If the Logos of St. John is not connected with that of Philo, the
alternative must be that its origin is Palestinian. The directions in
which we should look would be to the Old Testament, the Apocrypha, and
the _Memra_ of the Targums. And it is true that there are many places in
these writings in which ‘the Word of God’ is used with pregnant meaning.
Ps. xxxiii. 6: ‘By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and
all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.’ Cf. 2 Esdras vi.
43: ‘As soon as thy word went forth the work was done.’
Ps. cvii. 20: ‘He sendeth his word, and healeth them, and delivereth
them from their destructions.’
Ps. cxlvii. 15: ‘He sendeth out his commandment upon earth; his word
runneth very swiftly.’
Ps. cxlvii. 18: ‘He sendeth out his word, and melteth them; he
causeth his wind to blow, and the waters flow.’
Isa. xl. 8: ‘The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of
our God shall stand for ever.’
Isa. lv. 10, 11: ‘For as the rain cometh down and the snow from
heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and
maketh it bring forth and bud, and giveth seed to the sower and
bread to the eater; so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my
mouth: It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish
that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I
sent it.’
Wisd. ix. 1: ‘O God of the fathers, and Lord who keepest thy mercy,
who madest all things by thy word.’
Wisd. xvi. 12: ‘For of a truth it was neither herb nor mollifying
plaister that cured them, but thy word, O Lord, which healeth all
things.’
Wisd. xviii. 15, 16: ‘Thine all-powerful word leaped from heaven out
of the royal throne, a stern warrior, into the midst of the doomed
land, bearing as a sharp sword thine unfeigned commandment; and
standing it filled all things with death; and while it touched the
heaven it trode upon the earth.’
This last passage goes furthest in the way of personification. But in
the other passages there is a tendency—we can hardly call it more—to
objectify the ‘word of God’ and to treat it as though it had a
substantive existence. This is, however, still some way short of the
Logos both of St. John and of Philo.
Rather more may be said of the _Memra_ of the Targums. These writings
are indeed, in their extant form, of uncertain date. And yet I suspect,
though I cannot prove, that our present texts faithfully preserve the
interpretative tradition of the synagogues. The same tendencies were at
work as far back as the beginning of the Christian era, and the
probabilities are that they expressed themselves in the same way. The
Jews were a conservative people; and the ‘tradition of the elders’ went
on continuously without any real break.
We are always hampered by our want of knowledge. The works of Philo bulk
large upon our shelves, and their contents naturally impress the
imagination. Of the state of thought in Syria and Palestine we have far
scantier information. I believe it to be possible that a doctrine like
that of the Philonian Logos was more widely diffused than we suppose.
After all Philo grounded his use of the term largely upon the Stoics;
and the Stoics were spread all over the Roman Empire; they were strong
in Asia Minor. At the same time we should not be justified in drawing
too much upon conjecture, where we have positive data in our hands. So
far as Palestine goes, we have traces of a tendency but not of a system.
In both Philo and St. John we have what might really be called a system.
This creates a presumption that the connexion between them is not
accidental.
The example of St. Paul may show us what an active stimulus to thought
had been given by Christianity. In his case we see what far-reaching
consequences were drawn from concentrated reflexion upon single detached
verses of the Jewish Scriptures. We must not wholly put aside the
possibility that the author of the Fourth Gospel let his thoughts work
in the same manner. We shall see presently that on some important topics
he has certainly done so. Still, if the doctrines of Philo came in his
way, the easier hypothesis would be that he was influenced by them. The
work of construction would in that case be lighter for him; he would
find the half of it done ready to his hand.