THE PROLOGUE
OUTLINE
31
IN
`St. John was as far as possible from being the first to apply the
term Logos to Christ. I suppose him to have found it so universally
applied, that he did not attempt to stay the current of popular
language, but only kept it to its proper channel, and guarded it from
extraneous corruption' (`Inquiries', p. 220).
Our English translation of Logos as `the Word' has come to us
through the Latin. In early times two words were used by the Latin
translators, Sermo and Verbum, but as time went on Sermo was
dropped and Verbum universally adopted. Tertullian (circ, A.D.
160-220), while giving us both Latin words as a translation of Logos,
preferred himself the word Ratio.
`Logos means the "word", not however in a grammatical sense, for
which either rhema, noema, or epos is used, but always like vox, of
the living spoken word, not in its outward form, but with reference
to the thought connected with the form' (Passow).
The Logos of 1:1 denotes Christ as He Who represents, or in
Whom had been hidden from eternity, and especially from the
beginning of the world, what God had to say to man (see Cremer).
Just as Christ had to say to His disciples, `I have yet many things to
say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now' (16:12), so God has had to
speak to man in successive stages. In his original state of innocency,
man walked and talked with God (Gen. 3:8), but subsequent to his
expulsion from Eden, he walked and talked with God to a less and less
degree. To the nations at large, the only voice that was heard was the
voice of creation (Rom. 1:19,20, Acts 14:17; Psa. 19:1-4). Fallen man,
even though specially chosen, as were the people of Israel, could not
bear to hear the immediate word of God, and so we read:
`And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear:
but let not God speak with us, lest we die' (Exod. 20:19).
And then at length we have the coming of Christ Himself, and we
read:
`God, Who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time
past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken
to us by His Son' (Heb. 1:1,2).
But even though the time had come for `the Word' to appear
among men, and do what neither the Law nor the Prophets could