14. The Terminology of Love in the New Testament

14. The Terminology of Love in the New Testament

C onsidered as a monument of the Greek language at a particular stage of its development, the New Testament is a very interesting document; and not least so in the terminology which it employs to express the emotion of love. The end-terms of this development, so far as it is open to our observation, are found—we are speaking in broad categories—in the literature which we know as "classical" on the one side, and in the speech of the modern Greek world on the other. In passing from one of these end-terms to the other, a complete revolution has been wrought in the terminology of love; a revolution so radical that the ordinary verb for "to love" in classical

Greek has lost that sense altogether in modern Greek, its place being taken by a verb in comparatively infrequent use in the classics; while the ordinary substantive for "love" in modern Greek, formed from this latter verb, does not occur even once in the whole range of classical

Greek literature. Coming in somewhere between these two end-terms, the New Testament, flanked on the one side by the Septuagint version of the Old Testament and its accompanying Apocrypha, and on the other by the Apostolic Fathers, forms a compact body of literature in

which alone we can observe the revolution in progress; or, we should better say, in which this revolution suddenly appears to sight already nearly completed. Without any heralding in the secular literature, all at once in this religious literature the change presents itself to our view as in principle already an accomplished fact.

All the terms expressing the idea of love current either in classical or in modern Greek are found in this body of religious literature. But they are found in it in such distribution as to make it evident that we are witnessing the dying of one usage while the other has already reached its vigorous youth. This phenomenon is the more impressive because this body of literature stands out in this respect in a certain isolation. Neither in the secular literature of the early Christian centuries, nor even in the immediately succeeding religious literature— in the Greek of the Apologists and the early Church Fathers—is the change in usage anything like so manifest. We have an odd feeling that, with respect to the expression of the idea of love at least, the Greek of the New Testament (along with that of the Septuagint and the Apostolic

Fathers) has run ahead of its time, and reflects a stage in the development of the language not yet by some centuries generally attained. This is due doubtless in part to the extremely popular character of these writings. They tap for us the Greek language of their day as it was actually spoken; and enable us to see how far the spoken

Greek was outstripping in its development the language of "the prigs who write books." In the Apologists at any rate we have a partial return to the more literary usage, with the effect that the language of the New

Testament (with the Septuagint and Apostolic Fathers) seems more modern than that of even the Christian writers that came after them.

There are four verbs which, with their accompanying nouns (of course there are also various derivatives), are employed by the classical

writers to express the idea of love. Of these φιλεῖν (φιλία) is in universal use as the general term for love, though naturally it has its specific implication which on occasion comes sharply into sight. By its side stand its synonyms, ἐρᾶν, ἐρᾶσθαι (ἔρως), στέργειν (στοργή), ἀγαπᾶν (ἀγάπησις), each of which also is no doubt employed (with decreasing frequency in the order in which they are here set down) to express every kind of love, but each with a specific implication which comes clearly into evidence whenever there is occasion for it to do so.

What we mean to say is that, as synonyms, these terms do not so much cover a common ground over the edge of which each extends at a particular place to occupy an additional field all its own; as that they are so used that, within the common ground which they all alike cover, each has a particular quality or aspect which it alone emphasizes, and which it alone is fitted to bring into sight. If we should endeavor to hit off the special implication of each with a single word, we might perhaps say that with στέργειν it is nature, with ἐρᾶν passion, with φιλεῖν pleasurableness, with ἀγαπᾶν preciousness. The idea of love includes all these things, and these terms come severally to mind, therefore, in speaking of love, whenever love is contemplated from the angle of the special implication of each. If it is a question of the constitutional efflux of natural affection στέργειν is the most expressive word to use. If, of the blind impulse of absorbing passion, ἐρᾶν. If, of the glow of heart kindled by the perception of that in the object which affords us pleasure, φιλεῖν. If, of an awakened sense of value in the object which causes us to prize it, ἀγαπᾶν. It is probable that no one of the terms is ever used wholly without some sense in the speaker's mind of its specific implication. Nevertheless each of them is actually employed of every kind and degree of love—because there is no object which is fitted to call out the emotion of love at all which

cannot be approached from numerous angles and envisaged from distinct points of view. Not merely differences in the objects on which the affection terminates, but also differences in the mental attitude of its subjects, determine the appropriateness of one or another of the terms, when love is spoken of.

We may take στέργειν as an illustration. 1 We have no doubt that the characterization of it by J. H. Heinrich Schmidt is substantially right. "Στέργειν," he writes, 2 "does not denote a passionate love or disposition, not a longing after something that takes our heart captive and gives to our efforts a distinctive goal; it designates rather the quiet and abiding feeling within us, which resting on an object as near to us, recognizes that we are closely bound up with it and takes satisfaction in this recognition." "Of this sort," he adds, "is love to parents, to wife and children, to our close relations particularly, and then to our country and our king. There is revealed in στἐργειν, accordingly, the inner life of the heart which belongs to man by nature; while φιλεῖν shows the inclination which springs out of commerce with a person or thing, or is called out by qualities in a thing which are agreeable to us; and ἐρᾶν expresses a passion pressing outward and seeking satisfaction."

Nevertheless we can understand that one who, rising from reading this characterization, should light upon a passage like Plutarch's description of Pericles' love for Aspasia, might feel some doubts of its adequacy.

"The affection (ἀγάπησις) which Pericles had for Aspasia," he explains, 3 "seems to have been rather of a passionate (ἐρωτική) kind."

Discarding his wife, "he took Aspasia and loved her exceedingly (ἔστερξε διαφερόντως). Twice a day, as they say, on going out and on coming in from the market place, he would salute her with a loving kiss (καταφιλεῖν)." Στέργειν is used here of a distinctly erotic love, such as we might expect to be expressed rather by ἐρᾶν, and seems to

be described, as distinguished from ἀγάπησις, precisely by its quality as passion. And certainly it is not of "natural affection" in the ordinary sense of that phrase that Meleager expects us to think when he asks concerning Eros, "Is not Ares his mother's lover (στέργει)?" 4 So little is it always conceived as independent of attractive qualities in its object, moreover, that Xenophon, in a discussion of the transitoriness of love (he is speaking of sexual love), uses it, when raising the question whether under the best circumstance—when namely the love is not only warm but mutual (ἤν δὲ καὶ ἀμφότερα στέρξωσι)—it can survive the fading of the charms of one or the other party. 5 Passages like these show how widely the application of στέργειν, στοργή is extended; and how nearly out of sight its specific implication of love as a natural movement of the soul—as something almost like gravitation or some other force of blind nature—may retire. Yet it probably never retires quite out of sight: the use of the word doubtless always suggests that in some way or other the love in question is natural, even if we must add that it has become natural only by the acquisition of a second nature. Even the love of sense may be conceived of, from this point of view, as a constitutional action of mere nature. 6

Other and more numerous passages present themselves in which the native meaning of the word is thrown up strongly to observation.

When Euripides wishes to reproach a father who has contracted a second marriage with neglect of the children of his dead wife, he naturally uses στέργειν of the love for them that he has lost. The passage contains a contrast between φιλεῖ and στέργει which puts a sharper point upon the specific meaning of the latter. "Hast learned this only now, That no man loves (φιλεῖ) his neighbor as himself? Good cause have some; with most' tis greed of gain—As here: their sire for a bride's sake loves (στέργει) not these," 7 The guilt and tragedy of the

situation are greatly increased by the fact that it is a natural and constitutional movement of the human heart which is outraged.

Accordingly ἄστοργος—it is worth while to note it in passing, for ἄστοργος is a New Testament word—is a word of terrible significance.

"Especially, however," writes Schmidt, 8 "is the meaning of στέργειν and στοργή illustrated by ἄστοργος, 'loveless.' It designates the unfeeling and hard, whose heart is warmed by no noble sentiment; it is applied particularly to inhuman parents, but also to animals who do not love their young.… How sharply the meaning of the word is differentiated is shown by the fact that it is used of women who have many love-affairs and who therefore are very certainly not ἀνέραστοι, but on the other hand lack the nobler love to their husbands."

It is this that is the natural use of στέργειν, and it occurs in it very frequently. An instructive instance is found in a passage in Plato's

"Laws." 9 "I maintain," he writes, "that this colony of ours has a father and mother, which is no other than the colonizing state. Well, I know that many colonies have been, and will be, at enmity with their parents.

But in early days the child, as in a family, loves and is beloved; even if there come a time later, when the tie is broken, still, while he is in want of education, he naturally loves his parents and is beloved by them, and flies to them for protection, and finds in them his natural defense in time of need; and this parental feeling already exists in the Cnosians."

Some other term for love could no doubt have been employed in this passage. But the employment of the phrase στέργει τε καὶ στέργεται, which, in an effort to convey its implication, Jowett renders, "naturally loves his parents …," gives particular force to the remark; this is precisely what children and parents feel to one another.

Another instructive passage is found in the Ninth Book of Aristotle's "Nicomachaeon Ethics." It will repay us to run rapidly

through it. Aristotle is remarking on the odd fact of experience that benefactors love (φιλεῖν) the benefited, rather than the other way round. The explanation is, he suggests, that the benefited stand to the benefactors in a relation somewhat like that of their product. It is to be noted, he says, that those who have conferred favors love and prize

(φιλοῦσι καὶ ἀγαπῶσι, 'feel affection for and value') those who receive them quite irrespective of any hope they may cherish of a return. This is a feeling common to all artificers: each loves (ἀγαπᾷ) his own especial product much more than he could possibly be loved

(ἀγαπηθείη, 'prized') by it, could life be conferred upon it. The poets supply the supreme illustration; their love for their poems is inordinate

(ὑπεραγαπῶσι, 'the value that they place upon them'), and has a truly parental quality (στέργοντες ὥσπερ τέκνα). It is a just simile: every workman lives in the product of his energy, for what is living but the expenditure of energy? We love (στέργειν) what we make, because what we make is the extension of ourselves, and to love it is to love our own being. It will be noted that in this passage στέργειν is raised so much above φιλεῖν and ἀγαπᾶν that it is called in to give the specific quality of a ὑπεραγαπᾶν. When our love becomes strong and tender like a parents' love for his children it is most naturally described by στέργειν.

It is not, however, precisely the strength or the tenderness of a love which qualifies it to be described by στέργειν. It is its obligatoriness— if we may use that term in a quasi-natural rather than an openly moral sense; its "necessity" under the circumstances; a necessity by virtue of which its absence becomes not merely distressing but also reprehensible. 10 This is the proper term for the love which constitutes the cement by which any natural or social unit is bound together, and which is due from one member of every such unit to another. Of course

such a unit may be mentally created out of any relation, natural or artificial, permanent or temporary; and the use of στέργειν of the sentiment existing between individuals is evidence that they are, for the moment at least, thought of as constituting such a unit,—as "bound together in some bundle of life." Accordingly it is used of the love which binds friends together, and which a friend has the right to expect from his friend. "I do not love a friend who loves with words (λόγοις δʼ ἐγὼ φιλοῦσαν οὐ στέργω φίλην)," says Antigone: 11 and what she means is that she does not look upon one whose professed affection expresses itself only in words as bound up in one bundle of life with her and so worthy of the name of friend. Similarly when Lichas advises

Deianeira to receive Iole, in the words στέργε τὴν γυναῖκα, 12 he means something more than is expressed in the several current renderings:

"bear this woman with patience," "suffer this maiden gladly," "treat the girl kindly": he means, take her into a recognized relation to yourself, involving a duty of affectionate treatment. The isolation of Menon the Thracian could not be more strongly expressed than by Xenophon's description: "He evidently had no affection (στέργεν) for anyone"; 13 it is implied that he was lacking in all that goes to bind a man to his fellows and them to him. When the sausage-vender cries out to Demos in Aristophanes' play: 14 May I be minced up into very small meat indeed, εἰ μὴ σε φιλῶ, καὶ μὴ στέργω,—he quickly corrects the protestation of mere personal sentiment for Demos to an assertion of such a love for him as implied identification of himself with him.

Demos here represents a whole people whom the sausage-vender describes as his friends, to whom he asserts himself to be bound by a— not merely class but organic—affection. It is just as easy to think of the whole world as such an organic unity, compacted together by mutual φιλανθρωπία. The Christian Apologists, rising to this conception,

naturally give expression to it in the forms of speech long consecrated to such things. We are φιλανθρωπότατοι to such an extent, says

Athenagoras, 15 that we do not love (στέργειν) merely our friends (φίλους), for 'if ye love (ἀγαπῶνται) those that love you,' says He,

'what reward will ye have?' " And Justin: 16 "But concerning our loving all (περὶ δὲ τοῦ στέργειν ἅπαντας), He taught us, 'If ye love those that love you (ἀγαπᾶτε τοῦς ἀγαπῶντας ὑμᾶς), what new thing do ye do?' " It is exceedingly instructive to observe these writers, in the act of citing our Lord's great commandment of universal love, replacing His ἀγαπᾶν with στέργειν in the interests of their own feeling for the solidarity of the human race. Στέργειν, we see, is the love of solidarity. 17

And if the Deity be solidary with men—as Plato and the Stoics taught? Why, then, of course, στέργειν could be used of the love that binds the Deity and men together. Even the gods many and lords many could be said so to love, each its votaries. "This is right, Mr. Busybody, right," we read in Aristophanes: 18 "for the Muses of the lyre love us well (ἐμὲ γὰρ ἔστερξαν εὔλυροί τε Μοῦσαι)." And on a higher plane

Athene is made to declare that she loves (στέργειν), even as one that tends plants, the race that has taken graft from the righteous. 19 But gods many and lords many are divisive things. We must come at least to the recognition of τὸ θεῖον before we can effectively conceive the divine and the human as bound up in one bundle of life, the cement of which is love. It is not without its deep significance, therefore, that the Emperor Constantine begins the oration which he delivered to "the Assembly of the Saints" with an allusion to the love (στοργή) to the Deity implanted in men, 20 and closes it with an assertion of the love

(στοργή) of God to man, which is manifested in His providence. 21

What has been said of στέργειν may in substance be repeated of ἐρᾶν, mutatis mutandis. What ἐρᾶν conveys 22 is the idea of passion; and since all love is a passion ἐρᾶν is applicable to all love; but since ἐρᾶν emphasizes the passion of love it is above all applicable to especially passionate forms of love. It is naturally used, therefore, frequently to express the sexual appetite. This is not because it is a base word: it is no more intrinsically base than any other word for love. It is because its very heart is passion, and it therefore lends itself especially to express a love which is nothing but passion. But it just as readily lends itself to express a passion which is all love, and it accordingly is also used in the very strongest sense in which a term for love can be employed. Its characteristic uses thus lie at the two extremes of low and high, although of course it may be applied to any kind or degree of love lying between, if only it be for the moment thought of as passion.

Schmidt 23 has persuaded himself that the fundamental idea of the word is absorbing preöccupation with its object, complete engrossment with it, the setting of the whole mind upon it—in accordance with a passage in Aristotle's "Rhetoric" 24 which tells us that people in love

(ἐρῶντες), no matter what they are doing—talking or writing or acting —are always brooding with delight on the beloved one τοῦ ἐρωμένου).

Aristotle, however, seems to be only noting here a familiar effect of the passion which ἐρᾶν really expresses.

It is one of the most characteristic applications of ἐρᾶν which is illustrated by a frequently quoted passage from Xenophon's

"Cyropaedeia." 25 This passage is a part of a disquisition designed to prove the voluntariness of love, and runs as follows. " 'Do you observe,' said he, 'how fire burns all alike? That is its nature. But of beautiful things, we love (ἐρῶσι) some and some we do not: and one

[loves] one [person], another another; for it is a matter of free-will, and

each loves (ἐρᾷ) what he pleases. For example, a brother does not [fall in] love [with] (ἐρᾷ) his sister, but somebody else [falls in love with] her; neither does a father [fall in love with] his daughter, but someone else does; for fear of God and the law of the land are sufficient to prevent [such] love (ἔρωτα). But,' he went on, 'if a law should be passed forbidding those who did not eat to be hungry, those who did not drink to be thirsty, forbidding people to be cold in the winter or hot in summer, no such law could ever bring men to obey its provisions, for they are so constituted by nature as to be subject to the control of such circumstances. But love (ἐρᾶν) is a matter of free-will; at any rate every one loves (ἐρᾷ) what suits his taste as he does his clothes and shoes.' " And then the discussion proceeds to raise the question of slavery to the passion of this love, and deals with it lamely enough—on the theory that love is purely a matter of will. Here certainly it is said distinctly that "a brother οὐκ ἐρᾷ a sister—nor a father a daughter," and that assuredly means that ἐρᾶν designates distinctively sexual passion.

So it does—in this passage: and this is one of the most characteristic applications of the term. It is not, however, its only application. In point of fact it may just as well be said of a given brother or father that he does ἐρᾷ his sister or daughter as that he does not. We read for example in a fragment of Euripides: 26 "There is nothing dearer (ἥδιον) to children than their mother: love (ἐρᾷτε) your mother, children. There is no other love (ἔρως) so sweet as this loving (ἐρᾶν)."

When ἐρᾶν is employed in this latter fashion, something much more, not less lofty than φιλεῖν is meant. Phrases in which it is brought into immediate contrast with φιλεῖν to express something better than it, occur not infrequently. Plutarch, for example, tells us 27 that Brutus was said to have been liked (φιλεῖσθαι) by the masses for his virtue, but loved (ἐρᾶσθαι) by his friends; and Xenophon transmits 28 an

exhortation in identical terms—that we should seek not only to be liked (φιλεῖν) but loved (ἐρᾶν) by men. Dio Chrysostom draws the same contrast in a passage 29 which we may quote more at length for the sake of its discriminating use of the several terms for love. Cattle, says he, love (φιλεῖν, 'are fond of') their herdsmen, and horses their drivers

—they love and exalt them; dogs love (ἀγαπᾶν, 'prize') the huntsmen —love and guard them; all irrational things recognize and love (φιλεῖν,

'are fond of') those that take care of them: how shall a king, then who is gentle and benevolent (ἡμέρον καὶ φιλάνθρωπον) fail to be not only liked (φιλεῖν) but also loved (ἐρᾶν) by men? In passages like these ἐρᾶν is exalted above φιλεῖν not φιλεῖν depressed below ἐρᾶν. The contrasted renderings "like" and "love" do not do justice to either. Both words mean "love" and what is intended to be expressed by ἐρᾶν is that high love of exalted devotion which, from this point of view, soars above all other love.

