Logos.doc

THE LOGOS, FROM REASON TO THE WONDER OF MIND
Ph. D. Rodica POP



Abstract
The terms of Logos used by John Apostle has, without doubt, reverberations
in stoic philosophy, at Plato and it was already used by Philo of
Alexandria. Can it be said that the Christian theology assumed, simply, one
Greek philosophical concept and it bunk of concept of God? Has Christianity
somehow absorbed the Greek teachings from pragmatic reasons, thus giving a
direction to Christian dogmatists who initially did not have a plan and
which they could not change it following?
In this paper I try to show that this does not happen - the proof is the
Gnosticism condemnation by the Church Fathers – and that the concept of
Logos was used in philosophical interpretation of the Christian faith,
being a constituent of faith. When the Saint John says that Jesus is the
Logos, this isn't a philosophical statement, but one religion.
Keywords: logos, philosophy, theology, Plato, plagiarism

Introduction
The particularity of the Greek spirit lies in the way the sought the Truth,
way which transcends history. Then, in the unity between the intelligible
world (noita), the thinking spirit (nous) and the being (einai)[i] –
three elements that led them to a meaning of extraordiary significance of
the term cosmos (κόσμος), as a blend of harmony and beauty. Within this
unit lies the Truth, which for Plato was identical to Virtue (areti),
Beauty (to kalon), the Good, identity ensured by the logos (λόγος) (Menon
and the Republic). This is the reason why, to the Greeks, the Truth was
firstly a matter of cosmology. As a result of this way of thinking, the
place of history itself became problematic in Greek ontology. The
historical events had to be explained via a certain logos, that was
attributed to a certain reasoning that was to either be held responsible
for them or to be investigated for justifications. [...] Both during the
classical period as well as neoplatonists shared the same ontological
assumption that the being represents one indivisible unit, a closed circle
made up of logos or nous. Both history and matter had to either conform to
this unity or fail the being altogether" (Zizioulas 2007, pp. 63-64).
Plato's philosophy and that of the Christian mysticism – the former having
a major role in defining the latter – are marked by the temsion between
what can be conveyed and what goes beyond the human's power of defining or
comprehending. Only an intimate dialogue with God, solely the contemplation
can lift the soul of man to the divine space, to the Realm of Ideas, to
that place where it can visualise Beauty in itself; this is a concrete
example of Christian pre-apophatism in Plato, for what the soul can
contemplate cannot be confined to a definition, to a logos (λόγος): it is
neither born, nor does it die; it never grows nor does it diminish; it is
free from any relativity as to its nature, duration or place; it cannot be
represented neither by image (phantasia - φαντασία), nor by definition
(logos), it does not manifest itself in anything as it is unique in its
self" (Louth 2002, p.33)[ii].

1. Platonism

1. a. Is there a theory of Platonist logos?
The present study deals with the problem of the logos in Plato, in
Christianity, passing through the Jewish philosophy of Philo of Alexandria.
There are many connections between Platonism and Christianity in order to
place ourselves from the very onset, within certain frameworks that are
slightly diferent from the majority of to the critics of the Greek
philosopher's works, who saw the Platonist logos as a question related
chiefly to language or rhetoric. We believe that the things are much more
complex than this.
The Brice Parain's book (Parain 1998) excells in rigour and in detailed
analisis of the significance language has in Plato's works. El anticipates
(Parain 1998, p.10) in his introduction to the book that, by the
investigation that he intends to perform , he wishes to bring the Greek
spirit in its religious climate. From our point of view, Brice Parain
suceeds in accomplishing his goal only in part because he sticks to the the
meaning of logos as a mere linguistic device and does not even mention the
contribution that Eros has to comprehending the Realm of Ideas through
logos. Also, he ignores the fact that the search for virtue (arety) is a
guiding line, one of the major themes of Platonist thinking, and that the
logos is related to the problem of knowing and committing. in equal
measure, he does not associate the logos to Immortality (Bres 2000, p.291),
which to Plato represented knowing reality, in other words, the absolute
knowledge of the Realm of Ideas, endevour that is possible here on Earth
only in the form of the pretasting[iii], that the soul receives during
contemplation. What we propose is an understanding of Plato's logos from
the perspective of the mysticism of the ineffable (that because it
represents the first major moment of an intellectual history of
interiority" (Baghiu 2006, p.50), while the other moment belongs to the
Christian mysticism); and, by taking into account the essential attribute
the Theory of Ideas, that of mystical ontology.

