Sometimes the Scripture ascribes to the word of God certain
supernatural effects, and often represents it as animated and active:
“He sent his word and healed them,” Psalm cvii, 20. It also signifies
what is written in the sacred books of the Old and New Testament, Luke
xi, 28; James i, 22; the divine law which teaches and commands good
things, and forbids evil, Psalm cxix, 101; and is used to express every
promise of God, Psalm cxix, 25, &c, and prophecy or vision, Isaiah, ii,
1. This term is likewise consecrated and appropriated to signify the
only Son of the Father, the uncreated Wisdom, the second Person of the
most holy Trinity, equal to and consubstantial with the Father. St. John
the evangelist, more expressly than any other, has opened to us the
mystery of the Word of God, when he tells us, “In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in
the beginning with God. All things were made by him, and without him was
not any thing made that was made,” John i, 1–3. The Chaldee paraphrasts,
the most ancient Jewish writers extant, generally make use of the word
_memra_, which signifies “the Word,” in those places where Moses puts
the name Yahweh. They say, for example, that it was the _Memra_, or the
Word, which created the world, which appeared to Moses on Mount Sinai,
which gave him the law, which spoke to him face to face, which brought
Israel out of Egypt, which marched before the people, and which wrought
all those miracles that are recorded in Exodus. It was the same Word
that appeared to Abraham in the plain of Mamre, that was seen of Jacob
at Bethel, to whom Jacob made his vow, and acknowledged as God, saying,
“If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, then
shall the Lord be my God,” Gen. xxviii, 20, 21. The manner in which St.
John commences his Gospel is strikingly different from the introductions
to the histories of Christ by the other evangelists; and no less
striking and peculiar is the title under which he announces him--“the
Word.” It has therefore been a subject of much inquiry and discussion,
from whence this evangelist drew the use of this appellation, and what
reasons led him, as though intending to solicit particular attention, to
place it at the very head of his Gospel. That it was for the purpose of
establishing an express opinion, as to the personal character of him it
is used to designate, is made more than probable from the predominant
character of the whole Gospel, which is more copiously doctrinal, and
contains a record more full of what Jesus “_said_” than the others. As
to the source from which the term Logos was drawn by the Apostle, some
have held it to be taken from the Jewish Scriptures; others, from the
Chaldee paraphrases; others, from Philo and the Hellenizing Jews. The
most natural conclusion certainly appears to be, that, as St. John was a
plain, “unlearned” man, chiefly conversant in the Holy Scriptures, he
derived this term from the sacred books of his own nation, in which the
Hebrew phrase, _Dabar Yahweh_, “the Word of Yahweh,” frequently occurs
in passages which must be understood to speak of a personal Word, and
which phrase is rendered Λόγος Κυρίου [the word of the Lord] by the
Septuagint interpreters. Certainly, there is not the least evidence in
his writings, or in his traditional history, that he ever acquainted
himself with Philo or with Plato; and none, therefore, that he borrowed
the term from them, or used it in any sense approaching to or suggested
by these refinements:--in the writings of St. Paul there are allusions
to poets and philosophers; in those of St. John, none, except to the
rising sects afterward known under the appellation of Gnostics. The
Hebrew Scriptures contain frequent intimations of a distinction of
Persons in the Godhead; one of these Divine Persons is called Yahweh;
and, though manifestly represented as existing distinct from the Father,
is yet arrayed with attributes of divinity, and was acknowledged by the
ancient Jews to be, in the highest sense, “their God,” the God with
whom, through all their history, they chiefly “had to do.” This Divine
Person is proved to have been spoken of by the prophets as the future
Christ; the evangelists and Apostles represent Jesus as that Divine
Person of the prophets; and if, in the writings of the Old Testament, he
is also called the Word, the application of this term to our Lord is
naturally accounted for. It will then appear to be a theological, not a
philosophic appellation, and one which, previously even to the time of
the Apostle, had been stamped with the authority of inspiration.
