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74-676: Early Christian tradition describes Cerinthus as a contemporary to and opponent of John the Evangelist , who may have written the First Epistle of John and the Second Epistle of John to warn the less mature in faith and doctrine about the changes Cerinthus was making to the original gospel. According to early Christian sources, the Apostle John wrote his gospel specifically to refute the teachings of Cerinthus. All that

148-434: A "premise". She states that, to find the reason behind a rhetor 's backing of a certain position or stance, one must acknowledge the different "premises" that the rhetor applies via his or her chosen diction. The rhetor's success, she argues, will come down to "certain objects of agreement...between arguer and audience". The word logos has been used in different senses along with rhema . Both Plato and Aristotle used

222-580: A different technical definition in the Rhetoric , using it as meaning argument from reason, one of the three modes of persuasion . The other two modes are pathos ( πᾰ́θος , páthos ), which refers to persuasion by means of emotional appeal, "putting the hearer into a certain frame of mind"; and ethos ( ἦθος , êthos ), persuasion through convincing listeners of one's "moral character". According to Aristotle, logos relates to "the speech itself, in so far as it proves or seems to prove". In

296-516: A great apostle, brings before us marvelous things which he falsely claims were shown him by angels; and he says that after the resurrection the kingdom of Christ will be set up on earth, and that the flesh dwelling in Jerusalem will again be subject to desires and pleasures. And being an enemy of the Scriptures of God, he asserts, with the purpose of deceiving men, that there is to be a period of

370-423: A politician were to exploit his listeners's reverential feelings for the politician's ancestors". Aristotle comments on the three modes by stating: Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal character of the speaker; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind; the third on the proof, or apparent proof, provided by

444-540: 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, although (writing in Arabic rather than Greek) he used more than twenty different terms when discussing it. For Ibn Arabi,

518-579: A school in the Roman province of Asia Minor , which at its height spread into the province of Galatia . According to Galatian tradition, Paul wrote his epistle to the Galatians against Cerinthus' followers who were troubling the church. In Asia, early Christian writers identify Cerinthus as an adversary of the Apostle John. According to Irenaeus, his teacher Polycarp , himself a student of John, told

592-405: A single definition of logos in his work, but Isocratean logos characteristically focuses on speech, reason, and civic discourse. He was concerned with establishing the "common good" of Athenian citizens, which he believed could be achieved through the pursuit of philosophy and the application of logos . Philo ( c.  20 BC  – c.  50 AD ), a Hellenized Jew , used

666-491: A spirit that came from heaven, undertook its divine task in the material world, and then returned, he anticipates the fully developed Christian Gnosticism in later decades. Irenaeus numbers Cerinthus among those Gnostics who denied that Jesus is the Logos (Word) . Cerinthus instructed his followers to maintain strict adherence to both Written and Oral Torah Mosaic law for the attainment of salvation. This soteriological worldview

740-410: A third or mixed gender' and 'a crucial figure with whom to identify' for male believers who sought to cultivate an attitude of affective piety , a highly emotional style of devotion that, in late-medieval culture, was thought to be poorly compatible with masculinity. Legends from the " Acts of John " contributed much to medieval iconography; it is the source of the idea that John became an apostle at

814-513: A thousand years for marriage festivals. It is, however, improbable that this statement is true of Cerinthus' beliefs. Caius of Rome is identified with those whom Epiphanius of Salamis styles the Alogi , who, "refusing to accept an 'apocryphon' because of the deep and difficult sayings in the Revelation . . . say that they are not John's composition but Cernthus', and have no right to a place in

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888-575: A young age. One of John's familiar attributes is the chalice , often with a snake emerging from it. According to one legend from the Acts of John, John was challenged to drink a cup of poison to demonstrate the power of his faith, and thanks to God's aid the poison was rendered harmless. The chalice can also be interpreted with reference to the Last Supper , or to the words of Christ to John and James: "My chalice indeed you shall drink." According to

962-555: Is conducted by the outpouring of logos from the higher principle, and eros (loving) upward from the lower principle. 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. Plotinus specifically avoided using the term logos to refer to the second person of his trinity. However, Plotinus influenced Gaius Marius Victorinus , who then influenced Augustine of Hippo . Centuries later, Carl Jung acknowledged

