Agape
Love Definition
Agape
Love is arguably the most important concept in the New
Testament.
John, 'the disciple Jesus loved' declared
- 'God is Love'
that God
is 'agape love' (1
John 4 vs 8 and 1 John 4 vs 16) and.
- Jesus
followers would be known by their agape love (not
their theology)
1 Corinthians 13 did not define
agape love : -
Agape
love had already been defined by the Septuagint -
in the song of Solomon.
(If you
are into hermeneutics, the law of first mention would
result in agape being defined in 2
Samuel 15 vs 13!)
"Agape love is Song of Solomon
love"
1
Corinthians 13 merely
qualified and redeemed agape love
Consequently
only
a heart fully "in love" can
know God.
Can we justify defining agape love as a 'romantic' in love kind of love?
Defining Agape love
It
is well known to most Christians that the Greek word used for love in
the New testament was
'agape'.
What
is not so well known to most Christians is just what 'agape' means.
Christians
are generally taught that 'agape'
was a new word coined by the early Christians, as they did not want to
use any of the existing Greek words for love because of their
associations.
But
is this true?
Whilst
Christian 'agape' is certainly a kind of love distinct from any other
love in human experience, the noun 'agape' existed prior to its use in
the NT texts. Not only that, but the word and its definition
would have been well
known to the New Testament authors.
There
are different words for love in the Greek. 'Phileo' - brotherly love,
'Eros' - erotic love, and 'agape' - the love of God.
This
standard line is pretty much summed up in the Oxford
Dictionary of the Christian Church and the definitions of
both 'Love' and 'agape'.
In
Christian Theology, the principle of God's action and man's response.
Of the words used in Greek for 'love', neither philia (dutiful or
filial affection) nor eros (passionate emotion) is adequate to the
Christian conception, which the NT expressed as 'agape', a word hardly
used before except in the LXX……
Oxford
Dictionary of the Christian Church (Love definition)
The
word which probably first occurs in the Septuagint, is believed to have
been coined by the sacred authors from the verb agapao to avoid the
sensual associations of the ordinary Greek noun eros. It is
used only
twice in the synoptics (Matt 24 v 12 and Luke 11 v 42), but often in St
John and Pauline (esp. 1 Cor 13) and Johannine epistles, and always of
the love of God or Christ, or of the Love of Christians for one
another…..
Oxford
Dictionary of the Christian Church ('agape' definition)
However,
in my view, this falls short of giving the full picture.
'agape' and the Septuagint
The LXX or Septuagint, was the
Hellenistic Jews Greek translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. This
was the Greek Old Testament around in the time of Jesus and the early
Church.
And the LXX certainly does
appear to be where the noun 'agape' first appears.
The verb agapao certainly was used in classical
Greek literature, and is defined in Liddell & Scott Intermediate Lexicon:
-agapaô- [I] of persons, to treat
with affection, to caress, love, be fond of.
But other than a few very
obscure occasions - one alluding to the Egyptian goddess Isis,
(agapê theôn, title of Isis, POxy.1380.109) and
another an erotic pet-name of a naked woman on a 5th
century BC earthenware pot, the noun 'agape' was unknown.
Catherine Osborne, in Eros Unveiled, Plato and the God
of Love states
Abstract
nouns are not used in Greek so much as they are in English, and many
ideas that we should express with a noun would normally come out better
in Greek if we used a verb or participle instead.
Why
then, should anyone writing in Greek favour the noun agape when he could
use the verb?
In stating that the use of Love
as a noun was very rare in Classical Greek, Osborne also points out it
was also even more rare in Hebrew thought. (She also points out that
the preference for the noun over the verb is
largely associated with Paul in
the New Testament, and with the Song of
Solomon in the Septuagint )
So then, if we go back to the
Septuagint, and have a look at the 'agape' passages, we should be able
to get some context for this word.