1. b. Word. To speak. To name
Despite the dimension the significance the logos would aquire in
Christianity, it is quite difficult at a first glance to tell that we are
dealing with a theory on Plato's logos that is concrete and obvious, as we
have been taught in the meantime by the system philosophy. This is
especially because the term logos was an everyday word for the Greeks – as
Yvon Bres (Bres 2000, p.132) remarked. Logos is the noun of the verb
legein (to speak, to say), and its meanings revolve around language terms
such as definition, discourse, argument or reasoning. In Plato it is barely
noticeable, for one has to look for it in every corner and throughout the
entire maze in the dialogues Socrates invites his interlocutors to. When it
lets itself discovered, we conclude that what we fiind in Plato's logos is
a dynamic, invasive, complex conceptual construction, a fine, strong web
Plato wove as a linking bridge and the role of the logos is to mediate
between the sensible world and the intelligible one.
In Theaitetos, Plato wishes to provide a progressive explanation to the
logos and proposes a preliminary stage in realising the supreme knowledge,
επιστήμη (epistimi), for which an important aspect is the openness to λόγον
(logon - word) - to give and receive word" (Theaitetos 206d). Thus, the
Logos represents conveying the intellect through words, διάνοια (dianoia),
it is thinking of speaking as images", as Theaitetos put it in the
dialogue with the same title (208c). Then, Socrates tried to define it
through its constituents (the same way we define the sentences as verbs
and nouns) (Parain 1998, p.10), but it seemed to him a superficial
approach.: If it seems to you too, my friend and, if you accept that going
all the way through the element means, in the case of each thing, meaning ,
whereas a segment or even a larger portion, lack of meaning, tell me what
this thing (word) is and we shall investigate it" (Theaitetos 207c).
Another description would have to do with emphasising the particular inside
the whole that is either the definition, nature or essence to name a sign
by which the object of the question distinguishes itself from all the
others" (Theaitetos 208c).
In Christian theology, we find a striking resemblance in explaining the
language as a result of thinking: If we can also think about things it is
because they are plasticised manifestations of the reasons of a supreme
personal Reason. If we can express them through words, It is because they
are plasticised from the Word (the Logos) addressed to us, adapted to our
level. We think rationally and we speak because we are partners of the
Person who is Himself The Personal Word and presented us with His thinking,
or the manifestation of His plasticised thinking, at the level of our
thinking and created the power of conveying, using a creative power that we
do not have" (Staniloae 1997, II p.9).

1. c. What does Socrates want?
The originality of Socrates as a being human extended to the special way he
understood to practise philosophy. In comparison to the sophists who offer
their services in exchanges for an substantially remuneration, Socrate's
preoccupation for wisdom was naturally, philosophy was to him a modus
vivendi. Socrates was interested in knowing himself, thus learning the
truth of things. He encouraged others to do the same. That was the secret,
the key and the motor of his entire pilosophy: in knowing oneself, he could
see the opportunity to know reality. But Socrates did not understood
reality as what is palpable or susceptible of scientific experimenting. The
reality Socrates yearned for, driven by love for the Beautiful in itself,
the Good itself and the Truth of things was the Realm of Ideas.
The sensations generated by the body enslave reason and hinder us from true
learning in communion with others and from grasping meanings inaccessible
to the sensors it possesses (Phaidon 65bc). The eyesight and the hearing
have the ability to transmit information to the intelligible part of the
soul but they are altered, defiled, fragmented and tainted by the filter of
the flesh. Considering the eyes and the ears are treacherous instruments
of learning, Socrates spoke again of the body's lacks in abilities and of
the danger of being misled. The body represents an obstacle in a
philosophers path as it hinders[iv] the hunt for reality, the thinking
itself and the revealing of the truth. Salvation comes from the soul as it
alone possesses the instrurments necessary to set out on hunt for reality"
(Phaidon 66c).

