VOS: RANGE OF LOGOS

 

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THE RANGE OF THE LOGOS-TITLE IN THE PROLOGUE TO THE FOURTH GOSPEL

Notwithstanding the great amount of exegetical labor expended on the Fourth Gospel, much of it with the special end in view of ascertaining its doctrinal character, some of the foremost biblico-theological problems to which the Gospel gives rise still remain sub judice. One of these is the question of the precise reference of the chief christological titles employed. Are these titles given to Christ from the point of view of the preincarnate state and thence carried into the incarnate life of the Saviour, or does the Evangelist use them of the incarnate Christ exclusively, so that they lack all bearing on the premundane and preincarnate stages of our Lord’s existence? In the former case their significance will not be confined to the sphere of soteriology, or of christology in its purely soteriological aspect, but will extend into the doctrines of creation and providence, and may even reach up into the ontological problem of the divine nature and mode of existence as contemplated in themselves. As indicated by our form of statement there is no absolute alternative involved: reference of these titles to the preincarnate Christ does not exclude, but includes, their application to the incarnate life as well. The exclusiveness is found with the defenders of the view according to which the names describe the God-Man and predicate of Him something that is true only in virtue of the incarnation. What applies to the original existence of Christ will remain true and continue operative in the life on earth, but the rule does not work conversely, that what applies to the incarnate state must necessarily reach back into the life preceding the incarnation. The sole point at issue therefore is, whether the attributes or functions expressed by the names under debate first originated when Christ appeared in the flesh, or whether their emergence in the earthly life

 

 

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of Jesus is a mere continuation, in a new concrete form, of something that had been predicable of Him before. In order to preclude confusion of thought another dis- tinction should be drawn at the outset. It is one thing to ascribe to the Evangelist the use of one or more of these names as significant of relations and functions pertaining to Christ in the preincarnate or premundane state, and quite another thing to believe that he uses them loosely, by way of anticipation, where he speaks of the Saviour’s original existence, fully conscious that in the strict sense of the terms they belong to the later stage of His life. The mere fact that one of these names and some preincarnate or originally divine attribute are joined together cannot, without more, be held to prove the inherent reference of that name to the larger or eternal aspects of Christ’s Person. The use of a name is often far wider than the range of its inherent significance or of the point of view which originally determined its choice. When certain things are af- firmed in connection with the Logos, it by no means follows that He is called the Logos in virtue of these things or even was the Logos when these things took place. The Evangelist’s intention might simply be to affirm the things referred to of Him who afterwards and for other reasons came to be the Logos. We shall, therefore, have to put the question sharply in each separate case, whether the function affirmed is a function of the Person of Christ in general, here incidentally called Logos, or a function specifically connected with his Logos-character, a Logos-function as such, the nature of the function inducing the use of the name. The three titles in regard to which the said difference of opinion prevails are Logos, Son of God, Only-Begotten Son (or God Only-Begotten). As more or less formal names of the Saviour they are clearly distinct from other designations which partake rather of the nature of descriptive metaphors. It is true, Zahn denies this of Logos and would consider it as a figure entirely on a line with “the life”,

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“the light”, “the vine”. Even when the Evangelist singles it out from among other metaphors applied to Christ, to use it as subject for a number of statements, this is done, Zahn thinks, with full consciousness of the metaphorical intent, so that, in order to render the writer’s meaning exactly, one would have to paraphrase: In the beginning was He who may be fitly compared to the word of God, etc. 1 It is, however, doubtful whether the Gospel ever uses other conceptions such as “light” and “life”, without additional qualification, entirely after the same fashion as Logos, to designate the Person of Christ in the concrete. The Prologue says: “the Logos was”, but: “in Him was life”, “and the life (that was in Him) was the light of men”. “The life” and “the light” remain abstract conceptions, although, of course, their reality is concentrated in the personal Christ. In verses 7, 8, it is true, (THE LIGHT) is used as a designation of the historic Jesus. By the side of this may be placed iii. 19-21, although here the personal interpretation is not necessary. But even so there remains a perceptible difference between such a way of speaking, where the identification of the person with the abstract idea is led up to by previous statement, and the procedure of verse 1 in the Prologue, where, wholly without preliminaries, (THE WORD) is introduced as a fixed designation. 2 We have sufficient

 

FOOTNOTE

 

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warrant, therefore, for placing (THE WORD) on a line with the other two designations as a formal name of Christ. The various positions taken in regard to these names may be classified as follows. First there is the extreme view of Zahn, who would restrict all three to the manifestation of Christ in the flesh. 3 Zahn, of course, finds in John the doctrine of a real preexistence of Christ, but in his view no denomination applies to the preexistent one as such except the simple (GOD) Next comes the view which after the same manner restricts “Son” and “Only-Begotten”, but allows an exception for Logos regarding this at least as a name applicable to the preincarnate, if not the premundane, Christ. Among the advocates of this view may be named Liicke, 4 Luthard, 5 Weiss, 6 Beyschlag, 7 and Harnack. 8 One step farther go those who

 

FOOTNOTE

 

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Begotten”, together with Logos to the premundane and preincarnate Christ, but place the simple “Son” this side of the incarnation. This is given as the view of Biedermann and Schanz. 9 Formally resembling it, but with a different distribution of the names, is the view of Belser, who, like Zahn, makes Logos a designation of the incarnate Christ, but speaks of “the eternal only-born Son of God in his historical appearance”, making both the other titles refer to the Saviour in his pretemporal existence. 10 Finally there are those who make the simple “Son” follow Logos and Monogenes into the class of names descriptive of the preexistent, eternal Christ. 11 Among the numerous representatives of this group may be named Godet, 12

