MR. ISRAEL ALDEN PUTNAM died at Danvers, Mass., October 31, 1848, aged 27 years.

The death of Mr. Putnam struck us all with surprise. He was so full of health, so instinct with life, so earnest in hope and fervent in faith, that we could hardly credit the report that he had been smitten down upon the threshold of professional life. He was ill but ten days, of a malignant disease, by which others of the same household were also dangerously affected.

He was born in Danvers. His early life was marked by a thirst for knowledge which prompted him to surmount serious difficulties and the dissuasives of revered friends, that he might devote his life to truth and holiness. He entered Dartmouth College in 1844, with the settled purpose of spending his strength for the cause of Christ; but circumstances which he could not control obliged him to abandon the hope of a collegiate education almost as soon as it began to be realized. After one college term, he connected himself with the Cambridge Divinity School, passed honorably through its whole course, and when he entered upon those duties at first so unworthily and feebly discharged by all, his services were acceptable, wherever rendered. Engagements pressed upon him, and the new society at Winchendon, which he had done much to gather, desired that he should become their minister, and were ready to erect at once a suitable house of worship. But Providence did not will that it should be so. In the midst of successful activity, and on a day of earnest pulpit-labor, he was seized with the malady which terminated his life.

What struck us most in Mr. Putnam's character was its singular disinterestedness. He never asked of any service which he was desired to render, if it were to many or few, in a school-house or a crowded city church, for little compensation or much. He conceived that the minister ought to present an example of self-sacrifice; and he gave that example. His really superior abilities would have been as cheerfully put forth in the Western log-hut as in the Gothic cathedral. He seemed to prefer to begin with "taking the lowest room," and, while capable of the largest sphere, he chose that which was least coveted, because it was the least, and which, under his profitable ministry, would have soon risen into consequence. But the root of our friend's disinterestedness was his earnest, unaffected piety, his growing spirituality, his constant thought of consecration to doing good. He did not contemplate the ministry as a means of comfortable maintenance, or as an avenue to distinction, and cared little for the formal respect attending upon it as a profession He wished to be loved for his "work's sake," to live in and for the Church of Christ, to build up the living temple of God's spirit at least in renewed hearts, if not outwardly in flourishing institutions. Hence, short as his professional course was, it has not failed, and it cannot be forgotten. It lives in those for whom he labored, and it lives with us who witnessed his labors. By the smoke of such sacrifice, to adopt Goethe's thought, we are warmed. By his willingness to toil the sluggard-heart is rebuked, as by his generosity the selfish thought is dispelled and the worldly motive changed. Would that we, would that every Protestant ministry, had many such martyr-missionaries! H-d.

We have added eight pages, in the present instance, to the usual size of our numbers.

THE

CHRISTIAN EXAMINER

AND

RELIGIOUS MISCELLANY.

MARCH, 1849.

ART. I. — LÜCKE'S DISSERTATION ON THE LOGOS.

I send you a translation of a Dissertation on the Logos of John, taken from the German Commentary of Professor Lücke of Göttingen. The author is well known by his Commentaries on the Gospel and Epistles of John, and especially by his very learned Introduction to the Apocalypse. He has often been referred to, by Orthodox writers in this country, as an Orthodox theologian. Why he has been so considered, it is difficult to say. He regards a real doctrine of the Trinity as neither contained in the Scriptures, nor consistent with reason. He is. however, a supernaturalist, and receives the records of the miracles of Christ as genuine and essentially true. His Introduction to John's Gospel contains an able defence of its genuineness.

The following Dissertation upon the Logos of John contains some opinions inconsistent not only with Orthodoxy, but with views generally held by Unitarians. But in publishing such an article, no one would think of being responsible for all the opinions it contains. It is a sufficient reason for printing it, that it is a learned, thorough, and honest investigation of a very important subject, -one on which it is desirable to have the views of different writers, distinguished by their learning and love of truth. The author discusses the different points connected with the subject so minutely, that, where he does not engage our assent, he at least shows us in what direction we should renew our inquiries. The discussion may not be interesting except to scholars, or those who are accustomed to investigations in critical theology; but it is certainly desirable that a part of the Examiner should be devoted to articles of this kind. I doubt not that a considerable number of readers will peruse it with pleasure, whether they assent to the correctness of the author's views or not. I send you the translation with the greater satisfaction, as thereby performing an act of justice to Professor Lücke, who has been presented to the American public in a dress which does him little credit. VOL. XLVI. 4TH S. VOL. XI. NO. II.

15

A translation of a part of the Dissertation, which appeared not long ago in one of our periodicals, was marked by essential imperfections and errors. I have omitted to translate most of the notes.

G. R. N.]

THE fundamental idea of the prologue of John, which is, as it were, the sum of his whole Gospel, is that of the original, antemundane, divine Logos incarnated, that is, become man, in Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God. The enigmatical word in this prologue is the Logos.

