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Well now it is going to get more difficult for the Christian as we progress in our study.
I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life. Jesus (John 8.12)
We saw in a previous article that the "Logos" represents the heart of the cosmic pattern and the source of existence. Mankind recognized early on that it's source of "existence" was the Sun and therefore the Sun became the emblem or the symbol of man's life and light (of God).
Where this symbolism originated in a historical sense is not difficult to ascertain for, as an ancient cosmologist might state, it is eternally revealed by the nature of the universe itself. With the setting of the Sun then darkness overtook the world and mankind. Bad things happened in the dark. Man was prey in the darkness for hostile tribes, carnivorous animals, poisonous snakes, accidents, coldness; all of which more often than not culminated or could culminate in his death. With the the rebirth of the Sun at sunrise man found his salvation from all the threats listed above; warmth and visible light that pointed out the dangers hidden in the darkness. He no longer was prey for hostile neighbors and vicious animals. Stepping upon poisonous snakes was not as easy and accidents became less often. Photosynthesis promised an abundant food supply. Hunting for meat became easier. Literally the ancients equated the Sun with salvation and life; in reality the Sun was a picture, in form, of the Creator to him.
Plato taught that there is more to the nature of reality than what we can merely touch and see and that there are move levels to creation than can be perceived exclusively through the physical senses. There is a world of of spiritual essences which both inform and animates the physical universe. This animation is seen by man in the form of mathematical and physical laws which underlie the fabric of nature. Ultimately, these laws of the physical universe exist in the world of pure principles (with God). In other words, though "the physical laws" shape the universe, they themselves are not physical, nor do they exist in time or space. They just "are." Interestingly, "they just are" is the ancient philosophical definition of BEING, "that which just is," the level of reality which is not subject to birth, generation, or decay. This is called the realm of God (just being).
According to ancient philosophical and religious teachings, humanity inhabits a world of external appearances, yet also a world of inner understanding. Religion is just one path that man travels from the superficial appearance to true understanding but the movement itself, from appearance to insight, represents the path of initiation. For as the soul progresses along the path of initiation, it attains a greater degree of insight into its own nature, that of the universe, and the laws which govern the creative process. Initiation is a process of awakening, a movement from darkness to light, and ancient philosophy often borrowed metaphors and analogies from the mystery religions when alluding to this process of deepening insight (like being "born again").
According to Plato, who learned most of his knowledge at Heliopolis, the city of the sun in Egypt, the upper world is identified as that of Being, or Eternal Principles, "that which is," while the lower world is that of Becoming or Change. Becoming, for Plato, is an "image" of Being yet not the "real" Being (a reflection of the real which is a good way of saying it). Plato acknowledge the divinity of the natural world and the celestial bodies, for he experienced the universe as a theophany, a manifestation of the divine...the very "image" of the universal principles. In Egypt, where Plato studied, many hundreds of years before Plato, the physical sun had been seen by the learned as a lower manifestation of a higher principle (it represented to them God in the upper world of "being"). Likewise, Plato used the symbol of the Sun to represent a higher principle, itself the source of the physical sun and, indeed, the source of all. For Plato the image of the Sun represented the idea of the One, the Good, and the Beautiful, seen as the source of existence and Being (God). He learned it from Egypt as you can see. Let us not forget that it is from Egypt we learn monotheism and it would do us good to fully understand the religion of Egypt in order to verify if we are truly following in the legacy of the world's first monotheism.
Following Plato and before the birth of Christianity, the sun came
to be regarded as the doorway between the manifest world of nature and the
extratemporal world of first principles. Helios represented the heart of
the 
celestial
pattern, and his physical aspect was considered as the
theophanic manifestation of a higher principle..the "Solar
Logos." Helios was the all-seeing god of the
sun. Helios was depicted as a beardless man crowned with the aureole of
the sun and driving a four horse chariot through the sky.
Plato depicted the path of philosophy as an upward "ascent" from the shifting and changing world of appearances to the world of first principles. The philosophical ascent is thus also a movement toward progressively a higher state of cognition.
Plato speaks in depth about the relationship between the world of Being and the world of Change. The outermost sphere of the stars and the more transcendent sphere behind them, was identified by him as the realm of eternal Being, free from change, and was seen as the habitation of the High God who holds within its Intellect the universal Forms on which all creation is based. The highest sphere clearly corresponds to the nature of the Spiritual Sun, the source of all reality according to Plato. Below the sphere of the moon, however, all is not so tranquil, for the sublunar sphere is the real of profound change and flux.
Into these realms mankind is thrown; humanity, as a microcosmic reflection of all the principles which comprise the universe, participates in both Being and Change. Humanity is comprised of a little of both realms (Spirit and Matter). Human beings possess a transcendent spirit capable of knowing eternal principles, while the body is of a transitory nature, destined to dissolve within the confines of space and time.
