Anders Nygren, On Christian Agape-Love and Eros-Love in Gospels and Pauline Epistles

Today we will reflect on Anders Nygren’s influential book, Agape and Eros.

Why did the Greeks have three different words for love: Agape, Phileo, and Eros?

How did the apostles John and Paul define Agape-Love, or Divine Love? What were the differences in emphasis regarding Agape-Love between the Synoptic Gospels, the Book of John, and the Pauline Epistles?

What role does self-love play in the Christian life?

YouTube video for this blog: https://youtu.be/KniBalQMemM

AGAPGE AND EROS BY ANDERS NYGREN

When reflecting on various theological topics and listening to various lecture series over the years, one book was enthusiastically mentioned in the footnotes repeatedly, Anders Nygren’s Agape and Eros, which are two Greek words for Divine Love and carnal love. Although Anders Nygren is not a household name, warranting only a few short paragraphs in his Wikipedia biography, his book on love, Agape and Eros, was influential among theologians. He was a Lutheran professor, and Agape and Eros was originally written in Swedish in the interwar years from 1930 to 1936.

What are the goals of Anders Nygren when writing Agape and Eros? “First, to investigate the meaning of the Christian idea of love; and secondly, to illustrate the main changes it has undergone in the course of history.”[1]

Indeed, Love is central to both the Jewish and Christian traditions. Jesus is repeating Deuteronomy when he states that the Law and the Prophets are based on the two-fold Love of God and neighbor.

Hillel and Jesus, Reflections on Rabbi Telushkin’s Observations
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/hillel-and-jesus-reflections/
Comparing Hillel and Shammai to Jesus
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/comparing-hillel-and-shammai-to-jesus/
More Stories and Sayings of Hillel and Shammai
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/more-stories-and-sayings-of-hillel-and-shammai/
Jesus, Hillel, and Shammai, Loving God and Neighbor
https://youtu.be/ygxn2qqGnOI

Likewise, St Augustine teaches us that all Holy Scriptures should be interpreted in light of this two-fold Love of God and neighbor, love your neighbor as yourself. Whenever a literal Biblical passage appears to violate this principle, then it should be interpreted allegorically. This is also a good lesson in life, to think the best of your neighbor, especially your loved ones, rather than the worst. Do this and you will bring out the best in those whom you meet in life. In later chapters Nygren will discuss the Augustinian motif on Divine Agape Love, or Caritas in Latin.

St Augustine: On Christian Teaching, aka On Christian Doctrine, How To Read Scripture
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/st-augustine-on-christian-teaching-how-to-read-scripture/
https://youtu.be/uQCnAJMPoos

OVERVIEW OF ANDERS NYGREN’S AGAPE AND EROS

The translator notes that Nygren’s views of Plato’s heavenly Eros, or Divine Love, is “as a human Love for the Divine, a Love of man for God.” “Eros is an appetite, a yearning desire;” “and in Eros-Love man seeks God in order to satisfy his spiritual hunger by the possession and enjoyment of the Divine perfections.”

The translator continues his summary: “But the Love of man for God in the New Testament is quite different: it is a whole-hearted surrender to God, whereby man becomes God’s willing slave, content to be at His disposal, having entire trust and confidence in Him, and desiring only that His will should be done.”

“This love is not, like Eros, a longing and striving after something man lacks and needs, but a response of gratitude for something freely and bountifully given, namely, God’s own Agape, and although it can itself be called Agape, its character as response is more clearly marked when it is described, by St Paul especially, as faith.”[2]

Where can we find examples of Eros-Love for God? The best example is the erotic Persian love song, the Song of Songs, which remained in the Jewish Bible because it was interpretted allegorically as a Divine Love of God. The NeoPlatonic Love for God is best expressed in the highly influential Dionysius the Areopagite in his works on Mystical Theology, who influenced both Catholic and Orthodox theologians to the current day, including St Theresa of Avila and St John of the Cross, who quoted him directly in his Dark Night of the Soul. In this work, he offers the sage advice that we should only have close friends who deepen in us our Love for God, which in today’s world can be interpreted to apply to those you marry.

Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Influence of Neo-Platonism on Mystical Christianity
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/pseudo-dionysius-the-areopagite-influence-of-neo-platonism-on-mystical-christianity/
https://youtu.be/wlr55ddb-lc

Dark Night of the Soul, by St John of the Cross, and Mystical Theology of Pseudo-Dionysus
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/dark-night-of-the-soul-by-st-john-of-the-cross-and-mystical-theology-of-pseudo-dionysus/
https://youtu.be/6VffPIzfT-o

St John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, Seven Capital Sins and Best Type of Close Friend
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/st-john-of-the-cross-dark-night-of-the-soul-seven-capital-sins-and-best-type-of-close-friend/
https://youtu.be/DgL7Y5pIFAU

DIVINE LOVE AND HAPPINESS, OR EUDAEMONIA

The New Testament never uses the Greek word Eros, favoring the Greek word Phileo. St Paul infuses new meaning into the Greek word Agape, or Godly Love, which is the word he uses in his Pauline Epistles, and which was used only a few times in the Synoptic Gospels, and is rarely used in other Greek works. When the Apostle John writes that God is Love, Agape is the word he uses both in the Gospel of John and Johannine Epistles [3]

Nygren teaches us, “The dominant question was that of eudaemonia,” the Greek word for happiness. Different traditions defined this differently, for “hedonism, happiness is the pleasure of the moment; for Aristotle, happiness is the striving for and attainment of perfection; and for Stoicism, it is ataraxia,” a Greek word that denotes “an independence and indifference towards the external vicissitudes,” or uncertainties, “of life.”

How does Christianity differ? “The question of the Good is no longer seen from the point of view of the isolated individual, but rather from that of man in society, man in his relation to God and to his fellow men.” “Agape-love is a social idea which has nothing to do with individualistic and eudemonistic ethics,” Agape-love is “the Good-in-itself.”

The real question, which is an implied question in all ages, up to modern times, is this: Does the world and God revolve around man, or does man and the world revolve around God?” As Nygren asks: “Are we interested in God as the One who can satisfy all the needs and desires of the ego, or are we interested in the sovereign Lord who has absolute authority over the ego?”

Anders answers this question, “It is in Christianity that we first find egocentric religion essentially superseded by theocentric religion.”[4] Ander Nygren teaches us that “Heavenly Eros is a broad river that overflows its banks, carrying everything with it, so that it is not easy even in thought to dam it up and make it flow in an orderly course. When the Eros motif invades Christianity, it endeavors to drive out and supplant the Agape motif.” “We are tempted to equate Eros with earthly, sensual love and Agape with heavenly, spiritual love as we seek to compare and contrast them. But if we do that, we shall certainly do no justice to Eros.” [5]

Anders Nygren reflected on Plato’s dialogues on love and friendship, including the Symposium, where Socrates remembered his discussions on Divine Love with his lady-friend Diotima, and where his dinner companions pondered both carnal love and Divine Love, pondering when carnal love can be a type of Divine Love.

We know that Greek moral philosophy was a secondary influence for Christianity, so perhaps you would benefit from reading the chapters reflecting on Platonic love before reading the opening chapters on love as described in the New Testament.

Summary of Platonic Dialogues on Love and Friendship, With Commentary by Copleston and Anders Nygren
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/summary-of-platonic-dialogues-on-love-and-friendship/
https://youtu.be/cjXRXQc6Ff4

THE TORAH AND SYNOPTIC GOSPELS COMMAND US TO LOVE GOD

Anders Nygren observes that Love for God and neighbor was key for Judaism. “There was never lacking in Judaism a tendency to make love central in ethical and religious relationships. It is not true to say that the commandment of love is merely one among many legalistic traditions.”

Nygren continues: “As early as Hosea the principle that love is the central requirement of the Law is clearly recognized; God desires “love and not sacrifice. Indeed, Love towards God sometimes acquires such importance that it can stand alongside ‘the fear of the Lord’ as an inclusive description of the right attitude of man to God.”