Celebrated as this title of the Logos was in the Jewish theology, it is
not, however, the appellation by which the Spirit of inspiration has
chosen that our Saviour should be principally designated. It occurs but
a very few times, and principally and emphatically in the introduction
to St. John’s Gospel. A cogent reason can be given why this Apostle
adopts it; and we are not without a probable reason why, in the New
Testament, the title “Son of God” should have been preferred, which is a
frequent title of the Logos in the writings also of Philo. Originating
from the spiritual principle of connection, between the first and the
second Being in the Godhead; marking this, by a spiritual idea of
connection; and considering it to be as close and as necessary as the
Word is to the energetic mind of God, which cannot bury its intellectual
energies in silence, but must put them forth in speech; it is too
spiritual in itself, to be addressed to the faith of the multitude. If
with so full a reference to our bodily ideas, and so positive a
filiation of the second Being to the first, we have seen the attempts of
Arian criticism endeavouring to resolve the doctrine into the mere dust
of a figure; how much more ready would it have been to do so, if we had
only such a spiritual denomination as this for the second! This would
certainly have been considered by it as too unsubstantial for distinct
personality, and therefore too evanescent for equal divinity. One of the
first teachers of this system was Cerinthus. We have not any particular
account of all the branches of his system; and it is possible that we
may ascribe to him some of those tenets by which later sects of Gnostics
were discriminated. But we have authority for saying, that the general
principle of the Gnostic scheme was openly taught by Cerinthus before
the publication of the Gospel of St. John. The authority is that of
Irenæus, a bishop who lived in the second century, who in his youth had
heard Polycarp, the disciple of the Apostle John, and who retained the
discourses of Polycarp in his memory till his death. There are yet
extant of the works of Irenæus, five books which he wrote against
heresies, one of the most authentic and valuable monuments of
theological erudition. In one place of that work he says, that Cerinthus
taught in Asia that the world was not made by the Supreme God, but by a
certain power very separate and far removed from the Sovereign of the
universe, and ignorant of his nature. In another place, he says that
John the Apostle wished, by his Gospel, to extirpate the error which had
been spread among men by Cerinthus; and Jerom, who lived in the fourth
century, says that St. John wrote his Gospel, at the desire of the
bishops of Asia, against Cerinthus and other heretics, and chiefly
against the doctrines of the Ebionites, then springing up, who said that
Christ did not exist before he was born of Mary.
“It appears,” says Dr. Hill, “to have been the tradition of the
Christian church, that St. John, who lived to a great age, and who
resided at Ephesus, in Proconsular Asia, was moved by the growth of the
Gnostic heresies, and by the solicitations of the Christian teachers, to
bear his testimony to the truth in writing, and particularly to
recollect those discourses and actions of our Lord, which might furnish
the clearest refutation of the persons who denied his preëxistence. This
tradition is a key to a great part of his Gospel. Matthew, Mark, and
Luke had given a detail of those actions of Jesus which are the
evidences of his divine mission; of those events in his life upon earth
which are most interesting to the human race; and of those moral
discourses in which the wisdom, the grace, and the sanctity of the
Teacher shine with united lustre. Their whole narration implies that
Jesus was more than man. But as it is distinguished by a beautiful
simplicity, which adds very much to their credit as historians, they
have not, with the exception of a few incidental expressions, formally
stated the conclusion that Jesus was more than man; but have left the
Christian world to draw it for themselves from the facts narrated, or to
receive it by the teaching and the writings of the Apostles. St. John,
who was preserved by God to see this conclusion, which had been drawn by
the great body of Christians, and had been established in the epistles,
denied by different heretics, brings forward, in the form of a history
of Jesus, a view of his exalted character, and draws our attention
particularly to the truth of that which had been denied. When you come
to analyze the Gospel of St. John, you will find that the first eighteen
verses contain the positions laid down by the Apostle, in order to meet
the errors of Cerinthus; that these positions, which are merely affirmed
in the introduction, are proved in the progress of the Gospel, by the
testimony of John the Baptist, and by the words and the actions of our
Lord; and that after the proof is concluded by the declaration of
Thomas, who, upon being convinced that Jesus had risen, said to him, ‘My
Lord, and my God,’ St. John sums up the amount of his Gospel in these
few words: ‘These are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God;’ that is, that Jesus and the Christ are not
distinct persons, and that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. The Apostle
does not condescend to mention the name of Cerinthus, because that would
have preserved, as long as the world lasts, the memory of a name which
might otherwise be forgotten. But, although there is dignity and
propriety in omitting the mention of his name, it was necessary, in
laying down the positions that were to meet his errors, to adopt some of
his words, because the Christians of those days would not so readily
have applied the doctrine of the Apostle to the refutation of those
heresies which Cerinthus was spreading among them, if they had not found
in the exposition of that doctrine some of the terms in which the heresy
was delivered; and as the chief of these terms, Logos, which Cerinthus
applied to an inferior spirit, was equivalent to a phrase in common use
among the Jews, ‘the Word of Yahweh,’ and was probably borrowed from
thence, John by his use of Logos rescues it from the degraded use of
Cerinthus, and restores it to a sense corresponding to the dignity of
the Jewish phrase.”
