in the Prologue of Saint John's Gospel.

231

form. The very expression seems to court the argument of Athenagoras, that since God could never have been aλoyos a, the Logos must have been not created but eternal. It suggests the further inference that since reason is man's noblest faculty, the Uncreated Logos must be at least equal with God. In any case it might have been asked why the term was used at all, if these obvious inferences were not to be deduced from it; but as a matter of fact they are not mere inferences, since they are warranted by the express language of St. John. St. John says that the Word was in the beginning.' The question then arises: What was His relation to the Self-existent Being? He was not merely παρὰ τῷ Θεῷ b, along with God, but πρὸς τὸν Θεόν. This last preposition expresses, beyond the fact of co-existence or immanence, the more significant fact of perpetuated intercommunion. The face of the Everlasting Word, if we may dare so to express ourselves, was ever directed towards the face of the Everlasting Father c. But was the Logos then an independent being, existing externally to the One God? To conceive of an independent being, anterior to creation, would be an error at issue with the first truth of monotheism; and therefore còs ĥv ó Aóyos d. The Word is not merely a Divine Being, but He is in the absolute sense God •. Thus from His eternal existence we

Athenag. Suppl. pro Christ. 10 (46 D. ed. Otto): elxev aútds év éautų τὸν Λόγον, ἀϊδίως λογικὸς ὤν,

b St. John xvii. 5.

c Meyer in loc.: Tpós bezeichnet das Befindlichsein des Logos bei Gott im Gesichtspunkte der Richtung der Gemeinschaft.' Bernhardy, Syntax, p. 265.

d The omission of the article before eós is explained by Meyer in loc.: 'Die Nichtsetzung des Artikels war nothwendig, weil deós nach dem vorherigen πpòs Tòv eóv dem Logos die Identität der Person zugesprochen hätte, was aber eben, nachdem πρòs тòν cóν die Verschiedenheit der Person gesetzt hat, ungereimt wäre, dagegen das Nichtartikulirte 0eós auf diese persönliche Verschiedenheit der Einheit des Wesens und der Natur folgen lässt.' This is a sufficient reply to Winer, Gr. N. T., iii. § 19. 1.

• Here is the essential difference between the Logos of St. John and the Logos of Philo. Meyer, who apparently holds Philo to have definitely considered his Logos as a real hypostasis, states it as follows, in his note on the words κal Oeds ĥv å Aóyos: Wie also Johannes, mit dem nichtartikulirten Ocós kein niedrigeres Wesen, als Gott Selbst hat, bezeichnen will; so unterscheidet sich die Johanneische Logos-Idee bestimmt von derjenigen bei Philo, welcher eós ohne Artikel im Sinne wesentlicher Unterordnung, ja, wie Er Selbst sagt, ev kaтaxphσeɩ (i. p. 655, ed. Mangey) vom Logos prädicirt;-wie denn auch der Name & deurepos eós, welchen er ihm giebt, nach ii. p. 625. Euseb. præp. Ev. vii. 13, ausdrücklich den Begriff eines Zwischenwesens zwischen Gott und dem Menschen

232 The Divine Nature, how represented in St. John.

ascend first to His distinct Personality, and then to the full truth of His substantial Godhead.

Yet the Logos necessarily suggests to our minds the further idea of communicativeness; the Logos is Speech as well as Thought f. And of His actual self-communication St. John mentions two phases or stages; the first creation, the second revelation. The Word unveils Himself to the soul through the mediation of objects of sense in the physical world, and He also unveils Himself immediately. Accordingly St. John says that 'all things were made' by the Word, and that the Word Who creates is also the Revealer: 'the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory.' He possesses dóğa, that is, in St. John, the totality of the Divine attributes. This 'glory' is not merely something belonging to His Essential Nature; since He allows us to behold It through His veil of Flesh.

What indeed this dóga or glory was, we may observe by considering that St. John's writings appear to bring God before us, at least more particularly, under a threefold aspect.

