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Tue May 3 10:41:24 EDT 2011
illustration of 1 Pet. 2,2. A bishop meets Pelagia and tells her he is
"shepherd of Christ's sheep". She takes him literally, and he explains
that he means TWN LOGIKWN PROBATWN XRISTOU, TOUT' ESTIN TWN )ANQPWPWN.
So Peter means metaphorical, not literal, "pure milk".
Let me provide a shepherd. Then we have an A, B = the sheep, C =
Christ, and D = men. If we agree that Christ cares for us as a
shepherd cares for his sheep, then D, all of us, becomes Christ's,
C's, LOGIKOS B or LOGIKOS sheep.
Moulton and Milligan give other examples that should throw some light
on the use of 'LOGIKOS' in Rom. 12:1. My laziness has so far prevented
me from digging further into those. However, they do provide the
LOGIKH QUSIA from the hermetic writings. As far as I know, those were
prayers offered by those who couldn't afford to by an ox or a sheep.
And so those rich people who could become A, their offerings become B,
the poor become C, the prayers offered instead of animals become D,
and as the devotion of the poor presumably wasn't that different from
that of the rich, their prayers become their LOGIKOS offerings.
So if the two NT occurrences of 'LOGIKOS' should have different
meanings - and I don't see how they could. They mean exactly the same
thing although we don't have any single word for that meaning - we
should obviously look in their contexts for any clues. But I don't see
why Rom. should point to "spiritual" and 1 Pet. to "the Word". As
parallels to the use of "milk" in 1 Pet. I would suggest 1 Co. 3:2 and
Heb. 5:12f and to the whole idea of nourishment Heb. 8,11. Such a
nourishment you can desire as a baby desires milk. Also, I don't see
how there could be any denying that "the metaphorical milk" is Christ
or the living stone in 1 Pet. 2:2; doesn't the verb GEUW in the next
verse provide ample proof of that? It's not that we drink stones; it's
the similarity of the desire that's decisive. If our desire for Christ
is like a baby's desire for milk, Then He is our LOGIKOS milk - and
not just the source of it. Therefore, if I were to suggest that
LOGIKOS means 'metaphorical' I could explicate 1 Pet. and Rom. like
this: "the elected ones (believers/readers) are to crave metaphorical
milk like newborn babies crave literal milk" and "the Roman believers
are to make metaphorical sacrifices like the Israelites made literal
sacrifices".
But any reference to LOGOS or 'spiritual' will only cloud the issue,
I'm afraid. 'LOGIKOS' signals the identity of the relations between
two pairs. And this is as far as I'm prepared to follow you, Iver.
Yours
Troels Hansen
tkmh at get2net.dk
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