Important now for Christians to take note is the fact that many of Plato's ideas about the relation between Being and Change was codified and given expression in a cosmological sense by the teachings of the highly influential Stoic philosopher, Posidonius of Apamea, who flourished circa 161-35 B.C.E. Coupled with that is the earliest Christian theology which drew much from the speculations of Posidonius of Apamea. He adds to Plato's ideas his own; namely that the two realms of Being and Change are bound together by the phenomenon of humanity, which represents the bond [since a mixture of both spirit and matter] between the spiritual and the material, the divine and the terrestrial. Man represents the highest manifestation of the material realm, but the lowest manifestation of the spiritual realm. Posidonius taught that the second, sublunary world depends upon the upper world for its vital sustenance, the lower world depends upon the lives from the heavenly forces which are poured in to it from the first. Within this presentation of these two realms is also a concept of the descent of souls (the pouring into this realm from the realm of Being the very life force in the manner of souls). According to this view the pre-existing soul drinks from from the stream of Forgetfulness and descends into the world of Change through the planetary spheres, forgetting its celestial origin; through philosophy, however, it can recall its origin in the world of First Principles and regain its seat amongst the stars in the Eternal realm of Being. Posidonius believed the souls come from the sun (a symbol of Life and God), the source for all life, and descend to earth. At death the soul and intellect ascend again and leave the shell of the body behind on the earth. In order to ascend through the heavenly spheres toward liberation and salvation, the initiate needs special knowledge or "gnosis" which is provided by the many anointed ones of God. Jesus was believed to be the revealer of such secret knowledge in the Books of Ieou as well as the Gospel of John. It is through his secret knowledge that was given to his disciples that they would learn what was necessary to make their celestial ascent into the realm of Being. For Plato, the pursuit of philosophy itself was enough to assure the soul's recollection of its origin and ultimate return to its native star. Others taught that necessary was studies in religion in order to purify the eye of the soul for its apprehension of the true Reality. It was through these studies where special knowledge was acquired that the believer comes into intimate contact with the first harmonic principles of creation himself. The early Christian gnostics felt that knowledge, personal experience, and spiritual insight were inherently complementary.
One thing we know for certain is that, in the Pythagorean and Platonic schools of Hellenistic Alexandria, the sun came to be regarded as the doorway [the symbol] linking together the sensible and intelligible spheres, the material and spiritual orders of existence.
Let us take note that it would be under the influence of such Platonic and Pythagorean Gnostic thought and schools in Alexandria, Egypt, that the Essenes would later alter the messianic concepts of the Hebrew Scriptures (from a human Davidic heir anointed by God into a Son of God...as Cosmic godman)
Helios [the mediator and link between these two worlds] was seen as the heart of the celestial pattern, and his physical aspect was considered as the lower manifestation of a higher principle which we may characterize as the Idea of the Solar "Logos".
This concept [lower manifestation of higher principles] was later applied to Jesus [becomes the Solar Logos] as well as his follower saw in him the perfect representation of the realm of Being being manifested before their eyes in the realm of Change in which they lived.
This is the incarnation of Being which is in every man living in the realm of Change but yet only few reveal within their decaying body the First Principles of the realm of Being [living out in their lives and manifesting for others to see the perfect order of the First Cause....whom we call God].
Let me explain. Not everyone lives a life before God completely surrendered to His Word and Revelation. Jesus, like a few special avatars and specially anointed ones sent from God before Jesus' time, lived and modeled before humanity these principles of the realm of Being...of Heaven.
John 5:19 19 Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. (KJV)
All human beings have this potential within them to live such a life like Jesus is recorded to have lived; according to the Laws and Commandments of God. Most try and succeed in such a task in varying levels. We are to reach toward the goal of "Christ likeness" as modeled by Jesus who lived among men and modeled the perfect order of the First Cause as Plato describes it.
Phil 3:14 14 I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. (KJV)
Few men live the principles among humanity properly yet the followers of Jesus saw him as such a man. Jesus was understood by many to be the divine manifestation and reflection of the "Logos" yet not literally the "Logos."
Jesus is not God!
But again this manifestation of the "Logos" by Jesus was a daily choice to live the Laws of God whom God, the First Cause, had revealed that find their origin in this realm of Being.
Let us take just a second to remember what we have learned as the foundation of Egyptian Religion: As Above...So Beneath! Egypt said it first!!!
The reflection of these principles of Order and Reason was made known to man yet it was man's choice to adopt and mold his life around them. To the degree that humanity did this then to the same degree they manifest the "Logos;" some do better than others. This particular doctrine came to permeate the whole of Hellenistic cosmology in one form or another, influencing scientific, metaphysical, and theological thought. As Franz Cumont observes in his Astrology and Religion Among the Greeks and Romans,
From astronomical speculations the Chaldeans had deduced a whole system of religious dogmas. The sun, set in the midst of the superimposed planets, regulates their harmonious movements. As its heat impels them forward, then draws them back, the sun is constantly influencing, according to its various aspects, the direction of their course and their action upon the earth. Fiery heart of the world, it vivifies the whole of this great organism, and as the stars obey its command, it reigns supreme over the universe. The radiance of its splendor illumines the divine immensity of the heavens, but at the same time in its brilliance there is intelligence; it is the origin of all reason, and, as a tireless sower it scatters unceasingly on the world below the seeds of a harvest of souls. Our brief life is but a particular form of the universal life. . . . This coherent and magnificent theology, founded upon the discoveries of ancient astronomy in its zenith, gradually imposed on mankind the cult of the "Invincible Sun" as the master of all nature, creator and preserver of men (Cumont, Astrology And Religion Among The Greeks and Romans, pp. 73-74).
Like God, the sun eternally gives forth from itself without ever being diminished, thus establishing itself as the most perfect symbol of the ineffable First Cause. Yet, as we have noted, among the learned, the sun itself was never taken to represent the First Cause, and was merely seen as its image and manifestation on a lower level of being, within the confines of space and time.