The Logos was no fanciful term, merely invented by St. John, _pro re
natâ_, [according to circumstances,] or even suggested by the Holy
Spirit, as a suitable title for a prophet by whom God chose to reveal
himself or his Word. It was a term diversely understood in the world
before St. John began his Gospel. Is it possible, therefore, that he
should have used the term without some express allusion to these
prevailing opinions? Had he contradicted them all, it would, of course,
have been a plain proof, that they were all equally fabulous and
fanciful; but by adopting the term, he certainly meant to show, that the
error did not consist in believing that there was a Logos, or Word of
God, but in thinking amiss of it. We might, indeed, have wondered much
had he decidedly adopted the Platonic or Gnostic notions, in preference
to the Jewish; but that he should harmonize with the latter, is by no
means surprising; first, because he was a Jew himself; and, secondly,
because Christianity was plainly to be shown to be connected with, and,
as it were, regularly to have sprung out of, Judaism. It is certainly,
then, in the highest degree consistent with all we could reasonably
expect, to find St. John and others of the sacred writers expressing
themselves in terms not only familiar to the Jews under the old
covenant, but, in such as might tend, by a perfect revelation of the
truth, to give instruction to all parties; correcting the errors of the
Platonic and oriental systems, and confirming, in the clearest manner,
the hopes and expectations of the Jews.
While the reasons for the use of this term by St. John are obvious, the
argument from it is irresistible; for, first, the Logos of the
evangelist is a _person_, not an _attribute_, as many Socinians have
said, who have, therefore, sometimes chosen to render it _wisdom_. For
if it be an attribute, it were a mere truism to say, that “it was in the
beginning with God;” because God could never be without his attributes.
The Apostle also declares, that the Logos was the Light; but that John
Baptist was not the light. Here is a kind of parallel supposed, and it
presumes, also, that it was possible that the same character might be
erroneously ascribed to both. Between person and person this may,
undoubtedly, be the case; but what species of parallel can exist between
man and an attribute? Nor will the difficulty be obviated by suggesting,
that wisdom here means not the attribute itself, but him whom that
attribute inspired, the man Jesus Christ, because the name of our
Saviour has not yet been mentioned; because that rule of interpretation
must be inadmissible, which at one time would explain the term Logos by
an attribute, at another by a man, as best suits the convenience of
hypothesis; and because, if it be, in this instance, conceived to
indicate our Saviour, it must follow, that our Saviour created the
world, (which the Unitarians will by no means admit,) for the Logos, who
was that which John the Baptist was not, the true Light, is expressly
declared to have made the world. Again: the Logos was made flesh, that
is, became man; but in what possible sense could an attribute become
man? The Logos is “the only begotten of the Father;” but it would be
uncouth to say of any attribute, that it is begotten; and, if that were
passed over, it would follow, from this notion, either that God has only
one attribute, or that wisdom is not his only begotten attribute.
Farther: St. John uses terms decisively personal, as that he is God, not
divine as an attribute, but God personally; not that he was in God,
which would properly have been said of an attribute, but _with_ God,
which he could only say of a person; that “all things were made by him;”
that he was “in the world;” that “he came to his own;” that he was “in
the bosom of the Father;” and that “he hath declared the Father.” The
absurdity of representing the Logos of St. John as an attribute seems,
at length, to have been perceived by the Socinians themselves, and their
new version accordingly regards it as a personal term.