The same essential contrast between the two notions—the contrast between a love of liking and a love of passion—may occur, no doubt, with the balance of approbation tipped the other way. Thus Plato can tell us of some lovers really loving (φιλεῖν) the objects of their passion

(ἐρᾶν). 30 And Aristotle can speak similarly of lovers who really have affection for one another (φιλοῦσιν οἱ ἐρώμενοι). 31 It is possible also to draw quite a different contrast between the two words, a contrast turning on the fact that passion is blind while true affection can see. 32

Meanwhile we are effectually warned off from conceiving ἔρως as essentially a base word and confounding it with ἐπιθυμία 33 in order that we may escape confounding it with φιλία. We may observe the close affinity and real distinction of the three notions in a passage of Plato's which is, perhaps, the more instructive because in it ἐρᾶν is used in its lower application and still is separated from ἐπιθυμεῖν as

sharply as from φιλεῖν. "No one who desires (ἐπιθυμεῖ) or loves (ἐρᾷ) another," we read, 34 "could ever have desired (ἐπιθύμει) or loved

(ἤρα) him or become his friend (ἐφίλει) had he not in some way been congenial to his beloved (τῷ ἐρωμένῳ)." In every stage of its progress, attraction implies inherent congeniality: but the stages of attraction— desire, love, abiding affection—are distinct. When this is true of ἐρᾶν at its lowest, what are we to say of it at its highest, when it passes above φιλεῖν itself and the series runs lust, affection, ardent love?

"Like our 'love' of which it is almost an exact equivalent," writes Charles Bigg, 35 "ἔρως may be applied to base uses, but it is not, like ἐπιθυμία, a base word. From the time of Parmenides, it had been capable of the most exalted signification." … We need not stay, however, to refer to the elevated doctrine of the Platonic Eros in detail.

Through it, if no otherwise, an association of high things with ἔρως was formed, which penetrated wherever the influence of Platonic thought extended. It is not merely in Plotinus' great conception of the νοῦς ἐρῶν that this lofty usage is continued. That the world ἔρως was not felt to be a term of evil suggestion is abundantly certified by the readiness with which Jew and Christian alike, touched by the same influences, employed it of their divine love. With Philo, it is precisely the ἔρως οὐράνιος which leads to God, and brings all the virtues to their perfection. 36 He often cites with deep feeling the great declaration of Deut. 30:20: "This is thy life, and thy length of days,— to love (ἀγαπᾶν) the Lord thy God"; and he does not scruple to define its ἀγαπᾶν in terms of ἔρως. "This is the most admirable definition of immortal life," he comments on one occasion: 37 "to be occupied by a love and affection (ἔρωτι καὶ φιλίᾳ) to God which has nothing to do with flesh and body." To Philo, thus, ἔρως (along with φιλία) is a constituent element of ἀγάπη (for Philo has ἀγάπη), when conceived in

its highest stretches, as the very substance of immortal life. There is a famous passage in Ignatius' letter to the Romans 38 in which he gives, or has been misunderstood to give, Christ Himself the name of Ἔρως:

"My Love has been crucified," he says. We need not go into the vexed question of the real meaning which Ignatius intends to convey by this phrase. 39 It affords as striking evidence that ἔρως was not felt to be an intrinsically base term, that such a phrase should have been facilely misunderstood by Christian writers as referring to Christ, as that it should have been actually applied to Him by Ignatius. It does not appear that Origen was aware of the currency of any other interpretation of the words than his own, when he cites them in the prologue to his commentary on the Song of Songs in support of his contention that ἔρως and ἀγάπη may be used indifferently of love in its highest sense. "It makes then no difference in the Sacred Scriptures,"

Rufinus renders him as writing, 40 "whether caritas is spoken of or amor or dilectio; except that the name of caritas is exalted so that God

Himself is called Caritas.… Take accordingly whatever is written of caritas as said of amor, caring nothing for the names. For the same virtue is shared by each.… It makes no difference whether God is said amari or diligi. Neither do I think that, if any one should give God the name of Amor, as John does that of Caritas, he would be blameworthy.

I remember, in fine, that one of the saints, Ignatius by name, said of Christ, 'My Amor is crucified,' and I do not think him reprehensible for this." Later writers, especially those of mystical tendencies, naturally follow Origen's reading of Ignatius. The Pseudo-Dionysius is even prepared to say that the name of Ἔρως was thought by some to be more divine than that of Ἀγάπη. 41 But instances of the employment of words of this stem in a high sense are of course not lacking in earlier

Christian writers: Justin, 42 Clement, 43 and Origen himself 44 use ἔρως of divine love, and Clement calls our Lord ὁ ἐραστός. 45

Clearly it is ardor not lasciviousness which gives its "form" to ἐρᾶν (ἔρως) as a designation of love. Our senses may be inflamed by passion, but the love of the seraphs "who of all love Godhead most" also burns with pure flame. Ἐρᾶν (ἔρως) is not the exclusive possession either of the one or of the other; by virtue of its fundamental implication of passion it is the appropriate designation of both. The prominent employment of it of these two end-terms of the series of varieties of love may leave the impression that the middle region is left uninvaded by it. Schmidt, endeavoring to explain its general usage in a word, 46 even says formally that, when the object is a person, then either sensuous love is to be understood by ἐρᾶν or the highest and more or less passionate love. The vacation of the middle space is, however, an illusion. Since ἐρᾶν imports passion, the most passionate love is prevailingly designated by it; but since all love is passion all love may be spoken of in its terms. Whether it is employed will be determined by whether the love spoken of is at the moment thought of as passion. Ἐρᾶν, says Aristotle, 47 is a kind of φιλία; when φιλία goes to excess, that is ἐρᾶν.

As it is over against φιλεῖν (φιλία) that ἐρᾶν (ἔρως) stands out as designating the love of passion, we are sometimes tempted to render φιλεῖν in contrast with it by "like"; and, indeed, because all love is passion, in doing so to define it below the concept of love altogether.

But, although the words, because each has a specific implication, may be set in contrast with one another, they do not receive their specific implications as contrasts of one another, and they are not to be defined as contradictories. Because ἐρᾶν means passionate love, we are not to imagine that φιλεῖν expresses a love which is devoid of passion,—

whatever kind of love that may be. It is true enough that φιλεῖν may be employed when no implication of passion is felt; and is the proper word to employ when relatively unimpassioned manifestations of love are described, as for example for what we may call "friendly love." But this is not because it excludes passion but because it describes love from a different angle and the presence or absence of passion is indifferent to it. It is just as appropriate for the strongest and most impassioned as it is for the quietest and least ardent love: no love lies outside its field. "Φιλεῖν," says T. D. Woolsey justly, 48 "we need not say, is as early as the earliest Greek literature itself, and as wide in its meaning as our verb to love, running through all kinds and degrees of the feeling, from the love of family and friend down to mere liking, and to being wont to do a thing; and passing over from the sphere of innocent to that of licentious love, whether passionate or merely sensual."

The approach of φιλεῖν to the idea of love is made through the sense of the agreeable. 49 It is the eudaimonistic term for love.

Whatever in an object is adapted to give pleasure when perceived, tends to call out affection; and this affection is what φιλεῖν expresses. It may be quiet or it may be passionate; it may be strong or it may be weak; it may be noble or it may be base: all this depends on the quality in the object which calls out the response and the nature of the subject which responds to the appeal. "Of φιλεῖν," says Schmidt, 50 "it is first of all to be said that it is the general designation for our 'love,' and has for its peculiarity that it designates an inner predilection (Neigung) for persons, and has for its contradictories μισεῖν and ἐχθαίρειν; but, even when the presentation leaves no ambiguity, it can designate the love of sense. The notion of φιλεῖν can be traced back to the disposition which grows out of an inner community (Gemeinschaft). We find therefore in

Homer the meaning of 'to be in a friendly way at one's side,' 'to interest oneself in him in a friendly manner.' This happens, for example, on the part of the gods when they assist men in battle, or qualify them for manifold things: on the part of men, when they offer hospitality. For these transactions Homer has exact expressions, and φιλεῖν is expressly distinguished from ξεινίζειν or δέξασθαι. The word designates, therefore, only generally the treatment of another as one that is dear (φίλος) to me, or my friend (again φίλος), and the context must show what kind of action is meant."

When Liddell and Scott say that "the ancients carefully distinguished between φιλεῖν and ἐρᾶν," that is formally right, though we should prefer to say "instinctively" rather than "carefully." When, however, they add: "But φιλεῖν sometimes comes very near in sense to ἐρᾶν," citing passages in which φιλεῖν is used for the love of sense, a certain misunderstanding seems involved. Φιλεῖν is used from the earliest dawn of Greek literature as clearly of the love of sense as of any other kind of love. But this is not to "come very near the sense of ἐρᾶν": it is only to describe the same love which ἐρᾶν describes as passion, from its own point of view as delight. Nor is it easy to understand what Schmidt means when he appears to suggest that φιλεῖν is applied to the love of sense only by a euphemism—"by way of insinuation": nor how the passage from Plato to which he appeals for the purpose can be thought to lend support to this opinion. What we read in this passage 51 is merely that it is said of lovers (τοῦς ἐρῶντας) that they show a very special affection (φιλεῖν) for those they are in love with (ἐρῶσι), because they are prepared to do hateful things for the pleasuring of their beloved ones (τοῖς ἐρωμένοις). Φιλεῖν here is certainly not used euphemistically for ἐρᾶν; it is simply the broad word for love used here in contrast with ἐρᾶν which is employed of a special

variety of love. The employment of φιλεῖν for the love of sense is from the beginning perfectly frank and outspoken. Take, for example, these frequentative imperfects from Homer: "a concubine whom he φιλέεσκεν"; 52 "Melantho μισγέσκετο καὶ φιλέεσκεν Eurymachus." 53

They do not in any way differ from the frequentative imperfect in "Il.," vi, 15: "and he was loved (φίλος ἦν) by men, for, dwelling by the road, φιλέεσκεν all to his house,"—except in the nature of the acts to which they are applied. The son of Teuthras showed himself a φίλος to men by keeping open-house and welcoming all comers. The concubines of Amyntor and Melantho showed themselves φίλαι to their lovers by fulfilling the function of mistresses to them. The usage is as simple and direct in the one case as in the other. The constant use in Homer of φιλότης with μίγνυμι should dispel all doubt on this point. And what could be franker than the use of φιλεῖν in Herodotus iv, 176?

The Greeks were very much preoccupied with the topic of Friendship: Plato, Xenophon, Aristotle discuss it endlessly: "in the circles of the philosophical schools interest in it far surpassed that of the family life." 54 Φιλεῖν was an ideal word for the expression of this form of affection, and this became one of its chief applications. Not, however, to the exclusion of other applications in which it gave expression to every variety of love which sentient beings could experience. Even, pace Hermann Cremer, 55 the love of God to men and of men to God. Cremer has permitted himself the sweeping statement: "To attribute love at all to the Deity was utterly impossible to the Greek." He supports himself on two passages from Aristotle, neither of which supports him. In both passages Aristotle is (of course) discussing Friendship,—not the term φιλία but the "friendship" which φιλία is in these discussions employed to express. What he is suggesting is not that God can neither love nor be loved in any sense,

but that there is a certain incongruity in speaking of God and man as united in the specific bond which we call "friendship." "Friendship" is a form of love which more properly obtains between equals: between superiors and inferiors the assertion of some other tie would be more appropriate. The matter is not of large intrinsic importance; but it is worth while to transcribe the passages somewhat at length for their illustrative value.

In them, as elsewhere, 56 Aristotle divides friendship (φιλία) into three kinds, based respectively on virtue (ἀρετή), utility (χρήσιμον) and pleasure (ἡδύ); and then he divides the whole again into the cases between equals and those between unequals. True friendship is mutual and is found among equals only; love between unequals is only in a modified sense "friendship." "First, then," he writes in the former of the two passages now before us, 57 "we must determine what kind of friendship (φιλία) we are in search of. For there is, people think, a friendship (φιλία) towards God (πρὸς θεόν) and towards things without life; but here they are wrong. For friendship (φιλία), we maintain, exists only where there can be a return of affection (ἀντιφιλεῖσθαι: why not say, "return of the friendship"?), but friendship (φιλία) toward God

(πρὸς θεόν) does not admit of love being returned (ἀντιφιλεῖσθαι: why not say, "of the friendship being returned"?), nor at all of loving (τὸ φιλεῖν: why not say "of friendly feeling"?). For it would be strange if one were to say that he loved Zeus (φιλεῖν τὸν Δία: why not say "felt friendly to"?). Neither is it possible to have affection returned

(ἀντιφιλεῖσθαι: why not say, "to have friendship returned"?) by lifeless objects, though there is a love (φιλία) for such things, for instance wine, or something else of that sort. Therefore, it is not love (φιλία) towards God of which we are in search, nor love towards things without life, but love towards things with life, that is, where there can

be a return of affection (ἀντιφιλεῖν)." Aristotle is not arguing here that there can be no such thing as love on the part of God, or to God; or that this love may not be properly expressed in either case by φιλεῖν, φιλία.

He is busying himself only with that mutual affection which we know as friendship; and it is this that he says is impossible between man and God because of the inequality between them. It is incongruous to say that Zeus and I are a pair of friends,—we might almost as well say we are a brace of good fellows or par nobile fratrum. He is speaking here, in a word, only of love based on mutual agreeability (ἡδύ) in which what is necessary is to be agreeable (τὸ ἡδέσιν εἶναι). 58 If the love in question is based on utility or virtue, on the other hand, the case is different. 59

The other passage 60 takes up the case when love is based on virtue. "These, then," writes Aristotle here, "are three kinds of friendship (φιλία); and in all of them the word friendship (φιλία) implies a kind of equality. For even those who are friends (φίλοι) through virtue are mutually friends by a sort of equality of virtue. But another variety is the friendship [say rather 'love'] of superiority to inferiority, e. g. as the virtue of a god is superior to that of a man (for this is another kind of friendship [φιλία; say 'love']), and in general that of ruler to subject; just as justice in this case is different, for here it is a proportional equality—not numerical equality (κατʼ ἀναλογίαν; κατʼ ἀριθμόν). Into this class falls the relation of father to son, and of benefactor to beneficiary; and there are varieties of these again, e.g. there is a difference between the relation of father to son, and of husband to wife, the latter being that of ruler to subject, the former that of benefactor to beneficiary. In these varieties there is not at all, or at least not in equal degree, the return of love for love (ἀντιφιλεῖσθαι: say

'mutual loving'). For it would be ridiculous to accuse God because the

love one receives in return from Him is not equal to the love given Him, (τὸ ἀντιφιλεῖσθαι ὦς φιλεῖτε), or for the subject to make the same complaint against his ruler. For the part of a ruler is to receive, not to give, love (φιλεῖσθαι οὐ φιλεῖν) or at least to give love (φιλεῖν) in a different way. And the pleasure (ἡδονή) is different, and that of the man who needs nothing over his own possessions or child, and that of him who lacks over what comes to him, are not the same. Similarly also with those who are friends [say rather 'who love one another'] through use or pleasure, some are on an equal footing with each other, in others there is the relation of superiority and inferiority. Therefore those who think themselves to be on the former footing find fault if the other is not equally useful to and a benefactor of them; and similarly with regard to pleasure. This is obvious in the case of lover and beloved (ἐν τοῖς ἐρωτικοῖς); for this is frequently a cause of strife between them. The lover (ὁ ἐρῶν) does not perceive that the passion

(προθυμίαν) in each has not the same reason; therefore Ænicus has said, 'a beloved (ὁ ἐρῶμενος) not a lover (ἐρῶν), would say such things.' But they think that there is the same reason for the passion of each." We are here told that although friendship, properly so called— that is, mutual affection based on congeniality or reciprocal agreeability—can scarcely exist between beings so unequal as God and man, yet love can; as readily as it can exist between ruler and subject, or father and son. The term "love" (φιλία) is wide enough to describe all such cases, as it is wide enough also, as we learn at the end of the passage, to describe the mutual affection which binds "lovers" together: ἐρᾶν is a species of φιλεῖν, because, no matter with what passion, it also rests on something agreeable perceived in its object.

We have seen that from the beginning there was a natural tendency to carry φιλεῖν over from the sentiment of love itself to its expression

in outward act. Thus in a passage from the Iliad already quoted, 61 Teuthramides is represented as habitually showing himself friendly by keeping open-house—πάντας γὰρ φιλέεσκεν, "he made all welcome."

Similarly Penelope is described in the Odyssey as receiving all visitors well and giving them welcome (φιλέει): 62 a phrase matched by a similar one in the Iliad: "I entertained (φίλησα) them." 63 Along this line of development φιλεῖν early began to acquire the specialized sense of "to kiss." "Φιλεῖν," writes Schmidt, 64 "means directly, with or without the addition of τῷ στόματι, to kiss, therefore that act which sensibly and externally brings to expression the fellowship of lovers or friends and, in general of those connected by a close bond (also of parents and children)." This usage does not yet occur in Homer: he employs κυνέω, κύσαι for kissing. But it made its appearance soon afterwards, 65 and ultimately completely superseded the richer and higher uses of the word. In Modern Greek φιλῶ means nothing else but "to kiss." 66 In odd contrast with this development, ἀγαπᾶν, the great rival of φιλεῖν in the expression of the general idea of love—a rival which finally drove it entirely from the field,—appears from the first in an analogous usage and is thought by many to have begun as a term to express the external manifestations of affection and only afterward to have come to be applied to the emotion itself. At least the external sense is predominant in Homer, both for ἀγαπᾶν and for its more frequently occurring doublet ἀγαπάζειν; 67 and it remained in occasional use throughout the whole history of Greek letters. The range of suggestion of the word in this external sense is rather wide. The instances in Homer may ordinarily be brought under the broad category of "welcoming," with suggestions of "embracing," or other signs of hearty welcome. Thus Penelope asks forgiveness for not "welcoming" her husband properly on his first appearing, 68 "or,"

explains T. D. Woolsey, 69 "treating him with affection," remarking that Eustathius glosses with ἐφιλοφρονησάμην. Again we read: 70 "As a father, feeling kindly, welcomes his son (φίλα φρονέων ἀγαπάζει)."

