Abram Herbert Lewis - Spiritual Sabbathism

74 SPIRITUAL SABBATHISM
plethora of words. To the Greek the logos, or
reason, is free play of mind and speech, and sometimes
this free play is merely play.
In modern speculation
we have the same phenomenon; we have
what Hobbes called "the
frequency of insignificant
speech." We have a veritable polytheism of systems,
a pantheon of theories. As William James
says, philosophy has its life in words.
But there comes a time when we must mean what
we say.
In the hour of mystery or of promise, the
question is how much we are willing to assert and
maintain, promise and fulfill. The residuum is always
small. Sacred promises are made in few
words. The sincerest philosophic confessions are
the briefest. And these facts let us into the secret
of Genesis, and also of John. The logos of John's
gospel is not free speculation—though afterwards
the Gnostics so misunderstood it. It is a person, in
whom law and love meet, and God's promises are
fulfilled. Christ is a social and spiritual revelation,
and not a speculative or astrological revelation.
The actual residuum of cosmogony in Genesis
bears a resemblance undoubtedly to the Babylonian
conception of the firmament in
waters above and beneath.
the midst of
The language was quite
intelligible to an audience which may have believed
that creation began by a struggle between Leviathan