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Logos in Greek Philosophy and Christian Thought

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Logos in Greek Philosophy and Christian Thought Durham E-Theses Ontologies of freedom and necessity: an investigation of the concepts of logos in Greek philosophy and Christian thought Cvetkovic, Vladimir How to cite: Cvetkovic, Vladimir (2001) Ontologies of freedom and necessity: an investigation of the concepts of logos in Greek philosophy and Christian thought, Durham theses, Durham University. Available at Durham E-Theses Online: http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/4269/ Use policy The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-prot purposes provided that: • a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in Durham E-Theses • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. Please consult the full Durham E-Theses policy for further details. Academic Support Oce, Durham University, University Oce, Old Elvet, Durham DH1 3HP e-mail: [email protected] Tel: +44 0191 334 6107 http://etheses.dur.ac.uk 2 ONTOLOGIES OF FREEDOM AND NECESSITY An Investigation of the concepts of logos in Greek philosophy and Christian thought Vladimir Cvetkovic Degree: MA The copyright of this thesis rests with the author. No quotation from it should be published in any form, including Electronic and the Internet, without the author's prior written consent. All information derived from this thesis must be acknowledged appropriately. University of Durham Department of Theology 2001. h HAY « CONTENTS Introduction 2 I Ontological monism of Greek Thought 6 1. The epic era and the primitive meaning of the Greek word logos: Homer 6 2. Logos as universal world of awakening; Heraclitus the Obscure 7 3. Why is there something and not nothing; Parmenides 12 4. The logos of dialectics; Plato 14 5. The birth of logic; Aristotle 21 6. The omnipresent logos: the Stoics 25 II Greeks and Jews 29 1. The forebear of the Christian logos: Philo from Alexandria 29 2. The logos became flesh: St. John the Theologian 33 III Logos as the cosmological principle 39 1. The Sower of the seeds; Justin Martyr 39 2. The Pious Intellectual; Clement of Alexandria 45 3. The cosmological convenience; Origen 51 IV The Zenith of Late Antiquity; Plotinus 61 V Ontology of Freedom 71 1. The witness of faith; Ignatius of Antioch 72 2. The liberation of God; Irenaeus of Lyon 80 3. The triumph of Orthodoxy; Athanasius of Alexandria 89 Conclusion Introduction The mystery which lies in the foundations of Western civilisation is that of logos. Logos is the only word which defines all epochs in the history of humankind. The only word which can be compared with logos is the Chinese tao. The birthplace of the word logos is in the Greek mind. Logos had been used and preserved by the Hellenistic peoples with the consequence that this priceless heritage could be passed on to the peoples of Europe when they were ready to receive it. The Christian civilisation inherited this precious gift, making it the cornerstone of their beliefs. In the modern epoch it introduces structural thinking, which assumes that human reality is intelligible. Logos is an incipient logic and it degrades itself into logic. Nowadays our society is passing through a deep crisis - the loss of the original concept of logos. This has followed attacks on logocentric thinking. But if Greeks invented and preserved logos in its many original forms, and then transmitted it to the Christian cultures, which adopted Logos in all its various meanings, in the process creating a valuable synthesis, what are the roots of the logos crisis? We do not want to investigate the entire history of humankind looking for the origins of the deterioration of logos. Whether logos lost its original meaning with Hegel's identification of being with non-being, or even earlier with Descartes' identification of being with the cogito, is not the focus of our discussion. Goethe gives the best account in his Faust, using prophetic language to show where the crises of logos lie. Doctor Faustus, a physician returning from an Easter ramble, starts to translate the prologue of St John's Gospel into German. 'In the beginning was logos'. In the first clause he finds himself in difficulty as to how to translate logos. 'In the beginning was the Word'. No, such a complex meaning as contained by the word logos cannot be rendered by a single word. He tries to translate logos using 'reason', and then with 'power', but finally rejects both solutions. 