1036-629: Is featured in John's Story: The Last Eyewitness , part of Christian writer Tim LaHaye 's The Jesus Chronicles . In the book Cerinthus, much to the disciple John's frustration, has begun spreading his gnostic teachings to the populace, whereupon John is moved to write his counter-argument: the Gospel of John . Cerinthus is mentioned in Robert Browning 's poem A Death in the Desert , which recounts

1110-455: Is good and what is evil. Logos , pathos , and ethos can all be appropriate at different times. Arguments from reason (logical arguments) have some advantages, namely that data are (ostensibly) difficult to manipulate, so it is harder to argue against such an argument. On the other hand, trust in the speaker—built through ethos —enhances the appeal of arguments from reason. Robert Wardy suggests that what Aristotle rejects in supporting

1184-690: Is known about Cerinthus comes from the writing of his theological opponents. Cerinthus flourished during the second half of the first century, though the date of his birth and his death are unknown. None of Cerinthus' actual writings seem to have survived. Our most detailed understanding of the man Cerinthus' teachings are from the 4th century Bishop Epiphanius of Salamis , a few centuries after his death, though Irenaeus of Lyon (c. 135–202) briefly outlines Cerinthus' beliefs in his five books against Gnosticism. Publication of surviving fragments of Hippolytus of Rome's (c. 170–235) Capita Adversus Caium demonstrate Epiphanius drew heavily from Hippolytus' Refutation of

1258-460: Is occasionally used in other contexts, such as for "ratio" in mathematics. Logos became a technical term in Western philosophy beginning with Heraclitus ( c.  535  – c.   475 BC ), who used the term for a principle of order and knowledge. Ancient Greek philosophers used the term in different ways. The sophists used the term to mean " discourse ". Aristotle applied

1332-441: Is related to Ancient Greek: λέγω , romanized :  légō , lit.   'I say' which is cognate with Latin : lex , lit.   'law'. The word derives from a Proto-Indo-European root, *leǵ-, which can have the meanings "I put in order, arrange, gather, choose, count, reckon, discern, say, speak". In modern usage, it typically connotes the verbs "account", "measure", "reason" or "discourse". It

1406-454: Is termed legalism . This view contradicts the soteriology conveyed at the Council of Jerusalem (c. 50 AD), which gave the understanding that Christians are not required to be circumcised to attain salvation . The Book of Acts chapter 15 lists only four lifestyle requirements for Gentile converts to Christianity for the purpose of their attending synagogue, after which they would learn

1480-515: Is that in Irenæus ' refutation of Gnosticism, Adversus haereses , which was written about 170 AD. According to Irenæus, Cerinthus, a man educated in the wisdom of the Egyptians, claimed angelic inspiration. The Epistula Apostolorum , a little-known 2nd-century text discovered in 1895, which is roughly contemporary (c. 160–170) with the above work of Irenaeus, was written polemically against

1554-570: Is that of a rational form of discourse that relies on inductive and deductive reasoning. Aristotle first systematized the usage of the word, making it one of the three principles of rhetoric alongside ethos and pathos . This original use identifies the word closely to the structure and content of language or text . Both Plato and Aristotle used the term logos (along with rhema ) to refer to sentences and propositions . Ancient Greek : λόγος , romanized :  lógos , lit.   'word, discourse, or reason'

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1628-488: 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-Futūḥāt al-Makkiyya ). To Ibn Arabi, every prophet corresponds to

1702-557: Is white. Freemasons celebrate this feast day , dating back to the 18th century when the Feast Day was used for the installation of Grand Masters . John is traditionally depicted in one of two distinct ways: either as an aged man with a white or gray beard, or alternatively as a beardless youth. The first way of depicting him was more common in Byzantine art , where it was possibly influenced by antique depictions of Socrates ;

1776-433: The Alogi ) headed by Caius of Rome alleged Cerinthus was the true author of the Gospel of John and Book of Revelation . According to Catholic Encyclopedia: Caius : "Additional light has been thrown on the character of Caius's dialogue against Proclus by Gwynne's publication of some fragments from the work of Hippolytus "Contra Caium" (Hermathena, VI, p. 397 sq.); from these it seems clear that Caius maintained that

1850-591: The Apocalypse of John was a work of the Gnostic Cerinthus." The Book of Revelation (Apocalypse) is attributed to John by Christians before that time; third century theologian Tertullian indicates that all John's foster churches (i.e., the churches of Asia Minor) when traced back to the beginning all rested on the Apostle John as its author, and that it receives the same recognition in all the other churches. Irenaeus makes consistent remarks. Cerinthus