And yet again, 71 bringing φιλεῖν and ἀγαπᾶν together in this external sense: "Our people do not φιλοῦσι a stranger ἀγαπαζόμενοι—"do not receive him with signs of regard," as Liddell and Scott gloss it. In a very similar passage, 72 we read of the swineherd kissing (κύνεον)

Odysseus' head and shoulders ἀγαπαζόμενος, that is to say with a display of affection. And we find in Pindar 73 a passage like this: "And with mild words they welcomed him," where the action through which the affection is shown is defined as kind speech. In Euripides, in whom ἀγαπᾶν, ἀγαπάζειν occur only three times (they do not occur at all in Æschylus or Sophocles), they "are only used in the sense of tender offices to the dead": 74 as, for example, "Suppliants," 764: "You would have said so had you seen when he treated lovingly (Woolsey glosses:

"made much of") the dead." In the light of such passages it is probable that when Xenophon, speaking of the transports of delight with which the Greeks at first welcomed the Hyrcanians as friends, says 75 that they almost carried them about in their bosoms ἀγαπῶντες, the ἀγαπῶντες means something more definite than "affectionately"—say

"fondlingly." In an interesting passage in Plutarch 76 the sense is certainly "fondle." "On seeing certain wealthy foreigners in Rome carrying puppies and young monkeys about in their bosoms and fondling them (ἀγαπῶντων), Caesar asked," we are told, "if the women in their country did not bear children. Thus in right princely fashion he rebuked those who squander on animals that proneness to love

(φιλητικόν) and loving affection (φιλόστοργον) which is ours by nature and which is due only to our fellow men." In this passage the native sentiment of "fondness" and the stirrings of "natural affection" are

given expression through other forms of speech; ἀγαπᾶν is employed of the external acts in which these movements of soul are manifested.

The persistence of this external use of ἀγαπᾶν is illustrated by its appearance in the letters of Ignatius. A probable instance occurs in "Smyrn.," 9: "In my absence and in my presence ye ἠγαπήσατε me," where Lightfoot renders "cherished." The instance in "Magn.," 6 can scarcely be doubted. E. A. Abbott fills out the passage thus: 77 "Since then I beheld in faith and embraced (in the spirit) the whole multitude

(of the Magnesian church) in the above-mentioned persons (of their deputation)." 78 But the most interesting passage is "Polyc.," 2:" In all things I am devoted to thee—I, and my bonds which you ἠγάπησας."

"Kissing the chains" of the prisoners of Christ, it seems, was a current figure by which the early Christians expressed their ardent sympathy for their martyrs. 79 Bunsen, followed by Th. Zahn, therefore, translates here, "which thou didst kiss." 80 Lightfoot demurs to this as too specific, and points out that the precise sense of "kissing" is not elsewhere verifiable for ἀγαπᾶν,—although he is very willing to allow that the actual thing referred to by the broader term may well have been in this instance kissing the chains. He proposes the synonyms,

"didst welcome, caress, fondle," and somewhat infelicitously translates in his version, "cherished." Interest in this discussion is increased by the suggestion that, when we read in Mk. 10:21 of the rich young ruler that "Jesus looked on him and ἠγάπησεν αὐτόν," we are to understand the ἠγάπησεν not of the sentiment of loving but of the act of caressing:

Jesus, in a word, kissed the young man in greeting him. This suggestion was made by Frederick Field a third of a century ago, 81 and has often since been repeated. 82 It does not commend itself particularly from an exegetical point of view: 83 but the fact that, as Abbott points out, the phrase is rendered in one Latin MS. "osculatus

est eum" supports the supposition that ἀγαπᾶν was in use in the sense of kissing during the early Christian centuries. The collocation of the words in the comment of Clement of Alexandria, likewise adduced by Abbott, suggests that he also may have understood ἠγάπησεν here in the sense of an external manifestation. "Accordingly Jesus," he writes,

"does not convict him as one that had failed to fulfil all the words of the Law; on the contrary He"—so Abbott paraphrases—"loves and greets him with unusual courtesy." The Greek words are ἀγαπᾷ καὶ ὑπερασπάζεται; and it would not be unnatural to give them both an external meaning. 84

This usage of ἀγαπᾶν of the manifestation of love in act, although possibly (we can scarcely say very probably) original, 85 and certainly real, is yet, in any case too infrequent to be of large importance for the explanation of the word. Unlike the corresponding usage of φιλεῖν it was a waning instead of a waxing usage; and therefore it exercised less and less influence on the general usage of the word. After all said, the word stands in Greek literature as a term for loving itself, not for external manifestations of love, more or fewer. And like other terms for love, it is applied to all kinds and degrees of love. This includes also the love of sense. It is true it seems to have acquired this application only slowly, and, one would think, with some difficulty. There is nothing in the native implication of the word to suggest such an application; and the conjecture lies close that it was not until it had become the general term for love in common use for the whole notion that it was applied to this variety of love also,—at first doubtless by way of pure euphemism. Such euphemistic applications to the sexual impulse of all words denoting love are inevitable; 86 and unhappily many good words, euphemistically applied to lower uses, end by losing their native senses and sinking permanently to the level to which they

have thus stooped,—as, for example, our English words "libertine,"

"harlot." 87 Fortunately this did not happen to ἀγαπᾶν, although its extention to cover the love of sense also became a fixed part of its ordinary usage. Liddell and Scott remark that it is "used of sexual love like ἐρᾶν, only in late writers, as Lucian "Jup.Trag.," 2; 88 for in Xenophon, "Mem.," I.5.4. πόρνας ἀγαπᾶν is not = ἐρᾶν, but to be content, or satisfied with such gratifications." 89 This explanation of the passage in Xenophon is certainly right. But it is not quite exact to speak of the appearance of this usage in Lucian, say, as marking its beginning. It already occurs in Plato. 90 And in any event the Septuagint is three or four hundred years older than Lucian, and not only is ἀγαπᾶν—and also its substantive (not found in the classical writers) ἀγάπη—used in it of the love of sense, but so used of it as to make it plain that they had long been used of it, and had become the current terms for the expression of this form of love also. To be convinced of this we have only to read the thirteenth chapter of II Samuel,—the story of Amnon and Thamar—the whole shocking narrative of which is carried on with ἀγαπᾶν and ἀγάπη, culminating in verse 15: "And Amnon hated her with exceeding great hatred, because the hatred with which he hated her was greater than the love (ἀγάπην) wherewith he loved (ἠγάπησεν) her." This love was mere lust: and it is very apparent that ἀγαπᾶν and ἀγάπη are used of it with perfect simplicity, undisturbed by any intruding consciousness of incongruity.

This phenomenon means, of course, that in the Greek of the Septuagint we tap a stratum of the language of more popular character than that which meets us in the literary monuments of the times; and we see changes not only preparing but already accomplished in it which the recognized literary mode of the times had not yet accepted.

Meanwhile, for literary Greek, it remains generally true that ἀγαπᾶν

had not yet acquired the breadth of usage which led to its frequent application to the love of sense also; and so far as appears it did not acquire it for two or three centuries to come.

In the monuments of classical literature, ἀγαπᾶν, although in use from the beginning and occupying a distinctive place of its own, is never a very common word. It, and its doublet ἀγαπάζειν, occur in Homer but ten times, in Euripides but three times, and not at all in Æschylus or Sophocles. 91 The substantive ἀγάπησις is rare before, say,

Plutarch; 92 while ἀγάπη appears first in the Septuagint, and has not as yet turned up with certainty in any secular writing. 93 Ἀγαπᾶν owes its peculiarity to its etymological associations, which could not fail to suggest themselves to every Greek ear. Connected with ἄγαμαι, it conveyed the ideas of astonishment, wonder, admiration, approbation. 94 It expresses thus, distinctively, the love of approbation, or, we might say, the love of esteem, as over against the love of pure delight which lies rather in the sphere of φιλεῖν. It is from the apprehension of the preciousness rather than of the pleasantness of its object that it derives its impulse, and its content thus lies closer to the notion of prizing than to that of liking. 95 It is beside the mark to speak of it as a "weaker," 96 or as a "colder" 97 word than φιλεῖν: the distinction between the two lies in a different plane from these things.

A love rooted in the perception in its object of something pleasing (that is, of the order of φιλεῖν), or of something valuable (that is, of the order of ἀγαπᾶν), may alike be very weak or very strong, very cold or very warm: these things are quite indifferent to the distinction and will be determined by other circumstances, which may be present or absent in either case.

It is even more wide of the mark to speak of ἀγαπᾶν as distinctively voluntary love, or reasonable love. The former is the

position taken with great emphasis by Cremer (it is also the view of Cope); the latter is strongly argued for by Schmidt. "We shall make no mistake," says Cremer, 98 "if we define the distinction thus—that φιλεῖν designates the love of the natural inclination, of the emotion

(Affects), the so-to-say originally involuntary love—amare,—while ἀγαπᾶν designates love as an effect (Richtung) of the will, diligere." It may be suspected that those who speak thus have in part misled themselves by the Latin analogy. The parallel is, it is true, very close with respect to the usage of the two pairs of words; but it does not extend to the etymological implications on which in each case the usage rests. 99 The conception underlying diligere is that of selection; the word bears an implication of choice in it. There is no such underlying suggestion in ἀγαπᾶν, its place being taken by the emotion of admiration. 100 In point of fact, the rise in the heart of love for an object perceived to be precious, is just as "originally involuntary," just as much a matter of pure feeling, as the rise in it of love for an object perceived to be delightful. The distinction between these two varieties of love rests on the differing qualities of the object to which they are the reactions, not on the presence or absence of volition in their production. "There can but two things create love," says Jeremy

Taylor: 101 "perfection and usefulness; to which answer on our part, first, admiration, and secondly desire; and both these are centered in love." This is a piece of good psychology.

The form of statement which Schmidt prefers is that ἀγαπᾶν designates the love which arises by "rational reflection." 102 Citing a passage from Aristotle's "Rhetoric" 103 where he speaks of φιλεῖσθαι as being "ἀγαπᾶσθαι for one's own sake," Schmidt argues that "it follows from this passage that ἀγαπᾶν is not, like φιλεῖν, an inclination attached to the person himself, as called into being by close

companionship and fellowship in many things, but a love for which we can give ourselves an account with our understanding; less sentiment than reflection." 104 As a result, he concludes that "the ἀγαπῶν holds the qualities of a person in view, the φιλῶν the person himself; the former gives itself a justification of its inclination, while to the latter it arises immediately out of an intercourse which is agreeable to oneself."

This reasoning rests on a confusion between the production of an emotion by rational considerations, and the justification of it on rational grounds. Of course the love of ἀγαπᾶν is more capable of justification on rational grounds than the love of φιλεῖν. It is the product of the apprehension of valuable qualities in the object, and may be defended by the exhibition of the value of these qualities. The love of φιλεῖν, on the other hand, as the product of the apprehension of agreeable qualities in the object, may be able to give no better defence of itself than the traditional dislike of Dr. Fell: "I do not like you, Dr.

Fell; the reason why I cannot tell." But this subsequent justification to reason of the love of ἀγαπᾶν affords no warrant for declaring it the product of will acting on rational considerations. The perception of those qualities constituting the object admirable is an act the same in kind as the perception of those qualities constituting it agreeable; and the reaction of the subject in the emotion of love is an act of the same nature in both cases. The reaction of the subject in the love of the order which is expressed by ἀγαπᾶν is just as instinctive and just as immediate an affectional movement of the soul, as in the order of love expressed by φιλεῖν. The two differ not in their psychological nature but in the character of the apprehended qualities to which they are emotional responses. It is meaningless to say that the one terminates on the person himself and the other only on certain of his qualities: both

terminate, of course, on the person whose quality as precious or agreeable as apprehended has called them into being.

It is only by an artificial explanation of it, furthermore, that Aristotle's phrase,—that "φιλεῖσθαι is ἀγαπᾶσθαι for our own sake"— can be made to suggest that ἀγαπᾶν expresses a love based on rational considerations. It only suggests that Aristotle saw in φιλεῖν a love which found its account in the agreeableness of the object. What

Aristotle is saying in this passage is that it is pleasant alike to love and to be loved; for one loves only because he enjoys it; and if he is loved

—that makes him happy because he fancies there must be something fine in him to call out the passion. He explains this by adding that φιλεῖσθαι is ἀγαπᾶσθαι for one's own sake. Here is a quasi-definition of φιλεῖν: φιλεῖν is a love founded on nothing outside the object. But the most that can be inferred about ἀγαπᾶν is that it is a love which has cognizable ground. To conclude that that ground is or may be outside the object, or must be of the nature of a rational consideration operating through acts of reflection, and judgment, and will, is sufficiently illegitimate to be absurd. The actual ground of the particular act of ἀγαπᾶν here spoken of is the total personality of the object conceived as good, and as therefore justifying his becoming the object of φιλεῖν. Φιλεῖν is subsumed under ἀγαπᾶν taken for the moment as a wider category; and the ἀγαπᾶν which includes the φιλεῖν in itself cannot have as such a ground of essentially different nature. 105

We are not left by the ancients, however, without very clear intimation of how they conceived φιλεῖν and ἀγαπᾶν in relation to one another. There is, for example, what amounts to a direct definition of the two words in their distinctive meanings in an interesting passage in the "Memorabilia" of Xenophon, with which the commentators have rather fumbled. 106 B. L. Gildersleeve, in that unfortunate edition of

Justin Martyr (1877) which brought only grief to his admirers, goes the length of saying, 107 with his eye on this passage, that "Xenophon uses ἀγαπᾶν and φιλεῖν as absolute synonyms"; and, what is even stranger,

Moulton and Milligan repeat this judgment—for this special passage at least with the added emphasis of pronouncing it "undeniable." 108

These, however, are eccentric opinions. That a distinction is made between the two words lies on the face of the passage and is, of course, universally recognized. 109 The only question that is open is what precisely that distinction is. What has often been overlooked is that Xenophon actually defines the two terms in the clauses, which, because their relations to one another have not been accurately caught, have given the commentators all their trouble. Socrates, we are told, found Aristarchus peevish, because, owing to the civil disturbances of the time, he had had fourteen female relatives—sisters, nieces, cousins

—dumped on him, and he did not see why he should be held responsible for their support. He did not like it; and the women, on their part, did not like the condition of affairs either. "Neither do you φιλεῖς them," says Socrates in diagnosing the situation, "nor they you": a settled mutual dislike threatened to be the outcome. The remedy which Socrates proposed was that Aristarchus should put the women to work at useful employment; and he promised that, on that being done, their indifference to each other would pass away: Aristarchus would acquire an affection for them arising out of a sense of their value to him; and they would come to prize him on perceiving his pleasure in them. "You will φιλήσεις them," says Socrates, "when you see that they are profitable to you; and they will ἀγαπήσουσιν you, when they perceive that you take pleasure in them." What is to be observed is that the clauses here are so balanced that the participial adjunct in each defines the verb in the other; so that what is said is equivalent to

saying: "You will φιλήσεις them when you see that they ἀγάπουσιν you; and they will ἀγαπήσουσιν you when they perceive that you φιλεῖς them." Instead of mutual dislike, a mutual liking and esteem will supervene. To the φιλεῖς, then, in the first clause the "take pleasure in" of the other corresponds: and to the ἀγαπᾶν of the second clause the "being profitable to you" of the first corresponds: and thus we have in effect definitions of the two verbs—φιλεῖν is taking pleasure in, ἀγαπᾶν is ascribing value to. Now, Xenophon continues, Aristarchus tried it and it worked. He put the women to work and at once there was a change: "They ἐφίλουν him as a protector, and he ἠγάπα them as profitable." They came to take pleasure in his protection, and he came to value them for their profitable labor. The relation of protector of useless women, as barely tolerated dependents, with their natural resentment of a grudging bounty, passed, by the simple expedient of the introduction of productive employment, into a relation of mutual affection and esteem. They came to like the man who gave them back their self-respect; he came to prize the women whose labor brought him profit. The words in this last clause, so far from reversing their positions as compared with the former (this is the chief source of the difficulty the commentators find in the passage) are in their right places according to their definitions there. Φιλεῖν, defined there as delighting in, is properly used here to describe the attitude of the women towards their protector: ἀγαπᾶν, defined there as attaching value to, is properly employed here of the attitude of an employer to profitable workers.

The definition of ἀγαπᾶν which Xenophon here gives us—by which it expresses the love of prizing as over against the love of simple liking—verifies itself in a survey of the general usage of the word. This may be illustrated by attending to the other passages in which φιλεῖν and ἀγαπᾶν are brought together, that are cited by Abbott in connection

with his discussion of this one. We see at once that it is Xenophon's distinction which is in the mind of Dio Cassius, 110 when he tells us that it was said to the Roman people at the death of Julius Caesar: Ye ἐφιλήσατε him as a father, and ἠγαπήσατε him as a benefactor—that is to say, they both felt true affection for him and greatly valued him. The case is equally simple with the passage from Plato's "Lysis" 111 with which Abbott deals with somewhat clumsy fingers, ascribing to ἀγαπᾶν the sense of "being drawn towards," and to φιλεῖν that of "drawing towards oneself." The passage is taken from a long discussion on friendship which is conducted throughout with φιλεῖν, φιλία, φιλοί, until, it having been concluded that only the good can be friends, the question is raised, How can those be valued (ἀγαπηθείη) by each other who can be of no use to one another, and how can one who is not valued (ἀγαπῷτο) be a friend? The good man being sufficient to himself—so far as he is good—stands in need of nothing; and therefore would not attach value (ἀγαπῷη) to anything; and because he cannot attach value (ἀγαπῷη) to anything, he cannot be fond (φιλοί) of anything. And yet they who do not make much of one another (μὴ περὶ πολλοῦ ποιοὐμενοι ἑαυτούς) cannot be friends. These last words,

"make much of" define for us the sense in which ἀγαπᾶν has been used throughout; and we perhaps can hardly do better than render the crucial sentences: "He who lacks nothing will attach value to nothing (οὐδὲ τὶ ἀγαπῷη ἄν)": "what he does not attach value to, he cannot be fond of (ὃ δὲ μὴ ἀγαπῷη, οὐδʼ ἂν φιλοί)." A little later in the discussion 112 the two words are coupled in the reverse order from that in which they occur in Dio Cassius. We read: "For if there is nothing to hurt us any longer we should have no need of anything that would do us good.