1. d. About midwifery, a way of using the logos
This phrase, hunt for reality" naturally arouses interest and curiosity.
For reality seems something that must be conquered and not something simply
taking place in front of the human's eyes, with or without his volition. If
we investigate the matter, we shall discover that the logos is the weapon
that Socrates uses in this film of the hunting, which Plato also describes
along several dialogues. We learn that the logos is the bridge between the
two worlds, some kind of a catapult that sends the soul from the world of
senses into the Realm of Ideas which is, in Plato's opinion, Reality
itself.
What Socrates proposed as a path to knowledge passes through the logos and
it is called maieutike (maieutics), translated in his own terms as: the
job of a midwife" (Theaitetos 210b) practised by those skilled in helping
women give birth to their babies and in helping recents mothers (The
Politics 268b); The art to help deliver the spirit" (Theaitetos 150b),
techniques compared by Socrates to the process of gaining knowledge and
representing discerning the truth from the untruth" (Theaitetos 150b). The
desire to know was for Socrates as tormenting as the pains of accouchement
(Theaitetos 150d-e, 210b), and he, born from a midwife mother, considered
himseld be to a kind of a midwife, except he practised his skill not on
women, but on men, whom he assisted in flourishing their spirit. If
midwives did that, says Socrates, the greatest and the most beautiful
work for the midwives would be to separate the truth from the untruth"
(Theaitetos 150b).
The technique of midwifing the spirit consisted in addressing questions
that help the interlocutor arrive to discovering the truth himself. For
Plato, the success of this method was an argument to support his theory of
reminiscing, acording to which the man does not actually learn anything
new, his effort focussing on remembering (anamnesis) the things the soul
knew even before entering the body, from the Realm where it used to
contemplate eternal truths.
We insist on this matter of the dialogue practised by Socrates because, in
Plato's Akademia, this was fundamental grounds, for it had at least one
great quality: it taught the students to think. Once a student stated a
hypothesis, other students were taught to ask questions while the first was
to provide answers to them. What is important about the Akademia is that
Platonist dialectics surpassed the level of a purely logical exercise. the
dialogue representing a truly mental exercise, that trained the
interlocutors into a deep process of inner transformation, through
empathising, paying attention to the other, patience and respect for
another opinion than their own. It was a common effort to establish an
agreement with the rational exigences of the meaningful discourse, of the
logos" (Hadot 1995, p.90).
By making use of this ascetism, that is the exercise to give up the selfish
belief that what you said represents the ultimate truth, by making a move
where each interlocutor transcends to something beyond themselves, by
subjecting themselves to the logos as to a superior authority, they will
overcome their personal points of view and will discover a truth
independent from themselves (Hadot 1995, p.95).
What we should keep in mind when we approach this form of logos is that the
dialogue is not only important for its final goal, that of knowing, but
also for the preliminary stage towards this target: the ethics, the rules
that had to be observed. The participants to the dialogue underg ano inner
transformation . This entire phenomenon is possile thanks to the logos
which, by, blending ideas into the dialogue, turns the speaker into
prticipants in the Realm of Ideas, the only fixed place where the truth
could dwell" (Parain 1998, p.124).

1. e. To utter and to know
It is important to pay attention to Brice Parain's remark (Parain 1998,
p.41) on Aristotle's disdain (Metaphysics 8, 1050b 35) towards
neoplatonists, whom he called logicians sau dialecticians, in the sense of
chatters.' What he repproached them was they talked too muchi as they were
seduced by the words at the expense of finding a solution. Although we have
seen the justification for Socrate's long discussons with his friends or
occasional interlocutors, what we should also notice in Aristotle's gossip
is that, for Plato, the word was of great importance, having spiritual
reverbations upon the life of man.: the bad use of words is not only a
linguistic mistake, but also a way to hurt the souls" (Phaidon 115e). So,
in this case, which is the good use of words?
In the process of learning, Socrates considered that naming things had to
do with the religious component of life: that is why he dug at the roots
of the logos, as he was very preoccupied with the role of language in the
universe or with the way thinking comes to be or how the most elementary
logos is created or if uttering names is relevant to the things named,
whether they contain the body, the meaning or the essence of those things.
In order to find the answer, to look for the truth of things, Socrates took
refuge in logoi (reasoning – Phaidon 99e), as there was this belief that
it is from Gods the energy that drives one to discuss arguments"
(Parmenide 135d). The neglect of the role of the logoi have dire
consequeces on the soul and that is why, upon his death, Socrates warned
his friends, leaving them with these last words: Nothing worse can happen
to someone than getting to hate arguments (logois)" (Phaidon 89d)
Leon Robin translates logoi as Ideas, and Brice Parain (Parain 1998 p.42)
agrees, even though, from the point of view of grammar, it is not accurate
but he admits to this twisting of meaning because in Plato's metaphysiscs,
there is a connection betwee Ideas and logos: The same way one captures
in one species a multitude of existences, so he also designates a plurality
of knowledge inside one formula", Socrates advises Theaitetos (Theaitetos,
148d). The truth must be contained in the language (logos); as it is one
of the ways man has access to the truth, and that is why we must rule out
the idea that Plato could have admitted that what we have in language is
simply a product of convention (Parain 1998, p.9). Brice Parain remarks the
fact that Plato, like all Greeks, believed in the right combining of
words", idea that imposed a certain impression about truth and knowledge,
different from what we have today (Parain 1998, p.7).

