LIFE THROUGH HIS NAME

borrowed from the Book of Enoch, but it is obvious that the inspired

writers of Scripture must have used words that were intelligible to their

readers, and could not have ignored the doctrines that were believed

and taught all around them.

The Book of Enoch is a compilation whose date is regarded by

authorities as between 170 and 64 B.C. In the section known as the

Similitudes we find the following passage, which is in some respects

parallel with John's Prologue and his insistence upon the ascension:

`Wisdom came to make her dwelling among the children of men,

and found no dwelling-place; thus Wisdom returned, and took her

seat among the angels'.

The philosophy of the Greeks, and particularly that of Heraclitus

and Plato, must never be forgotten in considering the meaning of the

Logos. This does not imply that we should import the speculations of

men into the revelation of God, but simply that we should recognise

that even inspired truth must use words of common meaning, and that

John's immediate readers would be fully cognisant of the philosophic

use of this word.

Speaking of Heraclitus, Dr. Drummond writes:

`He clearly perceived that the universe was one, and that all its

multifarious changes were governed by a rational and unalterable

law. To this law he gave the very name which we translate "Word"

in the Gospel'.

To Heraclitus, however, the Logos was not a person, but much like

the scientists' `laws of nature'.

Plato's views on the Logos are set forth in the Timaeus:

`The world is represented as "a living and rational organism", the

"only begotten" (monogenes) Son of God, itself a god and the

express image (eikon) of the supreme God' (J. S. Johnston).

What Plato ascribed to the creation itself, revelation ascribes to the

Person of the Son of God. The groping of unaided reason stumbled

upon the terms `logos`, and `only begotten', and `image', but could not

relate them one to another, or to the truth.

Plato speaks of ideas as `vowels', which, chain-like, pervade all

things (Soph. 253) - a suggestion which at once makes us think of Him