If the Logos be a person, then is he Divine; for, first, eternity is
ascribed to him: “In the beginning was the Word.” The Unitarian comment
is, “from the beginning of his ministry,” or “the commencement of the
Gospel dispensation;” which makes St. John use another trifling truism,
and solemnly tell his readers, that our Saviour, when he began his
ministry, was in existence! “in the beginning of his ministry the Word
_was_!” It is true, that ἀρχὴ, “the beginning,” is used for the
beginning of Christ’s ministry, when he says that the Apostles had been
with him from the beginning; and it may be used for the beginning of any
thing whatever. It is a term which must be determined in its meaning by
the context; and the question, therefore, is, how the connection here
determines it. Almost immediately it is added, “All things were made by
him;” which can only mean the creation of universal nature. He, then,
who made all things was prior to all created things; he _was_ when they
_began_ to be, and before they began to be; and, if he existed before
all created things, he was not himself created, and was, therefore,
eternal. Secondly, he is expressly called God; and, thirdly, he is as
explicitly said to be the Creator of all things. The two last
particulars have often been largely established, and nothing need be
added, except, as another proof that the Scriptures can only be fairly
explained by the doctrine of a distinction of divine Persons in the
Godhead, the declaration of St. John may be adduced, that “the Word was
_with_ God, and the Word was God.” What hypothesis but this goes a
single step to explain this wonderful language? Arianism, which allows
the preëxistence of Christ _with_ God, accords with the first clause,
but contradicts the second. Sabellianism, which reduces the personal to
an official, and therefore a temporal, distinction, accords with the
second clause, but contradicts the first; for Christ, according to this
theory, was not with God in the beginning, that is in eternity.
Socinianism contradicts both clauses; for on that scheme Christ was
neither with God in the beginning, nor was he God. “The faith of God’s
elect” agrees with both clauses, and by both it is established: “The
Word was with God, and the Word was God.” See UNITARIANS.
supernatural effects, and often represents it as animated and active:
“He sent his word and healed them,” Psalm cvii, 20. It also signifies
what is written in the sacred books of the Old and New Testament, Luke
xi, 28; James i, 22; the divine law which teaches and commands good
things, and forbids evil, Psalm cxix, 101; and is used to express every
promise of God, Psalm cxix, 25, &c, and prophecy or vision, Isaiah, ii,
1. This term is likewise consecrated and appropriated to signify the
only Son of the Father, the uncreated Wisdom, the second Person of the
most holy Trinity, equal to and consubstantial with the Father. St. John
the evangelist, more expressly than any other, has opened to us the
mystery of the Word of God, when he tells us, “In the beginning was the
Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in
the beginning with God. All things were made by him, and without him was
not any thing made that was made,” John i, 1–3. The Chaldee paraphrasts,
the most ancient Jewish writers extant, generally make use of the word
_memra_, which signifies “the Word,” in those places where Moses puts
the name Yahweh. They say, for example, that it was the _Memra_, or the
Word, which created the world, which appeared to Moses on Mount Sinai,
which gave him the law, which spoke to him face to face, which brought
Israel out of Egypt, which marched before the people, and which wrought
all those miracles that are recorded in Exodus. It was the same Word
that appeared to Abraham in the plain of Mamre, that was seen of Jacob
at Bethel, to whom Jacob made his vow, and acknowledged as God, saying,
“If God will be with me, and will keep me in this way that I go, then
shall the Lord be my God,” Gen. xxviii, 20, 21. The manner in which St.