1924-790: The Bible , reads: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. According to the Gnostic scriptures recorded in the Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit , the Logos is an emanation of the great spirit that is merged with the spiritual Adam called Adamas. Neoplatonist philosophers such as Plotinus ( c.  204/5  – 270 AD) used logos in ways that drew on Plato and

1998-455: The Stoics , but the term logos was interpreted in different ways throughout Neoplatonism, and similarities to Philo's concept of logos appear to be accidental. The logos was a key element in the meditations of Plotinus regarded as the first neoplatonist. Plotinus referred back to Heraclitus and as far back as Thales in interpreting logos as the principle of meditation, existing as

2072-761: The logos also exists in Islam , where it was definitively articulated primarily in the writings of the classical Sunni mystics and Islamic philosophers , as well as by certain Shi'a thinkers, during the Islamic Golden Age . In Sunni Islam , the concept of the logos has been given many different names by the denomination's metaphysicians , mystics, and philosophers, including ʿaql ("Intellect"), al-insān al-kāmil ("Universal Man"), kalimat Allāh ("Word of God"), haqīqa muḥammadiyya ("The Muhammadan Reality"), and nūr muḥammadī ("The Muhammadan Light"). One of

2146-401: The logos it is wise to agree that all things are one. What logos means here is not certain; it may mean "reason" or "explanation" in the sense of an objective cosmic law, or it may signify nothing more than "saying" or "wisdom". Yet, an independent existence of a universal logos was clearly suggested by Heraclitus. Following one of the other meanings of the word, Aristotle gave logos

2220-782: 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 . In the 15th century Abd al-Karīm al-Jīlī introduced the Doctrine of Logos and the Perfect Man . For al-Jīlī, the "perfect man" (associated with the logos or the Prophet ) has the power to assume different forms at different times and to appear in different guises. In Ottoman Sufism, Şeyh Gâlib (d. 1799) articulates Sühan ( logos - Kalima ) in his Hüsn ü Aşk ( Beauty and Love ) in parallel to Ibn Arabi's Kalima. In

2294-622: The logos was God's instrument in the creation of the Universe. The concept of logos also appears in the Targums (Aramaic translations of the Hebrew Bible dating to the first centuries AD), where the term memra ( Aramaic for "word") is often used instead of 'the Lord', especially when referring to a manifestation of God that could be construed as anthropomorphic . In Christology ,

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2368-411: The 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia , some authorities believe that this symbol was not adopted until the 13th century. There was also a legend that John was at some stage boiled in oil and miraculously preserved. Another common attribute is a book or a scroll, in reference to his writings. John the Evangelist is symbolically represented by an eagle , one of the creatures envisioned by Ezekiel (1:10) and in

2442-644: The 1964 edition of Marcus Aurelius ' Meditations , the Anglican priest Maxwell Staniforth wrote that " Logos ... had long been one of the leading terms of Stoicism , chosen originally for the purpose of explaining how deity came into relation with the universe". Public discourse on ancient Greek rhetoric has historically emphasized Aristotle's appeals to logos , pathos , and ethos , while less attention has been directed to Isocrates ' teachings about philosophy and logos , and their partnership in generating an ethical, mindful polis . Isocrates does not provide

2516-574: The Apostle. The gospel and epistles traditionally and plausibly came from Ephesus , c.  90–110 , although some scholars argue for an origin in Syria . Eastern Orthodox tradition attributes all of the Johannine books to John the Apostle. Some today agree that the gospel and epistles may have been written by a single author, whether or not this was the apostle. Other scholars conclude that

2590-467: The Book of Revelation (4:7). Logos Logos ( UK : / ˈ l oʊ ɡ ɒ s , ˈ l ɒ ɡ ɒ s / , US : / ˈ l oʊ ɡ oʊ s / ; Ancient Greek : λόγος , romanized :  lógos , lit.   'word, discourse, or reason') is a term used in Western philosophy , psychology and rhetoric , as well as religion (notably Christianity ); among its connotations

2664-642: The Christ descended upon him in the form of a dove from the Supreme Ruler at baptism (see also Adoptionism ) and left him again at his crucifixion—never to embody the flesh. Cerinthus is also said to have taught that Jesus will be raised from the dead at the Last Day , when all men will rise with him. In describing Jesus as a natural-born man, Cerinthus agreed with the Ebionites . In portraying Christ as

