
and II Peter 3:5,7:
. . . by the word of God the heavens were of
old, and the earth standing out of the water and
in the water . . . But the heavens and the earth,
which are now, by the same word are kept in store,
reserved unto fire against the day of judgment
and perdition of ungodly men.
Ignoring the fact that the message of the New Testament
is necessarily founded upon the old (and therefore
cannot contradict it) Trinitarians place great emphasis
on the alleged significance of the word logos
in the Johannine prologue, which they claim is a
direct reference to the pre-existent Christ. The
superficial nature of this argument is easily exposed.
In the KJV, for example, logos is translated
by more than twenty different English words and
is used for utterances of men (e.g., John 17:20)
as well as those of God (John 5:38.) The
Bible, as we have already seen, informs us that
there was no creation without the word; no creation
without God speaking and causing it to occur.
Nothing occurring without a direct expression of
the Divine will.
That is the context in which the word "word"
is used, both in the OT and the NT. This means that
even if we accept the KJV reading (“…he was in the
beginning with God; all things were made through
him… by him was not anything made that was made…”)
at face value, it must still be proved that a literal,
personal being is here referred to. The very most
that a Trinitarian can claim (on the basis of the
KJV rendition) is that the logos has simply
been personified.
Hence the previous citation from Dunn, in the post
above:
Prior to verse 14 we are in the same realm
as pre-Christian talk of wisdom and logos, the
same language that we find in the wisdom tradition
and in Philo, where as we have seen we are dealing
with personifications rather than persons, personified
actions of God rather than an individual divine
being as such. The point is obscured by the fact
that we have to translate the masculine "logos"
as "He" throughout the poem.
But if we translated "logos" as "God's utterance"
instead, it would become clearer that the poem
did not necessarily intend the "logos" in verses
1-13 to be thought of as a personal divine being.
In other words the revolutionary significance
of verse 14 may well be that it marks . . . the
transition from impersonal personification to
actual person. [1]
Christ was certainly God's spoken word in action
– and therefore His representative on Earth – but
that was all. He did not pre-exist as some sort
of supernatural thing called "The Word." The point
is confirmed by the Old Testament, where we see
that angels and prophets have also been vehicles
by which God has transmitted His logos.
In most instances, Scripture describes this event
in the following way:
The word [dabar] of Yahweh came
to…
At some point however, we must address the fact
that there are a couple of passages in which Christ
is called “the logos
of God.” What do we make of them? What are they
telling us, and how might they be explained to our
interested friends?
The answer is found in the principle of God manifestation.
Christ is the complete manifestation ("revelation")
of the logos,
for "in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead
bodily." (Colossians
2:9.) This same logos
was “in the beginning with God”, before the existence
of Christ. When the "word was made flesh" (John
1:14) then, and
only then, did Christ come into existence
as “the logos
made flesh.” Christ is called the logos
(Revelation 19:13,
compare with I John 1:1;
Luke 1:2) because he constitutes the
outworking
of God’s logos;
the physical reality of a plan which had previously
existed in the mind of God.
Was there is a pre-existence of that which was and
is Jesus Christ? Not in any literal sense whatsoever.
A man might say that he existed as "A twinkle in
my father's eye and a knowing look on my mother's
face", but this is radically different from literal
pre-existence. Could we honestly tell our friends
that "That which is me, existed before I was conceived"?
Not at all. Christ came into existence when he was
conceived and subsequently begotten. When did this
occur? Luke 1:35
tells us that it was some two thousand years ago
in Palestine, when the power of God overshadowed
Mary, the betrothed of Joseph. (See also Matthew
1:20.) The “orthodox” Trinitarian Creeds
(in which we find various references to the “eternally
begotten Son of God") stand apart from the witness
of Scripture. Their language is peculiar, paradoxical,
nonsensical, and above all… unBiblical.
Thus:
The notion that the Son was begotten by the
Father in eternity past, not as an event, but
as an inexplicable relationship, has been accepted
and carried along in the Christian theology since
the fourth century....
We have examined all the instances in which 'begotten'
or 'born' or related words are applied
to Christ, and we can say with confidence that
the Bible has nothing whatsoever to say about
'begetting' as an eternal relationship
between the Father and the Son. [2]
We see, therefore, that when John speaks of the
logos he does not refer to a pre-existent Messiah
– he refers to the conception of a Divine plan and
purpose, which found its literal expression in the
person of Jesus Christ. As previously noted, James
Dunn agrees with this interpretation, but still
finds it difficult to reconcile the necessarily
impersonal nature of the logos
with the text of the KJV.
His chief concern is that:
The point is obscured by the fact that we have
to translate the masculine "logos" as "He" throughout
the poem.