Thus would it be clearly seen that we did but ἠγαπῶμεν καὶ ἐφιλοῦμεν the good on account of the evil, and as the remedy of the evil which

was the disease; but if there had been no disease there would have been no need of a remedy." Jowett renders the pair of verbs by "love and desire" which certainly is wrong. Woolsey renders much better by "highly judge and love"; adding the comment: "The latter word contains something more of feeling, while the former contains more of regard, and a higher degree of respect." We can scarcely do better than render: "And thus it would be clear that we attached value to the good and looked with affection on it, only on account of the evil." Abbott's last example is drawn from Ælian's description of Hiero's love for his brothers. 113 He lived on terms of great intimacy with them, we are told, "holding them in very high regard (πάνυ σφόδρα ἀγάπησις), and being loved (φιληθεῖς) by them in return." The meaning seems to be what we might express by saying that he valued his brothers and they repaid him by true affection.

It is not intended to suggest that the content of ἀγαπᾶν is exhausted by the concepts esteem, value, prize. The word expresses the notion of love. What is contended for is that the particular manner love which the word is adapted to express, is the love which is the product of the apprehension of value in its object, and which is therefore informed by a feeling of its preciousness, so that it moves in a region closely akin to that of esteeming, valuing, prizing. The region in which it moves is, indeed, so closely akin to that of these conceptions, that there are occasions when the idea it expresses is scarcely distinguishable from them. Take for example these two instances from Isocrates. 114 "The same opinion is also held concerning the Lacedemonians; for in their case their defeat at Thermopylae is more admired (ἄγωνται) than their other victories, and the trophy erected over them by the barbarians is an object of esteem (ἀγαπῶσι) and frequent visits (θεωροῦσι), while those set up by the Lacedemonians over others, far from being

commended (ἐπαινοῦσι), are regarded with displeasure; for the former is considered to be a sign of valor, the latter of a desire for selfaggrandizement" (V. 148). "Now, I am surprised that those who consider it impossible that any such policy should be effected do not know from their own experience, or have not heard from others, that there have been indeed many terrible wars the parties to which have been reconciled and done each other great service. What could exceed the enmity between Xerxes and the Hellenes? Yet every one knows that both we and the Lacedemonians were more pleased (ἀγαπήσοντες) with the friendship (φιλία) of Xerxes than with that of those who helped us to found our respective empires" (V. 42). In the former passage ἀγαπώσι καὶ θεωροῦσι are put in a sort of parallel with οὐκ ἐπαινούσιν ἀλλʼ ἀηδῶς ὁρῶσιν, and may perhaps be not inadequately represented by "prized and gazed at," as over against "not praised but looked askance at." The idea conveyed by ἀγαπήσαντες in the latter passage lies very close to that of "prized more," "valued more" "set more store by." Nevertheless Isocrates preferred to employ a word which said these things with a slight difference; a slight difference which enhanced the effect. He preferred to say that the trophy at Thermopylae was loved, and that the Greeks loved the friendship of Xerxes more than that of their allies—employing, however, for "loved" a term through which sounded the notions of esteeming, valuing, prizing, rather than that of enjoying.

We see the same implications shining through the word when we read in Demosthenes such phrases as these: "Neither did I love

(ἠγάπησα) Philip's gifts," for which Woolsey suggests, "neither did I value": 115 "These he loves (ἀγαπᾷ) and keeps around him," which Woolsey renders "these he makes much of." 116 Examples, however, need not be multiplied. The word designates love—"without reference

to sensuousness, close-intercourse, or heart-inwardness"—from the distinct point of view of the recognition of worthiness in its object. It is, therefore, intrinsically a noble word for love; or, let us give to it its rights and say definitely it is the noble word for love. It is in its right company when Plutarch 117 joins it with τιμᾷν and σέβεσθαι in the declaration that "the people ought to love and honor and revere the gods according to righteousness." But like other noble words it was possible for it to lose the sharpness and force of its higher suggestions.

It became ultimately, in the development of the language, the general word for love. And in proportion as it became the general word for love and was applied without thought to all kinds of love, it naturally lost more or less of the power to suggest its own specific implications.

The time came when it could be applied to the basest forms of love without consciousness of incongruity. Its lofty implications remained, however, embedded in its very form, and could always be recalled to consciousness and observation by a simple emphasis. And as long as any other term for love was current, sharing the field with it, it was always possible to throw the high implications intrinsic to it up to sight by merely setting the two in contrast.

This, then, is the equipment of the Greek language for the expression of the idea of love, which is revealed to us in the monuments of classical Greek. There were, we see, four terms which served as vehicles of it. Φιλεῖν held the general field, though not without its distinctive implications which were on occasion thrown into clear emphasis, and which were always more or less felt coloring the conception of love as it expressed itself by its means in current speech.

These implications represented love as the response of the human spirit to what appealed to it as pleasurable; therefore at bottom as a delight.

Φιλεῖν was supported on both sides, however, by other terms of other

implications. There was στέργειν in which love was presented as a natural outflow of the heart to objects conceived as in one way or another bound up very closely with it and making, therefore, a claim upon it for affection. There was ἐρᾶν which conceived love as an overmastering passion, seizing upon and absorbing into itself the whole mind. And there was, on the other side, ἀγαπᾶν which presented love as the soul's sense of the value and preciousness of its object and its response to its recognized worth in admiring affection. 118

During the classical period these terms did not so much encroach on the dominance of φιλεῖν in the literary expression of love as rather come to its aid, bringing into fuller expression the several sides and aspects of love. A change, however, was preparing beneath the surface, in the broad region of popular speech. How this change was inaugurated, through what stages it passed, what were the forces which drove it forward, we are left to conjecture to suggest. There is no direct evidence available. We only know that in that body of literature constituted by the New Testament, along with the Septuagint version of the Old Testament and the Apostolic Fathers, a body of literature the peculiarity of which is that it dips into the popular speech, we suddenly see the change well on its way. The most outstanding feature of it is the retirement of φιλεῖν into the background and the substitution for it of ἀγαπᾶν as the general term for love. We must not permit to fall out of sight that this means the general adoption of the noblest word for love the language possessed as its common designation in every-day speech. One may well suppose that an ethical force was working in such a change. 119 Such a supposition would find support in the general deepening of the ethical life which, as we know, was taking place during the closing centuries of the old era. We may readily suppose that in the increasing seriousness of the times the current conception of love

too may have grown more grave; and that it may have, therefore, seemed less and less appropriate to speak of it in any lighter than the highest available terms. Whatever may have been the cause, however, it is plain matter of fact that ἀγαπᾶν, a word of essential nobility in its native implications, did gradually through the years become the ordinary term for the expression of love in the most general sense. And this necessarily wrought a distinct ennoblement of the common speech with respect to love.

The effect of the change on ἀγαπᾶν itself naturally was not so happy. The application of it indiscriminately to every form and quality of love unavoidably reduced its current acceptation to the level of every form and quality of love. The native implications of the word could not, to be sure, be entirely eradicated. But they could be covered up and hidden so as not to be noted in the ordinary use of it, and only now and again brought back into view, when in one way or another they were thrown into emphasis. How thoroughly they were thus obscured we should not have been able to guess had we the witness of the New Testament alone in our hands. The Septuagint, however, reveals it to us. There ἀγαπᾶν appears as in such a sense the general term for love that it is readily applied to every form and quality of love, apparently in the case of the lower forms without any consciousness whatever of its higher connotations. This phenomenon occurs, it is true, occasionally also in classical Greek. It is incidental to the free use of any word that it should get its edges worn off in the process, and become more or less a mere symbol for the general idea connected with it, without regard to any specific modifications of that general idea which it may embody. But it becomes much more marked in the Septuagint. Because ἀγαπᾶν has become the general word for love, what was exceptional in the classics has here become the rule. In the

Septuagint the word has lost the precision of its specific notion and become merely a general term to express a general idea. A much nobler term for love has come into general use for the expression of the broad idea of love; and this ennobles the whole speech concerning love. But the word itself has suffered loss in thus permitting itself to be applied indifferently to all kinds and conditions of love.

On another side, however, the employment of ἀγαπᾶν as the general term for love brought it a great elevation in its Septuagint usage. If there was no love too low to be spoken of in its terms, there was equally no love too high for its use of it. And the application of it to describe the higher aspects of love as presented in the Old Testament revelation added great stretches to its range upwards. We are in the presence here of a double movement through which ἀγαπᾶν was prepared for its use in the New Testament. By the obscure linguistic revolution wrought among the peoples of Greek speech, as a result of which ἀγαπᾶν superseded φιλεῖν as the general Greek term for the expression of the idea of love, intrinsically the noblest word for love the Greek language afforded, came naturally to the hands of the Septuagint translators for rendering the idea of love as it appeared in the pages of the Old Testament. By the rendering of the idea of love throughout the Old Testament by ἀγαπᾶν, the whole content of the Old

Testament idea of love was poured into that term, expanding it in its suggestions upwards, and training it to speak in tones indefinitely exalted. The total effect of this double change was immensely to extend the range of the word. As it was the noblest word for love in Greek speech, its range could be extended, on its becoming the general word for love, only downward. It was extended also upwards only by becoming the vehicle for the deepened conception of love which has been given to the world by the self-revelation of God in the Scriptures.

When we open the Septuagint, therefore, and see ἀγαπᾶν lying on its pages as the general term for love, we are in the presence of some very notable phenomena in the preparation of the terminology of love in the New Testament.

The story of the Septuagint usage of the terms for love is almost told by the simple statistics. The verb ἀγαπᾶν occurs in the Septuagint about two hundred and sixty-six times, φιλεῖν about thirty-six times, ἐρᾶσθαι only three times, and στέργειν just once. Even this does not give the whole state of the case, for in the majority of its occurrences φιλεῖν is used in the sense of "to kiss." It occurs only sixteen or seventeen times with the meaning of "love." That is to say, this word, the common word for love in the classics, is used in the Septuagint in only a little more than five per cent of the instances where love falls to be mentioned: in nearly ninety-five per cent ἀγαπᾶν is used. Here is a complete reversal of the relative positions of the two words.

In more than a third of the instances in which φιλεῖν is used of loving, moreover, it is used of things—food or drink, or the like (Gen.

27:4, 9, 14, Prov. 21:17, Hos. 3:1, Isa. 56:10), leaving only a half a score of instances in which it is employed of love of persons. In all these instances (except Tob. 6:14, where it is a demon that is in question) it is a human being to whom the loving is ascribed. The love ascribed to him ranges from mere carnal love (Jer. 22:22 [paralleled with ἐρασταί], Lam. 1:2, Tob. 6:14, cf. Tob. 6:17), through the love of a father for his son (Gen. 37:4), to love for Wisdom (Prov. 8:17, 29:3,

Wisd. 8:2). Cremer drops the remark: "In two passages only does φιλεῖν occur as perfectly synonymous with ἀγαπάω, Prov. 8:17,

29:3." 120 This cannot mean that ἀγαπᾶν does not occur in the senses in which φιλεῖν is used in the other passages: ἀγαπᾶν is used in all these senses. What is really meant is that in these two passages alone φιλεῖν

bears a sense which Cremer is endeavoring to fix on ἀγαπᾶν as its distinctive meaning—the sense of high ethical love. In both passages it is love to Wisdom that is spoken of: "I (Wisdom) ἀγαπῶ them that φιλοῦντας me" (8:17); "When a man loves (φιλοῦντος) wisdom, his father rejoices" (29:3); and they bear witness that this high love could readily be expressed by φιλεῖν, as well as by ἀγαπᾶν. It is not obvious, however, that φιλεῖν is used in these passages as perfectly synonymous with ἀγαπᾶν. On the face of Prov. 8:17, there is a difference between the love (ἀγαπᾶν) ascribed to Wisdom and that (φιλεῖν) ascribed to her votaries, if the distribution of the words be allowed any significance.

Perhaps it may be conjectured that some flavor clings to φιλεῖν which renders it less suitable for the graver affection proper to Wisdom herself.

Despite the fewness of the occurrences of φιλεῖν, there are quite a number of instances in which it is brought into more or less close conjunction with ἀγαπᾶν, and a glance over these may help us to some notion of the relation which the two words bear to one another. Gen.

37:3, 4: "And Jacob ἠγάπα Joseph more than all his sons.… And his brothers, seeing that his father φιλεῖ him above all his sons, hated him." Prov. 8:17: "I (Wisdom) ἀγαπῶ them that φιλοῦντας me." Prov.

21:17: "A poor man ἀγαπᾶ mirth, φιλῶν wine and oil in abundance."

Isa. 56:6, 10: "The strangers that attach themselves unto the Lord … to ἀγαπᾶν the name of the Lord.… Dumb dogs, … φιλοῦντες to slumber."

Lam. 1:2: "Weeping, she weeps in the night and her tears are upon her cheeks; and there is none of all that ἀγαπώντων her to comfort her; all those that φιλοῦντες her have dealt treacherously with her." Hos. 3:1:

"And the Lord said to me, Go yet and ἀγάπησον a woman that ἀγαπῶσαν evil things and an adulteress, even as the Lord ἀγαπᾶ the children of Israel, and they have respect to strange gods, and φιλοῦσι

cakes and raisins." Wisdom 8:2, 3: "Her (Wisdom) I ἐφιλήσα, and sought out from my youth, and I desired to make her my wife and was an ἐραστής of her beauty.… Yea, the Lord of all things Himself ἠγάπησεν her" (and then immediately below, at verse 7: "If a man ἀγαπᾷ righteousness"). Perhaps we should add Prov. 19:7, 8, in which the noun φιλία and the verb ἀγαπᾶν occur, in distinct clauses no doubt, which yet stand rather close together: "Every one who hates a poor brother is also far from φιλία.… He that procures wisdom ἀγαπᾷ himself."

To fill out the general picture we may adjoin a few passages in which other combinations of terms for love are made. In his praise of woman in 1 Esd. 4:14 ff., Zorobabel brings together these two statements—that a man can look a lion in the face, and can plunder and rob in the darkness—all to bring his spoil to τῇ ἐρωμένῃ; "yea a man ἀγαπᾷ his own wife more than father or mother." In Jer. 22:22, we read: "The wind shall tend all thy shepherds and thy ἐρασταί shall go into captivity; for then shalt thou be ashamed and disgraced by all τῶν φιλούντων σε." In Prov. 7:18: "Come, and let us enjoy φιλίας until the morning; come, and let us embrace ἔρωτι." And again, in Sir. 27:17,

18: "Στέρξον a friend (φίλον) and be faithful unto him; but if thou betrayest his secrets … thou hast lost the φιλίαν of thy neighbor."

It cannot be pretended that it is an easy task to find one's way through these passages, assigning a distinctive sense to each term. By one thing we are struck, however, at the first glance. In all the combinations of ἀγαπᾶν and φιλεῖν, the higher rôle is assigned to ἀγαπᾶν. The historian tells us in Gen. 37:3 that Jacob ἠγάπα Joseph; but when he repeats what the envious brothers said, φιλεῖν is used, as if they would suggest that their father's special love for him was an ungrounded preference. It is Wisdom who ἀγαπᾷ her votaries (Prov.

8:17); they, on their part, φιλοῦνται her; and the Lord ἠγάπησεν Wisdom, while her servant ἐφιλήσε her (Wisd. 8:2, 3). There is some appearance here that ἀγαπᾶν was felt to be in some way the more appropriate word with which to express love of a superhuman order.

Only in the case of Lam. 1:2 does the variation from ἀγαπᾶν to φιλεῖν seem to be purely rhetorical; and there the variation imitates a variation in the underlying Hebrew, and gives ἀγαπᾶν the place of honor. 121

Similarly, in the passages in which ἀγαπᾶν does not occur there appears to be in mind always some valid distinction between the terms that are used, although it is not always easy clearly to grasp it. It must be confessed, for example, that it is difficult to discover the precise reason for the variation from ἐρασταί to φιλοῦντες in Jer. 22:22, or from φιλία to ἔρως in Prov. 7:18. In the former of these passages it is obvious enough, of course, that the φιλοῦντες are intended to embrace both the shepherds and the lovers, and doubtless that is the reason that a broader word is chosen. In the latter the variation in terms reflects a variation in the underlying Hebrew, but it is not clear that it reflects it accurately, or what is the exact distinction intended. The general impression left by the series of passages is that the several terms for love were used quite freely and with various natural interchanges, as substantial synonyms; but that ἀγαπᾶν was felt to be in some sense of the highest suggestion, and when they were brought into contrast, the higher place was instinctively given to it.

Certainly ἀγαπᾶν is used with the utmost freedom for every conceivable variety of love, from the love of mere lust on the one hand

(e.g., 2 Sam. 13:1, 4, 15, Isa. 57:8, Ezek. 16:37) up to the purest earthly love on the other (Lev. 19:18, 34, Deut. 10:19, 1 Sam. 18:1, 20:17, 2

Sam. 1:23), and beyond that to the highest love which man can feel, love to God (Ex. 20:6, Deut. 5:10, 6:5, 7:9, 10:12, 11:1, 13, 22, 13:3,

19:9, 30:6, 16, 20, Judges 8:3, Jos. 22:5, 23:11, 1 Kings 3:3, Ps. 17:1, 30:23, 68:37, 96:10, 116:7), and even above that, to the inexplicable love of God Himself to His people (Deut. 4:37, 7:8, 13, 10:15, 23:5, 2

Sam. 12:24, 2 Chron. 2:11, 9:8, Isa. 43:4, 48:14, 63:9, Jer. 38:3, Mal.