2738-609: The Evangelist was John the Apostle. John, Peter and James the Just were the three pillars of the Jerusalem church after Jesus' death. He was one of the original twelve apostles and is thought to be the only one to escape martyrdom. It had been believed that he was exiled (around AD 95) to the Aegean island of Patmos , where he wrote the Book of Revelation . However, some attribute

2812-637: The God of the Hebrews, though Cerinthus denied that he made the world. Cerinthus taught that the visible world and heavens were not made by the supreme being, but by a lesser power ( Demiurge ) distinct from him. He taught that this power was ignorant of the existence of the Supreme God . His use of the term demiurge (literally, craftsman) for the creator fits Platonic , Neopythagorean , Middle Platonic , and Neoplatonic schools of philosophy, which dominated

2886-491: The Greek New Testament , such as Jerome (in the 4th century AD), experienced frustration with the inadequacy of any single Latin word to convey the meaning of the word logos as used to describe Jesus Christ in the Gospel of John . The Vulgate Bible usage of in principio erat verbum was thus constrained to use the (perhaps inadequate) noun verbum for "word"; later Romance language translations had

2960-483: The Logos ( Koinē Greek : Λόγος , lit.   'word, discourse, or reason') is a name or title of Jesus Christ , seen as the preeminent expression in fulness of all the attributes, the complete thought, and the entire "knowable" reality of the infinite and spiritually transcendent Godhead. The concept derives from John 1:1 , which in the Douay–Rheims , King James , New International , and other versions of

3034-579: The Logos Christology." The concept of logos in Sufism is used to relate the "Uncreated" (God) to the "Created" (humanity). 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

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3108-746: The Thirty-two Heresies . Irenaeus writes that Cerinthus was educated in the Gnosis of the Egyptians. According to Epiphanius, Cerinthus was the instigator of trouble against the Apostles Paul and Peter at Jerusalem, and had sent out men to Antioch commanding that gentile converts must be circumcised and keep the Law , prompting the convention of the Jerusalem Council (c. 50). After these things, Epiphanius says that Cerinthus founded

3182-401: The active reason working in inanimate matter . Humans, too, each possess a portion of the divine logos . The Stoics took all activity to imply a logos or spiritual principle. As the operative principle of the world, the logos was anima mundi to them, a concept which later influenced Philo of Alexandria , although he derived the contents of the term from Plato. In his Introduction to

3256-573: The advantage of nouns such as le Verbe in French. Reformation translators took another approach. Martin Luther rejected Zeitwort (verb) in favor of Wort (word), for instance, although later commentators repeatedly turned to a more dynamic use involving the living word as used by Jerome and Augustine . The term is also used in Sufism , and the analytical psychology of Carl Jung . Despite

3330-468: The apostle John wrote none of these works. Some scholars, though, such as John Robinson , F. F. Bruce , Leon Morris , and Martin Hengel , still hold the apostle to be behind at least some of the works in question, particularly the gospel. The Book of Revelation is today generally agreed to have a separate author, John of Patmos , c.  95 with some parts possibly dating to Nero 's reign in

3404-519: The author of the epistles was different from that of the gospel, although all four works originated from the same community. In the 6th century, the Decretum Gelasianum argued that the Second and Third Epistle of John have a separate author known as " John the priest ." Historical critics like H.P.V. Nunn, Reza Aslan and Bart Ehrman , believe with most modern scholars that

3478-542: The authorship of Revelation to another man, called John the Presbyter , or to other writers of the late first century AD. Bauckham argues that the early Christians identified John the Evangelist with John the Presbyter . Since at least the 2nd century AD, scholars have debated the authorship of the Johannine works —whether they were written by one author or many, and if any of the authors can be identified with John

3552-568: The church." Caius' view was refuted by his contemporary, Hippolytus of Rome , in a lost work entitled Capita Adversus Caium (Heads Against Caius), of which only fragments preserved in a commentary of Dionysius Bar-Salibi survive. Cerinthus may be the alleged recipient of the Apocryphon of James (codex I, text 2 of the Nag Hammadi library ), although the name written is largely illegible. A late second century Christian sect (later dubbed