We should remember Anders Nygren was writing in the interwar years before the Holocaust. Nygren observes: “One of the most striking differences between the Commandment of Love as it is interpreted in the Old Testament and in Christianity, is that in the latter it is universal in scope.” In Judaism, “Love towards God has its counterpart in love for one’s neighbor, which is understood as love for the Chosen People of God, the ‘peculiar people.’ The scope of love can also be extended to embrace even aliens resident among the Chosen People. Yet, even so, love always preserves its limits.”

Nygren emphasizes: “The Christian is commanded to love his enemies, not because the other side teaches hatred of them, but because there is a basis and motive for such love in the concrete, positive fact of God’s own love for evil men.”

Two counter-examples for this argument are books in the Old Testament itself. Ruth is welcomed into the nation of Israel even though she is from Moab, and Moabite women had the reputation of being loose women. Also, Jonah is ordered by God to preach to the Israeli archenemies, the Assyrians, so they may repent of their evil ways.

Many biblical scholars underestimate this one truth about the ancient world: All ancient cultures were warrior cultures. Why do we say all cultures? Because when an ancient city-state was defeated, often all the men were killed, or sentenced to work and die in the mines or plantations, while the women and children were enslaved. Indeed, slaves were the employees of the ancient world. This was the world of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, and this viewpoint can explain many of the difficult verses in the Old Testament.

The Iliad, the Basis of Greek Culture and the Western Philosophical Tradition
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/iliad_blog01/
https://youtu.be/DpmuhZJUJn0

The Warrior Cultures of the Iliad and the American Indian, Bravely Visiting the Enemy Camp
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/iliad-blog-3-visiting-the-enemy-camp-greeks-vs-indians/
https://youtu.be/ynIx-AVI2f8

Concubines in the Iliad, Old Testament and Christian Tradition
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/iliad_blog02/
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/the-iliad-blog-4-briseis-chryseis-arent-all-concubines-the-same/
https://youtu.be/bGHHD7XTvr0

The Iliad of Homer: Glory, Honor, Madness and Futility of War
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/the-iliad-blog-5-the-tide-of-battle-turns-against-the-greeks/
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/the-iliad-blog-6-embassy-to-achilles-oration-failed-meeting/
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/the-iliad-blog-7-the-deaths-of-patroclus-and-hector/
https://youtu.be/7lI2ZQ50wRc

This simple fact explains so many conundrums. One is the question: Why does the Christian message seem more compassionate than the Jewish message? For example, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus exhorts us to turn the other cheek, while Judaism is more concerned with justice and retribution. The simple historical fact was that after the Roman Empire conquered a territory, the inhabitants no longer feared that their city could be attacked and its citizens enslaved at any time, which meant that living a truly altruistic life of turning the other cheek was more possible in the time of Jesus than in Ancient Israel, or Ancient Greece, where your city could be defeated and ransacked, your men massacred, and your women and children enslaved, at any time.

Ancient Warrior Culture, Blog 1, War, Slaves, and Concubines in Ancient Greece, Rome, and Israel
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/ancient-warrior-societies-blog-1-the-warrior-ethos-of-ancient-greece/
https://youtu.be/7QAZ_s6zw4E

Ancient Warrior Societies, Blog 2, Greek and Roman Armies and Navies
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/ancient-warrior-societies-blog-2-greek-and-roman-armies-and-navies/
Ancient Warrior Societies, Blog 3, World of the Old Testament
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/ancient-warrior-societies-blog-3-world-of-the-old-testament/
Ancient Warfare in Ancient Greece, Rome, and Israel. Did Joshua Massacre Pagans in Promised Land?

Slaves in the Ancient World, Blog 1, Were Slaves the Employees of the Ancient World?
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/slaves-in-the-ancient-world-blog-1-were-slaves-the-employees-of-the-ancient-world/
Slaves in Ancient Greece and Rome, Blog 2
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/slaves-in-ancient-greece-and-rome-blog-2/
https://youtu.be/O67cmVRvBtA

Teachings about Slavery in the Bible, the Stoics, and by the Early Church Fathers
http://www.seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/teachings-about-slavery-in-the-bible-and-by-the-early-church-fathers/
https://youtu.be/poyvJajCXnE

Anders Nygren emphasizes that “Old Testament piety with its devotion to the Law was by no means the external legalism it is often assumed to have been. There was an inward bond that held the godly man to the Law. The righteous felt no sense of external compulsion when confronted by the Law, but a sense of inner solidarity with it. Its observance gave him value and made him acceptable to God. His prevailing mood was expressed in Psalm 1,” the Psalm that sings of Law as Gospel. [6]

Psalm 1 begins with: “Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.[7]

We demonstrated this with several reflections on Love in the Book of Deuteronomy that we wanted to publish before releasing this reflection. We reflect on the twenty-plus times Deuteronomy bids us to Love God, with the medieval rabbinical commentary on these verses.