Dunn is clearly labouring under a false assumption.
There are no grounds on which it might be argued
that we have to refer to the “logos”
as “He.” It is true that the word “logos”
is masculine (at least, in the grammatical sense)
but this is irrelevant. Instead of focusing his
attention on the word "logos",
Dunn would do better to examine the word autos,
which the KJV has translated as “Him.”
In fact, right up until the publication of the KJV
1611, most Bibles referred to the logos of John
1 as “it”, instead of "he." The reason
for this is simple – it is because the translators
of those Bibles understood that the logos is not
a literal, personal entity. There are no legitimate
grounds on which God’s logos can be defined as a
pre-existent being. Yes, the logos was “in the beginning…
with God.” But it was not God Himself, nor was it
another divine being beside Him. So, while the logos
(according to John) is divine, the logos
is not the
pre-existent Christ. This distinction is crucial.
Moving on through the Johannine prologue, we arrive
at:
The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.
Here we must take care to read the text properly.
We have been told that it was the logos
which was made flesh - not God Himself. But what
does this mean?
I refer once again to Dunn’s analysis:
But if we translated "logos" as "God's
utterance" instead, it would become clearer that
the poem did not necessarily intend the "logos"
in verses 1-13 to be thought of as a personal
divine being. In other words the revolutionary
significance of verse 14 may well be that it marks
. . . the transition from impersonal personification
to actual person. [3]
Indeed, it certainly does! Just as the spoken
logos of God had once brought forth light,
now it resulted in a living entity - the Messiah.
John
1:1-14 - a Closer Examination of the Text (Part
II)
Centuries of Misinterpretation - the History
of the Trinitarian Logos
The astute reader of early Christian history will
discover that it is possible to follow the evolution
of the logos as a Jewish theological concept
into the logos as a Hellenic philosophical concept
- and, ultimately, a stepping-stone to Trinitarianism.
It all began with the work of a man called Philo.
Philo (a well-educated Hellenic Jew from Alexandria)
had a considerable influence on Christian leaders
of the "Alexandrian School", such as Clement of
Alexandria and Justin Martyr. His allegorical method
for interpreting Scripture also influenced Origen,
Ambrose, Augustine, and others. Many elements of
his philosophy made an impact on later Christian
thinking, including his use of proofs for God's
existence, his logos doctrine, his views
about the unknowability of God, his negative language
about God, his position on ex nihilo creation,
and his interpretation of Divine providence.
Philo attempted to interpret Scripture in terms
of Greek philosophy. His approach was innovative
and eclectic. Philo taught that human beings can
know God, whether directly from divine revelation,
or indirectly through human reason. Various forms
of proof for God included Plato's argument for
a Demiurgos in Timaeus and Aristotle's cosmological
argument for an Unmoved Mover. Interacting freely
with Greek philosophy, Philo borrowed certain Platonic
concepts to express his own theistic views. His
concept of the logos is a case in point.
In De Opificio he describes the logos
as a cosmological principle, saying:
God assuming, as God would assume, that a beautiful
copy could never come into existence without a
beautiful model...when He willed to create this
visible world, first blocked out the intelligible
world, in order that using an incorporeal and
godlike model he might make the corporeal world
a younger image of the older. [4]
Philo's philosophy was the original source of
what later became the logos
theology of mainstream Christianity. [5]
Philo himself had been influenced by Plato’s Timaeus,
in which he called the logos
“the image of God”, and “the second God”. Many Trinitarians
today are emphatic in their insistence that John's
gospel deliberately makes use of the term "logos"
because (according to them) he was fully aware of
its Philonic meaning, and expected his readers to
understand this! Some Trinitarians even go so
far as to say that John himself was responsible
for using the term in a new and especifically religious
way.
But, as we have already seen, Robinson dismisses
both claims with a common-sense reply:
John is a typical representative of the New
Testament, not the anomalous exception, with one
foot in the world of Greek philosophy, that he
is so often presented. [6]
Of course, there is no disputing the fact that the
term logos
was widely
used in the Greco-Roman culture (and also in Judaism),
but it is not until the writings of Philo does the
logos eventually
become personified beyond personification and regarded
as a, personal literal entity. In the LXX, the term
logos (Hebrew: dabar)
was used frequently to describe God's utterances,
and the messages of prophets - by means of which
God communicated His will to His people. Logos
occurs in both the major and minor prophetical books,
as a figure of speech designating God's activity
or action. The Greek, metaphysical concept of logos
is in sharp contrast to the concept of a personal
God described in anthropomorphic terms typical of
Hebrew thought. Thus when Hebrew mythical thought
encountered Greek philosophical thought, it was
only natural that some would try to develop speculative
and philosophical justification for Judaism in terms
of Greek philosophy.