3626-615: The conventional translation as "word", logos is not used for a word in the grammatical sense—for that, the term lexis ( λέξις , léxis ) was used. However, both logos and lexis derive from the same verb légō ( λέγω ), meaning "(I) count, tell, say, speak". In the ancient Greek context, the term logos in the sense of "word" or "discourse" also contrasted with mythos ( Ancient Greek : μῦθος ). Classical Greek usage sees reasoned argument ( logos ) as distinct from imaginative tales ( mythos ). The writing of Heraclitus ( c.  535  – c.  475 BC )

3700-512: The death of John the Apostle . The poem concludes with the line " But 'twas Cerinthus that was lost ." John the Evangelist John the Evangelist ( c. 8 AD - c. 100 AD) is the name traditionally given to the author of the Gospel of John . Christians have traditionally identified him with John the Apostle , John of Patmos , and John the Presbyter , although there is no consensus on how many of these may actually be

3774-668: The early 60s. The feast day of Saint John in the Catholic Church , Anglican Communion , and the Lutheran Calendar, is on 27 December, the third day of Christmastide . In the Tridentine calendar he was commemorated also on each of the following days up to and including 3 January, the Octave of the 27 December feast. This Octave was abolished by Pope Pius XII in 1955. The traditional liturgical color

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3848-437: The inexperienced when they experience such words and deeds as I set out, distinguishing each in accordance with its nature and saying how it is. But other people fail to notice what they do when awake, just as they forget what they do while asleep. For this reason it is necessary to follow what is common. But although the logos is common, most people live as if they had their own private understanding. Listening not to me but to

3922-475: The influence of Plotinus in his use of the term. 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. A young Augustine experimented with, but failed to achieve ecstasy using

3996-552: The internal anonymity of the author's identity, although interpreting the Gospel in the light of the Synoptic Gospels and considering that the author names (and therefore is not claiming to be) Peter, and that James was martyred as early as AD 44, Christian tradition has widely believed that the author was the Apostle John, though modern scholars believe the work to be pseudepigrapha . Christian tradition says that John

4070-548: The interrelationship between the hypostases —the soul , the intellect ( nous ), and the One . 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. For Plotinus, the relationship between the three elements of his trinity

4144-667: The law of Moses as it was preached every Shabbat (Acts 15:21). Many scholars see these four requirements set out by the Jerusalem Council as a parallel to Noahide Law . Conversely, certain Jewish Christian sects, including the Cerinthians , recognized Mosaic law as both practicable and necessary. Eusebius of Caesarea , in his Ecclesiastical History , relates how, according to Caius of Rome, Cerinthus, ...by means of revelations which he pretends were written by

4218-498: The learned environment of the eastern Mediterranean, see also Hellenistic Judaism . Unlike true Gnostics that followed him, Cerinthus taught that the demiurge was not evil, more like Philo's logos than the egotistical demiurge taught by Valentinus . Cerinthus distinguished between the man Jesus and the Christ . He denied the supernatural virgin birth of Jesus , making him the biological son of Joseph and Mary , and taught that

4292-531: The living God is the bond of everything, holding all things together and binding all the parts, and prevents them from being dissolved and separated". Plato's Theory of Forms was located within the logos , but the logos also acted on behalf of God in the physical world. In particular, the Angel of the Lord in the Hebrew Bible ( Old Testament ) was identified with the logos by Philo, who also said that

4366-608: The meditations of Plotinus. In his Confessions , Augustine described logos as the Divine Eternal Word , by which he, in part, was able to motivate the early Christian thought throughout the Hellenized world (of which the Latin speaking West was a part) 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

4440-485: The names given to a concept very much like the Christian Logos by the classical Muslim metaphysicians is ʿaql , which is the "Arabic equivalent to the Greek νοῦς (intellect)." In the writings of the Islamic neoplatonist philosophers, such as al-Farabi ( c.  872  – c.  950 AD ) and Avicenna (d. 1037), the idea of the ʿaql was presented in a manner that both resembled "the late Greek doctrine" and, likewise, "corresponded in many respects to

4514-407: The romance, Sühan appears as an embodiment of Kalima as a reference to the Word of God, the Perfect Man, and the Reality of Muhammad. Carl Jung contrasted the critical and rational faculties of logos with emotional, non-reason oriented and mythical elements. In Jung's approach, logos vs eros can be represented as "science vs mysticism", or "reason vs imagination" or "conscious activity vs