Put another way, the first Sun [God] is the transcendental One, beyond Being [God who is the First Cause]; the second Sun, Helios/Jesus, is the principle of the realm of Being that is being lived out in a human existence, the third level is the realm of all suns, both our local sun and all the other stars in the cosmos. In a poetic sense, however, no one could quarrel with the assertion that the sun is, in a material fashion, the god of the physical universe. Along these lines, the Hermetic writings suggest that one should regard the sun "as the second God, ruling all things, and giving light to all things living in the Cosmos, whether ensouled or unensouled" (Aclepius 29.3, Mead translation, Thrice-Greatest Hermes, II, 229). Likewise, in a scientific sense, few would question the Orphic Hymn to Helios, which identifies the sun as the "the light of life," an epithet which directly parallels the opening lines of the Fourth Gospel.
If the sun can be seen as the material reflection of the First Cause, by analogy the First Cause [realm of Being] can be represented as the Spiritual or Intelligible Sun. This was a symbolic commonplace in the Hellenistic period in pagan, Jewish, and early Christian thought. The notion is clearly set forth in the important writings of Philo of Alexandria, a Jewish philosopher who sought to reconcile the spiritual traditions of Judaism with the light of Greek learning. Born around 30 B.C.E., Philo describes in his many works a comprehensive worldview based on the central idea of the "Logos". In this emanationist cosmology, Philo refers to God as the Intelligible or Spiritual Sun, and the "Logos", his offspring, as "the Son of God."
So the "Son of God" is not meant to be understood, in relation to the "Logos," in a literal manner where so and so is the ACTUAL Son of God. Such a concept is to be understood in ONLY an allegorical way where the "Logos" is the Reason and Ordering principle of the Universe seen (the mind of the Divine First Cause or Architect) expressed through the life of a person by adherence to the Laws of the realm of Being (obeying the Laws of God).
Therefore any reference to a human being, or Jesus for that matter, as being the incarnation of the Logos is to be understood ONLY in an allegorical fashion. Such a one compared to the Logos is just a person totally surrendered to the will of God in this life and who lives these Divine Laws and Divine Principles out before mankind as an example of the Divine Order in Heaven that is to be expressed on earth.
Matt 6:10 10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. (KJV)
It is my opinion, and the opinion of many other scholars that the Jesus of the New Testament was such a personification of the Logos of God, but be that as it may, this is NEVER to be understood in LITERAL sense as if a person is the actual Logos himself or God (only one representing the mind of God before mankind). To do so is idolatry and sadly this is Christian tradition since the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D. where Jesus was made "God" by a vote of hands.
Philo teaches us something very important. "God is the archetypal paradigm of all Laws: He is the Sun of the sun, God is the intelligible object behind the object comprehensible by sense (the Sun), and from invisible fountains he supplies the visible beams which our eyes behold" (Philo, The Special Laws, 1.279). If we refer to our definition of "Logos" we saw that it referred to Order and these Laws of God, if obeyed, both physical and spiritual, both order life and bring blessing to the believer and those within his influence.
This understanding of the "Logos" as Laws which order the Creation is hidden within every discussion of the Torah and Law as found in the pages of our Old and New Testaments. The Laws of God, which emanated with the First Cause, bring order out of chaos and bring according to our definition of "Logos" a harmony in our world which is again the "image" of the realm of Being (So Above...So Beneath as the Egyptian Priests taught). Said another way out of Law recognized and obeyed in our realm of Change we create a mirror-image of the Realm of Being among us (So Above...So Beneath as the Egyptian Priests taught). We create a little Heaven earth to the degree we acknowledge and observe and adhere to the Laws of Being given to humanity by this First Cause we call God (when we obey the Laws/Torah of God). When one looks at the Torah and Ethical Monotheism then it is easy to see how God desires harmony between both realms of Being and Change (So Above...So Beneath) and that harmony and unity can come only through humanity's acknowledgment and awareness of the "Logos" within in themselves and their surrender to it and it's will for their lives which is the pattern from above that resides in hearts and minds of every man and woman to have ever taken a breath; in other words....all mankind). Jesus had no monopoly on the Logos; only he surrenedered to the will of the Logos better than most.
Philo had many titles for the "Logos":
This theology, which is independently found in the Egyptian Hermetica from the same time period and the writings of Plutarch, was chosen by the first Christian intellectuals as the vehicle for their own spiritual expression. As an expositor of the "Logos" doctrine, Philo's writings are appropriately filled with hundreds of examples of number symbolism, for Number was seen as an ordering principle at work in the cosmos; Number is thus allied with the ordering principle of "Logos", which was also studied in a mathematical sense. For this reason, in one revealing passage, Clement of Alexandria refers to his predecessor as simply Philo "the Pythagorean." Early Christians were themselves interested in the scientific portrayal of the "Logos", which they expressed through the numerical language of Greek gematria.
Despite his prolific output, Philo was a synthesizer and not an "original thinker," and the value of his work resides in this simple fact. While learned in the traditions of the day, the ideas and symbolism which Philo employs were "in the air," and he was not an innovator; as one scholar notes, "anything philosophical to be found in his writings can confidently be taken as genuine teaching of his environment." In this respect, Philo's work sheds an especially important light on the ancient "Logos" teaching, for it is possible to infer from his writings, and those of his contemporaries, the central patterns of Hellenistic cosmology.
the "Logos" is God's Likeness, by whom the whole kosmos was fashioned.-Philo Judaeus
We speak of God, of the Son [Logos], his Word, and of the holy Spirit; and we say that the Father, the Son [Logos], and the Spirit are united in power. For the Son [Logos] is the intelligence, reason, and wisdom of the Father, and the Spirit is an effluence, as light from fire. In the same way we recognize that there are other powers which surround matter and pervade it.-Athenagoras, early Christian apologist
In Hellenistic cosmology, the First Cause [God] was envisioned as transcending human understanding. In the Republic, Plato suggested that it was even "beyond Being," a notion which was to have considerable influence for well over a millennium. The Pythagoreans portrayed the first principle as the Monad, indicating that it is both a primeval Unity and apart (monas) from all other things, transcending time, space, and the multiplicity of the phenomenal world. As Clement of Alexander succinctly notes, "The First Cause is not then in space, but above both space, and time, and name and conception" (Clement of Alexander, Stromata, 5.11; in Ante-Nicean Fathers, II, 461). While all things have a relation to it, this primeval Source (archê) was never envisioned as a "personal God," or as a thinking and planning divinity like YHWH, the God of the Old Testament, who consciously decided to create the universe. For the Greeks, the Supreme Principle is utterly simple, and superior to conscious thought and decision-making, even though it is symbolically identified with the power of Cosmic Mind in some writings.
As Origen notes, "The Word can also be 'the Son' because he announces the secrets of the Father, who is 'Mind' (Nous) analogous to the Son who is called 'Word' (Logos). For as the word (Logos=Reason) in us is the messenger of what the mind perceives, so the Word of God, since he has known the Father, reveals the Father whom he has known, because no creature can come into contact with him without a guide" (Commentary on John 1.278). When reading these Hellenistic texts of the early Church Fathers it is important to remember that Nous or Mind on a cosmological level represents the principle of pure Intelligence [God] itself and is superior to the activity of discursive reasoning, mental analysis, etc. Therefore, God can be pure Mind without engaging in inferior activities such as thinking, planning, and decision making; nonetheless, it is through the cultivation of divine Logos in the human soul that we are led upward toward the recognition of the Highest. This path requires study, meditation, and prayer upon the things revealed by the First Cause to this realm of Change.
Because of its abundant perfection, the Source [First Cause in the Realm of Being] unconditionally gives forth a secondary principle, the "Logos", in the same way that the sun gives forth rays of light. Now we need to better understand how the Sun was the picture of the Logos. The "Logos" is not the First Cause, any more than rays of light "are" the sun, but nonetheless the two are very intimately related. In this ancient teaching, the "Logos" is the first, harmonically differentiated "image" of the First Cause. The "Logos" represents the first level of real manifestation or Being made visible in our realm of Change through the actions of humanity, for it encompasses within itself all the laws and relations which are later articulated in the phenomenal universe. Since the "Logos" is the emanation of the Transcendent Absolute, it may be poetically described as "the Son of God" [NOT TO BE UNDERSTOOD AS THE LITERAL SON OF GOD], as we see in the works of Philo, the Hermetic writings of Egypt, and early Christianity. Underlying the source of all reality, the "Logos" is related to the principle of Nous or Universal Intellect, the "repository" of all the cosmic Forms and principles on which creation is based. And as the rational image of Divine Intellect, humanity is itself the living, incarnate image of the "Logos." Notice I said "humanity" and not just one person. Again we see that humanity reflects this "Logos." Some men and women who observe and manifest the Order of the realm of Being as expressed in the Laws of the realm of Being exert a Heavenly effect upon this realm of Change. Jesus was believed to be one of the best examples of this by his followers and those who knew him best. This does not make Jesus God however; only very Godly. Said another way, Jesus revealed God the Father to men like few could. This again does not make him God or should make him the object of worship. When such was done later by those who either went to far or failed to grasp the true understanding of the "Logos" then idolatry and blasphemy results from the failure to understand properly the "Logos" doctrine as expressed in the Gospel of John and the writings of men like Plato and Philo.
According to Clement of Alexandria,
the image of God is His Word [Logos], the genuine Son of Mind, the Divine Word, the archetypal light of light; and the image of the Word is the true man, the mind which is in man, who is therefore said to have been made "in the image and likeness of God" (Clement of Alexander, Exhortation to the Greeks 10, Ante-Nicene Fathers, II, 199).
Let me say it very plainly. The Divine Will of the Creator in the realm of Being above which is the will of the First Cause, is related to man in this earth [the realm of change] by the "Logos" which is the mind of God which is within every man and woman. This will of the Creator/Father can be discerned if they listen to the still small voice within or seek it themselves through study, prayer, and meditation upon the things of God expressed through His Laws. This will of God exists within humanity and the hearts of mankind and emerges to control humanity when mankind sets his heart upon the things above and seeks God and tunes his heart and mind upon the things of God.
Invariably, the powers of Light and Life were associated with the nature of the "Logos" in Hellenistic thought, for these are among the most central principles in all of creation. Like the early Christians, the pagan cosmologists held that humanity was created in the "image" of God. To illustrate this, the Hermetic writings of Egypt present several schemes; in one of the more attractive versions, Eternity (Aeon) is said to be the image of God, Cosmos is the image of Eternity, the Sun is the image of Cosmos, and Man is the image of the Sun.' Because of these factors, the "Logos" has often been pictured in various cosmologies as Anthropos, the figure of the Perfect Man, the archetype and exemplar of humanity. As said before, those who knew Jesus best knew him to be the best that humanity and Judaism had to offer. He above all others lived the Torah and the Laws of God [the First Cause] better than any other [in their opinion]. Such Ordering Principles of Life expressed through God's Laws was not only his message but his life-style. Few if any exhibited such a pattern of the Divine among his fellow men. That is why Jesus is the Avatar of the Jewish nation and recognized such by his disciples and apostles and presented to the world in such a manner by those who knew him best.
