Category:Logos (subject)

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Logos/Word

Overview

Logos, in ancient sources

Psalms

“By the Word (logos) of the Lord the heavens were made and all their host by the breath of his mouth… He spoke, and [the world] came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm” (Ps 33:6-9)

Philo

<NOTES : Before the emergence of the material world there existed, in the Divine Word or Reason, the incorporeal world, as the design of a city exists in the brain of the designer/ The incorporeal world may be described as "the Word of God engaged in the act of creating." And the Word is the Image of God. In that, man (the part), and therefore the universe (the whole) was created : The Word is God in the act of creating the universe… Like an architect, who is about to built a city, God first made an incorporeal model in His own mind like a “son”, and then built the universe according to this image… The universe was made in the image of the image of God… The image of God is His logos or Wisdom… The Logos is the instrument that God used to create the universe; is the heavenly High Priest…>

LOGOS = Word, Reason, Wisdom

On the Creation of the World (De Opificio Mundi) - (23) And God, not being urged on by any prompter (for who else could there have been to prompt him?) but guided by his own sole will, decided that it was fitting to benefit with unlimited and abundant favours a nature which, without the divine gift, was unable to itself to partake of any good thing; but he benefits it, not according to the greatness of his own graces, for they are illimitable and eternal, but according to the power of that which is benefited to receive his graces. For the capacity of that which is created to receive benefits does not correspond to the natural power of God to confer them; since his powers are infinitely greater, and the thing created being not sufficiently powerful to receive all their greatness would have sunk under it, if he had not measured his bounty, allotting to each, in due proportion, that which was poured upon it. (24) And if any one were to desire to use more undisguised terms, he would not call the world, which is perceptible only to the intellect, any thing else but the LOGOS (Word, Reason, Wisdom) of God, already occupied in the creation of the world; for neither is a city, while only perceptible to the intellect, anything else but the LOGOS of the architect, who is already designing to build one perceptible to the external senses, on the model of that which is so only to the intellect--(25) this is the doctrine of Moses, not mine. Accordingly he, when recording the creation of man, in words which follow, asserts expressly, that he was made in the image of God--and if the image be a part of the image, then manifestly so is the entire form, namely, the whole of this world perceptible by the external senses, which is a greater imitation of the divine image than the human form is. It is manifest also, that the archetypal seal, which we call that world which is perceptible only to the intellect, must itself be the archetypal model, the idea of ideas, the LOGOS of God.

Justin Martyr

I shall give you another testimony, my friends, from the Scriptures, that God begot before all creatures a Beginning, [who was] a certain rational power [proceeding] from Himself, who is called by the Holy Spirit, now the Glory of the Lord, now the Son, again Wisdom, again an Angel, then God, and then Lord and Logos

References

• / [[]] / In: The Anchor Bible Dictionary (1992 Freedman), dictionary,

• Logos / Thomas H. Tobin / In: The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism (2010 Collins / Harlow), dictionary, 894-896

In Depth

• A (sources) -- survey of ancient sources

• A (arts) -- survey of fictional works

• A (research) -- survey of scholarly works

External links

• Wikipedia (logos) and Wikipedia (logos--Christianity)