Medieval Jewish and Christian Commentators, My Gentile’s Defense of Judaism, Part 1
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/medieval-jewish-and-christian-commentators-my-gentile-defense-of-judaism-part-1/
https://youtu.be/mN765l5O2f8

Loving God in Deuteronomy, My Gentile’s Defense of Judaism, Part 2
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/loving-god-in-deuteronomy-and-a-gentiles-defense-of-judaism-part-2/
https://youtu.be/1f-rAs-rBI0

CHRISTIAN CONCEPT OF AGAPE LOVE

Anders Nygren describes the main features of Agape-Love: “Agape is spontaneous and unmotivated:” “Motivated love is human; spontaneous and unmotivated love is Divine.” “When God Loves man, that is not a judgment on what man is like, but on what God is like.” “Agape is the new wine which inevitably bursts the old wineskins.”

Nygren continues, “Agape is indifferent to value.” “It is only when all thought of the worthiness of the object is abandoned that we can understand what Agape is.” “When God’s Love is shown to be righteous and godly, there is always the risk of our thinking that God Loves the man on account of his righteousness and godliness.”

“Agape is creative love. God does not Love that which is already in itself worthy of love, but on the contrary, that which in itself has no worth acquires worth just by becoming the object of God’s Love.” “Agape loves and imparts value by loving. The man who is loved by God has no value in himself; what gives him value is precisely the fact that God Loves him.”

Nygren continues: “Agape is the initiator of fellowship with God.” “In the relations between God and man, the initiative in establishing fellowship lies with Divine Agape.” “There is no way for man to come to God, but only a way for God to come to man: the way of Divine forgiveness, Divine Love.”[8]

Anders Nygren celebrates: “When a man has experienced God’s Agape, when in spite of his unworthiness and absolute nothingness he has been taken into fellowship with God, it follows that he belongs absolutely to God.”

When Jesus repeats the command from Deuteronomy: “You shall Love God with all of your heart and with all of your soul and with all of your mind and with all of your strength,” he seeks to lead us to “absolute devotion and submission. Love towards God is neither an acquisitive love nor a love of friendship.”

Nygren emphasizes, “If Love towards God were an ‘acquisitive love,’ then God, even though He is described as the highest good, would be the means for the satisfaction of man’s desires. Nor is there any room for the ‘love of friendship’ in a theocentric relationship to God, for that Love presupposes an equality between Divine Love and human love which does not exist. It is excluded by the sovereignty of Divine Love.”

“God’s Love is spontaneous and unmotivated; consequently, man’s Love for God, if it is really to deserve the name of Agape, must also be spontaneous and unmotivated.”

This contrasts with those who feel they can buy God’s favor by charity or devotion, like the aging Cephalus in the beginning of Plato’s Republic, who seeks to buy the favor of the gods by buying many sacrifices to the gods in the pagan temples.

Yet there is a famous verse at the end of the Gospel of John that undercuts this distinction by Anders Nygren. When the disciples encounter the resurrected Jesus on the beach cooking fish, he asks Peter three times, “Do you Love Me? Feed my sheep.” The first two times the Greek word Agape is used, but Phileo, or brotherly love, is used the last time. Perhaps this illustrates how impossible it is to interpret Scripture with a consistent theology.

What is the character of a true Agape-Love for God? Nygren tells us: “Love towards God does not seek to gain anything” “other than God. But neither does it seek to gain even God Himself or His Love.” “It is the free and spontaneous surrender of your heart to God. When God gives His Love freely and for nothing, there remains nothing for man to gain by Loving God.” This Love “is obedience to God, without any thought of reward.”

