"Logos"の解釈
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The Logos
The word Logosis the term by which Christian theology in the Greek language designates the Word of God, or Second Person of the Blesseyoud Trinity.
Before St. John had consecrated this term by adopting it, the Greeks and the Jews had used it to express religious conceptions which, under various titles, have exercised a certain influence on Christian theology, and of which it is necessary to say something.
I. THE LOGOS IN HELLENISM
It is in Heraclitus that the theory of the Logos appears for the first time.
For him the Logos, which he seems to identify with fire, is that universal principle which animates and rules the world.
This conception could only find place in a materialistic monism.
The philosophers of the fifth and fourth centuries before Christ were dualists, and conceived of God as transcendent, so that neither in Plato (whatever may have been said on the subject) nor in Aristotle do we find the theory of the Logos.
It reappears in the writings of the Stoics, and it is especially by them that this theory is developed.
God, according to them, "did not make the world as an artisan does his work, but it is by wholly penetrating all matter that He is the demiurge of the universe" (Galen, "De qual. incorp." in "Fr. Stoic.", ed. von Arnim, II, 6); He penetrates the world "as honey does the honeycomb" (Tertullian, "Adv. Hermogenem", 44), this God so intimately mingled with the world is fire or ignited air; inasmuch as He is the principle controlling the universe, He is called Logos;
and inasmuch as He IS the germ from which all else develops, He is called the seminal Logos (logos spermatikos).
This Logos is at the same time a force and a law, an irresistible force which bears along the entire world and all creatures to a common end, an inevitable and holy law from which nothing can withdraw itself, and which every reasonable man should follow willingly (Cleanthus, "Hymn to Zeus" in "Fr. Stoic." I, 527-cf. 537). Conformably to their exegetical habits, the Stoics made of the different gods personifications of the Logos, e. g. of Zeus and above all of Hermes.
II. THE WORD IN JUDAISM
Quite frequently the Old Testament represents the creative act as the word of God (Gen.,i,3; Ps. xxxii, 9; Ecclus., xlii, 15); sometimes it seems to attribute to the word action of itself, although not independent of Jahveh (Is. Iv, 11, Zach., v, 1-4; Ps. cvi, 20; cxlvii, 15). In all this we can see only bold figures of speech: the word of creation, of salvation, or, in Zacharias, the word of malediction, is personified,
but is not conceived of as a distinct Divine hypostasis.
In the Book of Wisdom this personification is more directly implied (xviii, 15 sq.), and a parallel is established (ix, 1, 2) between wisdom and the Word.
Throughout so many diverse concepts may be recognized a fundamental doctrine:
the Logos is an intermediary between God and the world; through it God created the world and governs it;
through it also men know God and pray to Him ("De Cherub.", 125; "Quis rerum divin. haeres sit", 205-06.)
In three passages the Logos is called God ("Leg. Alleg.", III, 207; "De Somniis", I, 229; "In Gen.", II, 62, cited by Eusebius, "Praep. Ev.", VII, 13); but, as Philo himself explains in one of these texts (De Somniis), it is an improper appellation and wrongly employed, and he uses it only because he is led into it by the Sacred Text which he comments upon.
Moreover, Philo does not regard the Logos as a person; it is an idea, a power, and, though occasionally identified with the angels of the Bible, this is by symbolic personification.
III. THE LOGOS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
The term Logosis found only in the Johannine writings: in the Apocalypse (19:13), in the Gospel of St. John (1:1-14), and in his First Epistle (1:1; cf. 1:7 - Vulgate).
But already in the Epistles of St. Paul the theology of the Logos had made its influence felt. This is seen in the Epistles to the Corinthians, where Christ is called "the power of God, and the wisdom of God" (I Cor., 1:24) and "the image of God" (II Cor., 4:4); it is more evident in the Epistle to the Colossians (1:15 sqq.); above all in the Epistle to the Hebrews, where the theology of the Logos lacks only the term itself,
that finally appears in St. John. In this epistle we also notice the pronounced influence of the Book of Wisdom, especially in the description which is given of the relations between the Son and the Father: "the brightness of his glory, and the figure of his substance" (cf. Wis., vii, 26).
In the Gospel of St. John the Logos appears in the very first verse without explanation, as a term familiar to the readers, St. John uses it at the end of the prologue (i, 14), and does not mention it again in the Gospel.
What is the precise value of this concept in the writings of St. John?
The Logos has not for him the Stoic meaning that it so often had for Philo:
it is not the impersonal power that sustains the world, nor the law that regulates it; neither do we find in St. John the Platonistic concept of the Logos as the ideal model of the world;
the Word is for him the Word of God, and thereby he holds with Jewish tradition, the theology of the Book of Wisdom, of the Psalms, of the Prophetical Books, and of Genesis;
he perfects the idea and transforms it by showing that this creative Word which from all eternity was in God and was God, took flesh and dwelt among men.
This difference is not the only one which distinguishes the Johannine theology of the Logos from the concept of Philo, to which not a few have sought to liken it. The Logos of Philo is impersonal, it is an idea, a power, a law; at most it may be likened to those half abstract, half-concrete entities, to which the Stoic mythology had lent a certain personal form. For Philo the incarnation of the Logos must have been absolutely without meaning, quite as much as its identification with the Messias.
For St. John, on the contrary, the Logos appears in the full light of a concrete and living personality; it is the Son of God, the Messias, Jesus. Equally great is the difference when we consider the role of the Logos. The Logos of Philo is an intermediary: "The Father who engendered all has given to the Logos the signal privilege of being an intermediary ( methorios) between the creature and the creator . . . it is neither without beginning ( agenetos) as is God, nor begotten ( genetos) as you are [mankind], but intermediate ( mesos) between these two extremes "(Quis rer. divin. haeres sit, 205-06).
The Word of St. John is not an intermediary, but a Mediator; He is not intermediate between the two natures, Divine and human, but He unites them in His Person; it could not be said of Him, as of the Logos of Philo, that He is neither agenetosnor genetos, for He is at the same time one and the other, not inasmuch as He is the Word, but as the Incarnate Word (St. Ignatius, "Ad Ephes.", vii, 2).