1. God is Life ((wń). The Father is 'living;' He has life in Himself h.' God is not merely the living God, that is, the real God, in contrast to the non-existent and feigned deities of the heathen: God is Life, in the sense of Self-existent Being; He is the Focus and the Fountain of universal life. In Him life may be contemplated in its twofold activity, as issuing from its source, and as returning to its object. The Life of God passes forth from Itself; It lavishes Itself throughout the realms of nothingness; It summons into being worlds, systems, intelligences, orders of existences unimagined before. In doing this It obeys no necessary law of self-expansion, but pours Itself forth with that highest generosity that belongs to a perfect freedom. That is to say, that God the Life is God the Creator. On the other hand, God is Being returning into Itself, finding in Itself Its perfect and consummate satisfaction. God is thus

bezeichnen soll, nach dessen Bilde Gott den Menschen geschaffen hat. Dieser Subordinatianismus, nach welchem der Logos zwar μεθόριός τις θεοῦ φύσις, aber τοῦ μὲν ἐλάττων, ἀνθρώπου δὲ κρείττων ist (i. p. 683) ist nicht der neu-testamentliche, welcher vielmehr die ewige Wesenseinheit des Vaters und des Sohnes zur Voraussetzung hat (Phil. ii. 6; Kol. i. 15 f.), und die Unterordnung des letztern in dessen Abhängigkeit vom Vater setzt.'

Cf Delitzsch, System der Biblischen Psychologie, p. 138. s St. John vi. 57: ἀπέστειλέ με ὁ ζῶν Πατήρ.

» Ibid. ν. 26 : ὁ Πατὴρ ἔχει ζωὴν ἐν ἑαυτῷ.

The Divine Nature, how represented in St. John. 233

the Object of all dependent Life; He is indeed the object of His own Life; all His infinite powers and faculties turn ever inward with uncloyed delight upon Himself as upon their one adequate End or Object. We cannot approach more nearly to a definition of pleasure than by saying that it is the exact correspondence between a faculty and its object. Pleasure is thus a test of vitality; and God, as being Life, is the one Being Who is supremely and perfectly happy. 2. Again, God is Love (ayán). subsists between God and all that lives as He has willed.

Love is the relation which

Love

is the bond of the Being of God. Love binds the Father to that Only Son Whom He has begotten from all eternity j. Love itself knows no beginning; it proceeds from the Father and the Son from all eternity. God loves created life, whether in nature or in grace; He loves the race of men, the unredeemed worldk; He loves Christians with a special lovel. In beings thus external to Himself, God loves the life which He has given them; He loves Himself in them; He is still Himself the ultimate, rightful, necessary Object of His love. Thus love is of His essence; it is the expression of His necessary delight in His own existence.

3. Lastly, God is Light (pws). That is to say, He is absolute intellectual and moral Truth; He is Truth in the realms of thought, and Truth in the sphere of action. He is the Allknowing and the perfectly Holy Being. No intellectual ignorance can darken His all-embracing survey of actual and possible fact; no stain can soil His robe of awful Sanctity. Light is not merely the sphere in which He dwells: He is His own sphere of existence; He is Himself Light, and in Him is no darkness at all m.

1 1 St. John iv. 8: ὁ μὴ ἀγαπῶν, οὐκ ἔγνω τὸν Θεόν· ὅτι ὁ Θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν. Ibid. ver. 16: ὁ Θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστὶ, καὶ ὁ μένων ἐν τῇ ἀγάπῃ, ἐν τῷ Θεῷ μένει, καὶ ὁ Θεὸς ἐν αὐτῷ.

j St. John iii. 35 : ὁ Πατὴρ ἀγαπᾷ τὸν Υἱὸν καὶ πάντα δέδωκεν ἐν τῇ χειρὶ αὐτοῦ. Ibid. v. 2ο: ὁ γὰρ Πατὴρ φιλεῖ τὸν Υἱὸν, καὶ πάντα δείκνυσιν αὐτῷ ἃ αὐτὸς ποιεῖ. Ibid. x. 17, xv. 9. Ibid. xvii. 24: ἠγάπησάς με πρὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου.