CHRISTIAN NEIGHBORLY LOVE REJECTS SELF-LOVE

The loves in the two-fold Love of God and love of neighbor are not separate loves, these loves are intertwined like multiple vines growing on a trestle. Nygren warns us that “neighborly love loses its specifically Christian character if it is taken out of context of fellowship with God.” “Nothing could be more disastrous for the Christian idea of love than that it should be identified with modern ideas of altruism, fellow-feeling,” and other kumbaya sentiments.

Luke quotes Jesus: “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again.”

Nygren observes, “Man’s natural attitude is a reflection of his neighbor’s attitude to him: love is met with love, hate with hate. Christian love, on the other hand, is a reflection of God’s Love.”

Nygren discusses over many pages that this two-fold Love of God and love of neighbor cannot be expanded into a three-fold love, including self-love, as this is a misinterpretation of the command, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Nygren warns that “self-love is man’s natural condition, and also the reason for the perversity of his will.” “So far is neighborly love from including self-love that it actually excludes and overcomes it.”

During divorce support programs I have heard the refrain constantly that “you cannot love someone else unless you love yourself.” Where did this come from? None of the early or Eastern Church Fathers condone self-love. St Augustine does condone self-love, but he distinguishes between “divine” self-love and carnal self-love, and then defines carnal self-love in terms similar to the Eastern Church Fathers’ definition of self-love. CS Lewis emphatically condemns self-love. In Erich Fromm’s book, The Art of Loving, he also condemns self-love, but he supports self-care, which means that you should take care of yourself, such as attending counseling sessions, which may be what the divorce support group leaders were referring to. The only published person I know who enthusiastically condones self-love is Leo Buscaglia in Love: What Life Is All About, and he also may be referring to self-care. We plan to review all of these works in the future, and Anders Nygren reviews the works on love by St Augustine and many later Christian theologians, and the index reveals he will discuss self-love in several future chapters.

Loving your neighbor includes loving your enemies, as Jesus exhorts in Matthew: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

What does Jesus mean when he asks: “If you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?”

In other translations, this is also rendered as greeting your neighbor, being friendly towards them, and being kind to them. Why is it that lately many Christians are okay with being cruel to their neighbor? Quite often, in the comments, some complain when I apply the words of Jesus to the civil rights struggles of the past and present, but this is the core of racism, that you refuse to treat your neighbor with dignity, that you refuse to greet them as a friend.

Blessed Are the Poor, Woe to the Rich, and Other Woke Compassionate Bible Verses
https://seekingvirtueandwisdom.com/blessed-are-the-poor-woe-to-the-rich-and-other-woke-bible-verses/
https://youtu.be/576TYemgA8o

Nygren concludes: “When Christian love is directed to enemies, it shows itself to be real Agape, spontaneous and creative. It creates fellowship even when fellowship seems impossible. Christian love is action, not merely reaction.”

Jesus shows us His Love for us even when he judges us in the last days. As Nygren observes: “Only that love which has pronounced judgment on all that is not love is in the deepest sense a restoring and saving love.” “Whoever refuses to be won by the reckless self-giving of love cannot be won at all.”[9]

THE AGAPE OF THE CROSS IN PAULINE EPISTLES

Some theologians have argued that the Pauline Epistles promote a Christianity that is different from the Christianity of the Synoptic Gospels, but this is too extreme, though their perspectives differ. St Paul’s experience is indeed unique: Nygren reminds us that St Paul speaks from the perspective of “the persecutor who becomes a disciple and an apostle.” Christ’s calling Paul to the faith on the road to Damascus “revealed to him the ways of God; it gave him an insight in God’s Agape and Christ’s Agape; it showed to him the unmotivated charter of God’s Love.”

Before his conversion, he was named Saul, but afterwards he was a different man, Jesus renamed him Paul. Interestingly, in Acts 7 Saul was present and approved of the stoning of St Stephen, who had boldly professed his faith in Jesus before the Jewish authorities, but the verses do not say that Saul threw any of the stones, for the stone-throwers laid down their jackets at his feet. Perhaps by the grace of God he was spared bloody hands.