2. The meeting of Greek philosophy with Jewish religion

2. a. Perceiving a similarity between concepts
The use of the word logos by the Greeks is so diversified that, even the
understanding and mastering its meanings become very complicated. However,
Plato's merit consisteded in reducing the logos to its essential
constituents (Parain 1998, p.149). For instance, he did not give it the
sense of human reasoning in the way we see it today, that is identical to
the ability to think logically, although it obviously has this meaning,
too.But Plato takes us deeper than that. He attributes the logos the
meaning of a word, phrase, sentence, discourse or language in general with
the help of which man materialises into phrases the products of his
reasoning and by means of which he is led towards real knowledge. By logos,
man conveys the essence of things because, in the world perceivable by
senses, things are named according to the intelligible world, the language
(logos) thus becoming a communicating channel between worlds. The accord
of words in our language corresponds to the Ideas' blending with the
intelligible world" (Parain 1998, p.129), this meaning that any piece of
information or sentence equals the truth, as words are not the same things
as Ideas, but represent a shadow or a mirror of them. Ideas give meaning to
words. We owe to the Logos everything we know for a fact about the being
and the Divine Realm because, in language, in discourse as well as in
dialogues (all the aforementioned represeting the logos) Ideas pervade.
This is the form by which man weaves this bridge connecting him to the
World of Ideas by means of using the logos.
Exactly this is the most important detail that made accepting the notion of
Platonist logos in Christianity, possible. Or, more accurately put, these
meanings made John the Apostle admit to the logos-ul of Plato as to
something familiar,, something that reminds us of the Word of God. The
description made by Father Staniloae to this phenomenon – which consists of
the presence of the Logos throughout the inner and external manifestation
of man – is relevant for everything we have said so far: Each man is a
meaningful word in dialogue with the Personal Godly Word and with other
human individual words; each feeds itself on strengtht from the Godly Word,
as well as from the strength of things, gathers reasonings in its thinking
and this strength in his life, and communicates it to others and receives
in return their communication, thus strengthening his bond with the Divine
Logos, understanding their origin and meaning" (Staniloae 1997, II pp.7-
8).