k St. John iii. 16: οὕτω γὰρ ἠγάπησεν ὁ Θεὸς τὸν κόσμον, ὥστε τὸν Υἱὸν αὐτοῦ τὸν μονογενῆ ἔδωκεν. I St. John iv. Ιο: αὐτὸς ἠγάπησεν ἡμᾶς, καὶ ἀπέστειλε τὸν Υἱὸν αὐτοῦ ἱλασμὸν περὶ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν. Ibid. ver. 19: ἡμεῖς ἀγαπῶμεν αὐτὸν, ὅτι αὐτὸς πρῶτος ἠγάπησεν ἡμᾶς.

1 St. John xiv. 23, xvi. 27.

m

I St. John i. 5 : ὁ Θεὸς φῶς ἐστι, καὶ σκοτία ἐν αὐτῷ οὐκ ἔστιν οὐδεμία. Ibid. ver. 7 : αὐτός ἐστιν ἐν τῷ φωτί. Here er does not merely point to the sphere in which God dwells. In St. John this preposition is constantly

234

GOD revealed by the Word Incarnate.

These three aspects of the Divine Nature, denoted by the terms Life, Love, and Light, are attributed in St. John's writings with abundant explicitness to the Word made flesh.

Thus, the Logos is Light. He is the Light, that is, the Light Which is the very essence of God. The Baptist indeed preaches truth; but the Baptist must not be confounded with the Light Which he heralds ". The Logos is the true Lighto. All that has really enlarged the stock of intellectual truth or of moral goodness among men, all that has ever lighted any soul of man, has radiated from Him P. He proclaims Himself to be the Light of the world 9, and the Truthr; and His Apostle, speaking of the illumination shed by Him upon the Church, reminds Christians that 'the darkness is passing, and the true Light now shineth s.'

The Logos is Love. He refracts upon the Father the fulness of His love t. He loves the Father as the Father loves Himself. The Father's love sends Him into the world, and He obeys out of love u. It is love which draws Him together with the Father to make His abode in the souls of the faithful.

used to denote the closest possible relationship between two subjects, or, as here, between a subject and its attribute. Cf. Reuss, Théologie Chrétienne, ii. p. 434, for this as well as many of the above observations and references.

n St. John i. 7 : οὗτος ἦλθεν εἰς μαρτυρίαν, ἵνα μαρτυρήσῃ περὶ τοῦ φωτός, Ibid. ver. 8: οὐκ ἦν ἐκεῖνος τὸ φῶς, ἀλλ ̓ ἵνα μαρτυρήσῃ περὶ τοῦ φωτός. • Ibid. ver. 9: ἦν τὸ φῶς τὸ ἀληθινόν.

P Ibid.: ὁ φωτίζει πάντα ἄνθρωπον ἐρχόμενον εἰς τὸν κόσμον. ‘Das φωτίζειν πάντα ἄνθρωπον, als charakteristische Wirksamkeit des wahren Lichts, bleibt wahr, wenngleich empirisch diese Erleuchtung von Vielen nicht empfangen wird. Das empirische Verhältniss kommt darauf zurück: quisquis illuminatur, ab hac luce illuminatur. (Beng.).' Meyer in Joh. i. 9. The Evangelist means more than this: no human being is left without a certain measure of natural light, and this light is given by the Divine Logos in all cases.

4 St. John viii. 12: ἐγώ εἰμι τὸ φῶς τοῦ κόσμου· ὁ ἀκολουθῶν ἐμοὶ, οὐ μὴ περιπατήσει ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ, ἀλλ ̓ ἕξει τὸ φῶς τῆς ζωῆς. Ibid. iii. 19: τὸ φῶς ¿λýλvlev eis tòv kóσμov, that is, in the Incarnate Word. Ibid. ix. 5: ötav év τῷ κόσμῳ ὦ, φῶς εἰμι τοῦ κόσμου. Ibid. xii. 46: ἐγὼ φῶς εἰς τὸν κόσμον ἐλήλυθα, ἵνα πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων εἰς ἐμὲ, ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ μὴ μείνῃ. Eph. v. 8.

r St. John xiv. 6.

