ACC ~ John 1 v1c

“LOGOS” CAN MEAN BOTH “REASON” AND “WORD”

AUGUSTINE: The Greek word logos signifies in Latin both “reason” [1] and “word.” [2] However, in this verse the better translation is “word,” so that not only the relation to the Father is indicated but also the efficacious power with respect to those things that are made by the Word. Reason, however, is correctly called reason even if nothing is made by it. ON EIGHTY-THREE VARIED QUESTIONS 63. [3]

[1] at Ratio.

[2] Lat Verbum.

[3] FC 70:127.

WORD OCCURS BEFORE SOUND OR THOUGHT

AUGUSTINE: Whoever, then, is able to understand a word, not only before it is uttered in sound but also before the images of its sounds are considered in thought… may see enigmatically, and as it were in a glass, some similarity with that Word of which it is said, “In the beginning was the Word.”… For when we give expression to something that we know, the word used is necessarily derived from the knowledge thus retained in the memory and must be of the same quality with that knowledge. For a word is a thought formed from a thing that we know. This word is spoken in the heart, being neither Greek nor Latin nor any other language, although, when we want to communicate it to others, some sign is assumed by which to express it….

Accordingly, the word that sounds externally is a sign of the word that lies hidden within, having the greater claim to be called a “word.” For what is uttered by the mouth of our flesh is the voice of the word and is in fact called “word” with reference to that from which it is taken as it then makes externally apparent. ON THE TRINITY 15.10.19-11.20. [1]

[1] NPNF 1 3:209**.

THE HUMAN WORD IS A HELPFUL, IF IMPERFECT, ANALOGY

AUGUSTINE: Just as our knowledge is not like God’s knowledge, so also is our word, born from our knowledge, unlike that Word of God which is born from the essence of the Father—we might even say, born from the Father’s knowledge, from the Father’s wisdom, or still more exactly, from the Father who is knowledge, from the Father who is wisdom….

The Word of God, then, the only begotten Son of the Father—in all things like and equal to the Father, God of God, Light of Light, Wisdom of Wisdom, Essence of Essence—is altogether what the Father is. And yet, he is not the Father because the one is Son, the other is Father. Therefore he knows all that the Father knows; but his knowledge is from the Father. For knowing and being are one in him. And therefore, as the Father’s being is not from the Son, so neither is his knowing. Accordingly, the Father begat the Word equal to himself in all things as though uttering forth himself. For he would not have uttered himself wholly and perfectly if there were in his Word anything more or less than in himself….

Our own inner word… which is at least in some way like that [divine] Word, [1] should nonetheless cause us to stop and consider how dissimilar it is as well….What is this [word that we have] that is formable, but not yet formed, [2] except a something in our mind which we toss to and fro, turning it over in our mind, thinking first one thing and then another as each occurs to us? A true word comes into being when, as I said, what we have been tossing to and fro by turning it over in our minds arrives at what we know, and then takes on that entire likeness. At this point the conception corresponds exactly to the thing, In other words, it is said in the heart, but without articulate sound or even the thought of articulate sound that might otherwise belong to a particular language. And so, if we even admit (in order not to dispute laboriously about a name) that this something of our mind which can be formed from our knowledge is already to be called a word—even before it is so formed because it is, so to say, already formable—who would not see how great the dissimilarity would be between this word and that Word of God which is so in the form of God as not to have been formable before it was formed, or to have been capable at any time of being formless, but is a simple form, and simply equal to him from whom it is, and with whom it is wonderfully co-eternal?

Wherefore that Word of God is… not to be called a thought of God. Otherwise we might believe that there is something revolving in God so that it at one time receives and at another recovers a form, so as to be a word, and again can lose that form and revolve, in some sense, formlessly. ON THE TRINITY 15.13.22-16.25. [3]

[1] See also Theodore on this point, loc. cit.

[2] Augustine is here employing the neoplatonic understanding of the realm of ideas in the mind of God, which he called “forms.” These forms were the unchangeable essence of things. They are themselves not formed, and they are eternal and always in the same state because they are contained in God’s intelligence. They neither come into being, nor do they pass away, but everything that can or does come into being and pass away is formed in accordance with them.

[3] NPNF 1 3:213-14**; see also Sermon 214.5 (WSA 3 6:153).

THE INCOMPREHENSIBILITY OF AN UNCHANGEABLE FORM

AUGUSTINE: We are not now discussing, brothers and sisters, possible ways of understanding the text, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” It can only be understood in ways beyond words; human words cannot suffice for understanding the Word of God. What we are discussing and stating is why it is not understood. I am not speaking in order that it may be understood but telling you what prevents it being understood.

You see, it is a kind of form, a form that has not been formed but is the form of all things that have been formed; an unchangeable form that has neither fault not failing, beyond space, standing apart as at once the foundation for all things to stand on and the ceiling of them to stand under. If you say that all things are in it, you are not lying. The Word itself, you see, is called the Wisdom of God; but we have it written, “In wisdom you have made them all.” [1] Therefore all things are in it. And yet because it is God, all things are under it. SERMON 117.3. [2]

[1] Ps 104:24 (103:24 LXX, Vg).

[2] WSA 3 4:210.

THE SIMILARITY OF OUR WORD TO THE WORD

BASIL THE GREAT: Our outward word has some similarity to the divine Word. For our word declares the whole conception of the mind; since what we conceive in the mind we bring out in word. Indeed our heart is as it were the source and the uttered word the stream that flows from there. HOMILY 16.3, IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD. [1]

[1] PG 31:477.

THE WORD REVEALS WHAT IS HIDDEN

EPHREM THE SYRIAN: The things that were hidden were revealed through him [our Lord], just as the secrets of the heart are made known by a word. COMMENTARY ON TATIAN’S DIATESSARON 1.2. [1]

[1] CB709.2.

