The Word of God

 LOGOS, verbum, being a term already used in the schools of heathen philosophy, was open to various misunderstandings on its appearance in the theology of Revealed teaching. In the Church it was both synonymous with and corrective of the term "Son;" but heretics had almost as many senses of the term as they had sects.

 It is a view familiar to the Fathers that in this consists our Lord's Sonship, viz., that He is the Word, or as S. Augustine says, "Christum ideo Filium quia Verbum." Aug. Ep. 102, n. 11. "If God is the Father of a Word, why is not He who is begotten a Son?" de Decr. § 17; Orat. iv. § 12. "If I speak of Wisdom, I speak of His Offspring." Theoph. ad Autolyc. i. 3. "The Word, the genuine Son of Mind." Clem. Protrept. p. 78; and Dionysius, "[ estin ho men oion pater ho nous tou logou ]," Sent. Dion. § 23, fin. Petavius discusses this subject accurately with reference to the distinction between Divine Generation and Divine Procession, de Trin. vii. 14.

 But the heretics, says Athan., "dare to separate Word and Son, and to say that the Word is one and the Son another, and that first was the Word and then the Son. Now their presumption takes various forms; for some say that the man whom the Saviour assumed is the Son; and others, that both the man and the Word then became Son when they were united. And others say that the Word Himself then became Son when He became man; for from being Word, they say, He became Son, not being Son before, but only Word." Orat. iv. § 15. The Valentinians, in their system of Eons, had already divided the Son from the Word; but they considered the [ monogenes ] first, the [ logos ] next.

 The title "Word" implies the ineffable mode of the Son's generation, as distinct from material parallels, vid. Gregory Nyssen, contr. Eunom. iii. p. 107; Chrysostom in Joan. Hom. 2, § 4; Cyril Alex. Thesaur. 5, p. 37. Also it implies that there is but One Son.

 "As there is one Origin," says Athan., "and therefore one God, so one is that Substance and Subsistence ([ ousia kai hypostasis ]) which indeed and truly and really is, and which said I am that I am, and not two, lest there be two Origins; and from the One, a Son in nature and truth is Its proper Word, Its Wisdom, Its Power, and inseparable from It. And as there is not another substance, lest there be two Origins, so the Word which is from that One Substance has no dissolution, is not a sound significative, but is a substantial Word and substantial Wisdom, which is the true Son. For were He not substantial, God would be speaking into the air, and having a body in nothing different from that of men; but since He is not man, neither is His Word according to the infirmity of man. For as the Origin is one Substance, so Its Word is one, substantial, and subsisting, and Its Wisdom. For as He is God from God, and Wisdom from the Wise, and Word from the Rational, and Son from Father, so is He from Subsistence Subsistent, and from Substance Substantial and Substantive, and Being from Being." Orat. iv. § 1.

 For the contrast between the Divine Word and the human which is Its shadow, vid. also Orat. iv. 1, above; Iren. Hær. ii. 13, n. 8; Origen. in Joan. t. i., p. 23, 25; Euseb. Demonstr. v. 5, p. 230; Cyril. Cat. xi. 10; Basil, Hom. div. xvi. 3; Nyssen contr. Eunom. xii. p. 350; Orat. Cat. i. p. 478; Damasc. F. O. i. 6; August. in Psalm. 44, 5.

 "Men have many words, and after those many, not any one of them all; for the speaker has ceased, and thereupon his word fails. But God's Word is one and the same, and as it is written, remaineth for ever, not changed, not first one and then another, but existing the same always. For it behoved that, God being one, one should be His Image, one His Word, one His Wisdom." Orat. ii. § 36. vid. contr. Gent. 41. ad Ep. Æg. 16. Epiph. Hær. 65, 3. Nyss. in Eun. xii. p. 349. Origen. (in a passage, however, of questionable doctrine) says, "as there are gods many, but to us one God the Father, and many lords, but to us one Lord Jesus Christ, so there are many words, but we pray that in us may exist the Word that was in the beginning, with God, and was God," in Joan. Tom. ii. 3. "Many things, it is acknowledged, does the Father speak to the Son," say the Semi-Arians at Ancyra, "but the words which God speaks to the Son are not sons. They are not substances of God, but vocal energies; but the Son, though a Word, is not such, but, being a Son, is a substance." Epiph. Hær. 73, 12. The Semi-Arians are here speaking against Sabellianism, which took the same ground here as Arianism.

 Vid. the article on the Nicene Tests for those ante-Nicene theologians, who, though they undoubtedly were upholders of the Homoüsion and good Catholics when they wrote, nevertheless seem to have held that the Word, after existing from eternity, was born to be a Son at "the beginning," and on the beginning of time, and then became the Creator, the Pattern, the conservative power of the whole universe: these writers were such as Tatian, Tertullian, Novatian, etc. There was a parallel theory to theirs, and by which they were apparently influenced, in the heathen and Jewish schools. The view of the Logos as [ endiathetos ] and as [ prophorikos ], as the Word conceived and the Word uttered, the Word mental and the Word active and effectual to distinguish the two senses of Logos, thought and speech came from the Stoics, and is found in Philo, and was, under certain limitations, allowed in Catholic theology. Damasc. F. O. ii. 21. To use, indeed, either of the two absolutely and to the exclusion of the other, would have involved some form of Sabellianism, or Arianism, as the case might be; but each term might correct the defective sense of the other. That the use was not oversafe would appear from its history in the Church, into which the above theologians, by their mode of teaching the [ gennesis ] of the Word, introduce us. Theophilus does not scruple, in teaching it, to use the very terms, endiathetic and prophoric. God made all things out of nothing, he says ... "Having His own Word endiathetic in His own womb, He begat Him together with His own Wisdom, bringing Him forth before the universe was." Again he speaks of "the Word of God, who also is His Son, who was ever ([ diapantos ]) endiathetic in the heart of God, ... God begat Him to be prophoric, the first-born of all creation." ad Autol. ii. 10, 22.