2. b.The Logos, as a mediator between God and the world
Philo makes the distinction between God in Himself, the One Who Is and the
God that connects Himself to man using His powers. Among these powers, he
mentioned the Logos, whose understanding was inspired by the stoic idea
about divine reason" , which shapes and rules over everything (Roskam
2005, p.210). But it is also influenced by Plato, since Philo sees Logos as
a mediator between God and the world and characterised by transcendence and
immanent: "This is the Book of the Genesis of the heaven and earth ever
since they came to be" (Genesis 2,4). Etienne Brehier (Brehier 1942, pp.83-
111) just as Jean Delumeau (Delumeau 1958, pp.153-162) noticed the
resemblance between this Logos and Plato's Demiurge. It is in this respect
that Philo had a negative impact on Christianity by insipring Clement and
Origen, thus leading to arianism.
To him, the Logos was neither the Mesiah nor Jesus because, under the
influence of Plato's thinking, Philo could not accept the Embodiement as a
possible fact. Charles Bigg concluded that, from this idea, the Jew from
Alexandria separates himself from the belief of his people. Anyway, this is
a matter still not completely clarified as the critics say that John the
Aprostle took the name of Logos from Philo, accepting to use a formula
with a pagan component to convey an entirely Christian concept.
This Logos is the principle of giving birth to the intellect, situated
among ideas as well as of coming to life of the intelligible sensation
(noete asisthesis), if we may call it that, also ranked among ideas. The
alegorical comments (I, 19) named this "the Word of God" (toi Theoi logon),
through which is revealed how all things came to be". In yet another text,
Philo clarifies the notion: "the world of ideas could not have had a more
appropriate place (topos) than the divine Logos" (De opificio mundi 20).
The terminology and the key in which the Jewish thinker expresses his
thoughts is too evidently an imitation of Plato in Parmenide (132d): "These
ideas (forms) are found in nature as models and the other things only
resembles them and are images (copies) of these ideas; and this
participation to ideas (forms) resides simply in the fact that they are but
reproductions (copies) of ideas".
Another meaning Philo gives to logos is tthat of reason, judgement, word.
Under the same stoic influence we have mentioned, the term logos has a
double perception: that of internal logos (the thinking) and the external
logos (the language). "Philo takes this theme of the word-reason as
inseparable and undiscernable from each other to the next level, turning it
into a fact: the word is the expression, thus the embodiement of reasoning
or, as Arstotle called it, the entelehia of reason" (Luca 2002, p.22).
It is very importnat to mention that for Philo the Logos is not God
Himself, but one of His creations, an interpretation or an understanding of
it that Christianity will not accept.

3. And the Word turned into flesh

3. a. The meeting of reason with faith
Christianity appeared as an extraordinary challenge to philosophers. In
equal measure, we may also notice the challenges the apostles and the first
apologists of Christianity had to face because, in order to make themselves
understood, they had to use a language equal to the standards of the pagan
Athenian philosophers' requirements as they were exceedingy self-assured"
(Badilita 2005, p.194) people but also curious about new ideas: the only
way all Athenians and foreigners living there spent their time was by
saying or hearing something new" (Acts 17, 21).
Paul the Apostle was the first to take the risk of having a dialogue with
these devourers of wisdom about Jesus as a creative reason and as a
concept that goes beyond the abstract level and interacts directly to
humans by embodiement. The event took place in Athens and it is recounted
in the Acts of the Apostles (17). Cristian Bădiliţă (Badilita 2005, p.192)
compares Paul to Socrates who used to talk to people irrespective of the
place this happened: He would talk in the sinagogue with the Jews and with
the believers, and in the market place, every day, with everybody present"
(Acts 17, 17). His mesage drew immediate attention from the stoics and the
Epicureans who wondered What does this spermatologos mean to tell?"
(Acts17, 18), after which they invited the Aeropagist to receive details
about this new teaching" (Acts 17, 19). But the news Paul had to share
provoked laughter among its hearers (Acts 17, 32). Resurection from the
dead was already too much for those minds accustomed to reasoning and
mastering information. It so happened that, after this failed attempt to
convert the philosophers, in a letter addressed to the Corinthians, Paul
would speak about the incredible impact of Logos - Jesus upon the mind. He
represents madness to te reason The Jews ask for signs, the Greeks crave
for wisdom but we preach you Christ the Crucified: to the Jews, loss of
reason; to the other peoples, plain insanity" (I Corinthians 1, 22-23).
The apostles paid special attention to philosophers. The repeted comebacks
to dialogue with a view to converting and persuading them have an
explanation. Paul and John felt familiar to the Greeks' wisdom. Even though
in Paul's letters we notice a denounciation of Greek wisdom (I Corinthians
1), this does not imply a denial of the power of reason or a stigmatisation
of it. The immortal Apostle emphasises the importance of natural
knowledge of God and of moral laws: because what can be known about God is
already known by them because God has revealed Himself to them: the unseen
is seen by Him ever since the creation of the world, by that understanding
the embodiement, that is His eternal power and praise, so that they might
be left with no word to defend themselves by (Romans 1, 19-21). The idea
that human reason is able to know God by means of external matter also
appears in the Book of Wisdom of Solomon (3, 5-9), Paul's words (Gilson
2005, p.12) - who will always be credited with undenied authority – will
impose himself among Christians, who would always have fluctuating
attitudes of rejecting the value and the contribution of reason within the
relation with God, considering that only faith can eliminate the stages of
discourse reasoning, thus establishing a direct contact with the truth"
(Badilita 2005, p. 193).
The aspect that we consider fascinating about this encounter between
Christianity and Greek philosophy is, as we have mentioned before, Paul's
and John's belief (later shared by Justin the Martyr and Philosopher, then
by Clement of Alexandria, to mention only two of the many ) that Greek
wisdom is not separated from God, that it has in it the seeds of revealed
truth, that they are of the same family. As a result, they needed to speak
the same language. Except philosophy couldn't stop searching, inquiring,
initialising new topics while Christianity had the answer and was open to
sharing it. Only in this way can we explain the ease with which the new
religion could incorporate in it a domain claimed only by philosophers up
tot that point. This is the reason why Paul speaks to the Stoics about
about the identity between sophia and the believing in Christ; and John the
Aprostle tells them that the logos is the very Word of God, that is Jesus,
The One by Whom all was created. Obviously, that exact piece of information
came as a shock to the Greeks and Jews. It took them quite some time to
understand that John was not speaking about power and domination, but about
the true nature of God.