THE WORD AS THE THOUGHT OF GOD

TERTULLIAN: Certain people affirm that in Hebrew Genesis begins, “In the beginning God made for himself a son.” [1] Against the ratification of this I am persuaded by other arguments from God’s ordinance in which he was before the foundation of the world until the generation of the Son. For before all things, God was alone, himself his own world and location and everything—alone however because there was nothing external beside him. Yet not even then was he alone; for he had with him that Reason that he had in himself—his own, of course. For God is rational, and reason is primarily in him, and thus from him are all things: and that Reason is his consciousness. This the Greeks call Logos, by which expression we also designate discourse, and consequently our people are already wont, through the artlessness of the translation, to say that “Discourse was in the beginning with God,” though it would be more appropriate to consider Reason of older standing, seeing that God is [not] discursive from the beginning but is rational even before the beginning, and because discourse itself, having its ground in reason, shows reason to be prior as being its substance…. And that you may understand this the more easily, observe first from yourself, as from the image and likeness of God, [2] how you also have reason within yourself, who are a rational animal not only as having been made by a rational Creator but also as out of his substance having made a living soul. [3] See how, when you by reason argue silently with yourself, this same action takes place within you, while reason accompanied by discourse meets you at every movement of your thought, at every impression of your consciousness…. So in a sort of way you have in you as a second [person] discourse by means of which you speak by thinking and by means of which you think by speaking: discourse itself is another [than you]. How much more completely therefore does this action take place in God, whose image and similitude you are authoritatively declared to be, that even while silent he has in himself reason and in [that] reason discourse. So I have been able without rashness to conclude that even then, before the establishment of the universe, God was not alone, seeing he continually had in himself Reason, and in Reason Discourse, which he made another beside himself by activity within himself. AGAINST PRAXEAS 5. [4]

[1] See Gen 1:1.

[2] Gen 1:26.

[3] Gen 2:7.

[4] TTAP 134-36.

THE COMMONNESS OF WORDS HIDES THEIR POWER

AUGUSTINE: Words, by their everyday usage, sound and proceeding out of us, have become common, almost despicable things to us, seeming to be nothing more than words. However, there is a word that remains inward, in the very person himself; distinct from the sound that proceeds out of the mouth. There is a word that is truly and spiritually that which you understand by the sound, not being the actual sound itself. Notice, for instance, when I say “God,” how short the word is I have spoken—four letters and two syllables [in Latin]. [1] Is this all that God is, four letters and two syllables? Or is that which is signified as costly as the word is paltry?… What then is in your heart when you think of a certain substance, living, eternal, all-powerful, infinite, everywhere present, everywhere whole, nowhere shut in? When you think of these qualities, this is the word concerning God in your heart. But is this the sound that consists of four letters and two syllables? Therefore, those things that are spoken and pass away are sounds, are letters and are syllables. His word, which sounds, passes away; but what the sound signified— and what is in the speaker as he thought it and in the hearer as he understood it—that is what remains while the sound itself passes away. TRACTATES ON THE GOSPEL OF JOHN 1.8. [2]

[1] Lat Deus.

[2] NPNF 1 7:9-10**.

THE CREATIVE DIVINE WORD OF THE FATHER

ATHANASIUS: [The Arians] whisper, “How can the Son be Word or the Word be God’s image? For a human word is composed of syllables, and only signifies the speaker’s will and then is over and done with.”… But the word of truth confutes them as follows: If they were disputing concerning any human being, then let them exercise reason in this human way, both concerning his Word and his Son. But if their dispute concerns God, who created humanity, let them no longer entertain human thoughts but others that are above human nature. For such as he that begets, such of necessity is the offspring. Whatever the Word’s Father is, the Word also must be. Now a man, begotten in time, also himself begets children in time. And since he came to be out of nothing, his word also is over and done with.

But God is not like humans as Scripture has said. God is, exists and has always existed. Therefore also his Word exists and is forever with the Father, as radiance accompanies light. The human word is composed of syllables and neither lives nor operates anything but only signifies the speaker’s intention. It goes out and then goes away, no more to appear, since it did not exist at all before it was spoken. The word of human beings neither lives nor operates anything. Nor, in short, is it human. And this happens to it, as I said before, because the human being who begets it has his nature out of nothing. But God’s Word is not merely pronounced, as one may say, nor is it a sound of accents, nor should we think of his Son as his command. Rather he is the radiance of light and so is perfect offspring from perfect being. And so he is also God, since he is God’s image. For “the Word was God,” says Scripture. [1] Since human words have no power or energy on their own, they work not by means of words but with their hands which they do have. But the human word does not subsist on its own. The “Word of God,” however, as the apostle says, “is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow, and it is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight, but all things are naked and opened before his eyes.” [2] He is then Framer of all, “and without him was not one thing made,” [3] nor can anything be made without him. Nor must we ask why the Word of God is not such as our word, considering God is not such as we are. DISCOURSES AGAINST THE ARIANS 2.18.34-36. [4]

[1] See Ephrem Commentary on Tatian’s Diatessaron 1.3 (ECTD 41).

[2] Heb 4:12-13.

[3] Jn 1:3.

[4] NPNF 2 4:367*.

THE ONLY BEGOTTEN WORD

BASIL THE GREAT: This Word is not a human word. For how was there a human word in the beginning, when the man received his being last of all?… There was not then any word of humankind in the beginning, nor yet of angels; for every creature is within the limits of time, having its beginning of existence from the Creator…. But what does the Gospel say? It calls the Only Begotten himself the Word. HOMILY 16.3, IN THE BEGINNING WAS THE WORD. [1]

[1] PG 31:477. Chrysostom notes that the article, as in”the Word,” distinguishes this Word from all other words.

Jn