1:2, Prov. 3:12). It is quite true that it is used for the higher reaches of love far more frequently than for the lower-lying varieties. This was the inevitable effect of the proportionate place occupied by the higher and lower forms of love in the pages of the Old Testament, and argues little as to the relative adaptability of the term for expressing them severally. The plain fact is that ἀγαπᾶν is the general term for love in the Greek Old Testament, employed in some ninety-five per cent of the instances in which love is mentioned; and therefore it is employed of the several varieties of love, not in accordance with its fitness to express one or another of them, but in accordance with the relative frequency of their occurrence in the Old Testament. The five per cent or so of occurrences which are left to be expressed by other terms seem not to be divided off from the rest on the ground of the intrinsic unfitness of ἀγαπᾶν to express them. They include next to no kinds of love which ἀγαπᾶν is not employed to express in other passages. 122 It is not to be supposed, of course, that pure caprice has determined the employment of these terms in these few instances. There is doubtless always a reason for the selection which is made; and ordinarily the appropriateness of the term actually employed can be more or less clearly felt. But it does not appear that the reason for passing over ἀγαπᾶν in these cases was ordinarily its intrinsic incapacity for the expression of the specific love that is spoken of. As the general word for love it no doubt could have been used without impropriety throughout.

It is possible, moreover, to overpress the intrinsic significance of the predominant use of ἀγαπᾶν for the higher varieties of love. Both φιλεῖν (Prov. 8:17, 29:3) and ἐρᾶσθαι (Prov. 4:6, Wisd. 8:2), along with it (Prov. 8:21), are used for love to Wisdom. But no other term except ἀγαπᾶν happens to be employed of God's love to man, or of man's love to God, or even of that love to our neighbor which with them constitutes the three conceptions in which is summed up the peculiarity of the teaching on love of the religion of revelation. This is a notable fact; and it had notable consequences. It did not, however, so much result from, as result in, that elevation of ἀγαπᾶν above other terms for love, which fits it alone to express these high forms. It is probable that had the Septuagint translators found φιλεῖν still in use as the general term for love, they would have employed it as their own general word, and it would have fallen to it therefore to be used to express these higher forms of love. Instead, they found ἀγαπᾶν, an intrinsically higher word than φιλεῖν and more suitable for the purpose; and they trained it to convey these still higher conceptions also. Thus they stamped ἀγαπᾶν with a new quality, and prepared it for its use in the New Testament. What is of importance to bear in mind, however, is that the elevation of ἀγαπᾶν to this new dignity was not due to its greater intrinsic fitness to express these new conceptions (though it was intrinsically more fit to do so), but to the circumstance that it happened to be the general term for love in current use when the Septuagint was written. This is proved by the fact that it was not employed by the Septuagint writers as a special word for the expression of the loftier aspects of love alone, but as a general word to express all kinds and conditions of love. It is simply the common term for love in the Greek Old Testament, and the new dignity which clothes

it as it leaves the Old Testament has been contributed to it by the Old Testament itself.

The account given of ἀγαπᾶν by Hermann Cremer, while in its central statement perfectly just, is deformed by some remarkable inaccuracies, arising from a fruitless attempt to establish certain stated exceptions to this central statement. "The New Testament usage with reference to the words ἀγαπᾶν, ἀγάπη, ἀγαπητός," he writes, 123 "is in a very special manner a consistent and complete one. It was prepared for by the use, presented by the Septuagint, of ἀγαπάω for the Hebrew

אהב in the whole range of its applications, with one or two characteristic exceptions. The Hebrew word includes in itself the significance of all three Greek synonyms" [i.e., φιλεῖν, ἐρᾶν, and ἀγαπᾶν]; "it is especially frequently used in an application in which the Greeks do not speak of love, that is to say, of the love enjoined for God and His will, as well as of the love ascribed to God Himself (Deut.

7:13, 10:15, 18, 23:6, 2 Sam. 12:24, Ps. 78:68, 87:2, 146:8, Isa. 43:4, 48:14, 43:9), particularly the last, which is a conception beyond the imagination of the Greeks. 124 Apart, now, from a few passages in which the rendering is only according to the sense (Mic. 3:2 = ζητεῖν,

Prov. 18:21 = κρατεῖν, 17:19 = χαίρειν), אהב is regularly translated by ἀγαπᾶν, with the exception of when it stands for sensual love (sixteen times in all), in which case ἐρᾶν, ἐραστής are constantly used (see above), and when it denotes a sensuous inclination or a natural affection (ten times), and then it is rendered by φιλεῖν and its compounds—Gen. 27:4, 9, 14, Isa. 66:10, Ecc. 3:8; cf. 2 Chron. 26:10, φιλογεωργός, A, א ֵהב ֲא ָד ָמה, as also two passages where there is mention of an objectionable disposition, 1 Kings 11:1 φιλογύναιος (φιλογύνης,

B), and Prov. 17:19, φιλομαρτήμων." W. G. Ballantine, commenting on the latter half of this passage, remarks trenchantly, but we are afraid not

unjustly: 125 "Cremer's assertions regarding the translation of אהב in the Septuagint are sheer misstatements, as anyone who has Trommius'

Concordance in his hands can see. We have already referred to half a score of passages where ἀγαπάω, as the translation of אהב, expresses lustful love. Φιλέω, as we saw above, but once expresses a natural affection, and but four times a sensual inclination. Ἀγαπάω expresses a natural affection in Gen. 22:2, 25:28, 37:3, 44:20, Ruth 4:15, Prov. 4:3,

13:24. Ἐράω translates אהב but twice. Cremer says that ἀγαπάω 'never means to do anything willingly, to be wont to do'; yet we have it in Jer.

14:10, 'They have loved to move their feet,' and in Jer. 5:31, 'And my people loved to have it so.' "

Cremer's statement certainly conveys the impression that ἀγαπᾶν is never used in the canonical Septuagint (as a rendering of אהב) for sensual love, or for a sensuous inclination or natural affection, its place being taken in the former case (there being sixteen instances in all) by ἐρᾶν, ἐραστής, and in the latter (ten instances) by φιλεῖν and its compounds. For the sixteen cases of ἐρᾶν rendering אהב, used of sensual love, he refers us to a list previously given—"see above," he says—and that list proves to run as follows: "Ἐρᾶν is found only in a few passages in the Old Testament (Esth. 2:17, Prov. 4:6, = אהב; Wisd.

8:2; ἐραστής, Ez. 16:33, 36, 37, 23:5, 9, 22, Jer. 27:20, 22, Lam. 1:19, Hos. 2:7, 9, 12, 14, 15, the stated rendering of the Hebrew ְמ ָא ֵהב in the sensual sense)." There are seventeen passages enumerated here; but they are not seventeen passages in which אהב and מאהב are used in a sensual sense and are rendered by ἐρᾶν and ἐραστής; they profess to be passages rather in which ἐρᾶν and ἐραστής are found in the Old

Testament—Wisd. 8:2, of course, having no Hebrew base. They do not, to be sure, exhaust the list of occurrences of words of this group in the Old Testament: ἐρᾶσθαι occurs three times, not two as here (add 1

Esdr. 4:24); ἔρως, not mentioned here, occurs twice (Prov. 7:18, 24:26

[30:15]) and ἐραστής appears nineteen times, as against the fifteen here enumerated. But much less do the sixteen of them which are renderings of אהכ justify the description of them given in the main passage. One of the two passages cited for ἐρᾶν, indeed—"Love (Wisdom), and she shall keep thee" (Prov. 4:6)—refers to high ethical love; as does also indeed Wisd. 8:2 (ἐραστής), "I was a lover of her (Wisdom's) beauty."

The other passage cited for ἐρᾶν, "And the king loved Esther and she found favor beyond all the virgins; and he put on her the queen's crown" (Esth. 2:17), while certainly referring to sexual love, can scarcely be spoken of as referring to dishonorable love, as neither, indeed, can 1 Esd. 4:24, the third passage in which ἐρᾶν occurs (not mentioned by Cremer): "And when he hath stolen, spoiled, and robbed, he bringeth it to his beloved (ἐρωμένῃ); wherefore a man loveth

(ἀγαπᾷ) his wife better than father and mother."

As it is thus clear that the words of the ἐρᾶν group do not always express lustful, and not even always sexual, love, it is even more clear that sensual or even lustful love is not expressed exclusively by words of this group. We have seen the carnal love of a demon for a mortal maid expressed by φιλεῖν (Tob. 6:15), and the wicked lovers of Zion, in parallelism with ἐρασταί, expressed by φιλοῦντες (Jer. 22:22). The Hebrew piel participle מאהב, rendered in the fifteen passages enumerated by Cremer by ἐρασταί, occurs also in Jer. 30:14, Zech.

13:6, the former of which is certainly of the same class with its fellows, and the latter not certainly of a different class (so Hengstenberg). In Jer. 33:14, however, it is rendered by οἱ φιλοί, "All thy lovers have forgotten thee," and in Zech. 13:6, taken as a singular, by ὁ ἀγαπητός,

"With these I was wounded in my beloved house," or, as in the Alexandrian MS., "in the house of my beloved." It has already been

intimated that numerous passages exist in which sensual love is expressed by ἀγαπᾶν. If we are to take sensual love in a sense broad enough to include Cremer's examples, we may adduce such passages as Gen. 24:67, 29:30, 32, 34:3, Ex. 21:5, Deut. 21:15, 16, Judges

14:16, 16:15, 1 Sam. 1:5, 18:28, 2 Chron. 11:21, Ecc. 9:9, and perhaps even 1 Kings 11:2. If dishonorable love is to be insisted upon, we may refer to 2 Sam. 13:1, 4, 15, Ezek. 16:37, Hos. 3:1, or we may content ourselves with the single passage Isa. 57:8: "Thou hast loved

(ἠγάπησας) those that lay with thee, and now hast multiplied thy whoredom (πορνείαν) with them." It is beyond question that not ἐρᾶν but ἀγαπᾶν is the regular word to express sexual love in the Septuagint, and this fact is not to be obscured by pointing to ἐραστής as the standing word for "lover"—which is a different matter.

No assertion could be more unfortunate, then, than that ἐρᾶν is the constant vehicle in the Septuagint for the expression of sensual love; and it is no mitigation to confine the assertion to the instances of renderings of אהב by ἐρᾶν. Unless, indeed, it be held even more unfortunate to assert that φιλεῖν and its compounds supply the stated means of the expression of the love of sensuous inclination or natural affection—connected with the further implication that there are only ten instances in which love of this kind comes to expression in the Old

Testament. A full list of the ten instances he has in mind is not given by Cremer, and it would be difficult to fill out such a list with instances exactly like the half-dozen which he adduces. These half-dozen instances do represent one side of the usage of φιλεῖν and its compounds—a usage in which it perhaps holds a unique position in Old Testament Greek. We are not sure that ἀγαπᾶν is found in any precisely similar applications. There is even an appearance that such applications are avoided for ἀγαπᾶν Look, for example, at Prov. 21:17:

"A poor man loveth (ἀγαπᾶν) mirth, loving (φιλῶν) wine and oil in abundance." There seems to be reflected here a distinction in the usage of the two terms, according to which φιλεῖν and not ἀγαπᾶν is preferred for loving food and drink, just as in English we say we "like" but only abusively that we "love" articles of diet. But this is only a pocket in the usage of φιλεῖν, and does not justify the broad characterization formulated by Cremer. The love expressed by φιλεῖν includes also the elevated love of Wisdom by her votaries (Prov. 8:17,

29:3); and if Ecc. 3:8, "There is a time to love (φιλῆσαι) and a time to hate" shows that natural affections are expressed by φιλεῖν, what does

Sir. 13:15, "Every beast loves (ἀγαπᾷ) his like, and every man his neighbor" 126 show? The fundamental fault of Cremer's statement lies in a zeal to mark off a special region within which each term—ἐρᾶν, φιλεῖν, and above all, ἀγαπᾶν—shall be confined. Accordingly, he arbitrarily narrows the range of the usage of each, and very especially of ἀγαπᾶν. In point of fact, the usage of ἀγαπᾶν covers the whole field which אהב itself covers, and there is no real variety of love for which it is not employed somewhere or other in the Septuagint. Even such a conspectus of the kinds of love for which it is used as that drawn up by Ballantine in the following summary is only generally complete, although it will doubtless serve to bring home to us the very wide field covered by the word. "It is the word," he says, 127 "in constant use to express (1) God's love to man, (2) God's love for truth and other virtues and worthy objects, (3) man's love for God, (4) man's love for salvation and worthy objects, (5) man's conscientious love for man, (6) ordinary human friendship, (7) parental and filial affection, (8) the love of husband and wife, (9) impure sexual love, (10) man's love for cursing and other vices and sinful objects."

One of the most striking accompaniments of the appearance of ἀγαπᾶν in the Septuagint as the general term for love, is the appearance by its side of two abstract substantives formed from this stem— ἀγάπησις and ἀγάπη. The classical writers got along without these substantives. Ἀγάπησις has, it is true, been turned up in Aristotle. But it does not come into wide use in profane literature until Plutarch—after the opening of the Christian era. Ἀγάπη has not hitherto been discovered in any profane author at all, unless a somewhat conjectural reading in Philodemus, an Epicurean writer of the first century before Christ, be an exception. 128 In a true sense, then, both of these words make their first appearance in the Septuagint. Ἀγαπᾶν itself was in comparatively limited use among the classical writers; and, with στοργή, ἔρως and φιλία in their hand, they apparently felt no need of a substantive representing the peculiar quality of ἀγαπᾶν, in order to give expression to all their conceptions of love. When, however, ἀγαπᾶν became the general word for love, a need for corresponding substantives seems to have come to be felt, and they were supplied. Of course the Septuagint did not invent these substantives: not even ἀγάπη, which is not found in any earlier writing. It took them over with ἀγαπᾶν from the common usage of the people. This appears very clearly from the nature of their use in the Septuagint. They are used as general terms for love, covering the whole range of the conception, and with the utmost simplicity and directness. A very careless manner of speaking of ἀγάπη is current, as if it were in some way a gift of revealed religion to the world, not to say a direct product of divine inspiration. When Trench says that "It should never be forgotten that the substantive ἀγάπη is a purely Christian word, no example of its use occurring in any heathen writer whatever," he has no doubt by a mere slip of the pen said "Christian" when the historical revelation of God in

its entirety was what was in his mind. That correction, however, will not save his remark from being misleading. It is not true that "the word was born within the bosom of revealed religion"; it is true only that it has hitherto been found in the use only of adherents of revealed religion. What Zezschwitz means by saying that it "first makes its appearance as a current term in the Song of Solomon" is not clear, unless it be that it occurs more frequently in the Song of Solomon than in any other Old Testament book (eleven times as over against eight in the whole Old Testament besides). The plain fact about the word is that, as it appears in the pages of the Septuagint, it bears all the marks of being already an old word with a settled general usage.

Additional evidence of its general currency is supplied by its appearance in Aristeas (second or first century b.c.) and Philo (early first century a.d.). Each uses it a single time, and both in a noble sense

—as the content of true piety. Aristeas, positing the question, What is equal to beauty? answers: 129 "Piety (εὐσέβεια); for that is an excellent beauty. But its power consists in ἀγάπη; for this is a gift of God. And," he adds, to the king whose inquiry he is answering, "you possess this, embracing in it all that is good." 130 Philo writes more elaborately to much the same effect. "And therefore it is," says he, 131 "that it appears to me that with these two principal assertions above mentioned, namely that God is as a man and that God is not as a man, are connected two other principles consequent upon and connected with them, namely that of fear and that of love (φόβον τε καὶ ἀγάπην); for I see that all the exhortations of the laws to piety (εὐσέβειαν) are referred either to the love (τὸ ἀγαπᾶν) or the fear of the living God. To those, therefore, who do not attribute either the parts or the passions of man to the living

God, but who, as becomes the majesty of God, honor (τιμῶσι) Him in Himself, and by Himself alone, to love (τὸ ἀγαπᾶν) Him is most

natural; but to the others it is most appropriate to fear Him." It would, of course, be possible to say that both Aristeas and Philo got the word from the Septuagint; but it would be very difficult to prove that, and it seems vastly unlikely. Their use of it is highly individual, 132 and their independence in employing it is supported by its appearance in other

Greek versions of the Old Testament in passages in which it is not found in the Septuagint.

There is a superficial appearance that ἀγάπη and ἀγάπησις are used by the Septuagint far less freely than ἀγαπᾶν. The verb certainly occurs much more frequently than the substantives—it, about two hundred and sixty-six times; they, together, only thirty times—ἀγάπη twenty times and ἀγάπησις ten. The relatively small number of the occurrences of the substantives is accounted for in part, however, by the comparative infrequency of the noun ַא ֲה ָבה in the Hebrew Old

Testament, which the Septuagint translates. That substantive occurs only forty times, in sixteen of which it is rendered by ἀγάπη (which include all the occurrences of ἀγάπη in which it has a Hebrew base), six by ἀγάπησις (all its occurrences with a Hebrew base), and thirteen by some form of the verb ἀγαπᾶν, 133 while it is rendered in only five instances by φιλία (a little more than half of its occurrences with a Hebrew base). That is to say, it is rendered in nearly ninety per cent of its occurrences by some form of the ἀγαπᾶν group, and in nearly half of these by ἀγάπη itself. The question remains an open one naturally why the translators resorted so frequently to a paraphrase of the verb to render the Hebrew substantive, and did not in all instances employ the substantive ἀγάπη; they paraphrase by the verb (thirteen times) almost as often as they render by ἀγάπη (sixteen times). The distribution of the several manners of rendering אהבה through the Septuagint is also rather odd. The paraphrase by the verb is fairly evenly distributed

through the volume from the Pentateuch to the Prophets and Psalms (none in the Wisdom books). No substantive for love occurs in the Greek Bible, on the other hand, until II Samuel; practically none until the Poetical and Prophetic books. 134 The use of these substantives belongs thus almost entirely to the latter portion of the Septuagint. And even there their distribution is somewhat notable. The use of ἀγάπη centers in the Song of Solomon: it occurs in it no less than eleven times, more than half of all its occurrences in the Septuagint; it and its verb (ἀγαπᾶν) are the sole vehicles in this book of the notion of love.