3. b. From reason to the word
To the philosopher, it is clear that the description of Jesus as being the
Logos itself was something of a paradox. They wondered what John meant by:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made;
without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that
life was the light of all mankind" (John 1, 1-4)? Was he using a metaphor
to speak about the relationship between God and His creation? Or (Badilita
2005, p.11) was it a Greek philosophical notion that replaced the
Christian's God? Was it possible that Greeks might have absorbed
Christianity or was it the other way round?
History proved that the first alternative only occured on a group level,
within gnosticism. Things are as interesting as they are complex. Just
because the Logos described by Philo of Alexandria bore other significances
does not necessarily mean that John did not find inspiration in the Jewish
philosopher. Yet, the Apostle recognised in Jesus the elements of the logos
the stoics and Plato had spoken about . He recognised them not because they
were necessary in the process of practising faith, but because this
concept of logos helped explain the new religion. thus, according to
Etienne Gilson, to say the He, the Christ, is the Logos is not a
philosophical statement, but a religious one" (Gilson 2005, p.11). We are
witnessing a crucial moment in the intellectual history of interiority"
(Baghiu 2006, p.50), which consists in this notion, fundamental for
philosophy getting closer to Christian religion. We should also emphasise
that the Christian Revelation even asked for this. To state that Christ
the Logos is God, that all were made by Him and through Him, that He is the
life and the light of people means appealing beforehand, beyond the
theology of the Word, to the metaphysiscs of divine Ideas and of noetics "
(Gilson 2005, p.11).

Acknowledgement: This work was supported by the strategic grant
POSDRU/159/1.5/S/140863, Project ID 140863 (2014) co-financed by the
European Social Fund within the Sectorial Operational Program Human
Resources Development 2007 – 2013.

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[i] At Parmenide, Thinking and the being are one and the same. Thinking
and the things i tis for are one and the same." (Fragments 5d, 7); See also
Plato, Parmenide (128b), Clement of Alexandria, Stromata VI.
[ii] Here is the correspondent횐효횮횺휢휤흂흔흚 of Maximus the Confessor:
By hiding himself secretly among reasons, the Word offers itself to
understanding, proportionally, and through each of the visible things, as
through letters, whole and entire in all and full in al land undiminished,
the Undiscernable and always the same within the discernables, the Simple
and whole in all parts, he One with no beginning among the things begun,
the invisible among the visibles, the Untouched among the touched. [...] so
that in all these to gather us around Him, us, who are His followers,
uniting us in spirit to lift us to His simple understanding and freed from
contact with them, concentrating our attention towards uniting with Him the
same way He differeantiated Himself by coming down on earth for us"
(Ambigua, P.G., 91, 1285)
[iii] We shall see that the philosopher intends just that: to live the
state of grace in the realm of ideas via a philosophical life : if we all
live a life truly dedicated to philosophy, we shall all know God with the
clarity illuminated people are really capable of " (Plato, The Letter VIth
323d).