LOGOb LOG WOOD. 



517 



Platonic philosophy, as many have asserted. For a 

 view of the Catholic doctrine, we must refer our 

 readers to the Catholic Dictionnaire de Theologie 

 (Toulouse, 1817), article f'crbe, and to the works 

 particularly devoted to this subject. Some of the 

 opinions of modern theologians on the meaning of 

 the logos are as follows : It is necessary, some say, 

 in order to understand the true meaning of logos, to 

 begin with the examination of <ro<fix, which was pre- 

 viously used. (See the book of Proverbs, viii. 1, et 

 seq., and the book of JVisdom, vii. 22, et seq.) The 

 poetical author of the Proverbs does not imagine a 

 person separate from God, but only an interior power 

 of God, because, in his time, there could be no idea 

 of a being proceeding from God, the Jews having 

 borrowed this notion at a later period from the Ori- 

 ental doctrine of emanations. The author of the 

 book of Sirach (xxiv. 3) first uses xy; <n>u Qiov, as 

 equivalent to ffofia, to signify the almighty power of 

 God. The Word being an act of wisdom, gave rise 

 to the symbol. John speaks of the logos in the 

 beginning of his gospel only, and afterwards uses 

 the expression -rnufta nv Smv. From his representa- 

 tion, the following positions have been deduced : 

 the logos was (a.) from the beginning of all things 

 (comp. Proverbs, viii. 22; Sirach, xxiv. 9); (6.) 

 from the beginning with God (comp. Sir. i., I ; 

 fVisd. ix. 4, 9): (c.) through it the world was cre- 

 ated (Prov. Sol. viii. 31 ; Sir. xxiv. 9); (d.) in the 

 person of Christ, the logos was manifested as a man 

 to the world (JVisd. Sol. x. 16; ii 14 ; Sir. xxiv. 

 12). St John, therefore, say those who thus inter- 

 pret him, had the same idea of the logos as the apo- 

 cryphal writers ; for the circumstance that the latter 

 ascribe to the logos the creation of all things, while 

 St John leaves this point undecided in his i> a^n , 

 does not amount to a contradiction. Others, par- 

 ticularly the earlier commentators, understand by 

 logos, the Deity himself, that is, the second person 

 of the deity (according to St John viii. 58). But 

 those who adhere to the former opinion maintain 

 that this is in contradiction to John xiv. 28 ; xii. 49 

 50 ; v. 19 20 ; and that he understood by logos, 

 only a power of God, which was communicated to 

 Jesus, on account of which he could claim divine 

 attributes, and yet call the Father, as the source of 

 this power, greater than himself. Others, as Her- 

 der, Paulus, Eckerman, understand by logos, the 

 Word of God (miT "O"1)> which, in the Old Tes- 

 tament, as the expression of the will of God, is the 

 symbol of his creative power (Gen. i, et seq ). The 

 later Jews represented the divine omnipotence by 

 the word of God. But it is maintained, on the other 

 hand, from the manner in which John speaks of the 

 logos, that he did not understand by it merely the 

 divine omnipotence. A similar account is given of 

 the creation by the Word, in the religion of Zoroas- 

 ter. According to Richter (Das Christenthum und 

 die alfesten Religionen des Orients), the logos corre- 

 sponds with the Indian Om, the Persian Hanover, the 

 Egyptian Kneph. Others, following the fathers of 

 the church, particularly Eusebius, understand by 

 logos an independent substance, external from God, 

 like the u; of Plato. But this, again, it is said, in- 

 volves an error, because Plato means by mvs , only a 

 power of God. Still others, as Mosheim, Schlegel, 

 Jerusalem, declare with Irenaeus, the logos of St 

 John to be identical with the logos of the Gnostics; 

 but it is objected, that John did not conceive of a 

 olurality, like that in the doctrine of aeons. Lange 

 considered logos equivalent to the sophia of the Old 

 Testament, and that to the logos of 1'hilo, and as a 

 distinct person from God ; but, say the others, ra^ia. 

