In the beginning was the λόγος and the λόγος was together with the God, and God was the λόγος. This same λόγος was in the beginning together with the God. All things through him came to be, and without him came to be not one thing. What came to be in him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light in the darkness shown forth, and the darkness did not grasp it.
This is my translation of the first words of John’s Gospel. I’ve left the Greek word λόγος untranslated because, in a sense, it’s untranslatable. Commonly it is rendered as “word.” That is; something that is said. But it can also mean “reason.” That is; something that is thought. In Christian thought it is identified with Jesus, God the Son. One of the pioneering Greek philosophers, Pythagoras, used it to describe the force which united the singularity of all things with the diversity of all things. Later Stoic Greek philosophy saw λόγος as that by which all things came to be, that by which all things were ordered, and that to which all things returned. It was Divine Reason, the source of human reason and intelligence, and yet not fully understood by mankind. Their is some evidence that Christian philosophy was influenced by that of the Stoics.
While we can never know if John read the Greek writings which outlined their understanding of λόγος, it seems that he expressed them in his own way while, at the same time, identifying λόγος with the Messiah.
Jesus is in fact, the means by which all things came to be, the Way in which all things are put into order, and the Truth to which all things return. And yet those who reject his Light and choose to remain in Darkness can not grasp this.