Outside the Song of Solomon, it occurs only eight times, widely scattered through the volume. Ἀγάπησις is found in five of its ten occurrences in the Prophets, and in four of the others in the Poetical books. Φιλία occurs only in two well-marked groups: in the great

Wisdom books, Proverbs, Wisdom, and Sirach, and in I and II Maccabees. It is well to note this last fact, because it contributes to the understanding of what seems, at first sight, a preponderance in the use of φιλία over ἀγάπη and ἀγάπησις. Φιλία occurs thirty-five times, and ἀγάπη and ἀγάπησις together but thirty times. More than half of the occurrences of φιλία, however, fall in I and II Maccabees, where it is employed exclusively in the highly differentiated sense—one might even say the technical sense—of political amity. 135 Only sixteen instances remain (all in the Wisdom literature) for the expression of love in the ordinary applications of the word. After all, therefore, the chief vehicle for the idea of love in the Septuagint, even in its substantival expression, is furnished by the terms of the ἀγαπᾶν group.

Ἀγάπη, ἀγάπησις together occur thirty times, φιλία sixteen, ἔρως twice (Prov. 7:18, 24:26 [30:15], and στοργή not at all in the Septuagint proper, but four times in III and IV Maccabees (3 Macc. 5:32, 4 Macc.

14:13, 14, 17).

In range of meaning, ἀγάπη is spread thinly over the whole field; necessarily thinly, because of the infrequency of its occurrence. Its preponderant sense is sexual love. That is secured for it by its eleven occurrences in the Song of Solomon. But outside the Song of Solomon it is used in 2 Sam. 13:15 of the merely lustful love of Amnon for Thamar, as well as in the figurative passage Jer. 2:2. In 2 Sam. 1:26, it is used of "the love of women" to which Jonathan's love there spoken of as ἀγάπησις) is compared: "Thy ἀγάπησις to me was wonderful, beyond the ἀγάπη of women"—as if ἀγάπη had some special fitness for the expression of the "love of women." At the opposite extreme are the four passages in the Wisdom books which carry us up to the highest reaches to which human love can ascend. The transition is made by two passages in Ecclesiastes (9:1, 6) in which it is used quite generally of love, as a universal human emotion, in contrast with hate: "My heart hath seen how the righteous and the wise and their works are in the hands of God, and there is no man that knoweth whether (it is) love or hate": "But the dead know nothing … and their love and their hate and their envy have perished." In Wisdom 4:18 we have a passage built up in a kind of sorites, which reminds us of the passage in Aristeas: "For the most unerring beginning of wisdom is desire of discipline, and heed to discipline is love, and love is the keeping of her laws, and attention to the laws is the assurance of incorruption, and incorruption bringeth near to God." Here the love of wisdom is the secret of lawkeeping and a step on the stairs that lead up to God. The climax is reached, however, in Wisd. 3:9 and Sir. 48:11, where love to God is spoken of, and its exceeding great reward. In the former passage we read: "They that put their trust in Him shall understand the truth, and they that are faithful in love"—that is, in love to Him—"shall abide with Him, because there is grace and mercy for His elect." In the latter,

the "famous men, even our fathers that begat us," are praised in these great words: "Blessed are they that saw Thee, and they that have fallen asleep in love; for we too shall surely live." 136 The employment of the word in the other Greek versions of the Old Testament is remarkable chiefly for a tendency to invade with it the book of Proverbs, which in the Septuagint is the especial field of φιλία. Aquila and Theodotion both use it in 7:18 of sexual love; Aquila and Symmachus in 10:12, where it stands in contrast with hate; and all three, Aquila,

Symmachus, and Theodotion in 15:17, where it is praised as the condition of all happiness in life. Besides, it is used by Symmachus, in addition to some passages in the Song of Solomon (Aquila also uses it in one of these), in Psalm 32:5, and Ezekiel 16:8. Commenting on this usage, Moulton and Milligan remark that it shows that the word

"retained in independent writers the connotations we find in Canticles and Ecclesiastes." 137 The evidence as a whole goes to show that it was in full popular use during the later pre-Christian centuries as a general word for love of all kinds and degrees; and that it was taken over by the Septuagint writers in this general sense, and employed by them indiscriminately to express the idea of love as it fell to their task to speak of it. The effect was, as in the case of ἀγαπᾶν, to add depth to the word, because it was employed to express, among other kinds of love, also that love to God which is characteristic of the Biblical revelation.

It remains somewhat of a puzzle why the Septuagint writers, in no less than thirteen instances of the occurrence of אהבה, preferred to translate it by forms of ἀγάπη; and the occurrence of ἀγάπησις by the side of ἀγάπη in their pages is susceptible of the interpretation that ἀγάπη did not hold the whole field in the popular Greek of the time, but shared it with the sister word. The instances in which אהבה is paraphrased by forms of the verb the more call for remark, because

they move in the high places. There is no instance of sexual love among them except [Gen. 29:20] where this form of love is at its height; and but three [four] in which love from man to man is spoken of (Ps. 108:4, 1 Sam. 20:17 bis, [18:3]), and in two [three] of these it is the supreme type of human love which is celebrated, the love of David and Jonathan: "And Jonathan swore yet again unto David because he loved (ἠγάπησε) the life of him that loved (ἀγαπῶντος) him." After that, we have an instance in which the love of mercy is expressed by it

(Micah 6:8), and all the others speak of the supernal love of God to man (Deut. 7:8, 1 Kings 10:9, 2 Chron. 2:11, 9:8, Isa. 63:9, Hos. 3:1,

9:15). Why should the Septuagint writers refuse just these passages to ἀγάπη and paraphrase them? One of the results is that they render אהבה, in no instance in which it expresses either love to God or God's love, by ἀγάπη; the instances in which ἀγάπη is used to express love to God

(Wisd. 3:9, Sir. 48:11) come from that portion of the Septuagint which has no Hebrew base, as does also the instance in which ἀγάπη is used of love to Wisdom. The general concept of love as distinguished from hate (Ecc. 9:1, 6) is the highest to which ἀγάπη attains when rendering

אהבה. The impression made by these facts is increased when we observe that the usage of ἀγάπησις in general also moves on a higher plane than that of ἀγάπη. In only one instance does it allude to sexual love (Jer. 2:33). In three others it is the love of man to man that is in question—2 Sam. 1:26, Ps. 108:5, and we add Prov. 30:15 (24:50), where the noun is used adverbially to strengthen the verb: "the horseleech had three daughters ἀγαπώμεναι ἀγαπήσει, loved with love," i.e., dearly loved. In one instance (Sir. 40:20) it expresses man's love to Wisdom, and in two (Hab. 3:4, Sir. 48:11) man's love to God. In three instances (Jer. 38:3, Hos. 11:4, Zeph. 3:17) it expresses the love of God to man. Certainly an appearance is created that ἀγάπη lent itself with

less readiness to the expression of the higher than of the lower forms of love. Perhaps just because it was the most popular word for love in circulation, though it was a perfectly general term and was used for all forms of love alike, its chief associations were with those forms of love which fell to be most frequently mentioned in everyday speech. It was accordingly predominantly used for those forms of love in the Septuagint, and owes the exaltation of meaning with which it comes out of its hands less to its own usage in the Septuagint than to its association with ἀγαπᾶν. There is a sense, then, in which we may speak—as Moulton and Milligan do—of "its redemption from use as a mere successor to the archaic ἔρως," although we should not ourselves make use of just this language. It was the successor of the classical φιλία, not of ἔρως; ἔρως was scarcely "archaic," as its continued use in much later Greek shows; and we think it a mistake to speak of ἔρως as if it were exclusively a designation of sexual love. Nor can we ascribe quite the rôle which Moulton and Milligan do to "Alexandrian Jews of the first century b.c." in the "redemption" of the word. We see this redemption taking place in Aristeas and Philo, it is true; but we do not see it in the Jewish translators of the Old Testament (Aquila,

Symmachus, Theodotion). After it leaves the Septuagint we get no full evidence of the usage of the word until we reach the New Testament.

We are chary of concluding from the single instance of its use, each, in Aristeas and Philo, that it was they and such as they who wrought the work. All that we can be sure of is that the redemption of the word was the work of those who had learned what love is from the Divine revelation. If the word was not "born in the bosom of revealed religion," it was apparently redeemed to its nobler uses under the influences of that religion. 138

Of the other substantives used for love in the Septuagint, φιλία is, of course, the most important. We have already pointed out the odd division of its usage into two well-marked groups. We are concerned now only with the sixteen instances in which it occurs in the great

Wisdom books—nine in Proverbs, two in Wisdom, and five in Sirach.

Its usage here is a broad one; but, although it starts at the same low level with ἀγάπη, it does not scale the same heights. It is used occasionally of purely sexual love, even when this appears as mere lust

(Prov. 5:19; 7:18, where it is parallel with ἔρως in the same sense; Sir.

9:8). It is used once of love, or perhaps we may even say here, of friendship, to God: "For she (Wisdom) is an eternal treasure to men, those who possess which have prepared φιλίαν to God" (Wisd. 7:14).

And it is used once of love to Wisdom herself: "And great good is in φιλία of her" (Wisd. 8:18). But in the majority of cases it expresses merely that love which binds men together in the friendly intercourse of life: Prov. 10:12, 15:17, parallel with χάρις, 17:9, 19:7, 25:10, parallel with χάρις, 27:5, Sir. 6:17, 22:20, 25:1, "harmony of brothers, and φιλία of neighbors, and a wife and husband who agree together,"

27:18, "στέρξον a friend and be faithful with him; but if thou betray his secrets … thou hast destroyed the φιλίαν of thy neighbor." These are all natural uses of φιλίαν, quite in accordance with its previous history.

The impression is conveyed that it has suffered less from the revolution which had been wrought in the common terms for love than its verb.

Φίλος has apparently suffered not at all. It occurs with extraordinary frequency (about a hundred and eighty-two times), and is used quite along classical lines, chiefly as a noun to designate those who are bound to one another by an affection which does not root in ties of kinship (consult such conjunctions as "friends and neighbors,"

Ps. 37:12, 87:18, Prov. 14:20, 18:24; "friends and kindred," Prov.

17:9). Ἀγαπητός (twenty-two times) occupies a different field, and can scarcely be said to encroach upon that appropriated to φίλος. It is used chiefly in the singular—often of an only child (Gen. 22:2, 12, 16 [Judg.

11:34], Amos 8:10, Zech. 12:10) 139—to designate one especially loved; and there is already a class which is called God's ἀγαπητοί, beloved ones, so that this phrase is here seen in the making (Ps. 59:5,

107:6, 126:2). Of course, compounds in φιλabound; the Greek language has never lost them, and has never formed corresponding compounds in ἀγαπwhich might supersede them. 140 Of these we are particularly interested in such as φιλάδελφος (2 Macc. 15:14, 4 Macc.

13:21, 15:10); φιλαδελφία (4 Macc. 13:23, 26, 14:1); φιλανθρωπεῖν (2 Macc. 13:23); φιλάνθρωπος (1 Esd. 8:10, Wisd. 1:6, 7:23, 12:19, 2

Macc. 4:11, 4 Macc. 5:12); φιλανθρώπως (2 Macc. 9:27, 3 Macc.

3:20); φιλανθρωπία (2 Macc. 6:22, 14:9, 3 Macc. 3:15, 18); φιλόστοργος (4 Macc. 15:13); φιλοστόργως (2 Macc. 9:21); φιλοστοργία (2 Macc. 6:20, 4 Macc. 15:6, 9). By φιλαδελφία and its companions, love to one's people—in this case the Jews—or, in other words, patriotism is expressed. Φιλανθρωπία with its group is used as a general term for kindness, graciousness, such as that shown by superiors to inferiors, especially by monarchs to those having official dealings with them (consult the paralleling of the adverb with ἐπιεικῶς,

"fairly," "moderately," in 2 Macc. 9:27). 141 The fundamental sense of φιλοστοργία and its group comes out clearly in 4 Macc. 15:6, 9, 13, where it is used of mother-love; in other passages its application is extended to any strong affection: "I would with fitting affection have remembered your kindness" (2 Macc. 9:21); "there are things which it is not lawful to do even for natural love of life" (2 Macc. 6:20). A great elevation of sense awaited these words in the future as a new religious spirit was breathed into them. "Be φιλόστοργοι to one another in

φιλαδελφία," says Paul (Rom. 12:10), plumbing the depths of the feeling of brotherhood. "But when the φιλανθρωπία of our Savior,

God, appeared," he writes again (Tit. 3:4), soaring to the heights of the divine "humanity." Or we may find our examples of the heightened sense of the terms, if we prefer, in the φιλαδελφία which Clement of Rome (xlviii. 1) demands that the Corinthian Christians should more fully manifest; or in the φιλοστοργία which the writer of the Epistle to Diognetus (i. 1) asserts to be the cement which binds the Christian brotherhood together; or in the "great φιλανθρωπία καὶ ἀγάπη" for which this latter writer celebrates his God (ix. 5).

It is worth while, perhaps, to turn directly from the Septuagint to the Apostolic Fathers, that we may observe how the great revolution in the usage of the Greek terms for love, of which we get our first glimpse in the Septuagint, looks, after its complete adjustment to the high conceptions of divine revelation. The Greek of the Apostolic Fathers is, like the Greek of the Septuagint, fundamentally the popular Greek of its day; but, no doubt, it can scarcely be looked upon as simply the same popular Greek upon which the writers of the Septuagint draw, at a later stage of its development. The religious language of the Apostolic Fathers has been profoundly influenced directly by the usage of the Septuagint itself. From the Septuagint they derive a large part of their religious inspiration, and upon it they draw in great part for the vocabulary in which they express their religious conceptions. Still more profoundly the religious language of the Apostolic Fathers has been influenced by the usage of the New Testament, itself deeply affected by that of the Septuagint. The fundamental basis of the language of the Apostolic Fathers nevertheless is the common Greek of the day; and that, needless to say, is just the common Greek which the Septuagint uses, at a stage of its development some three centuries

later. To say this, obviously, is to question the propriety of describing the Greek of the Septuagint as in any very distinctive sense Judaic or Alexandrian. In the matter of the linguistic phenomena which are for the moment occupying our attention—the supersession of φιλεῖν by ἀγαπᾶν as the general term for loving, the coming of the substantive ἀγάπη into employment—it happens, no doubt, that they meet us first in the writings of Alexandrian Jews; and we may be tempted to conjecture on that ground that they are peculiarities of the speech of Alexandrian Jews. This conjecture loses its plausibility, however, when the usages in question are observed in an even more extreme form in the Apostolic Fathers. The Apostolic Fathers were not Jews of Alexandria; they fairly ring the Mediterranean basin in their provenience; and it is incredible that, great as is the influence of the Septuagint upon their religious terminology, it has given them their fundamental language. Whenever a usage is common to the Septuagint,

Philo, and the Apostolic Fathers, it is safe to say not only that it was familiar to the Greek-speaking Jews of Alexandria, but also that it was not alien to the Greek-speaking world at the opening of the Christian era. 142

The compositions of the Apostolic Fathers differ very greatly in general character and subject-matter from the series of writings which the Septuagint translators rendered into Greek. If we think of the Apostolic Fathers in their narrowest compass, as including only the Epistles of Clement, Barnabas, Ignatius, and Polycarp, they are merely a collection of hortatory letters, devoted to the enforcement of religious and ethical duty. In such writings we may anticipate relatively more frequent mention of love as a religious and ethical conception on the one hand, and much less mention of it as a mere fact of daily occurrence on the other, than was natural in a varied assemblage of

historical, poetical, and prophetic writings such as we have in the Septuagint. The addition to these simple letters of the other compositions which it is the custom to class with them under the caption of Apostolic Fathers—the homily commonly called II Clement, the book of Church-order known as the Teaching of the Apostles, the lengthy Apocalypse which goes under the name of the Shepherd of Hermas, the anonymous apology called the Epistle to Diognetus— brings no great change into the linguistic character of the whole. So far as the usage of the terms denoting love is concerned, these books are all of a piece, a fact which gives us confidence in viewing them as mirroring the established usage in the Christian churches of the time.

The chief fact which attracts our attention is a negative one: that φιλεῖν, φιλία have practically no place in these writings. Each occurs but a single time; and both in sufficiently weak senses. Ignatius exhorts

Polycarp (ii. 1) thus: "If to good scholars only thou dost feel kindly (φιλῆς), this is not thankworthy in thee; rather bring the pestilent to submission by gentleness." The content of φιλεῖν here lies close to πραΰτης: to love is not much more than being mild and gentle in behavior. Hermas ("Mand.," 10, 1, 4) reprobates being "mixed up in business affairs, and riches, and heathen entanglements (φιλίαις), and the many other concerns of this world." Even φίλος occurs only eight times; and the list of compounds of φιλ-is comparatively small. 143 It looks almost as if φιλεῖν was ready to vanish away. Even ἐρᾶν (Ign.

"Pol.," iv. 3, "Rom.," ii. 1, vii. 2), ἔρως ("Rom.," vii. 2), and στέργειν (1 Clem. i. 3; Polyc. "Philip.," iv. 2) occur more frequently. Στέργειν is used in its fundamental sense of natural affection—here of the love of wives for their husbands—and in one of the instances of its occurrence is brought into contrast with ἀγαπᾶν as a word of deeper intensity of significance: 1 Clem. i. 3: "Loving their own husbands as is meet";

Polyc. "ad Philip.," iv. 2: "And, then, let us teach our wives also to walk in the faith that hath been given unto them, and in ἀγάπῃ and ἀγνείᾳ, στεργοῦσας their own husbands in all truth, and ἀγαπώσας all men equally in all chastity." Ἐρᾶν is in every instance used of "desiring" something or "desiring" to do something—in one case preparing the way for the famous exclamation, which has already been spoken of, "My Ἔρως has been crucified!"

