It should not be disturbing that terms such as “Logos” find their roots in Greek philosophy....
Indeed, dearest sister in Christ! We must remember that the Logos was "in the world" from the beginning of Creation, long before the Incarnation of Jesus Christ; because the Logos is God's Creative Word that made all the worlds, heaven and earth -- the Son of God by whom and for whom were all things made that were made.
What fascinates me is that the great Greeks (the classical philosophers) seem to have sniffed this all out, again long before the Incarnation (~500 B.C.). Somehow, some of these Greeks were able to sense or intuit the Logos as the necessary creative organizational principle of the Cosmos. [There was heavy reliance on mathematics, mainly geometry and numbers theory, to help spec out the problem.]
Anyhoot, such folk recognized that such a Logos would have to be divine in nature, in its essence. Plato also saw the connections between God - man - world - society as essential to any proper understanding of the constitution of human personal order and the good order of society (the polis).
The problem was, I gather, that there was no way that any sensible Greek would assume that the divine Logos was willed by Zeus or any other Olympian god. These "gods" simply conducted themselves as human beings writ large: though born, they are immortal. They never perish; but they don't rule forever either. The Olympians under Zeus struggled against the primaeval gods, Chronos and the gang, and prevailed in the end.
The original gods were sent packing into a shadowy, thoroughly unappealing immortality. They never really go away; but they are now impotent: Zeus is in charge (or was at the time of Homer and Hesoid and even Plato and Aristotle). Indeed, Chronos was Zeus' own father. Beyond that, the Olympians conducted themselves in the worst possible manner, with vanity, pride, fickleness, anger, greed, envy, cupidity, conceit, impurity, lust for power (and the constant sacrifices of men), outright lying. Plus they had the nasty habit of using men as pawns in the games they played amongst themselves, on blissful Mount Olympus.... Usually such games required copious expenditures of human blood.
Needless to say, this was an embarrassing situation, and Plato was definitely aware of it. He found a provisional answer to the problem of the provenance of the Logos: Plato simply designated it Epikeina, the god "Beyond" the Cosmos. He conceived of this Beyond primarily as Nous, as infinitely vast mind who "likely" had something to do with the shape and nature of the created living Cosmos and all its created beings.
But any idea of a personal god had to wait for our Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, the personification of the Logos. It took a divine revelation to do it.... It is doubtful Plato had any foreknowledge of the Incarnation at the time he lived....
It was Heraclitus, "Plato's long shadow," who gave us some of the earliest writings on the Logos. Unfortunately, only fragments survive. Here's a sampling [fragment number in brackets]:
But though the Logos is common, the many live as if they had a wisdom of their own. [2]All glory be to God! Truly He works everything together for the good, and has done so ever since the Beginning.Those who speak with the mind must strengthen themselves with that which is common to all, as the polis does with the law and more strongly so. For all human laws nourish themselves from the one divine — which prevails as it will, and suffices for all things and more than suffices. [114]
Although this Logos is eternally valid, yet men are unable to understand it — not only before hearing it, but even after they have heard it for the first time. That is to say, although all things come to pass in accordance with this Logos, men seem to be quite without any experience of it — at least if they are judged in the light of such words and deeds as I am here setting forth. My own method is to distinguish each thing according to its nature, and to specify how it behaves; other men, on the contrary, are as forgetful and heedless in their waking moments of what is going on around and within them as they are during sleep. [1]
Those who are awake have a world one and common, but those who are asleep each turn aside into their own private worlds. [89]
It is not meet to act and speak like men asleep. [73]
All praise and glory be to our Lord God, Rock of ages!
Heavy stuff from scraps of Heraclitus... Thanks..
Indeed, I perceive God working everything together according to His own will. And not every person He gifted or moved was a believer, either a Christ or a Jew. Nebuchadnezzar served a purpose, as did Cyrus and so on.
Likewise it seems to me that Plato was gifted and his part was to encourage people to look and see, plowing the field of the civilized world for when Christ would be revealed.
Praise God!!!
While I forget the original question, I like how you extend Christianity back to Plato or beyond. It might be noted that ancient belief in the efficacy of magic, astrology, alchemy, spiritualism, etc. did not end until recently, and in fact has still not ended in large portions of earth’s populations, especially in certain hot, dusty, oil-rich regions. Plotinus wrote how magic works. No question that it still did at his time. Read John against Plotinus. Might be interesting.