 While S. Theophilus speaks of our Lord as both endiathetic and prophoric, S. Cyril seems to consider Him endiathetic, in Joan. i. 4, p. 39, though he also says, "This word of ours, [ prophorikos ], is generated from mind and unto mind, and seems to be other than that which stirs in the heart, etc., etc. ... so too the Son of God, proceeding from the Father without division, is the expression and likeness of what is proper to Him, being a subsistent Word, and living from a Living Father." Thesaur. p. 47. When the Fathers deny that our Lord is the [ prophorikos logos ], they only mean that that title is not, even in the fulness of its philosophical idea, an adequate representative of Him, a word spoken being insubstantive, vid. Athan. Orat. ii. 35. Hil. de Syn. 46. Cyr. Catech. xi. 10. Damas. Ep. ii. p. 203, "nec prolativum, ut generationem ei demas," for this was the Arian doctrine. The first Sirmian Council of the Arians anathematises those who use of the Son either name. So does the Arian Macrostich. "The Son," said Eunomius, "is other than the endiathetic Word, or Word in intellectual action, of which partaking and being filled He is called the Prophoric Word, and expressive of the Father's substance, that is, the Son." Cyril in Joan. p. 31. The Gnostics seem to have held the [ logos prophorikos ]. Iren. Hær. ii. 12, n. 5. Marcellus is said by Eusebius to have considered our Lord as first the one and then the other. Eccl. Theol. ii. 15. Sabellius thought our Lord the [ prophorikos ], according to Epiph. Hær. p. 398. cf. Damasc. Hær. 62. Paul of Samosata, the [ endiathetos ]. Epiph. Hær. 65, passim. Eusebius, Eccles. Theol. ii. 17, describes our Lord as the [ prophorikos ] while disowning the word.

 Athan. speaks, contr. Gent., of man as "having, besides grace, from the Giver, also his own natural virtue proper from the Father's Word;" of the mind "seeing the Word, and in Him the Word's Father also," 2; of "the way to God being, not as God Himself, above us and far off, or external to us, but in us," 30, etc., etc. vid. also Basil. de Sp. S. n. 19. Athan. also speaks of the seed of Wisdom as being "a reason combined and connatural with everything that came into being, which some are wont to call seminal, inanimate indeed and unreasoning and unintelligent, but operating only by external art according to the science of Him who sowed it." contr. Gent. 40.

 This is drawn out somewhat differently, and very strikingly, in contr. Gent. 43, etc. The Word indeed is regarded more as the Governor than as the Life of the world, but He is said to be, [ ho paradoxopoios kai thaumatopoios tau theou logos photizon zoopoion ... hekastoi ten idian energeian apodidous ], etc. 44. Shortly before the Word is spoken of as the Principle of permanence, 41 fin.

 "For it was fitting," says Ath. elsewhere, "whereas God is One, that His Image should be One also, and His Word One, and One His Wisdom. Wherefore I am in wonder how, whereas God is One, these men, after their private notions, introduce many images and wisdoms and words, and say that the Father's proper and natural Word is other than the Son, by whom He even made the Son, and that He who is really Son is but notionally called Word, as vine, and way, and door, and tree of life; and that He is called Wisdom also only in name, the proper and true Wisdom of the Father, which co-exists ingenerately with Him, being other than the Son, by which He even made the Son, and named Him Wisdom as partaking of Wisdom." Orat. ii. § 37. That is, they allowed Him to be really the Son, though they went on to explain away the name, and argued that He was but by a figure the Word, [ polloi logoi ] since there were, and He was not [ oud' ek pollon heis ], Sent. D. 25. Also Ep. Æg. 14; Origen in Joan. tom. ii. 3; Euseb. Demonstr. v. 5, p. 229, fin.; contr. Marc. p. 4, fin.; contr. Sabell. i. p. 4; August. in Joan. Tract. i. 8. Also vid. Philo's use of [ logoi ] for Angels, as commented on by Burton, Bampt. Lect. p. 556. The heathens called Mercury by the name of [ logos ]. Vid. Benedictine note f. in Justin, Ap. i. 21.

 "If the Wisdom which is in the Father is other than the Lord, Wisdom came into being in Wisdom; and if God's Word is Wisdom, the Word too has come into being in a Word; and if God's Word is the Son, the Son too has been made in the Son." Ep. Æg. 14. vid. also Decr. § 8, and Orat. iii. 2, 64. And so S. Austin, "If the Word of God was Himself made, by what other Word was He made? If you say, that it is the Word of the Word, by whom that Word is made, this I say is the only Son of God. But if you say the Word of the Word, grant that He is not made by whom all things are made; for He could not be made by means of Himself, by whom are made all things," in Joan. Tract. i. 11. Vid. a parallel argument with reference to the Holy Spirit, Athan. Serap. i. 25.