I. I and II ThessaloniansQuite a different state of affairs meets the eye when we look at ἀγαπᾶν and its accompanying noun and verbal adjective. Ἀγαπᾶν occurs about seventy-nine times; ἀγάπη about ninety-four times; and ἀγαπητός about twenty-five times, of which seventeen are in the plural ἀγαπητοί. Ignatius (20, 40, 6) and 1

Clement (8, 27, 18) are the largest depositories of these terms; but ἀγαπᾶν and ἀγάπη at least are fairly well distributed through the whole series of writers. 144 Too much stress must not be laid upon the fact that no instances of the lower senses of ἀγαπᾶν, ἀγάπη occur; that, for example, in no single case is either term used of sexual love. There was little occasion to speak of sexual love in these writings. But it may be worth noting that it almost seems as if ἀγαπᾶν was felt as a contrast to sexual love. When the twelve virgins require Hermas to pass the night with them, at all events, they emphasize that it is to be as a brother and not as a husband; and they add, "Hereafter we will dwell with thee, for we ἀγαπῶμεν thee exceedingly" (Sim. ix. 11, 3; cf. Vis. i. 1, "I began to ἀγαπᾶν her as a sister"). This could scarcely have been said precisely thus, unless ἀγαπᾶν had been felt in the circles for which Hermas wrote as a word of higher than sexual suggestion. A somewhat similar impression may be made when we read in Polycarp ("Philip.," iv. 2) an exhortation to wives to walk in the faith that has been given them, στεργοῦσας their own husbands in all truth, and ἀγαποῦσας all men

equally in all chastity." The words could not easily change places, and ἀγαπᾶν appears to be contrasted with even the purest sexual love.

Saying this, however, is in any event saying too little for these special writings. The usage of ἀγαπᾶν and ἀγάπη alike in them is at the top of their applications. They are here very distinctly words of ethical and spiritual import. This too, no doubt, finds its account less in the implications of the words themselves than in the subjects dealt with in these writings. But it has this not unimportant significance with respect to the words themselves, that, when these high ethical and spiritual aspects of love were dealt with, it was, among the words for love, ἀγαπᾶν and ἀγάπη which suggested themselves to express them; and that with such inevitableness that only these terms were employed for the purpose. No doubt we must keep in consideration that ἀγαπᾶν and ἀγάπη were very distinctly the common words for love and may have been the first terms to suggest themselves for the expression of any kind of love. There were, however, other terms still in use, and they would have been employed had there been any unnaturalness in using ἀγαπᾶν, ἀγάπη in these high senses.

There is an occasional use of ἀγαπᾶν with the infinitive, to express what one "loves" or would "love" to do (e. g., Ign. "Trall.," iv. 2: "I desire to suffer"). But what is almost uniformly expressed by it is the love of the Christian proclamation in its three great exemplifications of the love of God or of Christ to man, the love of God's people to Him or to Christ, and the love of the Christian brethren to one another.

Polycarp accordingly tells (iii. 3) the Philippians that Paul's letter to them had the power to build them up into the faith given to them,

"which is the mother of us all, while hope followeth after, and love goeth before—love," he proceeds to explain, "towards God and Christ and towards our neighbor." Christians are "the children of love," as

Barnabas phrases it; or as Polycarp calls Ignatius and his companions ("Philip.," i. init.) "the followers of the True Love," that is to say, of Christ, here called by the great title of Ἡ Ἀληθῆς Ἀγάπη; and if they are to be imitators of Him who so loved us ("Diog.," x. 3), they must love, "love in Christ," "love according to Jesus Christ." "Faith is the beginning, and love the end of life" (Ign. "Eph.," xiv. 1); "faith and love are all in all and nothing is preferred before them" (Ign. "Smyr.," vi. 1). As a typical passage, exhibiting the lofty sense which these terms had acquired in the familiar speech of these Christians, we may take perhaps the encomium on love which Clement pens to the Corinthians, inciting them to practice it in their own lives. It is full, it is true, of echoes of Paul's great hymn to love in the thirteenth chapter of his own First Letter to the Corinthians; but it is not less representative of the speech of the Apostolic Fathers on that account. "Let him that hath love in Christ," we read (c. 49), "fulfil the commandments of Christ. Who can declare the bond of the love of God? Who is sufficient to tell the majesty of its beauty? The height whereunto love exalteth is unspeakable. Love joineth us with God; love endureth all things, is longsuffering in all things. There is nothing vulgar, nothing arrogant in love. Love hath no divisions, love maketh no seditions, love doeth all things in concord. In love were all God's elect made perfect; without love nothing is well-pleasing to God; in love the Master took us unto

Himself; for the love which He had towards us, Jesus Christ our Lord hath given His blood for us by the will of God, and His flesh for our flesh, and His life for our lives. Ye see, dearly beloved, how great and marvelous a thing is love, and there is no declaring its perfection. Who is sufficient to be found therein save those to whom God shall vouchsafe it?" It is this kind of love which, in the Apostolic Fathers, ἀγαπᾶν and ἀγάπη are practically exclusively used to express. "Oh the

exceeding great φιλανθρωπία καὶ ἀγάπη of God" ("Diog.," ix. 2):

"How wilt thou ἀγαπήσας Him that so προαγαπήσαντα a thee!" (x. 2– 3): "Now He that raised Him from the dead will raise us also if ἀγαπῶμεν the things that He ἠγάπησεν" (Polyc. "Philip.," ii. 2). This is the circle through which the idea of love runs in them.

It ought perhaps to be mentioned before we leave the subject that in Ign. "Smyrn.," viii. 2 we have an instance of a usage of ἀγάπη created by Christianity and vocal with the significance which love had for Christianity. "It is not lawful," we read, "apart from the bishop either to baptize or ἀγάπην ποιεῖν"—that is to say, as the parallel with baptizing suggests, "celebrate the Lord's Supper." 145 The Lord's

Supper was the feast of love. "I wish the bread of God," says Ignatius in another place ("Rom.," vii. 3), "which is the flesh of Christ, who was the seed of David; and I wish for a draught of His blood, which is love (ἀγάπη) incorruptible." And in yet another place ("Trall.," viii. 1):

"Do ye, then, arm yourselves with gentleness and recover yourselves in faith, which is the flesh of the Lord, and in love (ἀγάπη) which is the blood of Jesus Christ." An extension of the usage of ἀγάπη like this is vocal with the place which the conception and the word had taken in the Christian community.

The New Testament stands between the Septuagint and the Apostolic Fathers, receiving from the one, giving to the other, sharing the particular type of Greek common to both. In this type of Greek, ἀγαπᾶν, ἀγάπη had become the general terms for the expression of love; and the Greek of the New Testament participates fully in this usage. Ἀγαπᾶν occurs about a hundred and forty-one times in the New

Testament, ἀγάπη about a hundred and eighteen times, and ἀγαπητός about sixty-one times, while φιλεῖν (excluding three instances in which it means "to kiss": Mat. 26:48, Mk. 14:44, Lk. 22:47) occurs only

about twenty-two times, φιλία but once, and even φίλος only about twenty-nine times. Ἐρᾶν, ἔρως, and στέργειν, στοργή do not occur at all. It is perhaps worth while also to observe the distribution of the several terms through the New Testament. The book of Acts contains no one of them except φίλος (10:24, 19:31, 27:3) and ἀγαπητός

(15:25). 146 Hebrews has ἀγαπᾶν and ἀγάπη each twice; James ἀγαπᾶν three times and φιλία once—the only occurrence of φιλία in the New

Testament; I Peter ἀγαπᾶν four times and ἀγάπη three times; II Peter ἀγαπᾶν twice and ἀγάπη twice; Jude ἀγαπᾶν once and ἀγάπη three times. Φιλεῖν does not occur in Hebrews or any of the Catholic

Epistles; φιλῖα only in James. In the Synoptic Gospels ἀγαπᾶν occurs twenty-three times (8, 6, 9), φιλεῖν five times (4, 0, 1); ἀγάπη only twice (once each in Matthew and Luke). The great depository of ἀγαπᾶν is John: it occurs thirty-seven times in the Gospel, twenty-eight times in the First Epistle, and twice and once in II and III John respectively—making sixty-eight times in all, to which may be added four times in Revelation. Next to John comes Paul, with thirty-three occurrences, distributed through all the epistles except Philippians,

Philemon, II Timothy, and Titus. Ephesians is the most copiously supplied of the Epistles (ten times), and Romans next (seven times).

With ἀγάπη the tables are turned. It is predominately a Pauline term, being found in every epistle without exception (I Cor. fourteen, II Cor. ten, Eph. ten, showing the highest figures), and totaling seventy-eight occurrences. Over against this copious use by Paul, it is found in John only twenty-eight times (Gospel seven times, I John eighteen, II John two, III John one, to which Rev. adds two). Ἀγαπητός also is a Pauline term, its sixty-one occurrences being distributed thus: Synoptic

Gospels nine times, Acts once, Paul twenty times, Hebrews once, James three times, Peter eight times, Jude three times, John's Epistles

ten times. It is particularly in the Gospels that φιλεῖν is used: in John thirteen times, and in the Synoptics five (4, 0, 1). In all of Paul's epistles it occurs but twice, twice also in Revelation, and nowhere else in the New Testament. We may perhaps generalize by saying that ἀγαπᾶν is distributed fairly evenly through the New Testament with some accumulation in the Gospel and First Epistle of John; that ἀγάπη is predominantly a Pauline word with a secondary depository in I John; and that φιλεῖν belongs particularly to the Gospel of John and after that to the Synoptics.

The highly preponderating use of ἀγαπᾶν, ἀγάπη in the New Testament is not due primarily to the deliberate selection of these terms by the writers of the New Testament as the fittest to express the high idea of love to which they had to give expression, though they were the fittest of Greek words to express this high idea and had moreover been prepared to express it by their usage in the Septuagint. 147 It is due primarily to the currency of these terms in the Greek native to the New

Testament writers as the general terms for love—for love at its highest, no doubt, but also for love at its lowest. There can be little doubt that, had the New Testament writers had occasion to speak at large of sexual love—to write, for example, a series of narratives like those of Genesis

24 and Judges 16 and 1 Samuel 13—they would have employed ἀγαπᾶν and ἀγάπη in them just as the writers of the Septuagint have done. Ballantine is so far quite right, when, criticizing Trench's suggestion that the explanation of the absence of ἔρως, ἐρᾶν, ἐραστής from the New Testament is, no doubt, in part "that these words" by the corrupt use of the world "had become so steeped in earthly sensuous passion," carried such an atmosphere of this about with them, "that the truth of God abstained from the defiling contact with them," he declares 148 that "This family of words was not used for Christian love

for the very same reason that ἐπιθυμέω and its family were not used, namely, because they were not the general words in Hellenistic Greek for love." When he proceeds to say that "they were not used in their own proper senses simply because there was no occasion to refer to those ideas by any words," he is right in the main affirmation, but wrong, as we have seen, in seeming to assign sexual love to ἐρᾶν, ἔρως as their "proper sense." The simple truth is that the New Testament writers use ἀγαπᾶν, ἀγάπη to express the idea of love because it was the word for love current in their circle and lying thus directly in their way. They do not use ἐρᾶν, ἔρως, στέργειν, στοργή because they had no such occasion, in speaking of love, to throw up into emphasis the peculiar implications of these words—of passion or of nature—as to demand their employment. So far as such occasion arose, they had no difficulty with the words (Rev. 12:10, φιλόστοργος; Rom. 1:31, 2 Tim.

3:3, ἄστοργος). They do not push φιλεῖν into the background; they found it in the background,—from which they do not draw it, not because they looked upon it as a base word, but because it had become too inexpressive a word to meet their needs, especially since the Septuagint had communicated to the ordinarily current word for love additional shades of suggestion which enlarged its range of application precisely on the side on which the New Testament writers desired to speak of love. When φιλεῖν served their purpose better than ἀγαπᾶν, they used φιλεῖν; but this use could not escape being exceptional just because ἀγαπᾶν had become the general word for love, and the Septuagint had prepared it for New Testament use by filling it with the content which the New Testament writers most needed to express.

In the actual use which the New Testament writers make of φιλεῖν it is made evident that its distinctive suggestions have not faded out of sight; it is because of these distinctive suggestions that the New

Testament writers occasionally make use of it—as it was doubtless because of them that it maintained its shrunken, if we cannot yet say its precarious, existence in the current speech of the day. It is meaningless for Gildersleeve to say that "The larger use of ἀγαπᾶν in Christian writers is perhaps due to the avoidance of φιλεῖν in the sense of 'kissing,' " although Moulton and Milligan think it worth while to quote the remark. And we can hardly account for Woolsey's suggestion that "The increased use of ἀγάπη and its family in the Septuagint and in the Christian Scriptures is probably to be accounted for by the frequent use of φιλεῖν and its derivatives in denoting sensual love, and in covering up foul acts under the veil of words so common and important." Ἀγαπᾶν had itself been current from its earliest recorded usage in senses as external as "kissing"; and in the Septuagint itself it is employed in senses quite as foul as any for which φιλεῖν was ever used. Ballantine's remark is again quite apposite: "If husbands are commanded to ἀγαπᾶν their wives because the other verb would have suggested sensual passion, it is unaccountable that wives should be commanded to be φίλανδροι (Tit. 2:4). If men are not commanded to φιλεῖν God, as being inappropriate, it is strange that they are condemned for not being φιλόθεοι (2 Tim. 3:4)." The plain fact is that φιλεῖν had come to be comparatively little used because, ἀγαπᾶν having superseded it as the general term for love in common use, there was very little need for it. It had shrunken from the general term for love to the designation of a particular aspect of love, and was called for only when this particular aspect of love required emphasizing.

It is only right, then, that we should look, in each instance of its employment, for the reason why φιλεῖν is preferred instead of the prevailing ἀγαπᾶν. That such a reason exists it is natural to assume. It is not easy to believe that a body of writers have deserted their habitual

usage in a few instances without some reason for it. This reason may, no doubt, be found in merely grammatical or purely rhetorical considerations, or in personal habits of speech belonging to individual writers; but it may also be rooted in the underlying implications of the words themselves by which a rarer form is given the advantage in special circumstances. It may not be easy to trace it; but pure caprice is not to be lightly assumed; and ordinarily some special fitness in the language actually employed may at least be suggested, if not actually shown. We may take the usage of Paul as an example. It is sheerly incredible that he should desert his copious use of ἀγαπᾶν (ἀγάπη) in just two instances in favor of φιλεῖν without some reason for it. We may perhaps see that reason in the more pointed suggestion of personal predilection which φιλεῖν conveys. This appears fairly clear in the case of 1 Cor. 16:22, when we observe that οὐ φιλεῖ there, in accordance with a frequent usage of οὐ in conditional clauses, coalesce in a sharply positive notion, so that we are to read, not "If anyone falls short of really loving the Lord," but, "If anyone not-loves the Lord"—that is to say, "hates Him." Φιλεῖν rather than ἀγαπᾶν is the proper word to use, remarks T. C. Edwards, because it expresses a natural affection, in this negative statement a personal antipathy. Paul "is thinking of a deepseated antipathy, a malignant hatred of Jesus Christ": "If anyone turns away from Jesus Christ with antipathy." It is not of failure to love Jesus

Christ supremely of which Paul is speaking; it is of failure to love Him at all. It is more difficult to see our way in Tit. 3:15, "Salute them that love us in faith"; but the same general influences may not improperly be assumed to have determined the language here too. As Huther remarks, φιλεῖν may here mark "the inner personal relation." In other words, Paul is sending greetings to certain personal friends in the Christian body. The addition of ἐν πίστει is not fatal to this assumption.

It may mean no more than that these friends of Paul's were also fellowChristians (cf. for the order of the words, Eph. 6:1).

When we turn to the larger body of instances which confront us in the Synoptic Gospels, we find ourselves in the same atmosphere. Only in a single passage has φιλεῖν a personal object, Mat. 10:37: "He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me." Th. Zahn's comment seems to meet the case: "Jesus declares him unworthy of Him, who, in the case of the decision under consideration, permits love to parents and children to obtain the upper hand of love to Jesus (cf.

8:21 ff.). Through the contrast with kindred, to whom we are bound by natural love, already prepared for in verse 25 (οἰκιακοί, as verse 36), it is brought about that Jesus here represents the right relation to His person by φιλεῖν, not by ἀγαπᾶν (5:43–46, 6:24), because only φιλεῖν clearly expresses the hearty affection (Zuneigung) which roots in affinity—whether bodily or elective." That is to say the love of Jesus' people for Him is expressed here by φιλεῖν because thus it is brought expressly into comparison with the love of affinity: this spiritual affinity is to take precedence of all other. What He is saying is, not that His people must give their supreme love to Him rather than others, but that they must manifest in their conduct that their fundamental inclination, "drawing," is to Him above others; He must be supremely attractive to them.

In the other Synoptic instances φιλεῖν is followed by the accusative of the thing (Mt. 23:6, Lk. 20:46), or in one case (Mt. 6:5) construed in the same sense with the infinitive—the only passage in the New

Testament in which either φιλεῖν or ἀγαπᾶν is construed with the infinitive. From the point of view of the classical usage, φιλεῖν is properly used in these passages; and it bears its ordinary classical sense

in them 149—which is not quite the sense that ἀγαπᾶν bears in similar constructions. In its best classical usage, ἀγαπᾶν with the accusative of the thing means not so much to like a thing, to be pleased with it, as to content oneself with it; with the infinitive not so much to be wont to do a thing, as to put up with it. Meyer is perfectly right, then, when he finds φιλεῖν the proper word at Mt. 6:5, and comments: "They have pleasure in it, they love to do it—a usage frequently met with in the classical writers." We must note, however, that ἀγαπᾶν with the infinitive had already acquired this sense in the Septuagint (e. g., Ps.

33:13, Prov. 20:16, Jer. 5:31, 14:10), and is repeatedly used in the New Testament with the accusative of the thing in the sense of liking, taking pleasure in, 150 not of contenting ourselves with, putting up with; and indeed we have merely to turn to Lk. 11:43 to find ἀγαπᾶν instead of φιλεῖν in a passage which seems the exact parallel of Mt. 23:6, although φιλεῖν is used at Lk. 20:46. We are in the presence, here, apparently of an unsettled usage. It seems still to be more natural to use φιλεῖν in the sense of liking things, or of liking to do things; but ἀγαπᾶν is fast encroaching upon it in this usage also.

