called reason, the internal conception of the mind: or the λόγος προφορικός, this same conception embodied in speech and sound". The Greek language allowed the term λoyos to be used in both these senses, for reason or a word: and the Latins expressed the two significations of it by contrasting the terms ratio and oratio92.

If we now turn to the followers of Plato in later times, we shall find the Reason of God holding a still more prominent place in their philosophy, and spoken of in terms which approach nearer to personality. But I think it could be demonstrated, that this arises either from the Reason of God being identified with God himself, or from the same term Aóyos being applied to those intellectual beings, which under the term dæmons or angels, were recognised by the earlier and later Platonists. The subtle, for we can hardly say the sublime, speculations of Plato, gave to the first intelligences a being, and yet no substantial existence: they were only modes or relations of the mind of the Deity, and hence as seated in the λóyos, they were often called by him λóyo. I have mentioned that one of the modifications of Platonism was to give to these beings a more substantial existence; they came gradually to bear a closer resemblance to the angels of Scripture: and it is in this sense that Philo Judæus, who was a decided Platonist, often seems to speak of the Ayos, or Xoyo, as having a real personal existence. Still however I would maintain, that Philo, when speaking as a Jew or as a Platonist, of the Reason of God, never imagined that it was a person distinct from God. According to Philo, God and the Reason of God were the same. He was God as to his essence,

but as to his attributes or operations he was Reason or Mind". One of the first steps in the Gnostic philosophy seems to have been to personify the operations of the mind of the Deity. We are not informed of the names of the Eons in the earliest system of the Gnostics: but Valentinus taught that God acted upon Ennoia, i. e. upon his own Conception; and from thence proceeded the successive generations of Eons. One of these Eons was termed Logos and we may say with truth, that between the genuine followers of Plato, and the corrupters of his doctrine, the Gnostics, the whole learned world, at the time of our Saviour's death, from Athens to Alexandria, and from Rome to Asia Minor, was beset with philosophical systems, in every one of which the term Logos held a conspicuous place". I repeat, however, that the Platonists, except when they spoke of the Angels as λoyo, never used the term Logos in a personal sense: and consequently when St. John called Christ the Logos, when he spoke of him as so distinctly personal, that the Logos became flesh, and was dwelling upon earth, while God was in heaven, this was an idea which he could never have taken from the earlier or later Platonists. So little indeed did the later Platonists think of bringing this charge against the Christians, that Proclus reproached Origen for deserting Plato, and making the Logos equal to the first Cause: and Origen himself points out to Celsus, that while the heathen used the Reason of God as another term for God himself, the Christians used the term Logos for the Son of God".

d In Platonis Theologiam,

II. 4. p. 90. ed. 1618.

< Cont. Cels. V. 24. p. 596.

It might be more to our present purpose to consider what has been asserted by some writers, that Simon Magus gave himself out as the Logos or Word of God. We know from St. Luke that he was called the great power of God; and I have observed, that most probably he claimed to have the same on residing in himself which had descended upon Jesus. It is plain, however, that he was called the great power of God before he believed in Christ; and if we could be certain that at that time he also styled himself the Word of God, nothing could be more natural than that the Word of God and Christ would come to be confounded. It is probable that he announced himself indifferently by both titles and I pointed out in my first Lecture the importance of the fact, that nearly fifteen years elapsed between our Saviour's death and St. Paul's first apostolic journey. During the greater part of this period, Simon Magus and his followers were spreading their doctrines; and I have shewn that Christ, as one of the Æons, held a conspicuous place in their theological system. There is reason therefore to suppose that in many countries, before they were visited by an apostle, the name of Christ was introduced in a corruption of the Platonic doctrines;

and that the Logos, which was used by Plato for the reason, was now changed to signify the Word of God. St. Paul would find himself anticipated by this false notion of Christ in many countries which he visited; and his first effort would be to eradicate from the minds of men the impression which they had received. So far would he be from borrowing the personality of the Logos from the Platonists, that he would wish his followers to forget the Platonic Logos altogether. Jesus Christ, according to St. Paul's preaching, was neither the λóyos évdiábetos, nor the λόγος προφορικός. He was neither the unembodied Reason of God, nor that Reason embodied in sound. Neither of these images furnished any analogy. He was not an unsubstantial phantom, in which the Logos as an Eon from heaven resided: but he was the begotten Son of God, who had appeared upon earth with a human and substantial body. This view of the subject, instead of leading us to think that Christ was spoken of as the Logos in writings earlier than those of St. John, might incline us to expect directly the contrary and if St. Paul used the term, he would rather be likely to use it so as to draw off his converts from thinking of the Platonic Logos, and to turn them to the engrafted word, which was able to save their souls.

Such may have been the conduct of St. Paul while he was planting the gospel in new countries, and while he was plucking up the tares which the enemy had sown. But it is plain, that before and after his death there was a great falling away of believers from the church. False teachers, as he had himself predicted, broke in upon the fold. Persecution had thinned the ranks of the true believers; and it is

plain, that in Asia Minor, and particularly in Ephesus, the Gnostic doctrines had spread like a canker. I have already observed, that from this period to the date of St. John's Gospel, an interval of about thirty years elapsed. We know little of the history of the church in that eventful period: but the Revelations, which were probably published not much later, shew that at that time also persecution and false doctrines had committed great ravages in Asia. Now I cannot see that there is any thing unnatural in supposing, that in this long interval of time the Platonic, or rather the Gnostic doctrines, had become so well known to Christians, that terms and expressions from that philosophy were accommodated to the gospel. It could hardly indeed have been otherwise. Many had been familiar with Platonism before they had become Christians. Of those who had quitted their faith, and returned to it again, many would bring with them the recollection of their Gnostic errors: we may be sure there would be some (who, if their minds were weak, do not perhaps deserve a harsher term, and) who would strive to allay animosities, and to compromise divisions, by shewing that the language of Platonism might be applied to Christianity. The minds of men may have been in this frame when St. John wrote his Gospel. If he wrote it after his return from Patmos, there had been a period in which his watchful eye and superintending care had been withdrawn. We are told that Cerinthus and Ebion had been unwearied in spreading their new view of Gnosticism: and when St. John returned from banishment, he may have found that the true believers had adopted a Gnostic term, though attaching to it