But again Jesus as the Son of God [Logos] is to be understood in an allegorical manner and not a literal manner and worship is to be given to the First Cause and not the "Logos" manifested in different degrees within mankind; even Jesus!
The nature of the "Logos" was also represented by the natural principle of musical harmony. Mathematically, harmony depends upon the nature of "Logos" or ratio. Both pagans and Christians alike expressed the nature of the "Logos" in these terms, for it is through the power of harmony that all the parts of creation are reconciled into a greater whole. Harmony on earth, the realm of Change, is to be manifested when the principles of Heaven are lived out by humanity.
Let us think for a moment. God demand sole worship. When we worship another, even with good intentions but unknowingly we are doing wrong and we are not aware of it, we bring disharmony and not harmony. We bring disorder and not order. When humanity suffers it manifest disharmony and disorder. When we feed the poor we bring harmony and order to bear upon disorder and disharmony. When we clothe the naked we bring order and harmony to disharmony and disorder. When we move a landmark of our neighbor we bring disharmony and disorder and not harmony. In so doing one often ends up killed and this furthers the disorder and disharmony. All the Commandments of God, both positive and negative, are the Absolute expressions of the will of the Divine Creator. We call Him God. The Laws and Commandments of the Divine Realm not only express the will of God but are manifestations of the greatest Love and Order that emanates from the Divine Realm of Being [THINK]! When humanity takes upon themselves to adhere to and observe such Laws and Commandments then the Order of Heaven and the Harmony that is Heaven exerts it's influence upon this latter realm of Change. In this way the Mind of God is [Logos] is applied by mankind to the realm of matter where humanity finds its home. Then and only then does this passage find its fulfillment:
Matt 6:10 10 Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. (KJV)
That says it all. From this we can also surmise that the early Christian ideal of the church or assembly (ekklêsia), the mystical body of Christ, was itself seen by some as a social manifestation of the celestial harmony, whereby all individuals might be unified and uplifted into a greater whole (Clement of Alexander, Exhortation to the Greeks 9, Witt translation, "Plotinus and Posidonius," 201).
Having surveyed some common ideas regarding the "Logos" during the Hellenistic period, it would be useful to study the Prologue to the Fourth Gospel to see how it relates to this model. It is reproduced below, where the terms Word and world have been replaced with the Greek originals, "Logos" and kosmos respectively:
John 1:1-18 1 In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God. 2 The same was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. 4 In him was life; and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. 6 There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. 7 The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe. 8 He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. 9 That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the kosmos. 10 He was in the kosmos, and the kosmos was made by him, and the kosmos knew him not. 11 He came unto his own, and his own received him not. 12 But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: 13 Which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. 14 And the Logos was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. 15 John bare witness of him, and cried, saying, This was he of whom I spake, He that cometh after me is preferred before me: for he was before me. 16 And of his fullness have all we received, and grace for grace. 17 For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. 18 No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. (KJV)
It is easy to see how the Prologue to the Fourth Gospel reflects the ideas of the Hellenistic "Logos" teaching, set forth here in its Christian version. The "Logos" is in the archê, the Beginning, Source, or Fount of existence. As the underlying harmonic pattern of creation, all things were made through the "Logos", which contains the principles of Life and Light. The light of the "Logos" shines out, illuminating the darkness of matter, forgetfulness, and our unawakened spiritual nature, yet "the darkness" grasps it not: the darkness cannot understand the Light, nor can it destroy it. But by turning back toward the "Logos" and the world of first principles, humanity discovers what it means to truly live, and is illuminated by the spiritual source of creation.
John the Baptizer is perhaps a member of an Essene community and he bears witness concerning the Light. The kosmos itself is a reflection of the "Logos", which exists here-and-now in the manifest world through order. This "order" is best understood by the obedience to the will and Commandments and Laws of God; yet, without the power of Mind-the power of Light-the created world is unaware of the higher realities, even though it mirrors them. That explains the message of John the Baptist who came preaching repentance and and turning back toward God and the will of God as found in the Torah. The "Logos" came unto its own, humanity [the Logos resides within each man], but not everyone recognized its nature. Yet those who received the "Logos", "the dayspring from on high," and believed in its divine name, experienced a spiritual regeneration-referred to elsewhere in this gospel as "the birth from above"-and, like the "Logos" itself, became Sons of God. This passage is not saying, I reiterate is not saying, that those who believed in Jesus or the theology created about him later by Rome is "born from above" or "becomes a son of God." Again we must remember to understand this metaphorically and not literally as Rome has tragically not done for thousands of years. As shared above some experiences this awakening to the Spiritual realities that exist among us in this realm of Change better than others; thus the call of repentance to the multitudes. Those who had experienced such an awakening to the spiritual realm were the anointed ones calling the masses to turn their hearts unto their fathers of the faith. Understand that if Israel repented and submitted to the rule and reign of God and His principles of Order and Harmony over their lives then the rule and reign and kingship of God would be over their lives and then this world would become the very image of the realm of Being (Heaven would come to earth). The Kingdom of God would be manifested in our realm of Change and truly the Kingdom of God would be a reality; Heaven would come to Earth (the Realm of Being would overtake the Realm of Change).
We learned earlier that the "Logos" is part of every person and that to the degree a person surrenders to the rule and reign of the Mind of God in their lives the "Logos" becomes manifested in the life and actions of that person. Throughout history we find examples of Godly people who stood head and shoulders above their contemporaries. Righteous examples or "avatars" can be found in almost every nation of the world if one examines the history of various nations. The Jesus of the New Testament was such an avatar and righteous one of whom I speak. Those who knew him best understood that in him and his life was the purest manifestation of God and His rule that could be found within humanity.