 is not something distinct from God. Paulus, in his 

 Commentary, also identifies the logos of Philo, with 



that of St John. But it is said, on the other hand, 

 that John cannot be supposed to have been acquaint- 

 ed with Philo's notion, as it was not an opinion com- 

 monly known at the time, and that the view of the 

 apocryphal writers is more similar to his ; moreover, 

 that if St John meant any thing more than an original, 

 eternal power in God, his Bias iv would imply dual- 

 ism. Others have attempted grammatical explana- 

 tions. Doderlein and Storr translated the word 

 xya,- by doctrina, the abstract being put for the 

 concrete, doctrine for teacher, as in Gen. xlii. 38 ; 2 

 Sam. xxii. 23 ; Luke iv. 36. According to others, 

 < Xoyos means o liyopitos (the promised); but history 

 makes no mention of Christians who still expected a 

 Messiah. The ancient philosophers often distinguish 

 two logoses, an interior in God or man, which merely 

 thinks (*.tyos i*2ia0iT/>;), and an exterior or uttered 



(Xoyo; vrgtiQi^ixos).* 



LOGTHING ; the legislative portion of the Nor- 

 wegian storthing, or diet. As soon as the king or 

 his representative has opened the session, the storth- 

 ing choose one quarter of their members to compose 

 the logthing. The remaining three-fourths consti- 

 tute the odelsthing, or representatives of the landed 

 property. These bodies conduct their deliberations 

 separately, and each chooses its own president, and 

 secretary. Every law is first proposed in the odels- 

 thing, either by its own members or by the govern- 

 ment, through a counsellor of state. If the proposi 

 tion is then accepted, it is then sent to the logthing, 

 who either accept or reject it, at pleasure, in the 

 latter case giving their reasons. These are considered 

 by the odelsthing, who either abandon the proposed 

 measure, or send it again, either with or without 

 alteration, to the logthing. If the proposition is 

 twice sent down by the odelsthing to the other house, 

 and is, by them, twice rejected, the whole stor- 

 thing then assemble together, and the question 

 is decided by a vote of two-thirds of all the mem- 

 bers. At least three days must elapse between 

 each of the considerations. When a measure pro- 

 posed by the odelsthing, has received the assent of 

 the other division of the assembly, or of the whole 

 storthing, a deputation from both branches of the 

 storthing is sent to the king, or, in his absence, to 

 the viceroy or regency, to obtain the royal sanction 

 for the measure. The sessions of both houses are 

 public, and their deliberations are daily made 

 known to the public, by means of the press. The 

 members of the logthing form, together with the 

 highest judicial authorities, the supreme court of the 

 kingdom, which decides on charges, preferred by 

 the odelsthing, against the members of the council 

 of state, or of the members of the superior courts, for 

 violations of their official duties, or members of the 

 storthing, for any offences which they may have 

 committed in that capacity. In this tribunal the 

 logthing presides. Against a sentence pronounced 

 by this supreme tribunal, no pardon avails, except 

 in cases where the punishment is death. See Stor- 

 thing. 



LOGWOOD. This important article of com- 

 merce is the wood of the heematoxylon Campccfiin 

 num, a small straggling tree, belonging to the 

 family legmninoscr, which grows wild, in moist places, 

 along the western shores of the gulf of Mexico. 



* Goethe, in his celebrated Faustus, makes use of this pas- 

 sage of St John to plunge Fanstna deeper into big despon- 

 dency. He endeavours to translate x<y t by itunl. mine 1 ; 

 power ; nothing will do : at last he chooses deed, and i- 

 satUned. Though this agrees well enough with the charac- 

 ter of the hero, the poet ought to have considered that if 

 ! .ustiis understood Greek, he must have known that >,, t 

 never means deed or any manifestation of reason by ac- 

 tion. 