And when we do, we find that
more often than not, the noun 'agape' refers to sexual love or at least
an "in love" kind of love:
(See
here for 'agape'
quotes from the Septuagint)
In Hastings. J
Dictionary of the Bible under the reference for Love
in the LXX we read:
All
these varieties of love, human and divine, may in the LXX be expressed
by the verb agapao and noun 'agape'. In the story of Samson and Delilah
agapao describes sexual relationship (Judges 16 v 4, 15) not to mention
Solomon's legalised lust (3 K 11 v 2), besides expressing love in its
higher reaches…. In the Greek Bible in the form that it must
have been known to the NT writers, agapao does duty for every shade and
variety of love, for divine pity and preference for Israel right down
to erotic passion. It is true that agapao is not the only verb to
express erotic love in the LXX, for there are also pro-aireomai and
enthumeomai (Heb hshk ethelo hps); but it is very commonly used to
render Hebrew hb when the context makes plain that this very type of
love or passion is intended. Nor has agapao the monopoly for rendering
what may be described as reasoning attachment; thus the more usual
verbs for divine pity are eleeo and oikterio. The noun 'agape' is
usually connected with sex, or at least with the love of women; or it
is a passion comparable in intensity with hatred; it is not at all a
higher love than philia. Indeed in the LXX agapesis may be said to be a
higher type of love than AGAPE (c.f. especially Hosea 11 v 4, Zephaniah
3 v 17, Jeremiah 38 (31) v 3)
Why
the noun 'agape' for Christian Love?
Why did the New
Testament writers, not do as the modern Christian Church reconstruction
has inferred, and truly invent a word that had no sexual connotations,
or in the very least use 'phileo' which had a far more 'brotherly love'
connotation to it?
The simple reason is that
sexual love is an ideal metaphor for the interface between humanity and
God. The primary metaphor for the Old Testament God's relationship with
Israel was not so
much as a loving Father but as a sexual lover (though not of course in
the standard physical sense).
Both Old and New Covenant
relationships have predominantly been described in terms of sexual and
bride/bridegroom love.
Old Testament
Jeremiah 2 v 32, 3 v 20 , 31 v
32, Ezekiel 13 v 32, 16 v 7-8, Hosea 2 v 2,
New Testament
John 3 v 29, 2 Cor 11 v 2, Eph
5 v 23, Rev 21 v 2
Christianity was not creating a
new word for the
God kind of love, it was redeeming a word already in existence, a word
used for sexual love.
And it is this celibate but
sexual love, that the
early Church
Celebrated in Love Feasts and the Kiss
of Peace.
Addendum
Deus Caritas Est
Pope Benedict has
released his first Encyclical Deus
Caritas Est which is Latin for God is Love.
He has a great discussion of agape love vs eros - with agape love and
eros as acending and descending love that need to find unity in the one
reality of love
...eros
and agape—ascending love and descending love—can
never be completely separated. The more the two, in their different
aspects, find a proper unity in the one reality of love, the more the
true nature of love in general is realized. Even if eros is at first
mainly covetous and ascending, a fascination for the great promise of
happiness, in drawing near to the other, it is less and less concerned
with itself, increasingly seeks the happiness of the other, is
concerned more and more with the beloved, bestows itself and wants to
“be there for” the other. The element of agape thus
enters into this love, for otherwise eros is impoverished and even
loses its own nature. On the other hand, man cannot live by oblative,
descending love alone. He cannot always give, he must also receive.
Anyone who wishes to give love must also receive love as a gift.
Certainly, as the Lord tells us, one can become a source from which
rivers of living water flow (cf. Jn 7:37-38). Yet to become such a
source, one must constantly drink anew from the original source, which
is Jesus Christ, from whose pierced heart flows the love of God (cf. Jn
19:34).
It is here Pope Benedict is touching on a central mystery of the
Kingdom - coinherent love.
Osborne also leads us to coinherent love in her
discussion of Paul's ambiguous use of the "love of God" - using
love as a noun and not a verb. Had Paul utilised the more common verb,
it would have been clearly either Gods love for us or our love for God,
but as a noun it is a shared coinherent love.
(You can read Pope Benedict's encyclical Deus Caritas Est online at the
Vatican
Website .)
What about Loving toxic people?
|