Comp.

s I St. John ii. 8: ἡ σκοτία παράγεται, καὶ τὸ φῶς τὸ ἀληθινὸν ἤδη φαίνει. t St. John xiv. 31.

I St. John iii. 16: év Toútų ¿yvwkaμev Tǹv åyátη (the absolute charity), ὅτι ἐκεῖνος ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ ἔθηκε. Cf. St. John iii. 16.

* St. John xiv. 23: ἐάν τις ἀγαπᾷ με, τὸν λόγον μου τηρήσει, καὶ ὁ Πατήρ μου ἀγαπήσει αὐτόν, καὶ πρὸς αὐτὸν ἐλευσόμεθα, καὶ μονὴν παρ' αὐτῷ ποιήσομεν. Ibid. xiii. I, XV. 9.

The Word is the Only-begotten Son.

235

The Logos is Life. He is the Life y, the eternal Life 2, the Life Which is the Essence of God. It has been given Him to have life in Himself, as the Father has life in Himselfa. He can give life b; nay, life is so emphatically His prerogative gift, that He is called the Word of Life c.

Thus the Word reveals the Divine Essence; His Incarnation makes that Life, that Love, that Light, which is eternally resident in God, obvious to souls that steadily contemplate Himself. These terms, Life, Love, Light-so abstract, so simple, so suggestive-meet in God; but they meet also in Jesus Christ. They do not only make Him the centre of a philosophy. They belong to the mystic language of faith more truly than to the abstract terminology of speculative thought. They draw hearts to Jesus; they invest Him with a higher than any intellectual beauty. The Life, the Love, the Light, are the 'glory' of the Word Incarnate which His disciples 'beheld,' pouring its rays through the veil of His human tabernacle d. The Light, the Love, the Life, constitute the 'fulness' whereof His disciples received e. Herein is comprised that entire body of grace and truth f, by which the Word Incarnate gives to men the right to become the sons of God 8.

But, as has been already abundantly implied, the Word is also the Son. As applied to our Lord, the title Son of God' is protected by epithets which sustain and define its unique significance. In the synoptic Gospels, Christ is termed the 'well-beloved' Son h. In St. Paul He is God's Own' Son i. In St. John He is the Only-begotten Son, or simply the Only

▾ St. John xi. 25: è̟yw eiμɩ... Swn. Ibid. xiv. 6.

* I St. John v. 2ο: οὗτός ἐστιν ... ἡ ζωὴ αἰώνιος. The οὗτος is referred to the Father by Lücke and Winer. But see p. 242, note г.

• St. John v. 26: ἔδωκε καὶ τῷ Υἱῷ ζωὴν ἔχειν ἐν ἑαυτῷ.

b Ibid. i. 3, 4.

I St. John i. 1 : 8 λóyos Tŷs (wns. Reuss, Théol. Chrét. ii. p. 445. d St. John i. 14: ὁ Λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο, καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν, καὶ ἐθεασάμεθα τὴν δόξαν αὐτοῦ.

• Ibid. ver. 16: καὶ ἐκ τοῦ πληρώματος αὐτοῦ ἡμεῖς πάντες ἐλάβομεν.

* Ibid. ver. 14: πλήρης χάριτος καὶ ἀληθείας.

s Ibid. i. 12: ὅσοι δὲ ἔλαβον αὐτὸν, ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς ἐξουσίαν τέκνα Θεοῦ γενέσθαι.

hyannrós, St. Matt. iii. 17, xii. 18, xvii. 5; St. Mark i. 11, ix. 7, xii. 6; St. Luke iii. 22, ix. 35. Cod. Alex. reads Kλeλeyμévov, xx. 13; cf. 2 St. Peter i. 17.

1 Rom. viii. 32: τοῦ ἰδίου Υἱοῦ οὐκ ἐφείσατο. Ibid. ver. 3: τὸν ἑαυτοῦ Υἱὸν πέμψας.