By: W. Hall Harris III , Th.M., Ph.D.
Some have thought that the Prologue to the Fourth Gospel was composed separately by someone other than the Evangelist. The usual reasons given for seeing the Prologue as a separate composition involve the unique vocabulary it employs: lovgo" (referring to the preincarnate Logos) only in 1:1, 1:14; plhvrh", plhvrwma in 1:14, 1:16; and cavri" in 1:14, 1:16, and 1:17.
For example, R. Brown states that the Prologue is “an early Christian hymn, probably stemming from Johannine circles, which has been adapted to serve as an overture to the Gospel narrative of the career of the incarnate Word.”26
But it is more likely that it is original, because it fits so well with what follows. Why not see it as from the Evangelist himself if it comes from “Johannine circles”? [Brown may prefer the phrase “Johannine circles” because it suggests a later date, although in any case for him this composition would precede the composition of the remainder of the Gospel.
Some have thought it should be understood as poetry. True, it can be arranged to look like verse. [So can just about any prose unit, including Eph 1:3-14]. But I have seen no two arrangements which agree, nor any one arrangement which I find particularly convincing. I think it is better to regard the prologue as elevated prose, with a meditative or reflective air about it (like much of the rest of the Fourth Gospel). But this does not make it poetry.
On the use of oJ lovgo": It is not proven beyond doubt whether the term, as John uses it, is to be derived from Jewish or Greek backgrounds or some other source. Nor is it precisely plain what the author meant by it. He does not tell us, and we are left to work out the precise allusion and significance for ourselves.
R.P. Casey states regarding the Prologue:
…the principal difficulty lies neither in its style nor in its terminology but in the fact that its author has his feet planted firmly in two worlds: that of the Old Testament and that of Hellenistic philosophy and he allows his gaze to wander easily from one to the other. At every important point he has not only two thoughts instead of one, but two sets of allusions in mind.27
Greek historical backgrounds: As a philosophical term, lovgo" meant the ‘world-soul’, the soul of the universe. This was an all-pervading principle, the rational principle of the universe. It was a creative energy. In one sense, all things came from it; in another, men derived their wisdom from it. These concepts are at least as old as Heraclitus (6th cent. BC): the lovgo" is “always existent” and “all things happen through this lovgo".”28
Later Hellenistic thought: Philo of Alexandria, the Jewish philosopher of the early 1st century, frequently mentions the lovgo" (it appears over 1400 times in his writings), but he is really concerned with his Platonic distinction between this material world and the real, heavenly world of ideas. It was the Stoics who actually developed the concept of lovgo". They abandoned Plato’s heavenly archetypes in favor of the thought (closer to Heraclitus) that the Universe is pervaded by lovgo", the eternal Reason. They were convinced of the ultimate rationality of the universe, and used the term lovgo" to express this conviction. It was the ‘force’ (!) that originated and permeated and directed all things. It was the supreme governing principle of the universe. But the Stoics did not think of the lovgo" as personal, nor did they understand it as we would understand God (i.e. as a person to be worshipped).
The Evangelist, then, is using a term that would be widely recognized among the Greeks. But the ‘man in the street’ would not know its precise significance, any more than most of us would understand the terms ‘relativity’ or ‘nuclear fission’. But he would know it meant something very important.
The rest of the Fourth Gospel, however, shows little trace of acquaintance with Greek philosophy, and even less of dependence on it.
John, in his use of lovgo", is cutting across the fundamental Greek concept of the gods: they were detached, they regarded the struggles and heartaches and joys and fears of the world with serene, divine lack of feeling. John uses lovgo" to portray a God so involved, so caring, so loving and giving that he becomes incarnate within his creation.