 

FOOTNOTE

 

 

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Meyer, 13 Keil, 14 Kostlin , 15 Hilgenfeld , 16 Scholten, 17 Immer, 18 Thoma, 19 Pfleiderer, 20 Lipsius, 21 Oscar Holtz[1]mann. 22 It is moreover the view which has behind it the weight of authority of the orthodox church-tradition from the time of Origen onward. 23 A glance at these several views and at the distribution of the prominent names connected with them suggests the following significant fact. The traditional exegesis of the orthodox church in tracing back these distinctive names of Christ to the state of preexistence receives support from the foremost representatives of the extreme critical school, which in its estimate of the date, the provenience and the historical truthfulness of the Gospel stands at the farthest remove from the conservative and apologetic position in regard to such matters. And on the other hand the great modern apologetes of the Gospel who have done so much to vindicate the orthodox view of the church in regard to its Apostolic origin and trustworthiness show not seldom a tendency to part company with the church-exegesis so far as the titles under review are concerned, assigning one or two or even all three of them to the incarnate Christ and insisting in the same measure upon their non-applicability to the immanent Godhead, the opposite of which the orthodox theology has always emphatically maintained, its in-

 

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THE RANGE OF THE LOGOS-TITLE 371

-terest lying in the defense of the deity of Christ which seems so obviously bound up with the pretemporal reference of these names. The phenomenon here noted is not, of course, an isolated one; it furnishes but one striking instance of the curious alignment which in exegetical and biblico-theological matters tends to group together conservative scholars with their extreme critical antipodes and to force apart the same conservative scholars from such as are their natural allies in the great critical debate. A high exegesis is joined to a low critical view of the Gospel, and a high critical estimate of the Gospel in the case of the apologetes is accompanied by a low exegesis. But mystifying as this alignment at first sight may be, it is quite capa[1]ble of rational explanation. The negative critical school, especially in its older Tubingen form, contended that the Gospel is essentially a philosophico-theological document, that it contains speculation and not, in the main, history, and that in this speculative complexion the teaching of Jesus which it pretends to record is radically distinct from and irreconcilable with the kind of teaching preserved in the Synoptics. It is therefore natural for this school of critics to find not only a solid substance of doctrine in the Gospel, but also to consider the doctrine found of the highest speculative type. Now this inevitably brings their exegetical conclusions into close touch with the church-the[1]ology, for the church has always found in the Fourth Gospel the main source for its teaching on the deep things of the Godhead. On the other hand it is but human in the apologetes of the historical character of the Gospel to endeavor to approximate its doctrinal content as much as possible to the current conception of the Synoptical teaching of Jesus, for the simple reason that thus one of the chief obstacles to its historicity can be removed. Thus it comes about that a certain predilection not only for an un[1]speculative, but even for an untheological and undoctrinal interpretation of the statements of the Gospel can be observed in apologetic circles. The tendency becomes doubly

 

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strong where it receives reinforcement from the widely[1]prevailing Ritschlian antipathy to everything that savors of the speculative and metaphysical in Christian teaching. Harnack’s exegesis of the Gospel with its sharp distinction between the speculatively colored Prologue and the absolutely undoctrinal body of the Gospel and its refusal to recognize the Prologue as in any sense a programme for the Gospel-teaching, making it a mere accommodation to the standpoint of the readers, clearly reveals the influence of this latter motive. But the tendency as such is not de[1]pendent on this secondary influence for its existence. It is plainly perceptible in cases where every suspicion of Ritschlian sympathies is excluded, e.g., in the case of so ortho[1]dox a writer as Zahn. For such as still set store by the great theological doctrines for which the Fourth Gospel preeminently has furnished the basis, and therefore continue to attach not merely an historical, but also a specific[1]ally theological value to its teaching, the tendency spoken of may easily seem fraught with the danger of depriving whatever success has attended the apologetic efforts on behalf of the historicity of the Gospel of much of its value. One may be inclined to feel that the historical character of the document has been saved at the expense of its theological importance. We are encouraged to maintain or regain our confidence in the actual provenience of this body of teaching from the lips of Jesus, but somehow in the apologetic process which has restored our confidence the former richness and pregnancy and distinctiveness of the teaching seem to have been lost to such an extent, that we are no longer able to reap from it any appreciable addition to our store of knowledge obtained from the Synoptical sources. As already stated, among the doctrines thus affected the Christological truths which have always been considered characteristic of our Lord’s Johannine teaching stand out prominently. Among these again the Logos-doctrine occupies an important place. It is a matter of considerable

THE RANGE OF THE LOGOS-TITLE 373

moment, theologically speaking, whether Christ bears this name in connection with his appearance in the flesh and his soteriological activity, or whether it belongs to Him in vir- tue of what He is and does apart from and antecedently to his work as incarnate Saviour of the world. In attempting to register the theological consequences of the adoption of the former view, we naturally think first of the doctrine of the Trinity, specifically of the relation within the Godhead between the Father and the Son. The name Logos has long since been understood as intended to throw light on this trinitarian mystery. The point of comparison is given a psychological turn and the thought results that as the logos stands related to the person who produces it, so the Son stands related to the Father. In other words the idea of the eternal generation of the Son by the Father is found ex- pressed in the Logos-name. The name characterizes this generation as an intellectual process. 24 The ontological interpretation or the Logos-name either in this specialized or in a more general form is not confined to the older and oldest exponents of the church-theology; it still finds advocates among modern exegetes both of the orthodox and of the liberal school, although, owing to the fact that the question is seldom raised in a sufficiently pointed and explicit form, it proves difficult to ascertain the opinion of most writers in regard to it…..