Judging from surviving texts, the educated citizen of the Roman Empire at the time John's gospel was written would have had something like the following understanding of the term life.
Life is in The Logos, but not merely in the sense that The Logos has these properties and shares them with other living things. Rather, The Logos is their source.
Plato was born in 427 BC in Athens. It would be hard to overestimate the impact of his thoughts on Western philosophy. Most of his writings are in the form of dialogues, usually involving his teacher, Socrates (who never, as far as we know, wrote down his thoughts himself). Plato founded the Academy, a sort of private college, that was the school of noted philosophers, including Aristotle.
The main theme of this dialogue between Socrates and Phaedrus, one of his students, is rhetoric, the art of speaking. In the dialogue Plato shows, through Socrates, shows that the truly pursuasive speaker must know both the truth and the minds and souls of those he would pursuade.
Plato, Phaedrus, 245, C (pp. 468-469)
... Every soul is immortal. For that which is ever moving is immortal; but that which moves something else or is moved by something else, when it ceases to move, ceases to live. ...
Born in 384 BC, Aristotle was not a native Athenian, but he lived half his life in that city. He was a pupil of Plato and was a member of Plato's Academy for 20 years.
This is one of Aristotle's three treatises on moral science, named after his son, Nichomachus, who died in battle while still young. It is concerned with the study of man's ethos or character as a means to discover in what mode of life man's happiness consists.
Aristotle, Nichomachean Ethics I, vii, 12-13 (pp. 30-31)
... The mere act of living appears to be shared even by plants, whereas we are looking for the function peculiar to man; we must therefore set aside the vital activity of nutrition and growth. Next in the scale will come some form of sentient life; but this too appears to be shared by horses, oxen, and animals generally. There remains therefore what may be called the practical [purposive] life of the rational part of man. ...
Aristotle (1976). De Anima (translated by R.D. Hicks), New York: Arno Press.
The literal translation of the Greek title of this treatise is Concerning Soul. Its topic encompasses what we now call the science of psychology. Aristotle's purpose in writing it is summarized in the following quotation.Aristotle, De Anima I, 402a (pp. 2-3)
... Our aim is to discover and ascertain the nature and essence of soul and, in the next place, all the accidents belonging to it; of which some are thought to be attributes perculiar to the soul itself, while others, it is held, belong to the animal also, but owe their existence to the soul. ...
Aristotle, De Anima II, 413a- 413b (pp. 52-55)
... We take as our starting point for discussion that it is life which distinguishes the animate from the inanimate. But the term life is used in various senses; and, if life is present in but a single one of these senses, we speak of a thing as living. Thus there is intellect, sensation, motion from place to place and rest, the motion concerned with nutrition and, further, decay and growth. ... It is, then, in virtue of this principle that all living things live, whether plants or animals. ...
Philo was a Jew of Alexandria who lived around the time of Christ. He wrote elaborate allegories of the books of the Bible attributed to Moses, interpreting Mosaic writings in terms of Greek philosophy. As such, his writings constitute a summary of Greek thought prevalent up to his time.
All the following quotations are from this compilation.
Philo, De Specialibus Legibus (The Special Laws), IV, 123 (p. 628)
On which account Moses, in another passage, establishes a law concerning blood, that one may not eat the blood nor the fat. The blood, for the reason which I have already mentioned, that it is the essence of the life; not of the mental and rational life, but of that which exists in accordance with the outward senses, to which it is owing that both we and irrational animals also have common existence.
Philo, De Gigantibus (On the Giants), 14 (p. 153)
These, then, are the souls of those who have been taught some kind of sublime philosophy, meditating, from beginning to end, on dying as to the life of the body, in order to obtain an inheritance of the incorporeal and imperishable life, which is to be enjoyed in the presence of the uncreate and everlasting God.
Philo, De Fugua Et Inventione (On Flight and Finding), 55 (p. 326)
... Therefore, betaking myself for instruction to a wise woman, whose name is Consideration, I was released from my difficulty, for she taught me that some persons who are living are dead, and that some who are dead are still live: she pronounced that the wicked, even if they arrive at the latest period of old age, are only dead, inasmuch as they are deprived of life according to virtue ...
The Corpus Hermetica is a collection of writings ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus,who was either an ancient Egyptian sage or the Egyptian god, Thoth, depending on the sources consulted. The writings are in the form of dialogues between Hermes and one of several disciples and are loosely based on Greek philosophy, with a strong influence of Plato throughout. There is no clear central theme of the writings, but gnosis, knowledge of God, is an important concept. Though written in the third or fourth century AD, there is little original in the Hermetica and, therefore, we may take their ideas as being common currency of thought at around the time the New Testament was written.
Corpus Hermetica XI, 15b (p. 219)
... And speaking in this way, dear Hermes, I say that the Kosmos also is changing through all time, inasmuch as day by day a part of its life passes away out of our sight, but that is is never decomposed. ...
Corpus Hermetica XII, 15b (p. 233)
Now this Kosmos, -- which is a great god, and an image of Him who is greater, and is united with Him, and maintains its order in accordance with the Father's will, -- is one mass of life; and there is not anything in the Kosmos, nor has been through all time from the first foundation of the universe ...
Compiled by Ken Funk.
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