That being so the we can now properly understand how the "Logos" was made flesh within the lives of these people as it became incarnate in the universe via the principle of Humanity and was "manifest" among mankind. This concept must be understood in an allegorical and not a literal manner in order to avoid pagan idolatry. Failure to understand the "Logos" doctrine correctly as shared in this article has rendered billions as idolators and blasphemers in the history of the world in the last two thousand years. This word,manifest, is usually translated as "dwelt." But the original Greek term is ambiguous and means, literally, "tented" or "tabernacled," referring to the tent in which the tablets of the Mosaic Law were kept.
Answer for yourself: Did you again notice the reference to Law in that verse? Is this coincidence or is Law one of the main manifestation of the Divine Mind of the Logos?
The meaning here is that the revelation of the New Law, the "Logos", has now been made manifest among humanity as was the Law of old. The old Law was given through Moses, but grace and truth come through the "Logos", Jesus the Christ, the anointed one who manifested this "new law." According to some early Christians, the human Jesus became the vehicle for the Divine "Logos" only at his baptism by John, signified by the descent of the dove [the doctrine of adoptionism], while developing orthodoxy decided that he had been the incarnation of the "Logos" from the start [pre-existence]. In other words either Jesus received the descending "Logos" because He, the Logos, could tablernacle within such a holy temple and body surrendered to the will of God as Jesus was or either Jesus was born with the Logos fully dwelling within him. Theology will debate this for centuries and the result is that they make Jesus God instead of man anointed by God with the Logos which is actually the truth; but Rome desiring to pattern Jesus after their pagan g-ds and g-dmen will do otherwise. This was done in 325 A.D. at the Council of Nicea when Jesus was made God! Idolatry has infected almost every believer since!
No one has at any time seen the ineffable, High God. But the only-begotten Son-the "Logos"-who is in the bosom of the Father, has revealed to humanity the nature of the transcendent Source, both through consciousness-the Light of Life (Luke 178) and through the structure of the universe itself. Understand this "Light of Life" is either manifested through our Godly actions in which we imitate God or not. Some do this better than others and Jesus was one who was recognized among his followers as one who portrayed this Divine image through his surrender to the Torah better than most in his day. Jesus and his obedience to the Torah and the will of God in his life as well as his teaching of such principles among his people revealed to humanity the very nature of this transcendent Source we call God. This revelation is grasped by too few and expressed through one's life by fewer still. There are many such men who line the halls of history who were like Jesus in this manner and history records such great men like Rama, Moses and Yeshua who were manifestations among men of the Divine Logos in human form; again however this is to be understood allegorically and not literally.
While the early Christians personified the "Logos" in the figure of Jesus, the Greeks had represented the "Logos" in the figure of Apollo, the g-d of geometry and music. Another favorite representation was Hermes, who, as the church fathers acknowledge, was actually called "the "Logos"" by the Greeks. Many great men were known to have brought Divine wisdom to bear upon this world and were considered as representations of the Logos among mankind. Jesus was not the first; nor the last. Thus Justin Martyr writes:
"When we say, as before, that he [Jesus] was begotten by God as the Word of God in a unique manner beyond the ordinary birth, this should be no strange thing for you who speak of Hermes as the announcing word [Logos] from God" (Justin Martyr, First Apology, 22; in Richardson, Early Christian Fathers, 256).
For example, according to the gnostic sect of the Naassenes, "Hermes is the Word who has expressed and fashioned the things that have been, that are and that will be" (Hippolytus, Refutation of All Heresies 5.2 (Ante-Nicene Fathers, v. 50); translation by Doresse, Secret Books of the Egyptian Gnostics, 84).
In ancient Egypt, where the "Logos" theology appears at an early date, the Greek g-d Hermes was identified with the Egyptian divinity Thoth. Thoth was the personification of the universal order, the "heart and tongue" of the sun g-d Ra who "spoke the words" which resulted in the creation of the heavens and the earth. According to Iamblichus, Thoth was the author of 36,525 books (equal to the number of days in one hundred solar years). He was represented as the "scribe of the gods," the revealer of mathematics, geometry, and priestly knowledge. As E. A. Wallis Budge points out:
His knowledge and powers of calculation measured out the heavens, and planned the earth, and everything which is in them; his will and power kept the forces in heaven and earth in equilibrium; it was his great skill in celestial mathematics which made proper use of the laws (maãt) upon which the foundation and maintenance of the universe rested; it was he who directed the motions of the heavenly bodies and their times and seasons; and without his words the gods, whose existence depended on them, could not have kept their place among the followers of Ra (Budge, Gods of the Egyptians I, 407-408).
As "the reason and mental powers" of the sun g-d Ra, Thoth was "also the means by which their will was translated into speech" (Budge, Gods of the Egyptians I, 407). As the revealer of celestial knowledge, the attributes of Thoth are later reflected in the figure Hermes Trismegistos (Thrice-Great Hermes), the reputed author of the Egyptian Hermetic writings. While the actual authors of these important works are unknown, like the unknown authors of the Christian gospels, Iamblichus repeats the tradition that "Hermes, the g-d who presides over language, was formerly very properly considered as common to all priests; and the power who presides over the true science concerning the gods is one and the same in the whole of things. Hence our ancestors dedicated the inventions of their wisdom to this deity, inscribing all their own writings with the name of Hermes" [Iamblichus, On The Mysteries 1.1 (Taylor translation, 17-18)].