So long as φιλεῖν remained in use at all in this sense, one would think it would be inevitable in such a passage as Rev. 22:15: "Without are the dogs, and the sorcerers, and the fornicators, and the murderers, and the idolaters, and everyone that loveth and doeth a lie." It is a personal affinity with the false, inward kinship with it, leading to its outward practice, which is intimated; 151 and this is even more emphatically asserted if the other order of the words be adopted, and the progress of thought be from the mere doing of a lie to personal identification with it. The use of φιλεῖν in Rev. 3:19 is probably determined by the contrast between the treatment described and the sentiment asserted. What our Lord is saying is that reproof and

chastening from Him are proof, not of hatred but of love; and it was natural to employ in this assertion the most personal and therefore in such a connexion the most emotional term for love. The emphasis on the pronoun should not be neglected: "As for me, whomsoever I love, I reprove and chasten." The most intimate relations are suggested, and the most intimate feelings are naturally put forward: it is the love of a parent disciplining his child for its good which is pictured. And the use of φιλεῖν is all the more striking, that in the underlying passage, Prov.

3:12, "For whom the Lord loves, He rebukes," ἀγαπᾶν is the word employed. There is an advance made even on this affecting passage of Proverbs in tenderness of expression. 152

It is especially in the Gospel of John that φιλεῖν occurs (thirteen times), as indeed does ἀγαπᾶν also (thirty-seven times). 153 In about one out of every four instances of the occurrence of a verb for love in this Gospel, φιλεῖν is employed; the proportion is even greater for Revelation, no doubt (one out of three), and not very much less in the Synoptic Gospels, but the absolute number of occurrences in these cases is not large enough to be impressive. In all of its occurrences in John's Gospel, moreover, except one (12:25), φιλεῖν has a personal object. The single instance in which it is construed with the accusative of a thing (12:25) is altogether similar to the instances of like construction in the Synoptic Gospels and Revelation. Loving is brought in it into sharp contrast with hating: "He who loves his life shall lose it, and he who hates his life in this world shall preserve it unto eternal life." It is a proverbial saying of universal application, adduced here in support of the solemn declaration of the preceding verse that fruit-bearing comes through sacrifice. The loving of life spoken of, then, is such pleasure in it, such a fixing of the heart upon it and doting on it, that nothing else comes into consideration in

comparison with it. Pure joy in living, says our Lord in effect, is a short-sighted policy, because there lies something beyond this living which is absorbing our attention. Undoubtedly φιλεῖν is the appropriate word to express this idea, and has a pungency when employed to express it which the more customary ἀγαπᾶν would lack.

In one of the instances in John in which the object is personal, the subject is "the world"; and those whom the world is said to love are described as "its own" (15:19): "If the world hateth you, ye know that it hath hated me first: if ye were of the world, the world would love its own; but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." The appropriateness of φιλεῖν here is striking: it is very especially adapted to express the love of inner affinity—the love that grows out of the perception of something in the object especially attractive to the subject; and inner affinity is precisely what is emphasized here. Had ἀγαπᾶν been used, the simple fact of the love would be stated, and the fitness, inevitableness, of the love and hatred spoken of would have remained unexpressed. 154

In two other instances what is spoken of is the love of the man Jesus for a friend (11:3, 36, cf. 11:11): "Behold, he whom Thou lovest is sick"; "Behold, how He loved him!" Here, too, the use of φιλεῖν is so obviously appropriate as to seem inevitable; the love of friendship might almost seem to be the special field of φιλεῖν. Ἀγαπᾶν of course, could have been employed in its stead. It is actually used in 11:5, where the Evangelist states the simple objective fact, for the purpose of his narrative: "Now Jesus ἠγάπα Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus"; that is to say, Jesus felt sincere regard for them. Φιλεῖν is used when the words are taken off of the lips of the anxious sisters in their petition for aid, and of the Jews when they observed Jesus' tears. It emphasizes

the personal intimacy of the affection, such personal intimacy as justified the appeal to Him for prompt aid, and His tears at the grave. 155 It is Jesus' human heart which is here unveiled to us.

Quite close to these instances lies the employment of φιλεῖν in 20:2 to express the affection of Jesus for John and Peter. Mary Magdalene, we are told, when she saw the stone removed from the grave on the Resurrection morn, "runneth and cometh to Simon Peter and the other disciple whom Jesus loved (ἐφίλει)"—where it seems most natural to understand both disciples to be described as loved by Jesus. 156 "The disciple whom Jesus ἠγάπα" is the standing description of John in the latter part of the Gospel (13:23, 19:26, 21:7, 20); and obviously ἠγάπα is used in this description of intimate personal affection, and not of what we may speak of as the official love of Jesus for His disciples or of the saving love of the Redeemer for His children. Woolsey does not go too far, when, having regard to the imperfect tense, he remarks: 157

"It was an intimacy between the Master and the disciple of no short acquaintance.… He loved him with a continuous love." It has disturbed the commentators, therefore, that in the one instance of 20:2, ἐφίλει has displaced the ἠγάπα. One has been tempted to say it is because Peter is included with John in this one instance, to which it has been added that Peter was now under a cloud. Another has gone a step further and suggested that it is because "the beloved disciple himself had temporarily fallen into unbelief and was for the moment not worthy of the higher love" expressed by ἀγαπᾶν. 158 These suggestions take for granted that ἀγαπᾶν, even in such a connexion, conveys a "higher" sense than φιλεῖν. Such an assumption underlies Woolsey's description of Jesus' love for John, as expressed in the ἠγάπα, not only in such terms as this: "He discerned in His disciple lovely traits.… His love for John was a tried, strong, personal love, such as the man Jesus could

feel for some souls with especial endowments which few possessed"; but also in such as these: "And it was a religious love which no one could so correctly feel as He who had an intuitive knowledge of hearts.… It was an earthly love of a heavenly soul." 159 Φιλεῖν, it is suggested, might be used to denote such love as this, but it could not express it; ἀγαπᾶν alone could express it, and would be the only natural word to employ in order to express it. This seems to leave the question, Why, then, is ἠγάπα replaced by ἐφίλει in John 20:2, more clamorous than ever. Woolsey's own explanation 160 is not very clear, and indeed does not profess to be. "It is in this place," he says, "not altogether plain why ἐφίλει is used instead of ἠγάπα. Meyer, in his remark on the passage, says that ἐφίλει expresses the remembrance of Christ with a more tender sensibility, 161 to which B. Weiss seems to assent. Westcott 162 in like manner thinks that a personal affection is more strikingly shown than it would be by ἠγάπα. The Vulgate translates as elsewhere by amabat. All these explanations concur in something like this: That Jesus was conceived of under the power of a new affection." The meaning of this appears to be that in the interval between the death of our Lord and their assurance that He had entered upon His heavenly dominion, the disciples dropped into both thinking and speaking of Him from the point of view of His humanity. This involves the assumptions that ἐφίλει is here employed from Mary

Magdalene's standpoint, or at least from the standpoint of the incident described, not from that of the Evangelist, writing after the recovery of faith; and that ἠγάπα was a word of such high significance that it would be inappropriate to use it of a simple man's affection for his friends. We transcribe, however, Woolsey's own exposition of his not very clear meaning: "It was natural that, when the Lord showed

Himself again to His disciples, they could not but feel a want of

nearness and familiarity which helped them in their earthly intercourse with Him. Until their faith grew, and they believed more joyfully in their divine Master, the human sight and presence were supports which sustained them while away from Him. But ἀγαπῶ returns in 21:15 and 20, as to the divine Saviour, as soon as the presence of Jesus began to be apprehended again by the help of sight. Faith grew stronger, and the loss of Jesus' presence was an enlargement of the sway of the nobler principle, and was no more felt to be an absence."

Perhaps the difficulty we feel in accounting for ἐφίλει at John 20:2 arises in large part from approaching the question from only one side.

We begin with the ἠγάπα of 13:23, 19:26, 21:7, 20, and ask why the alteration to ἐφίλει in 20:2. Let us reverse the question, and ask why ἠγάπα is used in 13:23 and its companions. In itself considered, ἐφίλει is altogether in place in 20:2; this is the proper word to express the love of friendship, however warm. What really needs accounting for is why in the parallel passages ἠγάπα is used instead. It is customary to think at once of the high connotations of ἀγαπᾶν, and to develop, as Woolsey does, the aspects of nobility which may be discovered in Jesus' love for John. It may be easier to say simply that, in the type of Greek employed in the New Testament, ἀγαπᾶν was the current word for love, and was consequently in place whenever love of any kind was spoken of; and that the only thing that is illustrated by the appearance of ἐφίλει in 20:2 is the emergence on one occasion of the more exact term for the particular variety of love that is here in question. Ἐφίλει might have stood in 13:23 and its companions, and ἠγάπα might have stood in 20:2; in the former case the more specific word would have been used in all the instances, in the latter the more general. We learn from the actual distribution of the usage nothing of the specific meaning of ἀγαπᾶν; but we do learn something of the specific meaning

of φιλεῖν. If we demand that a reason shall be rendered for the replacing of the general by the specific term just at 20:2 and nowhere else, we do not know that a satisfactory answer can be given. We can only say that such an explanation as Meyer's is not without plausibility

—that the circumstances he was in the act of narrating flooded John's mind as he wrote with an especially tender reminiscence of his

Master's human love for His disciples.

From a passage like John 21:15–17 we learn something of the specific meaning of both words. The two words appear here side by side in contrast with one another, with the inevitable result that what is distinctive of each is thrown into relief. That anyone should doubt that the words are used here in distinctive senses would seem incredible prior to experience. The list of those who have expressed such doubt, however, is neither short nor undistinguished, running as it does from Grotius to Gildersleeve. 163 It is, however, as Moulton and Milligan remark, 164 "in so severely simple a writer as John it is extremely hard to reconcile ourselves to a meaningless use of synonyms, where the point would seem to lie in the identity of the word employed." In point of fact, our Lord does not put to Peter three times over the same question. Altering the question progressively, He drives the probe into Peter's conscience deeper and deeper. On the first occasion Jesus asks him: "Simon, son of John, dost thou ἀγαπᾷς me more than these?"— have you a deeper devotion 165 to me than the rest of my disciples? In his answer, spoken in deep humility, the repentant Peter avoids all comparison with his fellows, and merely asseverates his personal love for his master: "Assuredly, Lord; thou knowest that I φιλῶ Thee." In His second question, Jesus accordingly omits the comparison, and asks of Peter only whether he himself has the requisite devotion to His person: "He saith to him again, a second time, Simon, son of John,

ἀγαπᾷς me?" Again Peter responds in the same humble spirit as before, waiving the question of proper devotion, and asseverating only his personal affection: "Assuredly Lord; Thou knowest that I φιλῶ Thee."

Then, the third time, Jesus pushes the probe to the bottom and demands of Peter with sharp directness and brevity whether he has any real affection for Him: "He saith to him the third time, Simon, son of John, dost thou φιλεῖς me?" "And Peter was grieved because He said to him this third time, Dost thou φιλεῖς me? and he saith to Him" (omitting this time the asseveration, "Assuredly," because the precise assertion he had to make had been called in question), "Lord, Thou knowest all things; Thou dost see" (surely, surely the Lord must see it!) "that I φιλῶ Thee."

Of course there is no question here of our Lord's question, "Dost thou ἀγαπᾷς me?" "sounding too cold to Peter," because all the pulses of his heart were beating with earnest affection toward his Lord. 166 It is "humility and a feeling of un-worthiness which leads Peter to choose another expression." 167 He could not in his heart-broken penitence assert of himself the ἀγαπᾶν which he had not illustrated in his acts; but he could not be false to his deep sense of real affection. Ἀγαπᾶν and φιλείν emerge, therefore, as respectively the love of complete devotion and the love (as Meyer phrases it) "of personal heart emotion"; the love of surrendering obedience and the love (as Westcott phrases it) of "personal attachment," "the feeling of natural love." Th.

Zahn supposes 168 that the question of our Lord to Peter had as one of its ends, "bringing him to the consciousness that the love of the Lord which is a mark of a right disciple and the spring of his duty-doing, is not a matter of natural temperament, but a fruit of victory over inborn nature." 169 Therefore he supposes Him, avoiding the term which expresses the product of the natural temperament, to ask Peter whether

he loved Him in this way; whereas Peter clings to the simple asseveration of his natural personal love to Jesus—until our Lord is driven, in order to prove his heart fully, to challenge that also, and so to compel Peter to face the possibility that even this personal love for his master had failed. Whatever may be said of the details of this exposition, it is certainly sound so far as this: that in this conversation ἀγαπᾶν and φιλεῖν are brought into contrast as in a sense the higher and the lower love—although these terms are somewhat infelicitous and may be misleading; perhaps we would better say, as the love of reverent devotion and the love of emotional attachment. And what is of most importance to observe is that the term which bore in its bosom the implication of reverent devotion had become for the men of the New

Testament age the general word for love, while the term which expressed in its native suggestion the love of emotional attachment was in process of passing out of use. It is difficult to overstate the importance of this fact for the ready expression of the new revelation of love which the New Testament brought, in terms of current speech.

The term which it was most natural to use of love, and which was in most familiar use among the people for love, was a term of such native connotation that it readily received and intelligibly expressed the new revelation of love.

Three instances alone remain, in which φιλεῖν is used by John, and in these three instances it is used of love in its highest relations. In one of them it expresses the love of Christ's people for Him their divine

Saviour (16:27); in another, the love of the Father for His people (16:27); in the last, the love of the Father for His Son (5:20). Here we are scaling the heights, and are discovering that φιλεῖν is not too low a word to be applied to the love which God Himself feels, or the love to God's only Son, whether on the part of His people, or even on the part

of His Father. It is quite clear that the intrinsic implication of φιλεῖν is not low, not to say evil. It is differentiated from ἀγαπᾶν fundamentally by the side from which it approaches love and the aspect in which it describes it. It is applicable to all love which can be approached from that side or viewed in that aspect. If it is prevailingly employed in the New Testament of the lower grades of love, that is only because these lower grades of love are more naturally approached from the point of view from which φιλεῖν approaches love, and the comparative rarity of its occurrences afforded few opportunities for its application to exercises of love of the higher order. We must bear in mind that ἀγαπᾶν is the general term for love in the New Testament, and the use of φιλεῖν is in any event exceptional. We could expect it to be employed for manifestations of love such as in their nature ἀγαπᾶν would naturally express, only in the few instances in which, for one reason or another, it was desirable to throw up into view the aspect which φιλεῖν naturally expresses.

An example is supplied by 5:20: "For the Father φιλεῖ the Son and showeth Him all that He doeth"—the only passage in the New

Testament in which the love of the Father to the Son is described otherwise than by ἀγαπᾶν. As compared with 3:35: "The Father ἀγαπᾷ the Son and hath given all things into His hand," this passage might, on a surface view, be taken as a mere repetition of that, with a meaningless change in the verb. Such is, however, not the case; the difference in the verbs corresponds with an important difference in the sense conveyed. The thought of 3:35 is fixed on the greatness of the Son whom the Father honors by His love; in 5:20 it is fixed on the fatherly tenderness with which the Father loves the Son. Zahn very properly comments, therefore: "Φιλεῖν was more suitable here than the ἀγαπᾶν of the otherwise parallel sentence in 3:35, because φιλεῖν

recalls the natural affection of the human father to his son, or of a friend to a friend, in contrast, say, with the relation of the master to the servant (15:13–15)." 170

A similar account may be given of the two instances in 16:27: "For the Father Himself loveth you, because ye have loved Me, and have believed that I have come forth from with the Father." This is the only place in the New Testament where God is said to φιλεῖν man—though it would be better to say, His children, for that enters into the case (but see Rev. 3:19). And this is also the only place where φιλεῖν is used "of the affection of the disciples for their Lord" (yet consult 21:17 and 1

Cor. 16:22). Horn comments: 171 "The ὁ πατὴρ φιλεῖ ὑμᾶς of 16:27 has a different meaning from 3:16: οὕτως γὰρ ἠγάπησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν κόσμον. The latter is pitying love to the as yet unredeemed world, alien to God; the former is the natural pleasure of the Father in His believers, approved as faithful." 172 He adds in a note: "ἀγαπᾶν could, of course, stand here, as in the similar passage, 17:23 'in order that the world may know that Thou didst send me and didst love them even as Thou didst love me'; but the sense would not be precisely the same." What the difference in the sense of the two passages is, Horn does not tell us— although that is the particular point under discussion. Commenting on 17:23, he says, indeed: "In 17:23 the love of the Father to the disciples is spoken of as ἀγαπᾶν, since it belongs to them (cf. 20) because of their faith in Jesus." If that, however, would require ἀγαπᾶν to be used, it surely would have been used in both passages. And it looks as if φιλεῖν as the expression of the love of affinities would be equally appropriate in both passages. Perhaps it is enough to say that ἀγαπᾶν is used as a matter of course in 17:23, as the general word for love in common use—it needs no accounting for; while φιλεῖν in 16:27 is used to emphasize the affinity between God and His believers.

The abstract substantive connected with φιλεῖν—φιλία—occurs only a single time in the New Testament, Jas. 4:4, where we read the arraignment: "Adulteresses! know ye not that the φιλία of the world is enmity with God?" It is customary to render φιλία here by "friendship," a course which the φίλος of the next clause makes especially convenient. But it may be well to guard against attributing to it too specific a notion. The implication is that of finding one's pleasure, satisfaction, in the world, with a suggestion that by this one's affinity with the world is betrayed. The notion is similar to that expressed in John 15:19: "If ye were of the world, the world would love its own"—for φιλία intimates mutual affection. To be at friends with the world is to love and to be loved by the world, to be bound by mutual ties to it. Ἀγαπᾶν would scarcely have expressed so much.

It may fairly be claimed that a survey of the passages in which φιλεῖν, φιλία occur leaves an impression of the naturalness of their use in these cases. But what should be kept ever fresh in mind is that the employment of them is highly exceptional, and rests on a background of a very copious use of ