philosophizing before the supreme revelation of the logos had arrived on the earth.32 But by living in accordance with the logos, you nevertheless scattered “seeds of the logos” in the fertile soil of the human heart, so that when the fullness of time came (Gal 4:4), men and women might be able to perceive in Christ the perfection of the truth you saw from afar:
Therefore, whatever things were rightly said among all people are the property of us Christians. For next to God, we worship and love the logos who is from the unbegotten and ineffable God, since also He became man for our sakes, that, becoming a partaker of our sufferings, He might also bring us healing. For all the writers were able to see realities darkly, through the presence in them of an implanted seed of logos.33
At this point, Heraclitus, I think you can see why I asked you a little earlier whether you believed the fire or the logos knew you. Even if you did not, you are a precious witness to the way the human mind is blessed with the ability to reach rarefied heights and pave a guiding path for future philosophers to follow. I like to think your pursuit of wisdom in your native city of Ephesus prepared your fellow Ephesians, living centuries later, to receive the Gospel preached by Christian evangelists. One apostle in particular, Saint Paul, worked tirelessly to sink the roots of the gospel deep into the hearts of the men and women of your hometown. Perhaps his exhortation to unity in a letter to them borrows, even if only as a faint echo, the language you employed to describe the harmony of opposites:
For [Jesus Christ] is our peace, who made both one and tore down the dividing wall of enmity, abolishing through his flesh the law of commandments and legal claims, in order that he might create in himself one new person in place of the two, making peace and reconciling both to God in one body through the cross, putting enmity to death by it. (Eph 2:14–16)
Saint Paul is referring here to the unity of various ethnic groups who have come to believe in Christ; they are no longer Jews and Gentiles, but Christians, united as one body, as he notes further on:
. . . exerting yourselves to preserve the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace: one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in the one hope of your call; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. (Eph 4:3–6)
Heraclitus, I owe you a great debt of gratitude for stamping my impressionable mind with an admiration for the logos. What I found in the Gospel according to John perfected your initial glimpse of the logos, but I was able to see the fruits of the Gospel more clearly by standing on your philosophical shoulders. I cannot think of a more harmonious line for you than a verse in which Paul seems to be quoting an early Christian hymn, one whose words could have been penned by you (except for the part about Christ): “For everything that becomes visible is light. Therefore, it says: ‘Awake, you who sleep; rise from the dead, and Christ will shine upon you’” (Eph 5:14). I am firmly convinced that you possess firsthand knowledge of the Lord and logos, whose dark mystery you penetrated so deeply without divine light. I therefore look forward to conversing with you someday about these wonderful matters.
28. Heraclitus (ca. 535–ca. 475 BC) was a pre-Socratic philosopher from Ephesus. Only fragments of his works exist. One of the guiding themes of his philosophy is that all realities come into existence in accordance with the logos.
29. See a different translation offered in Heraclitus, Fragments, 27: “The river where you set your foot just now is gone—those waters giving way to this, now this.”
30. Ibid., 21.
31. Ibid., 2–5, 60–61.
32. See Justin Martyr, First and Second Apologies, 55: “And they who lived with the logos are Christians, even though they have been thought atheists; as, among the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus.”
33. Ibid., 84.
Martin Luther King Jr.34
To the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr.,
Just before sitting down to write this letter, I listened to your “I Have a Dream” speech, given in front of the Lincoln Memorial on August 28, 1963. I have heard several other sermons of yours, and I must make a confession, from one pastor to another: I am awed by the power of your words. You measure the force of each syllable with grace, punctuate each phrase with the fury of the prophets, and demand a response from your congregation worthy of the faith raging in your words. The carefully crafted images, the gradual crescendo of your captivating voice, the syllables you lengthen with a strong trill, the manner in which you will your audience to believe every drop of honeyed text as you blend the end of one sentence into the next with unforgettable linking refrains—I believe that the Spirit was upon you, inspiring those who came to you hoping for justice, but hesitating to believe that it was possible. I must also confess a more humorous jealousy of your ability to elicit exultant choruses of “Amen!” and “Yessir!” and “Go on!” from your congregations. Simply put, Catholic priests can’t preach like Baptist ministers, and the Catholic faithful just don’t contract the same Sunday morning fever that your choirs and churchgoers do!
Your dream of justice and equality for black Americans, and of a country capable of holding hands together and sitting at the table of brotherhood, galvanized millions into peaceful action. That action, coupled with its righteous request, pricked the nation’s conscience. No one doubts your singular role in startling our beloved nation out of its racist slumber and gaining for blacks across our land the right to use the same drinking fountains, restaurants, and hotels as whites, to vote, and to attend college as anyone else in America. Your life, so filled with what once seemed impossible dreams, was stopped when an assassin’s bullet woke you to the eternal now of God’s reality. Your cause, however, moved on, and many spoke of the election of an African-American President in 2008 as the crowning achievement of your movement.
But I write to you now, Dr. King, at another pivotal, and even perilous, moment in the history of our great nation. If anyone dared presume that America had successfully purged itself of the leprosy of racism in the decades following your death, they would be sadly mistaken. In recent years, the deaths of several African-American men at the hands of white police officers across the country have reignited the wrath of the black community, and outraged all peaceful Americans. The immediate availability of video allows everyone to judge the reactions of the police officers for themselves, and charges of widespread prejudice in some police departments have led to the formation of demonstrations to protest these abuses.
During one such protest in my own city of Dallas, Dr. King, a vocal but peaceful march was stopped by a madman’s bullets. The shooter, a black man incensed by the deaths of black men at the hands of police, targeted police officers who were protecting the Black Lives Matter protestors marching against the displays of police brutality. He killed five of them before he himself was cut down. The shock of these cold-blooded murders prompted an outpouring of sorrow and support for the Dallas Police Department. The police chief, Sergeant David Brown, was a stoic and resolute leader in the days following. He calmly challenged those who desire change to find constructive ways of doing so, and I pray that his words will have their desired effect.
In the aftermath of this tragedy, Dr. King, I turned to the words of your most famous speeches in the hope of finding the proper response to such horrific violence. While you would rightly sympathize with the anger generated by the injustices perpetrated by some police officers, you would categorically reject any recourse to bloody retaliation. Leaders like yourself are desperately needed now, men and women who are learned and patient, who walk on the high plain of dignity and discipline, and channel righteous