The Greek Hermetic tractates were written and used in Egypt during a period stretching from perhaps 100 B.C.E. to 350 C.E. by members of Hermetic spiritual communities which were active in synthesizing native Egyptian teachings with the expressions of Greek philosophy. The ideas of this "pagan gnosticism" were certainly "in the air" during the formative days of early Christianity, and while "no direct literary relationship can be traced. . . it seems clear that [the person who wrote the Gospel of] John was working with similar presuppositions and along similar lines to those of the Hermetic authors" (C.K. Barrett, The Gospel of John, 31).
The Hermetic writings are cast as revelation discourses between Hermes Trismegistos, the spiritual "father," and Tat, his "son," the aspiring initiate. In an esoteric sense, "Hermes" and "Tat" may represent two aspects of an individual's soul, the higher and lower natures respectively. Through "his" writings and discourse with his disciples, Hermes Trismegistos reveals teachings of a spiritual and cosmological nature, concerning the nature of God, the soul, the origin and structure of the cosmos, and the path through which the soul may experience its divinizing rebirth in the divine principle of Mind or Nous. Common to all of these writings are parallels to the Hellenistic "Logos" doctrine as it has been summarized in this article.
According to the underlying myth of Gnosis, humanity is asleep, forgetful of its celestial origin and true nature. It is the task of the "Gnostic Revealer" [as the manifestation of the Logos] to descend through the heavenly spheres and fan the slumbering sparks of spiritual knowledge which lie dormant within the soul, leading to the recognition of one's authentic nature and spiritual destiny. In Christianity, Jesus is personified as the Gnostic Revealer, the teacher of saving knowledge, especially in such works as the Gospel of John and the Gospel of Thomas. But understand history records many of these Gnostic Revealers of God which expressed among mankind the Logos better than their peers and Jesus is not the only one nor the last of them. In the Hermetic writings, Hermes Trismegistos represents another Hellenistic manifestation of the "Logos", also personified as the Gnostic Revealer. Understand what personification means: a picture of the real but not the actual "real." While one may have many teachers in life, Clement of Alexandria states that the ultimate spiritual teacher is the "Logos" itself, "the Teacher from whom all instruction comes" [Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks II (Anti-Nicene Fathers, II, 203)]. According to the ancients, the "Logos" exists without, yet also within. We can never be separated from the harmony of the universe because we are its living reflection, even if in our slumber, this recognition has been temporarily obscured.
Like the teachings of the early Christians, the Hermetic writings focus upon the mystery of the soul's "rebirth" and transfiguration, the discovery of "the inner man," which results in a divinization of the personality. Through this existential realization, the gnostic-the true initiate-discovers who he is, where he has been, and where he is going. The gnostic realization is that awakened, transfigured humanity is a manifestation of Nous, the Divine Intellect, the first emanation of the unknowable Source. Simply said we become "sons of God." In one of the Hermetic writings, The Cup or the Monad, the story is told of how the world creator, while giving each person a share of reason (logos), did not bestow on every soul an equal portion of Mind. Rather, Mind was "set up in the midst of souls, just as it it were a prize" [Corpus Hermeticum 4 (The Cup of Monad), 3 (Mead translation, Thrice-Greatest Hermes, II, 56)]. In language which strongly parallels that of early Christianity, Hermes explains the liberating baptism in the Cup of Mind. The world creator, he says
filled a mighty cup with it, and sent it down, joining a Herald to it, to whom He gave command to make this proclamation to the hearts of men: Baptize thyself with this Cup's baptism, what heart can do so; you who have faith can ascend to Him who sent down the cup, you who know why you have come into being! As many then as understood the Herald's tiding and doused themselves in Mind, became partakers in the Gnosis; and when they had "received the Mind" they were made "perfect men." But they who do not understand the tidings, these, since they possess the aid of Reason ("Logos") only and not Mind (Nous), are ignorant of why and how they have come into being [Corpus Hermeticum 13 (Mead translation, Thrice-Greatest Hermes, II, 57)].
Elsewhere, in another work, The Secret Discourse Concerning Rebirth, Hermes explains the process through which this divinization is experienced. Recalling the passage in the Fourth Gospel where Nicodemus asks, "How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?", Tat proclaims "I know not, thrice-greatest one, from what womb a man can be born again, nor from what seed" [Corpus Hermeticum 13 (The Secret Discourse Concerning Rebirth), 1 (Scott translation, Hermetica, 1, 239)].
Answer for yourself: Do you see this similarity between the Gospel of John and the Hermetic writings?
Hermes explains that the womb of rebirth is Wisdom and that the Will of God is the begetter. The mystery of rebirth produces the race of the Divine Sonship; this cannot be taught, but, when the time is right, God recalls the knowledge of the spiritual realities to one's awareness, the knowledge the soul possessed before being born into a body. As Walter Scott summarizes the teaching of this tractate:
The man whom the Rebirth brings into being is a son of God; he belongs to the world of Mind; he is composed of divine Powers. He who has been born again has become an incorporeal being; he is no longer a thing visible to bodily eyes.... He sees things no longer by bodily sense; he sees with the eye of Mind. And thus seeing, he finds himself to be one with all that exists; he feels himself to be omnipresent and eternal. The new self which has thus come into being is imperishable. He who has once become a g-d, and son of God, can never cease to be that which he has become (Scott, Hermetica, II, 372).