Philo (who was, we must remember, a Hellenized Jew)
produced a synthesis of both traditions developing
concepts for the future Hellenistic interpretation
of Messianic Hebrew thought. His theology was drawn
not just from his traditional Jewish background,
but also from the philosophical ideas of the Greek
culture in which he found himself. (One of his more
creative ideas was the suggestion that Plato had
borrowed his own conception of the logos
from the writings of Moses!) Consequently, Philo’s
logos is not
entirely foreign
to the Jewish or Hellenic schools of thought - but
at the same time not entirely
compatible with either of them.
Thus:
This Logos, which according to the Stoics is
the bond between the different parts of the world,
and according to the Heracliteans the source of
the cosmic oppositions, is regarded by Philo as
the Divine word which reveals God to the soul
and calms the passions (see LOGOS). It is finally
from this point of view of the interior life that
Philo transforms the moral conception of the Greeks
which he knew mainly in the most popular forms
(cynical diatribes); he discovers in them the
idea of the moral conscience accepted though but
slightly developed by philosophers up to that
time.
A very interesting point of view is the consideration
of the various moral systems of the Greeks, not
simply as true or false, but as so many indications
of the soul's progress or recoil at different
stages. [7]
Philo had successfully united Hellenism and Judaism
by “identifying” the common elements of each. (Or
so he thought.) But in the process, he laid the
foundations for the development of Christian logos
theology as we know it today. The church preserved
the Philonic writings because Eusebius of Caesarea
labeled the monastic ascetic groups of Therapeutae
and Therapeutrides
(described in Philo's The Contemplative Life)
as Christians. Eusebius also promoted the legend
that Philo met Peter in Rome. Jerome (345-420 CE)
even lists him as a church Father! All
of this was patently false; but in time (as with
so many man-made traditions), it came to be accepted
as true.
The early synthesis between Hellenic philosophy
and early Christianity was made easier by the fact
that so many of the earliest apologists (such as
Athenagoras and Martyr) were Greek converts themselves,
whose belief system had consisted more of philosophy
than religion. Anyone who claims to believe in the
“God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob” would be well
advised to note that Jewish tradition was uninterested
in philosophical speculation and did not preserve
Philo's teachings. Indeed, it is possible to
contrast his understanding of the logos against
the Hebrew dabar, which (to a large extent) it was
actually intended to identify, personify, and explain.
In the words of Philo himself:
The Absolute Being, the Father, who had begotten
all things, gave an especial grace to the Archangel
and First-born Logos (Word), that standing between,
He might sever the creature from the Creator.
The same is ever the Intercessor for the dying
mortal before the immortal God, and the Ambassador
and the Ruler to the subject. He is neither without
beginning of days, as God is, nor is He begotten,
as we are, but is something between these extremes,
being connected with both. [8]
Predictably, the Jews found themselves unable to
reconcile Philo’s logos theology with their strictly
monotheistic conception of God. This resistance
to innovation and “transition” served as an impenetrable
barrier, shielding Judaism from the philosophical
developments which would slowly (but insistently)
wash over Christianity in the many years to come.
The earliest Christians (such as Peter, Paul, James,
and John) were Jews themselves, which explains why
the 1st Century church remained theologically static.
Only later - in the 2nd Century and beyond - do
we begin to find a subtle Hellenic influence taking
hold. The Jewish Christians (with a conservative
theology that was deeply rooted in the essential
teachings of the Old Testament) strongly resisted
any attempt to hijack, transform, or “develop” Christianity.
It was the Hellenic
Christians such as Justin Martyr and Athenagoras
(both well versed in Greek philosophy) who eventually
transmuted the words of John into the logos
of Platonic and Philonic philosophy. Searching for
a way to justify Christianity in the eyes of their
non-Christian colleagues, they soon found themselves
justifying Hellenism to the Christians.
Thus:
The apologists began to claim that Greek
culture pointed to and was consummated in the
Christian message, just as the Old Testament was.
This process was done most thoroughly in the synthesis
of Clement of Alexandria. It can be done in several
ways.
You can rake through Greek literature, and find
(especially in the oldest seers and poets) references
to ‘God’ which are more compatible with monotheism
than with polytheism (so at length Athenagoras.)
You can work out a common chronology between the
legends of prehistoric (Homer) Greece and the
biblical record (so Theophilus.)