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4588-440: The same individual. The exact identity of John – and the extent to which his identification with John the Apostle , John of Patmos and John the Presbyter is historical – is disputed between Christian tradition and scholars. The Gospel of John refers to an otherwise unnamed " disciple whom Jesus loved ", who "bore witness to and wrote" the Gospel's message. The author of the Gospel of John seemed interested in maintaining

4662-565: The second was more common in the art of Medieval Western Europe and can be dated back as far as 4th-century Rome. In medieval works of painting, sculpture and literature, Saint John is often presented in an androgynous or feminized manner. Historians have related such portrayals to the circumstances of the believers for whom they were intended. For instance, John's feminine features are argued to have helped to make him more relatable to women. Likewise, Sarah McNamer argues that because of John's androgynous status, he could function as an 'image of

4736-492: The story that John rushed out of a bathhouse at Ephesus without bathing when he found out Cerinthus was inside, exclaiming, "Let us fly, lest even the bath-house fall down, because Cerinthus, the enemy of the truth, is inside!" Irenaeus also relates that John sought by proclamation of his gospel "to remove that error which by Cerinthus had been disseminated among men". We do not have a fully developed understanding of Cerinthus' teachings. The earliest surviving account of Cerinthus

4810-471: The teachings of Cerinthus, beginning with an admonition to those who might follow the teachings of Simon and Cerinthus. Cerinthus utilized a gospel identical to that of the Ebionites , which the early church fathers identify as an unorthodox version of the Gospel of Matthew . Unlike Marcion of Sinope , a 2nd-century Gnostic who was hostile to the God of the Hebrews proclaimed in the Law and prophets, Cerinthus recognized Jewish scripture and professed to follow

4884-410: 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

4958-410: The term logos to mean an intermediary divine being or demiurge . Philo followed the Platonic distinction between imperfect matter and perfect Form, and therefore intermediary beings were necessary to bridge the enormous gap between God and the material world. The logos was the highest of these intermediary beings, and was called by Philo "the first-born of God". Philo also wrote that "the Logos of

5032-411: The term into Jewish philosophy . Philo distinguished between logos prophorikos ("the utterer word or speaker"), logos spermatikos("the speech") and the logos endiathetos ("the word remaining within"). The Gospel of John identifies the Christian Logos , through which all things are made, as divine ( theos ), and further identifies Jesus Christ as the incarnate Logos . Early translators of

5106-531: The term to refer to "reasoned discourse" or "the argument" in the field of rhetoric, and considered it one of the three modes of persuasion alongside ethos and pathos . Pyrrhonist philosophers used the term to refer to dogmatic accounts of non-evident matters. The Stoics spoke of the logos spermatikos (the generative principle of the Universe) which foreshadows related concepts in Neoplatonism . Within Hellenistic Judaism , Philo ( c.  20 BC  – c.   50 AD ) integrated

5180-494: The unconscious". For Jung, logos represented the masculine principle of rationality, in contrast to its feminine counterpart, eros : 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. Author and professor Jeanne Fahnestock describes logos as

5254-426: The use of logos "is not emotional appeal per se , but rather emotional appeals that have no 'bearing on the issue', in that the pathē [ πᾰ́θη , páthē ] they stimulate lack, or at any rate are not shown to possess, any intrinsic connection with the point at issue—as if an advocate were to try to whip an antisemitic audience into a fury because the accused is Jewish; or as if another in drumming up support for

5328-403: The words of Paul Rahe: For Aristotle, logos is something more refined than the capacity to make private feelings public: it enables the human being to perform as no other animal can; it makes it possible for him to perceive and make clear to others through reasoned discourse the difference between what is advantageous and what is harmful, between what is just and what is unjust, and between what

5402-469: The words of the speech itself. Stoic philosophy began with Zeno of Citium c.  300 BC , in which the logos was the active reason pervading and animating the Universe . It was conceived as material and is usually identified with God or Nature . The Stoics also referred to the seminal logos (" logos spermatikos "), or the law of generation in the Universe, which was the principle of

5476-581: Was the first place where the word logos was given special attention in ancient Greek philosophy , although Heraclitus seems to use the word with a meaning not significantly different from the way in which it was used in ordinary Greek of his time. For Heraclitus, logos provided the link between rational discourse and the world's rational structure. This logos holds always but humans always prove unable to ever understand it, both before hearing it and when they have first heard it. For though all things come to be in accordance with this logos , humans are like

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