Again, 'Now the next Power to God the Father and Lord of all, and Son [Endnote 284:2], is the Word, of whom we shall relate in what follows how He was made flesh and became Man.' Again, 'The Word of God is His Son.' Again, speaking of the Gentile philosophers and lawgivers, 'Since they did not know all things respecting the Word, who is Christ, they have also frequently contradicted each other.' These passages are given by Tischendorf, and they might be added to without difficulty; but it is not questioned that the term Logos is found frequently in Justin's writings, and in the same sense in which it is used in the Prologue of the fourth Gospel of the eternal Son of God, who is at the same time the historical person Jesus Christ.
The natural inference that Justin was acquainted with the fourth Gospel is met by suggesting other sources for the doctrine.

These sources are of two kinds, Jewish or Alexandrine.
It is no doubt true that a vivid personification of the Wisdom of God is found both in the Old Testament and in the Apocrypha.

Thus in the book of Proverbs we have an elaborate ode upon Wisdom as the eternal assessor in the counsels of God: 'The Lord possessed me in' the beginning of His way, before His works of old.

I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was.

When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains of water ...