The beginning of the Gospel according to St. John tells us that "In the beginning was the Word" (KJV). The word "Word" is logos in the Greek text, and it has a much wider meaning than the linguistic one: reason, mind, wisdom etc. I have repeatedly come across a theory which states that the word sophia (wisdom), which is closer to the consensus meaning of logos in the verse, was rejected, because it has feminine gender, and logos, being masculine, had to be used, as it points forward towards Jesus.
Swedish has, apart from pronouns, very few traces left of masculine or feminine gender in grammar (we assign one of two inanimate genders to nouns, even to living beings), so I am not in a position to make a judgment from a native speaker’s point of view.
However, in languages with noun gender, like German and many others, I have no feeling that noun gender is thought of in the way the theory states. The many cases where a language has a grammatical gender which is the opposite of the natural gender speaks against the theory. The Latin poeta (poet; fem.) is used for male poets as well, a German girl (Mädchen) is a feminine person, but the word has neuter gender. It is possible to go on like this forever. What is your opinion of the theory?
Well, as you must know, Sophia is one of the goddesses of Gnosticism (Christian and Other).
It would seem highly unlikely that this (divine) personification of Gnostic wisdom would be used in the obviously orthodox text of John’s Gospel.
According to the Stoics, this fire expands and contracts according to a fixed cycle. They called the contraction a "conflagration" (ekpurôsis), destroying the cosmos, yet only temporarily. This contraction was described as Zeus returning to his own thoughts, to contemplate the eternal perfection of his mind/cosmos (the material cosmos being the expression of his mind, or Logos).
The first of these principles, the Father, is a perfect unity, complete unto Himself, and without body - a purely spiritual mind. Since God the Father is, for Origen, "personal and active," it follows that there existed with Him, always, an entity upon which to exercise His intellectual activity. This entity is Christ the Son, the Logos, or Wisdom (Sophia), of God, the first emanation of the Father, corresponding to Numenius’
For example, the Greeks had a doctrine of the Logos. The Gospel of John opens, "In the beginning was the Word (Logos, in Greek). For the pagans, the Logos was not God, as He is for Christians; rather he is a principle, a power or force by which "God: formed and governs the world. The Fathers pointed to the similarity between the Logos or Word of the Bible and the Logos of Greek philosophy as a sign of Providence.
[url=http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Crete/6111/pneumatikos/gnostic.htm]The Gnostic Christ
Gnosticism vs. Christianity
by Rev. Paul A. Hughes[/url]
Most Gnostic redemption myths begin with the fall of Sophia (“Wisdom”) to the earthly realm. This personified Wisdom figure might have been drawn directly from Old Testament and Apocryphal sources,10 or from even more ancient Hebrew-Canaanite traditions.11
logos
Greek for "word" or "reason," and used in both testaments as a synonym for "wisdom," although the Greek word for wisdom is "sophia." During the Hellenistic era, Jewish scribes who translated their scriptures into Greek (as well as early Christians, see the prologue to the Gospel of John) preferred logos to sophia because it was a masculine term.
Have you ever felt the emptiness of a pebble in the palm of your hand?
I hope you are just using it as a conversation piece to attract girls in the near-by café. There is really nothing there. At least Camus had some nobility about him.
I much prefered Heidegger, thank you!
"the event of appropriation"
No to be confused with "Dasein."
About the Sophia/Logos controversy:
There is so much out there. I think that "logos" was used because, even with all the "wisdom" literature of the Old Testament, there was a danger of manufacturing the same Greek (Pagan) idea of a pantheon of gods. By keeping the Logos, even in the Greek (pagan) sense, it remained not an opposite or complement to God, but, rather, the natural generation of God.
(Well, don’t hold me to that until I have explored the region thoroughly.)
Very interesting anyhow!
Sartre, wherefore art thou Sartre? Would not your writings be as gloomy, hopeless and smoke-filled as the back-rent due on your Paris apartment by any other name?
Interesting topic..
I have always thought that Jesus was called Logos because of his role as God’s spokeman..
Anyway, in Spanish, we have no problem to address him as "La Palabra" (that is, feminine).
We have noun genders in Dutch (though the Dutch sometimes seem to forget that ), and I see no reason at all why a feminine word such as wijsheid (wisdom) or a neuter word such as woord (word) could not both be applied to a male person. So the theory seems very unlikely to me too.
