XI. The Babylonian Conception of the Logos

Abstract

In Greek philosophy the word λόγος, which by derivation and usage meant speech, discourse, spoken word, assumed at an early period in the history of Greek thought the meaning reason, thought, mind. It is so employed, apparently, first by Heraclitus of the Ionian school at Ephesus. There seems to be in the region of purely Greek thought and religion no conception of λόγος or uttered word of the gods which could have suggested its identification with universal reason, first principle and cause of all things as variously employed in Greek philosophy. Rumour was called Ὄσσα Διóς ἄγγελος, “Rumour the messenger of Zeus,” who goes about stirring up strife. And she is the messenger or dame rumour, Ὄσσα δ'ἄρ' ἄγγελος, who hastens swiftly with evil news, the Fama of Roman mythology. We must suppose, if the Ionian philosophers identified Word with cosmic reason and first principle, that they were induced and influenced by some well-known semi-philosophical use of the term “Word of the gods” as the personification of divine agency. It is wholly inconceivable that the Greek language permitted a sudden transformation of one of its most ancient and perfectly understood words without adequate cause. The etymology and ordinary meaning of λóγος afford no remote suggestion of a divine agent, a first principle. The philosophers certainly did not seize upon it arbitrarily for the most important term in the expression of their thought.