The Fourth Gospel is like one of those great Egyptian temples which we may see to this day at Dendera or Edfu or Karnak—and we remember that the Temple on Mount Zion itself was of the same general type—the sanctuary proper is approached through a pylon, a massive structure overtopping it in height and outflanking it on both sides. The pylon of the Fourth Gospel is of course the Prologue; and this raises at the outset two important questions: I. What are the affinities of its leading thought; or, in other words, what is its place in the history of thought and the history of religion? and II. In what relation does the prologue stand to the rest of the Gospel? I need not say that both these points have been, and are being still, actively debated. I. Affinities of the Logos doctrine. The preponderance of opinion at the present time doubtless leans to the view that there is some connexion between the Logos of Philo and the doctrine of the Logos in the Fourth Gospel. But the question is as to the nature and closeness of that connexion. On this many shades of opinion are possible. 1. Partial parallels in O. T. and Judaism. If the Logos of St. John is not connected with that of Philo, the alternative must be that its origin is Palestinian. The directions in which we should look would be to the Old Testament, the Apocrypha, and the _Memra_ of the Targums. And it is true that there are many places in these writings in which ‘the Word of God’ is used with pregnant meaning. Ps. xxxiii. 6: ‘By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth.’ Cf. 2 Esdras vi. 43: ‘As soon as thy word went forth the work was done.’ Ps. cvii. 20: ‘He sendeth his word, and healeth them, and delivereth them from their destructions.’ Ps. cxlvii. 15: ‘He sendeth out his commandment upon earth; his word runneth very swiftly.’ Ps. cxlvii. 18: ‘He sendeth out his word, and melteth them; he causeth his wind to blow, and the waters flow.’ Isa. xl. 8: ‘The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but the word of our God shall stand for ever.’ Isa. lv. 10, 11: ‘For as the rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, and giveth seed to the sower and bread to the eater; so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: It shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.’ Wisd. ix. 1: ‘O God of the fathers, and Lord who keepest thy mercy, who madest all things by thy word.’ Wisd. xvi. 12: ‘For of a truth it was neither herb nor mollifying plaister that cured them, but thy word, O Lord, which healeth all things.’