John commences his Gospel is strikingly different from the introductions
to the histories of Christ by the other evangelists; and no less
striking and peculiar is the title under which he announces him--“the
Word.” It has therefore been a subject of much inquiry and discussion,
from whence this evangelist drew the use of this appellation, and what
reasons led him, as though intending to solicit particular attention, to
place it at the very head of his Gospel. That it was for the purpose of
establishing an express opinion, as to the personal character of him it
is used to designate, is made more than probable from the predominant
character of the whole Gospel, which is more copiously doctrinal, and
contains a record more full of what Jesus “_said_” than the others. As
to the source from which the term Logos was drawn by the Apostle, some
have held it to be taken from the Jewish Scriptures; others, from the
Chaldee paraphrases; others, from Philo and the Hellenizing Jews. The
most natural conclusion certainly appears to be, that, as St. John was a
plain, “unlearned” man, chiefly conversant in the Holy Scriptures, he
derived this term from the sacred books of his own nation, in which the
Hebrew phrase, _Dabar Yahweh_, “the Word of Yahweh,” frequently occurs
in passages which must be understood to speak of a personal Word, and
which phrase is rendered Λόγος Κυρίου [the word of the Lord] by the
Septuagint interpreters. Certainly, there is not the least evidence in
his writings, or in his traditional history, that he ever acquainted
himself with Philo or with Plato; and none, therefore, that he borrowed
the term from them, or used it in any sense approaching to or suggested
by these refinements:--in the writings of St. Paul there are allusions
to poets and philosophers; in those of St. John, none, except to the
rising sects afterward known under the appellation of Gnostics. The
Hebrew Scriptures contain frequent intimations of a distinction of
Persons in the Godhead; one of these Divine Persons is called Yahweh;
and, though manifestly represented as existing distinct from the Father,
is yet arrayed with attributes of divinity, and was acknowledged by the
ancient Jews to be, in the highest sense, “their God,” the God with
whom, through all their history, they chiefly “had to do.” This Divine
Person is proved to have been spoken of by the prophets as the future
Christ; the evangelists and Apostles represent Jesus as that Divine
Person of the prophets; and if, in the writings of the Old Testament, he
is also called the Word, the application of this term to our Lord is
naturally accounted for. It will then appear to be a theological, not a
philosophic appellation, and one which, previously even to the time of
the Apostle, had been stamped with the authority of inspiration.
Celebrated as this title of the Logos was in the Jewish theology, it is
not, however, the appellation by which the Spirit of inspiration has
chosen that our Saviour should be principally designated. It occurs but
a very few times, and principally and emphatically in the introduction
to St. John’s Gospel. A cogent reason can be given why this Apostle
adopts it; and we are not without a probable reason why, in the New
Testament, the title “Son of God” should have been preferred, which is a
frequent title of the Logos in the writings also of Philo. Originating
from the spiritual principle of connection, between the first and the
second Being in the Godhead; marking this, by a spiritual idea of
connection; and considering it to be as close and as necessary as the
Word is to the energetic mind of God, which cannot bury its intellectual
energies in silence, but must put them forth in speech; it is too
spiritual in itself, to be addressed to the faith of the multitude. If
with so full a reference to our bodily ideas, and so positive a
filiation of the second Being to the first, we have seen the attempts of
Arian criticism endeavouring to resolve the doctrine into the mere dust
of a figure; how much more ready would it have been to do so, if we had
only such a spiritual denomination as this for the second! This would
certainly have been considered by it as too unsubstantial for distinct
personality, and therefore too evanescent for equal divinity. One of the
first teachers of this system was Cerinthus. We have not any particular
account of all the branches of his system; and it is possible that we
may ascribe to him some of those tenets by which later sects of Gnostics
were discriminated. But we have authority for saying, that the general
principle of the Gnostic scheme was openly taught by Cerinthus before
the publication of the Gospel of St. John. The authority is that of
Irenæus, a bishop who lived in the second century, who in his youth had
heard Polycarp, the disciple of the Apostle John, and who retained the
discourses of Polycarp in his memory till his death. There are yet
extant of the works of Irenæus, five books which he wrote against
heresies, one of the most authentic and valuable monuments of
theological erudition. In one place of that work he says, that Cerinthus
taught in Asia that the world was not made by the Supreme God, but by a
certain power very separate and far removed from the Sovereign of the
universe, and ignorant of his nature. In another place, he says that
John the Apostle wished, by his Gospel, to extirpate the error which had
been spread among men by Cerinthus; and Jerom, who lived in the fourth
century, says that St. John wrote his Gospel, at the desire of the
bishops of Asia, against Cerinthus and other heretics, and chiefly
against the doctrines of the Ebionites, then springing up, who said that
Christ did not exist before he was born of Mary.