Unfortunately, those guys are required reading in Religious studies. I think that there must be a WHO diagnose number for them.
Tim,
My last encounter was in Stephen L. Harris: Understanding the Bible: "Philo may have preferred Logos because it is masculine in Greek, whereas Wisdom [Sophia] is feminine."
Spiff,
You seem to imply that there is a grammatical difference between North and South. Is it a case of just having a feeling for noun gender, or does the difference manifest itself in writing (or speech)? I have tried several times to find North-South differences in grammar, but so far, I have only found differing preferences in vocabulary, like different words for cherries and onions, and that my grammar, for me very aptly named Nederlandse Grammatica voor Anderstaligen, refers to gender distinction is in the use of personal pronouns. (De commissie ... haar, etc.) Is the latter case what you observe closer than the Dutch? Are there other differences in grammar?
Anders
dama,
that was exatly what I wanted to hear (read)!
[quote author=anders link=board=grammar;num=1080587190;start=0#8 date=03/30/04 at 09:07:30]My last encounter was in Stephen L. Harris: Understanding the Bible: "Philo may have preferred Logos because it is masculine in Greek, whereas Wisdom [Sophia] is feminine."
Anyway, in Spanish, we have no problem to address him as "La Palabra" (that is, feminine).
Very good point, dama! So I believe that theory that Logos was used instead of Sophia in John because of gender is wrong, and that Sophia was not used for connotative reasons (such as the association with Gnosticism or because of the "created" quality of the personified Wisdom literature of the Old Testament).
"Víctima o ladrón, dime quién eres tú?"
The gender of the two nouns above, ‘la víctima’ is fem. and the other noun ‘el ladrón’ is masc. yet the question is not "are you a female victim or a male thief?"
Spiff:
I see no reason at all why a feminine word such as wijsheid (wisdom) or a neuter word such as woord (word) could not both be applied to a male person. So the theory seems very unlikely to me too.
anders:
However, in languages with noun gender, like German and many others, I have no feeling that noun gender is thought of in the way the theory states. The many cases where a language has a grammatical gender which is the opposite of the natural gender speaks against the theory. The Latin poeta (poet; fem.) is used for male poets as well, a German girl (Mädchen) is a feminine person, but the word has neuter gender.
So, I think we are finding agreement that Logos was used instead of Sophia for other that strictly grammatical (gender) reasons.
In Portuguese we don’t actually stop and think what are the implications of a noun being masculine and feminine and about the sexual/sexist connatations which that may give rise to. We sometimes refer to Jesus as O Verbo (The Verb), clearly a masculine word, but I don’t think anybody here would go as far as assigning that an intrinsically masculine/manly quality. As pointed out before, most words are just masculine or feminine because of their endings (not because of sex, since mesa - table - is feminine and muro - wall is masculine) but sometimes there are "exceptions" like víctima (victim), pessoa (person), testemunha (witness), which are feminine words in Portuguese since they end in an a but may refer to a man and soprano, which ends in an o and would normally be masculine, but can be feminine if referring to a woman.
Brazilian dude
We sometimes refer to Jesus as O Verbo (The Verb), clearly a masculine word, but I don’t think anybody here would go as far as assigning that an intrinsically masculine/manly quality. As pointed out before, most words are just masculine or feminine because of their endings (not because of sex, since mesa - table - is feminine and muro - wall is masculine) but sometimes there are "exceptions" like víctima (victim), pessoa (person), testemunha (witness), which are feminine words in Portuguese since they end in an a but may refer to a man and soprano, which ends in an o and would normally be masculine, but can be feminine if referring to a woman.
[quote author=anders link=board=grammar;num=1080587190;start=0#8 date=03/30/04 at 09:07:30]my grammar, for me very aptly named Nederlandse Grammatica voor Anderstaligen, refers to gender distinction is in the use of personal pronouns. (De commissie ... haar, etc.) Is the latter case what you observe closer than the Dutch? Are there other differences in grammar?
Your example is exactly what I mean. There is a trend to simply use ‘hij’ of ‘zijn’ when referring to any word, regardless of its gender, and this trend seems to be a typically Dutch thing. This is just down to sloppiness, there are basically no grammatical differences between North and South, as there is in fact only one standard.
), and I see no reason at all why a feminine word such as wijsheid (wisdom) or a neuter word such as woord (word) could not both be applied to a male person. So the theory seems very unlikely to me too.
