What does Logos Mean?

Following John 1, the early Christian apologist Justin Martyr (c 150) identified Jesus as the Logos. In his First Apology, Justin used the Stoic concept of the Logos as a way of arguing for Christianity to non-Jews. Since a Greek audience would accept this concept, his argument could concentrate on identifying this Logos with Jesus.

47 However, Justin does not go so far as to articulate a fully consistent doctrine of the Logos. The word logos has been used in different senses along with Rhema. Both Plato and Aristotle used the term logos along with rhema to refer to sentences and propositions.

The Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek uses the terms Rhema and Logos as equivalents and uses both for the Hebrew word Dabar, as the Word of God. Some modern usage in Christian Theology distinguishes Rhema from Logos (which here refers to the written scriptures) while Rhema refers to the revelation received by the reader from the Holy Spirit when the Word (Logos) is read,55565758 although this distinction has been criticized. Neoplatonist philosophers such as Plotinus (204/5–270 AD) used the term "Logos" in ways that drew on Plato and the Stoics,61 but the term Logos was interpreted in different ways throughout Neoplatonism, and similarities to Philo's concept of Logos appear to be accidental.

62 The Logos was a key element in the meditations of Plotinus63 regarded as the first Neoplatonist. Plotinus referred back to Heraclitus and as far back as Thales64 in interpreting Logos as the principle of meditation, existing as the interrelationship between the Hypostases65 (The 'One', 'Spirit' (nous) and 'Soul'). Plotinus used a trinity concept that consisted of "The One", the "Spirit" and "Soul".

The comparison with the Christian Trinity is inescapable, but for Plotinus these were not equal and "The One" was at the highest level, with the "Soul" at the lowest. 66 For Plotinus, the relationship between the three elements of his trinity is conducted by the outpouring of Logos from the higher principle, and eros (loving) upward from the lower principle. 67 Plotinus relied heavily on the concept of Logos, but no explicit references to Christian thought can be found in his works, although there are significant traces of them in his doctrine.

Citation needed Plotinus specifically avoided using the term Logos to refer to the second person of his trinity. 68 However, Plotinus influenced Victorinus who then influenced Augustine of Hippo. 69 Centuries later, Carl Jung acknowledged the influence of Plotinus in his writings.

Victorinus differentiated between the Logos interior to God and the Logos related to the world by creation and salvation. Augustine of Hippo, often seen as the father of medieval philosophy, was also greatly influenced by Plato and is famous for his re-interpretation of Aristotle and Plato in the light of early Christian thought. 72 A young Augustine experimented with, but failed to achieve ecstasy using the meditations of Plotinus.

73 In his Confessions Augustine described Logos as the Divine Eternal Word,74 by which he, in part, was able to motivate the early Christian thought throughout the Greek-influenced world (of which the Latin speaking West was a part)75 Augustine's Logos had taken body in Christ, the man in whom the logos (i.e. Veritas or sapientia) was present as in no other man. The concept of Logos in Sufism is used to relate the "Uncreated" (God) to the "Created" (man).

In Sufism, for the Deist, no contact between man and God can be possible without the Logos. The Logos is everywhere and always the same, but its personification is "unique" within each region. Jesus and Muhammad are seen as the personifications of the Logos, and this is what enables them to speak in such absolute terms.

One of the boldest and most radical attempts to reformulate the Neoplatonic concepts into Sufism arose with the philosopher Ibn Arabi, who traveled widely in Spain and North Africa. His concepts were expressed in two major works The Ringstones of Wisdom (Fusus al-Hikam) and The Meccan Illuminations (Al-Fut? T al-Makkiyya). To Ibn Arabi, every prophet corresponds to a reality which he called a Logos (Kalimah), as an aspect of the unique Divine Being.

In his view the Divine Being would have for ever remained hidden, had it not been for the prophets, with Logos providing the link between man and divinity. Ibn Arabi seems to have adopted his version of the Logos concept from Neoplatonic and Christian sources,80 although (writing in Arabic rather than Greek) he used more than twenty different terms when discussing it. 81 For Ibn Arabi, the Logos or "Universal Man" was a mediating link between individual human beings and the divine essence.

Other Sufi writers also show the influence of the Neoplatonic Logos. 83 In the 15th century? Abd al-Karim al-Jili introduced the Doctrine of Logos and the Perfect Man.

For al-Jili the perfect man (associated with the Logos or the Holy Prophet) has the power to assume different forms at different times, and appear in different guises. Carl Jung contrasted the critical and rational faculties of logos with the emotional, non-reason oriented and mythical elements of eros. 85 In Jung's approach, logos vs eros can be represented as "science vs mysticism", or "reason vs imagination" or "conscious activity vs the unconscious".

Woman’s psychology is founded on the principle of Eros, the great binder and loosener, whereas from ancient times the ruling principle ascribed to man is Logos. The concept of Eros could be expressed in modern terms as psychic relatedness, and that of Logos as objective interest. Jung attempted to equate logos and eros, his intuitive conceptions of masculine and feminine consciousness, with the alchemical Sol and Luna.

Jung commented that in a man the lunar anima and in a woman the solar animus has the greatest influence on consciousness. 88 Jung often proceeded to analyze situations in terms of "paired opposites", e.g.