William Barclay summarizes well:
John spoke to a world which thought of the gods in terms of passionless apatheia and serene detachment. He pointed at Jesus Christ and said: ‘Here is the mind of God; here is the expression of the thought of God; here is the lovgo". And men were confronted with a God who cared so passionately and who loved so sacrificially that His expression was Jesus Christ and His emblem a cross.29
Jewish Backgrounds: The ejn ajrch' of John 1:1 inevitably recalls Genesis 1:1, tyvarb. But oJ lovgo" also recalls yhla rmayw, “and God said…” [cf. also Psalm 33:6, “By the word of Yahweh the heavens were made.” There was also the “semi-personalization” of Wisdom in Proverbs 8:22 ff. And the Targums substitute Memra (“Word”) as an intermediary in many places: e.g. in Exod 19:17, “And Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God” (MT), the Palestinian Targum reads “to meet theWord of God.” Targum Jonathan (containing the former and latter prophets, Joshua to 2 Kings plus the prophets and Daniel) uses this expression some 320 times. Some say this is not significant because Memra does not refer to a being distinct from God. It is just a way of referring to God himself. But this is the point: people familiar with the Targums were familiar with “Memra” as a designation for God. John does not use the term the way the Targums do, but to those familiar with the Targums it must have aroused these associations, which John would be in agreement with.30
In summary: William Temple states that the lovgo"
“alike for Jew and Gentile represents the ruling fact of the universe, and represents that fact as the self-expression of God. The Jew will remember that ‘by the Word of the Lord the heavens were made’; the Greek will think of the rational principle of which all natural laws are particular expressions. Both will agree that this Logos is the starting-point of all things.”31
John was using a term which, with various shades of meaning, was in common use everywhere. He could count on all men catching his essential meaning. But for John, the Word was not a principle, but a living Being, the source of life; not a personification, but a Person, and that Person divine.
Note: John never uses the absolute, specific, unrelated term lovgo" outside of the prologue. Elsewhere it is always modified or clarified, and does not occur in the Gospel again in the sense of the lovgo". Why not? Probably because in the Prologue we are looking at pre-existence. 1:14 becomes the point of transition: the Word is now Jesus of Nazareth. Therefore, he is called Jesus from this point on, no longer oJ lovgo". Jesus and the lovgo" are an identity; the lovgo" is the pre-existent Christ.
Strictly speaking, I would prefer not to say that John has ‘personified’ the lovgo" because this implies that he borrowed the term from philosophical circles like the Stoics. Perhaps if we could ask John, he would prefer to say the philosophers had (in a sense) ‘de-personalized’ the lovgo" into a rational principle, although he really was a person (the pre-incarnate Christ) all along. That is to say, what the philosophers had grasped about the lovgo" had some elements of truth, but these were only dim and distant reflections of the pre-incarnate Christ himself. There really was a rational principle behind the universe, but until the coming of this lovgo" as Jesus of Nazareth (1:14) there was no way to know anything about him (1:18) except by natural revelation with all its limitations.
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Barrett, C. K., The Gospel According to St. John, 2nd ed., 149-70.
Beasley-Murray, G. R., John, Word Biblical Commentary 36, 1-17.
Brown, R. E., The Gospel According to John, AB 29, 3-37.
Carson, D. A., The Gospel According to John, 111-39.
Cook, W. R., “The ‘Glory’ Motif in the Johannine Corpus,” JETS 27 (1984): 293ff.
Edwards, Ruth B., “Cavrin ajntiV cavrito" (John 1.16),” JSNT 32 (1988): 3-15.
Fennema, D. A., “John 1:18: ‘God the Only Son’,” NTS 31 (1985): 125-26.
Green, H. C., “The Composition of St. John’s Prologue,” ET 66 (1954-55): 291-94.
Haenchen, E., John 1, Hermeneia, 109-140.
King, J. S., “The Prologue to the Fourth Gospel: Some Unsolved Problems,” ET 86 (1975): 372-75.
Miller, E. L., “The Johannine Origins of the Johannine Logos,” JBL 112 (1993): 445-57.
Miller, E. L., “The New International Version on the Prologue of John,” HTR 72 (1979): 309.
Morris, L., The Gospel According to John, NICNT, 71-128.
O’Neill, J. C., “The Prologue to St. John’s Gospel,” JTS 20 (1969): 41-52.
Parker, J., “The Incarnational Christology of John,” Criswell Theological Review 3.1 (1988): 31-48.
Trudinger, L. P., “The Prologue of John’s Gospel: Its Extent, Content and Intent,” RTR 33 (1974): 11-17
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