Agape

Abstract

Abstract The Greek noun agapê means “love.” Although the verb ( agapân ) is fairly common in classical Greek, the noun, occasionally found in inscriptions, is seldom found except in Hellenistic Jewish and early Christian literature. In the former it has a variety of meanings: romantic love (Song of Songs), piety ( Letter of Aristeas ), the love of Wisdom personified (Wis 6:17–20), fear and love of God (Philo Unchangeableness of God 14.69), and the love of neighbor expressed in philanthropy (1 Sam 6:2 LXX). In the New Testament, agape generally means “self‐giving love”, as distinct from philia , “affection”, and erôs, “passionate love.” The epistles of Paul (1 Cor 13; Gal 5; Rom 12) and the Gospel and letters of John (Jn 15; 1 Jn 4; 2 Jn) propose a distinctive theology of agape: God, who is love, is embodied in Christ, who, in turn, is embodied in the community of believers, the church, especially in giving of themselves to others. In early Christian literature subsequent to the New Testament, agape reflects the variety of meanings in Hellenistic Judaism, yet self‐giving love (Latin caritas ) underlies its use, as is evident in the paean on agape in First Clement (Holmes 1999: 49–50), the earliest extant document outside the New Testament (95–97 ce ), and in the letters of Ignatius of Antioch, a decade later (110), where agape embodies the unity between Christ and the churches he addresses ( Ephesians 1–4; Holmes 1999: 137–9). This usage continues to underlie the literature of the early centuries.