'The spirit aids me, now suddenly I see my way, and write assuredly, in the beginning was the deed'. When doctor Faustus makes his final choice, Mephistopheles appears. The verses of Goethe describe the misfortune which visits Dr Faustus as a result of translating and interpreting logos. The main difficulty is the exact nature of this Greek word. Does logos belong to philosophy which gives the primacy to the reason, or is its role as a medium in communication, or is logos something else? Different Christian traditions gave the different answers to question of the nature of 2 logos not just in the Prologue of St. John's Gospel, but in discerning the mystery of logos. The earliest Latin translation had not transmitted the full meaning of logos, but without losing the essence of its meaning. The early translators chose the Latin word conventus, the original meaning of which was 'coming together', and which also covers the meaning 'word'. The latter meaning can be seen in the Romanian word cuvint, which is equivalent for "word". Cuvint is used to translate logos in St. John's Prologue. A Latin word similar to conventus is cognisco (cum + gnosco), which means that something is known only 'with' (cum) others. That indicates the interpersonal character of knowledge. After a while, the Latin word verbum replaced conventus as a translation of logos and the fullness of the original meaning started to deteriorate. Nowadays those languages which derive from Latin usually adopt a translation of logos equivalent to the Latin word verbum. Thus, in Italian logos is translated with la parola, in French with la parole, in Spanish with la palabra. In Luther's translation into German of the Fourth Gospel, as well as in all other places, logos is translated with das Wort. The English translator did the same, translating logos with the Word. Logos appears in the other Romance and Anglo-Saxon languages in much the same way. The things are different in the Slavonic tradition. Because they could receive the concept of Logos directly from Greeks, we might suppose that the logos of the Slavs retains the fullness of its original meaning. The legacy of the Holy Brothers, St. Cyril and St. Methodius, was the translation of almost all Church services as well as the Gospels and the Apostolic writings into Slavonic. The original translation of logos by the Holy Brothers was slovo. Slovo has preserved all the aspects of logos - the common meaning of 'word' as well as that of 'reason' or 'mind'. Slovo is still in use in most Slavonic tradition, but its meaning gradually moved to refer to a particular written character or letter. Today in languages which are derived from Slavonic, we find only traces of logos as 'reason'. Words like slovesno, meaning both 'according to logos' and 'reasonable' indicate that meaning of the Slavonic logos was once much wider. Another substitute for logos in the Slavonic tradition, is zbor or sabor. This word is nearer to the Latin word conventus. It covers the sphere of language as well as referring to certain gatherings. The word sabor is the root of sobornost or sabornost. This word is often applied to the Church, referring to its catholic character. It can also refer to the ways in which the Church has adopted some characteristics from Logos, such as her role in gathering the faithful together. It is of note that the translation of St. John's logos in the Chinese tradition is tao, a word which is the cornerstone of religious and philosophical thought in the Far East. We will not go so far abroad, but will focus our investigation of logos from its early days until its mature use in identification with the God-man in Christianity. Logos is the most important word of the Greek philosophical arsenal to have been introduced into Christianity. Its adoption caused Christians many problems, because their new vision of the faith was explained by means of older and current philosophy only with great difficulty. They were caught between a new vision of their faith and existing philosophical language. Etienne Gilson remarks correctly: 'La pensee chretienne apportait du vin nouveau, mais les vieilles outres etaient encore bonnes'1. The old skins were the Greek philosophy, limited in their ability to explain the new categories of Christian faith. Thus, much time was to pass before the old terms attained new meanings. The aim here is to show the transformation of logos through history from the Greek philosophical tradition to early Christian thought. The fulfilment of our task is intended to contribute to scholarship about early Christian thought in three ways. First, it will distinguish between Greek and Christian ontology and argue that the theory according to which the development of Christianity implies the continuity of the Platonic way of thinking in Christian circles does not stand. Second, it will argue that Greek philosophy is ontologically enclosed in a monistic pattern and that Christian belief based its ontology in God, who is in movement towards the world.
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