You can adapt a piece of pre-Christian Jewish
apologetic, which claimed that Plato and other
Greek philosophers got their best ideas indirectly
from the teachings of Moses in the Bible, which
was much earlier. This theory combines the
advantage of making out the Greeks to be plagiarists
(and therefore second-rate or criminal), while
claiming that they support Christianity by their
arguments at least some of the time. Especially
this applied to the question of God.
[…]
Justin’s ‘creed’, as we saw, spoke of a transcendent
God and Father, of his Son (with the angels),
and of the Spirit of prophecy. This triple confession
is in line with what we know of the baptismal
formula. But when we look at the theology of
the apologists, we find that generally their thought
is ‘binitarian’ rather than ‘trinitarian’: it
speaks of God and his Word, rather than of Father,
Son and Holy Spirit. The term ‘Trinity’ was not
yet in use in the Church. Theophilus is the
first to use the Greek word for Trinity (trias,
triad), when he takes the first three days of
creation as signifying the trinity of ‘God and
his Word and his Wisdom’ (To Autolycus 2.15),
and Tertullian soon after 200 was using the Latin
trinitas of God.
If we suppose that the baptismal confession
and central Christian belief was in a threefold
form, we have to account for the binitarian thought
of Justin and those like him. The most obvious
explanation is that their apologetic is directed
towards Greek thought. They began from what appeared
to be common ground. Among the Greeks, a familiar
notion was the thought of an utterly transcendent,
perfect, unmoving God, and of a second, mediating,
active being responsible for the created order,
whether as its superior governor or as its immanent
soul. Such a theology was being propounded,
for instance, by the Platonist Albinos in Asia
Minor at the same time that Justin was himself
there, before he moved to Rome. [9]
Finally, we must keep in mind the fact that Matthew,
Mark and Luke all insist that Jesus’ existence began
with his conception in the womb of Mary. It would
be impossible for John to see the logos as a literal,
personal, pre-existent Christ without contradicting
his own cultural and religious background - not
to mention the other three gospels. The only way
to reconcile the strict “Jewishness” of John’s gospel
with his (apparent) references to Christ’s pre-existence,
is to accept his words in the context of Jewish
thought (as opposed to Greek philosophy) and realise
that he speaks of a pre-destined Messiah, rather
than the “Eternal Son” of modern Trinitarianism.
Thus:
First we have the Christology of the Synoptic
Gospels, and here it cannot be contended on any
sufficient grounds that they give us the slightest
justification for advancing beyond the idea of
a purely human Messiah. The idea of preexistence
lies completely outside the Synoptic sphere of
view. Nothing can show this more clearly than
the narrative of the supernatural birth of Jesus.
All that raises him above humanity - though it
does not take away the pure humanity of his person
- is to be referred only to the causality of the
"pneuma hagion," which brought about his conception.
This spirit, as the principle of the Messianic
epoch, is also the element which constitutes his
Messianic personality. The Synoptic Christology
has for its substantial foundation the notion
of the Messiah, designated and conceived as the
"huios theou"; and all the points in the working
out of the notion rest on the same supposition
of a nature essentially human. God raised him
from the dead, because it was not possible that
he should be holden of it (Acts 2:24). [10]
_______________
Bibliography
[1] Dunn, James D. G. (1980), Christology
in the Making.
[2] Buswell, J. O. (1962), A Systematic
Theology of the Christian Religion. Buswell
is a former Dean of the Graduate School, Covenant
College, St. Louis, MO.
[3] Dunn, James D. G. (1980), Christology
in the Making.
[4] As quoted by Norman L. Geisler (2000)
in his Baker Encyclopaedia of Christian Apologetics.
[5] This argument is comprehensively articulated
(and defended) by a number of classical historians.
For additional reading on the evolution of early
Christian theology and practice (with particular
reference to the infiltration of Hellenism), see
Jaeger’s Early Christianity and Greek Paideia
(1961), Engels’ Die Neue Zeit, Vol.
1 (1894-95), Werner’s The Formation of Christian
Dogma, An Historical Study of its Problems
(1957), and Reynolds’ The Christian Religious
Tradition (1977).
[6] Robinson, J.A.T. (1984), Twelve
More New Testament Studies. Robinson (now
deceased) was a former Bishop of the Anglican
Church in Woolwich during the 1960s.
[7] The Catholic Encyclopaedia (1908).
[8] Ante-Nicene Christian Library;
Edinburgh: T&T Clark, (1868) or later editions.
[9] Hall, Stuart G. (1991), Doctrine
and Practice in the Early Church. Hall was
formerly Professor of Ecclesiastical History at
King’s College, London. He now works as a parish
priest of the Scottish Episcopal Church in Fife.
[10] Baur, F.C. (1853), The Church History
of the First Three Centuries.
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