“It appears,” says Dr. Hill, “to have been the tradition of the
Christian church, that St. John, who lived to a great age, and who
resided at Ephesus, in Proconsular Asia, was moved by the growth of the
Gnostic heresies, and by the solicitations of the Christian teachers, to
bear his testimony to the truth in writing, and particularly to
recollect those discourses and actions of our Lord, which might furnish
the clearest refutation of the persons who denied his preëxistence. This
tradition is a key to a great part of his Gospel. Matthew, Mark, and
Luke had given a detail of those actions of Jesus which are the
evidences of his divine mission; of those events in his life upon earth
which are most interesting to the human race; and of those moral
discourses in which the wisdom, the grace, and the sanctity of the
Teacher shine with united lustre. Their whole narration implies that
Jesus was more than man. But as it is distinguished by a beautiful
simplicity, which adds very much to their credit as historians, they
have not, with the exception of a few incidental expressions, formally
stated the conclusion that Jesus was more than man; but have left the
Christian world to draw it for themselves from the facts narrated, or to
receive it by the teaching and the writings of the Apostles. St. John,
who was preserved by God to see this conclusion, which had been drawn by
the great body of Christians, and had been established in the epistles,
denied by different heretics, brings forward, in the form of a history
of Jesus, a view of his exalted character, and draws our attention
particularly to the truth of that which had been denied. When you come
to analyze the Gospel of St. John, you will find that the first eighteen
verses contain the positions laid down by the Apostle, in order to meet
the errors of Cerinthus; that these positions, which are merely affirmed
in the introduction, are proved in the progress of the Gospel, by the
testimony of John the Baptist, and by the words and the actions of our
Lord; and that after the proof is concluded by the declaration of
Thomas, who, upon being convinced that Jesus had risen, said to him, ‘My
Lord, and my God,’ St. John sums up the amount of his Gospel in these
few words: ‘These are written that ye might believe that Jesus is the
Christ, the Son of God;’ that is, that Jesus and the Christ are not
distinct persons, and that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. The Apostle
does not condescend to mention the name of Cerinthus, because that would
have preserved, as long as the world lasts, the memory of a name which
might otherwise be forgotten. But, although there is dignity and
propriety in omitting the mention of his name, it was necessary, in
laying down the positions that were to meet his errors, to adopt some of
his words, because the Christians of those days would not so readily
have applied the doctrine of the Apostle to the refutation of those
heresies which Cerinthus was spreading among them, if they had not found
in the exposition of that doctrine some of the terms in which the heresy
was delivered; and as the chief of these terms, Logos, which Cerinthus
applied to an inferior spirit, was equivalent to a phrase in common use
among the Jews, ‘the Word of Yahweh,’ and was probably borrowed from
thence, John by his use of Logos rescues it from the degraded use of
Cerinthus, and restores it to a sense corresponding to the dignity of
the Jewish phrase.”
The Logos was no fanciful term, merely invented by St. John, _pro re
natâ_, [according to circumstances,] or even suggested by the Holy
Spirit, as a suitable title for a prophet by whom God chose to reveal
himself or his Word. It was a term diversely understood in the world
before St. John began his Gospel. Is it possible, therefore, that he
should have used the term without some express allusion to these
prevailing opinions? Had he contradicted them all, it would, of course,
have been a plain proof, that they were all equally fabulous and
fanciful; but by adopting the term, he certainly meant to show, that the
error did not consist in believing that there was a Logos, or Word of
God, but in thinking amiss of it. We might, indeed, have wondered much
had he decidedly adopted the Platonic or Gnostic notions, in preference
to the Jewish; but that he should harmonize with the latter, is by no
means surprising; first, because he was a Jew himself; and, secondly,
because Christianity was plainly to be shown to be connected with, and,
as it were, regularly to have sprung out of, Judaism. It is certainly,
then, in the highest degree consistent with all we could reasonably
expect, to find St. John and others of the sacred writers expressing
themselves in terms not only familiar to the Jews under the old
covenant, but, in such as might tend, by a perfect revelation of the
truth, to give instruction to all parties; correcting the errors of the
Platonic and oriental systems, and confirming, in the clearest manner,
the hopes and expectations of the Jews.