In Acts 9 we read, “Now as Saul journeyed, Saul approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed about him. And he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ And he said, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ And he said, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting; but rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.’” Saul was temporarily blinded, but Jesus revealed to his disciples through visions how they should welcome him into the faith. Since Jesus appeared directly to him, St Paul became an apostle, equal to the apostles.

To make his point about Paul’s experience with the Agape-Love of Jesus for him, and for us, Anders Nygren studies the classic passage from Romans 5:
“While we were yet helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. But God shows his Agape-Love for us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we are now justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.”

Nygren posits that “Paul’s most important contribution” is his connecting “the idea of Agape to his theology of the Cross.”,” “the center of his preaching.” “The Gospel for St Paul is nothing else but the word of the Cross of Christ.” “The Cross determines the character of his new, Christian relationship to God, just as the Law had determined the character of his pre-Christian relationship to God.”

To make his point, Anders Nygren studies the classic passage from Romans 5:
“While we were yet helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. But God shows his Agape-Love for us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we are now justified by His blood, much more shall we be saved by Him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.”

From these verses in Romans 5, Nygren notes:

“If we ask what Agape is, we are pointed to the Cross of Christ.” His Agape-Love “is a love that gives itself away, that sacrifices itself, even to the utmost.”
“The Agape revealed in the death of Crist is in no way independent of God.” “Agape is the Love of God in Christ Jesus.”
“Nowhere is the absolutely spontaneous and unmotivated nature of God’s Agape so clearly manifest as in the death of Christ.”
“The greatest message regarding God’s Love and its spontaneous and unmotivated nature is that it is a love for sinners, for the unworthy and unrighteous,” as St Paul himself was unworthy and unrighteous before his calling.

Christ’s death on the Cross is a sacrifice, as St Paul relates in Ephesians: “And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.”

The Old Testament sacrifices in the Temple were votive offerings from man’s property, but higher forms of sacrifices are “obedience, justice and righteousness, and mercy and love.” But are these sufficiently pure to be acceptable to God? Higher yet is the sacrifice of a broken spirit. But, as Nygren notes, “one who thinks of humility as a way to fellowship with God and feels that his own humility gives him an imperishable worth in God’s sight, is at bottom anything but humble.”

St Augustine was surprised to observe that when “St Paul uses caritas,” or Latin for Agape-Love, “he nearly always means love to one’s neighbor, and only very seldom means Love for God.”

Why is Paul reluctant to speak of man’s Love for God? Perhaps he felt that when he was Saul, persecutor of Christians, he thought he was a seriously devout Jew who truly Loved God, but as Paul he knew he was sinning grievously

Nygren summarizes the Pauline emphasis: “It is not the connection between man’s Love for God and his love for his neighbor that guarantees the religious character of neighborly love. Instead, it is the connection between God’s Love and neighborly love that Paul emphasizes; making this neighborly love more profoundly religious.”

Nygren notes that man’s Agape-Love for God is but a pale reflection of God’s Agape-Love for man, it can never be truly spontaneous. “Man’s giving of himself to God is never more than a response. At its best and highest, it is but a reflex of God’s Love, by which it is ‘motivated.’” This dilemma is why St Paul prefers discussing God’s Love for man and man’s love for his neighbor, St Paul sees clearly how hard it is for mortal man to truly Love God with a truly Divine Agape Love. To St Paul, “God’s Agape is the Agape of the Cross. It is the Cross of Christ that has taught Paul to be chary of speaking about our Agape towards God.” How can our Love for God truly equal Christ’s Love for us, Love that led Him to the Cross?

Nygren teaches us that Paul seeks to give man’s “Love towards God” “its proper name, which he calls ‘FAITH.’ Faith includes in itself the whole devotion of love, while emphasizing it is a reciprocated love. Faith is love towards God, but a love of which the keynote is receptivity, not spontaneity.”