The conception of the Logos is not a general religious idea, which may be understood by itself. It is rather of a technical, theological character, not to be understood except in connection with a philosophical or religious system, or mode of thought. John has neither explained nor established it by argument. He has only expressed it in isolated and independent, rather than in connected, propositions. Hence it is evident that he supposed the conception to be already known, in connection with a prevalent system of philosophy or religion. Such being the case, the interpretation of the prologue of John can neither begin nor end with the explanation of particular expressions, and with sole regard to their immediate connection with each other. A mere grammatical interpretation of the Logos of John has never proved satisfactory. It introduces us to the difficulty, without being able to solve it.*

It has appeared from the Introduction,† that the idea of the Logos in John's Gospel grew out of an established religious or philosophical system, or mode of thought, and that it is set forth in essential connection with the same. The great object, therefore, of one who undertakes to explain it must be to unfold this connection with exactness, and thus to throw light on the conception of the Logos which John held. But before entering upon the historical discussion, a preliminary inquiry is necessary. In order to discover the exact course of thought with which John's conception of the Logos is historically connected, it must be settled, by a preliminary grammatical inquiry, what general meaning John attached to the term Logos, according to general and Biblical Greek usage, in its particular connection with his prologue.

An explanation of this kind may be found in the Examiner for September, 1836. - TR.

That is, the author's Introduction to his Commentary, § 13. — TR.

1849.]

Scripture Use of Logos.

167

According to general Greek usage, the term lóyos may be translated "word," or 66 reason. If the more definite phrase o óyos to Otov had been used by John, it would have expressed a familiar idea of frequent occurrence in the Scriptures. But John uses simply the term o λóyos, and expresses more definitely the relation of this loyos to God by the affirmations, "In the beginning was the Word," "the Word was with God," and "the Word was God," (Ev áo̟zì ův ô · λόγος, - πρὸς τὸν Θεόν, and Θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος), John i. 1. There can be no doubt, however, that, if a genitive could have been used in this connection, the expression would have stood ὁ λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ, “ the word of God.” But there can be as little doubt, that the phrase o óyos Tou Orou, as it is used in the writings of John, as well as in the rest of the New Testament,* denotes either "the word of God" as contained in the Old Testament, or "the preached doctrine of the Gospel," and thus expresses an idea different from John's idea of the Logos in his prologue, though perhaps related to it. Such a use of the word in the prologue is forbidden by the proposition," the Word was made flesh" (o lóyos augs éyévero), i. 14.

It is also to be remarked, that, according to the Scripture use of language, the term óyos is used neither by John, nor by any other writer in the Scriptures, as denoting "the reason," that is, "the intellect," of God, or man. This idea would be expressed, according as the connection might require, by the terms лvvμα, xαodia, or vous, as in 1 Cor. ii. 16. As a Divine attribute, the intellect of God is called in the Scriptures ἡ σοφία τοῦ Θεοῦ. In classical writers the term Aoyos is used to denote the rationality of a thing, etc., -as it were, the objective reason in things and relations, but not the faculty of reason, or the subjective reason. The general signification of the term óyos, both in the Old and New Testaments, in all connections similar to that in which it is used in John's prologue, is "speech," or "word." And in this signification the phrase ὁ λόγος τοῦ Θεοῦ, “ the word of God," is a symbolical expression, conveying the idea of the creating, revealing, commanding, and law-giving energy or activity of God. Now that John by the term Lóyos intended to express the particular idea of "the creating, revealing word of God" is placed beyond doubt by the undeniable allusion, in the first three verses of the prologue, to the history of the creation in Gen. i. 1, etc.

* Perhaps Rev. xix. 13 may be an exception.

as a

"The word of God" in the Scriptures never denotes an immanent attribute of God, but always the objective action of God in the world and in relation to the world. It follows, therefore, that, according to Scripture analogy, that interpretation of the Logos which proceeds on the idea that it denotes simply a Divine attribute is at once to be rejected. John represents the Logos as something personal, person who, although "with God," noỏc tov Orov, yet acts and is manifested as in some respects a different person from God (in einer gewissen Verschiedenheit von Gott). In verse fourteenth, in particular, the thought is clearly presented, that this Logos became flesh, and thus appeared as a distinct historical person in Jesus Christ. Here the personification of the Logos has reached its height. But however this enigmatical word may be understood, thus much is clear from the tone and sense of the prologue, that it must here denote more than a rhetorical or poetical personification. Taken in connection with the expressions of the Baptist, and of Jesus himself, concerning the preexistence, and even the antemundane existence, of the Son of God, to which the proposition, Ev dozy vỏ λóyos, "In the beginning was the Word," evidently refers, John must have had the conception of a dogmatical personification, that is, of an hypostatizing, of the Logos.

But by what previously existing system of dogmatic views may John's conception of the Logos, to which we have been led by mere grammatical interpretation, be illustrated? There are three important circumstances which may safely be regarded as historical argumental data, by the aid of which we may arrive at the true exposition of this prologue. The first circumstance, and that which is most nearly connected with it in regard to time, is the doctrine of Philo concerning the Logos. But the doctrine of Philo may, in its connection with the Jewish theology, be regarded as the union of two courses of thought (gedankenreihen) already commenced in the Old Testament, namely, the doctrines of "the word of God," and "the wisdom of God." This was the Old Testament background of Philo, and, at the same time, it supplies the second and third of the argumental data by which the prologue of John may be illustrated, and to which we have just alluded.

I. The idea of the Logos is connected with essential elements in the development of the knowledge of God among