εν αρχη ην ο λογος και ο λογος ην προς τον θεον και θεος ην ο λογος
Forgive the lack of accents, but I'm guessing everyone's familiar with this verse anyway. My questions concern the use of the word λογος here. When the Gospels were composed, was the word ἔπος still in common usage and hence a viable alternative to λογος if one wished to assert that Jesus were specifically the Word and preclude the idea of Jesus being Reason? Why already in the Old Latin Bible, I believe, is λογος translated as "uerbum"; how does this sense of λογος come to be the almost exclusive interpretation from the Latin translation onward? I was reading Justin the Martyr, and he still conceives of λογος as signifying that Jesus is the embodiment of Reason. When does this conception become overshadowed by Jesus being the Word?