While the reasons for the use of this term by St. John are obvious, the
argument from it is irresistible; for, first, the Logos of the
evangelist is a _person_, not an _attribute_, as many Socinians have
said, who have, therefore, sometimes chosen to render it _wisdom_. For
if it be an attribute, it were a mere truism to say, that “it was in the
beginning with God;” because God could never be without his attributes.
The Apostle also declares, that the Logos was the Light; but that John
Baptist was not the light. Here is a kind of parallel supposed, and it
presumes, also, that it was possible that the same character might be
erroneously ascribed to both. Between person and person this may,
undoubtedly, be the case; but what species of parallel can exist between
man and an attribute? Nor will the difficulty be obviated by suggesting,
that wisdom here means not the attribute itself, but him whom that
attribute inspired, the man Jesus Christ, because the name of our
Saviour has not yet been mentioned; because that rule of interpretation
must be inadmissible, which at one time would explain the term Logos by
an attribute, at another by a man, as best suits the convenience of
hypothesis; and because, if it be, in this instance, conceived to
indicate our Saviour, it must follow, that our Saviour created the
world, (which the Unitarians will by no means admit,) for the Logos, who
was that which John the Baptist was not, the true Light, is expressly
declared to have made the world. Again: the Logos was made flesh, that
is, became man; but in what possible sense could an attribute become
man? The Logos is “the only begotten of the Father;” but it would be
uncouth to say of any attribute, that it is begotten; and, if that were
passed over, it would follow, from this notion, either that God has only
one attribute, or that wisdom is not his only begotten attribute.
Farther: St. John uses terms decisively personal, as that he is God, not
divine as an attribute, but God personally; not that he was in God,
which would properly have been said of an attribute, but _with_ God,
which he could only say of a person; that “all things were made by him;”
that he was “in the world;” that “he came to his own;” that he was “in
the bosom of the Father;” and that “he hath declared the Father.” The
absurdity of representing the Logos of St. John as an attribute seems,
at length, to have been perceived by the Socinians themselves, and their
new version accordingly regards it as a personal term.
If the Logos be a person, then is he Divine; for, first, eternity is
ascribed to him: “In the beginning was the Word.” The Unitarian comment
is, “from the beginning of his ministry,” or “the commencement of the
Gospel dispensation;” which makes St. John use another trifling truism,
and solemnly tell his readers, that our Saviour, when he began his
ministry, was in existence! “in the beginning of his ministry the Word
_was_!” It is true, that ἀρχὴ, “the beginning,” is used for the
beginning of Christ’s ministry, when he says that the Apostles had been
with him from the beginning; and it may be used for the beginning of any
thing whatever. It is a term which must be determined in its meaning by
the context; and the question, therefore, is, how the connection here
determines it. Almost immediately it is added, “All things were made by
him;” which can only mean the creation of universal nature. He, then,
who made all things was prior to all created things; he _was_ when they
_began_ to be, and before they began to be; and, if he existed before
all created things, he was not himself created, and was, therefore,
eternal. Secondly, he is expressly called God; and, thirdly, he is as
explicitly said to be the Creator of all things. The two last
particulars have often been largely established, and nothing need be
added, except, as another proof that the Scriptures can only be fairly
explained by the doctrine of a distinction of divine Persons in the
Godhead, the declaration of St. John may be adduced, that “the Word was
_with_ God, and the Word was God.” What hypothesis but this goes a
single step to explain this wonderful language? Arianism, which allows
the preëxistence of Christ _with_ God, accords with the first clause,
but contradicts the second. Sabellianism, which reduces the personal to
an official, and therefore a temporal, distinction, accords with the
second clause, but contradicts the first; for Christ, according to this
theory, was not with God in the beginning, that is in eternity.
Socinianism contradicts both clauses; for on that scheme Christ was
neither with God in the beginning, nor was he God. “The faith of God’s
elect” agrees with both clauses, and by both it is established: “The
Word was with God, and the Word was God.” See UNITARIANS.