Faith is emphasized in Lutheran theology. While there are many Lutheran Churches called Faith Lutheran Church and Hope Lutheran Church, it is rare for a church to be named Charity Lutheran Church. When Luther translated the German Bible into the vernacular, he famously added the last word to the verse where we are saved by faith ALONE, explaining that he thought that was the meaning of the verse. But St Paul does emphasize faith, although only in Galatians does he speak of “faith working through love.”[10]

St Paul included a chapter on Love in his first epistle to the Corinthians, where he cautioned that while knowledge, or gnosis, will pass away, that Agape-Love will last forever. This is the core teaching: “Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” St Paul ends the chapter: “So faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

Anders Nygren observes that “Agape has for Paul a value and significance of its own.” “It is not necessary to ask every time the word occurs, to whom the love is directed. Agape is primarily God’s own Love, which is by nature self-giving and overflowing.” “Whether human love is one of the things that pass away, or one of those that abide, depends not on whether it is love for one’s neighbor or Love for God, but on whether it is a merely human love, or a love born of God’s own image.”[11]

GOD IS AGAPE, ACCORDING TO THE APOSTLE JOHN

In 1 John 4, John exhorts us: “Beloved, let us love one another; for love is of God, and he who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God; for God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the expiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”

Anders Nygren notes that “there is no trace here of the Pauline reserve in speaking of Love for God. Love for God and love for the brethren belong so inseparably together that one can be inferred from the other.” The difference between Paul and John is emphasis only: “Just as love is for Paul essentially ‘the Agape of the Cross,’ so for John it is the Cross that reveals the deepest mysteries of Divine Love.”

In John 13, Jesus proclaims: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” This is a New Commandment because it has been revealed through the sacrifice made by Jesus, who died for our sake on the Cross.

According to Nygren, For John, “God’s Agape-Love is, the first instance, the Father’s eternal Love for His Son. Love here means the self-communication of God to the Son, and it begins a series of self-communications: from God to Christ, from Christ to the disciple, and from the disciple to the brethren. Just as God has Loved Christ and imparted Himself to Him, so Christ has loved his disciples and imparted himself to them, and so they are also called to love one another and impart themselves to one another.”

We cannot forget the most famous passage in John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

Nygren concludes, “The Johannine conception of Love represents in a measure the transition to a stage where the Christian idea of love is no longer determined solely by the Agape motif, but by ‘Eros and Agape.’”[12]

DISCUSSING THE SOURCES

Although Anders Nygren’s Agape and Eros is addressed to fellow scholars, it is still readable and quotable, though sometimes a bit repetitive. We mostly skipped over his comments on related works by Max Scheler, Kant, Nietzsche, Adolf von Harnack, and Richard Reitzenstein, some of the scholarly arguments are probably stale a hundred years later. Max Sheler was a philosopher who influenced the views of Pope John Paul II, who earned a PhD in Philosophy.

We must mention our favorite country song by Rhonda Vincent, with the telling refrain, “You don’t Love God if you don’t love your neighbor.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epArSqlMQ-E

[1] Anders Nygren, Agape and Eros, translated by Philip Watson (New York: Harper & Row Publishers, 1969, 1932 & 1938), Introduction, p. 27.

[2] Anders Nygren, Agape and Eros, Translator’s Preface, pp. xvi-xvii.

[3] Anders Nygren, Agape and Eros, The Problem of Agape and Eros, The Nature of the Problem, p. 33 and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Four_Loves .

[4] Anders Nygren, Agape and Eros, The Problem of Agape and Eros, The Place of the Idea of Agape in Christianity, pp. 44-46.

[5] Anders Nygren, Agape and Eros, The Problem of Agape and Eros, The Heavenly Eros, pp. 47-52.

[6] Anders Nygren, Agape and Eros, The Agape Motif, Agape and Fellowship with God, pp. 61-69.

[7] https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=psalm+1&version=RSVCE

[8] Anders Nygren, Agape and Eros, The Agape Motif, Agape and Fellowship with God, pp. 75-81.

[9] Anders Nygren, Agape and Eros, The Agape Motif, Agape and Fellowship with God, pp. 91-104 and https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=luke+6%3A32-34&version=RSVCE and https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=matthew+5%3A43-48&version=RSVCE .and https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Matthew%205:47

[10] Anders Nygren, Agape and Eros, The Agape Motif, The Agape of the Cross, pp. 109-129 and https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=romans+5%3A6-10&version=RSVCE and https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=ephesians+5%3A2&version=RSVCE .