The bridge which led across from Greek philosophy to Christianity was the Logos. It is remarkable how much this fundamental doctrine of Christianity fell, later on, into the background; how little it is understood, even by the educated of our own time, and how often, without giving it any consideration, they have cast it aside. In early Christian days this was probably a consequence of the practical and political development of the new religion. But the living nerve of the Christian religion, which was its closest bond to the highest spiritual acquisitions of the ancient Greek world, was thus severed. First, the Logos, the Word, the Son of God, was misunderstood, and mythology was employed to make the dogma, thus misconceived, intelligible. In modern times, through continued neglect of the Logos doctrine, the strongest support of Christianity has been cut from under its feet, and at the same time its historical justification, its living connection with Greek antiquity, has almost entirely passed out of view. In Germany it almost appears as though Goethe, by his _Faust_, is answerable for the widespread treatment of the Logos idea as something obscure, incomprehensible, mystical. Many, when reading the opening of the Fourth Gospel, “In the beginning was the Word,” say to themselves, “No one understands that,” and read on. He who does not earnestly and honestly make an effort to understand this beginning of the Gospel, shows that he is but little concerned with the innermost essence of Christianity, as clearly presented to us in the Fourth Gospel. He forgets that not only faith, but thought, pertains to a religion. It is no excuse to say, “Did not the learned Dr. Faust torment himself to discover what ‘the word’ here meant, and did not find it out?” He says in Goethe:— “’Tis writ: ‘In the beginning was the Word’! I pause perplexed! Who now will help afford? I cannot the mere Word so highly prize, I must translate it otherwise.” But this is just what he ought not do. It was not necessary to translate it at all; he only needed to accept the Logos as a technical expression of Greek philosophy. He would then have seen that it is impossible to prize the Word too highly, if we first learn what the Word meant in the idiom of contemporary philosophy. Not even to a Faust should Goethe have imputed such ignorance as when he continues to speculate without any historical knowledge:— “If by the spirit guided as I read, “In the beginning was the Sense,” Take heed. The import of this primal sentence weigh, Lest thy too hasty pen be led astray. Is force creative then of sense the dower? “In the beginning was the Power.” Thus should it stand; yet, while the line I trace, A something warns me once more to efface. The spirit aids, from anxious scruples freed, I write: ‘In the beginning was the Deed.’ ”(11)