In this ecstatic, transcendent state, both Christian and Hermetic mystics entered into divine union with the "Logos", the Divine Intellect, the source of Life and Light. Contrary to what you have been taught the key Pauline phrase "in Christ" does not mean in union with a man (Jesus) but union with the Divine Intellect. This union does not come, as the Pagans or Rome would later teach though the eating of the God in the form or wafers or drinking the blood of God which we find in communion in our churches today. Hopefully you see the difference that this union with the Divine intellect comes through knowledge of the Divine, His Word, and your surrender to it in you life and your actions. Instructed by the "Logos" itself, then we become its mouthpiece. Doing so then we understand that the ancients who understood these principles could thus honestly proclaim that the realizations they experienced were the direct teachings of Christ or Hermes. It is no doubt from such ecstatic, heightened states of consciousness that many of the inspired logia or "sayings of the Lord" originated that later found their way into the early Christian literature. That is why Jesus-the "Logos" personified as the "Gnostic Revealer"-can accurately say in the Gospel of Thomas, "He who will drink from My [the Logos speaking of Himself] mouth will become like Me. I [the Logos] myself shall become he [one man in purpose and will], and the things that are hidden [in the Spirit realm] will be revealed to him [mankind." [Gospel of Thomas 108 (in Robinson,The Nag Hammadi Library, 137)].
Generally speaking, the ancient gnostics primarily viewed Christ as an eternal, celestial power, the "Logos", with which it is possible to have an intimate, personal relation, since our higher consciousness is made in its image. For this reason, gnostics stressed the experiential union with the divine, and showed little interest in the historical Jesus, whom it has always been impossible to know in a concrete sense, or even accurately in a historical sense. Because of this, gnostic speculation has always possessed a very strong ahistorical, cosmological tendency and dimension, preferring to concentrate on the liberating realization of Christ within.
This realization, of which the mystics speak, is the secret of initiation, and was referred to by the early Christians in a number of ways. The Prologue to the Fourth Gospel makes it clear that those who "received" the "Logos" experienced a divinizing energy, thus "becoming Sons of God," a transformation also referred to in the Hermetic writings. Elsewhere in the Fourth Gospel, this is referred to in Greek as "the birth from above" (John. 3:3).
John 3:3 3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. (KJV)
Origen, in his work Against Celsus, states that those who follow the example of "the Sun of Righteousness," who sent forth His rays from Judaea, become not only followers of Christ, but Christs in their own right. An even more appealing analogy is offered by Clement, who writes that not even the sun can show us the true God. That is because:
The healthful Word or Reason, who is the Sun of the soul, alone can do that; through Him alone, when He has risen within in the depth of the mind, the soul's eye is illuminated (Clement of Alexandria, Exhortation to the Greeks 6 (Loeb Classical Library translation, 155).
One of the primary roles of the "Logos" in Greek thought is its function as celestial mediator, the "geometric mean" between extremes. That is why Jesus proclaims, in the Gospel of John when speaking of the Logos:, "I am the Way" and "I am the Door." He never meant to say as the Catholic Church would later fashion that only though accepted orthodox beliefs and religious doctrines ABOUT himself (Jesus), which were to be created later by Rome concerning him, was one to be "saved." As the Prologue to the Fourth Gospel states, "No one has at any time seen God." However, "The only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he has revealed him." Jesus in his actions and words modeled the thoughts of God and applied them to his life as few did in his day. Simply said Jesus imitated the God he knew as expressed to him through the Logos that dwelled within him. This did not make Jesus the same as God or God in the flesh in a literal sense but only in an allegorical sense as he lived "Godly" among his people. We need do the same. We need let the logos be expressed in our lives by surrendering to the will of God in our lives. Not only is the "Logos" the image and manifestation of the otherwise transcendent Source, but it is the connecting principle through which we are joined back to the One, and that is why Jesus is represented as the mediator between heaven and earth in Christian symbolism. Again not literally as we have come to believe in error, but as the expression of the Divine Logos among men as the ultimate example of a Godly life. To the degree we live and surrender to the will of God we like Jesus let the Logos, the manifestation of this transcendent Source, life in and through us. The Kingdom of God goes then where we go.
As Christianity evolved into a collective belief system, it developed a political structure and creeds, teaching that Jesus came and left at a particular point in time, and that it was only possible to achieve salvation by joining the ranks of the organized church. The Catholic Church taught that there was no salvation outside of the Bishop! At the same, it outlawed other forms of religious expression, and confiscated the property of prominent individuals who resisted conversion to the new faith. This of course guaranteed the success of Christianity. The church thereby proclaimed itself the official mediator between man and God, thus usurping the original function of Christ the "Logos". The Catholic Church now took the role of the Logos which God put in every man! However, according to the gnostic approach, the "Logos" is an ever-present celestial power, not limited by time, space, or political boundaries; nor to a single appearance only in one man as Christianity teaches concerning Jesus. It underlies the structure of the universe and consciousness, and, for those attuned to its nature, the "Logos" illuminates the inner recesses of the heart with eternal, spiritual knowledge. That is why Jesus, in the ancient Gospel of Thomas, can accurately say as speaking of the Logos: "It is I [the Logos] who am the light which is above them all. It is I [the Logos] who am the All. From Me [the Logos] did the All come forth, and unto Me {the Logos] did the All extend. Split a piece of wood and I am there."
Now you know the truth about the Logos.....which is only to be understood as allegory of the Divine Intelligence of the Creator that inhabits every man [Gospel of Thomas 77 (in Robinson, The Nag Hammadi Library, 135)]