LOGOS

LOGOS. A word of great resonance in biblical and patristic Greek, logos can mean any or all of the following: reason, word, rational(ity), speech, discourse, argument, divine will, or the second person of the Trinity (q.v.). Its most famous use is the opening of the Gospel of John: “In the beginning was the Word (1:1) . . . by whom all things were made (1:4) . . . and the Word became flesh (1:14)”. This text, emphasized particularly by Church Fathers such as Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, Origen, Athanasius, Cyril of Alexandria, and Maximus the Confessor (qq.v.), signaled at once the divine preexistence of Christ and his intimate involvement with the creation and re-creation (or redemption) of the world. The term thus includes a revelation fundamental to theology, Christology, cosmology (qq.v.), and-since the “words” (logoi) of God are gathered in his living Word-to Scripture (q.v.) as well. Maximus the Confessor therefore wrote that Christ’s Incarnation constitutes the fulfillment of what is already implicit in the creation of the world and explicit in the Old Testament revelation. The cosmos is sustained by the divine wills (logoi) addressed to each created thing and by the words of the Word present in the Scriptures (q.v.).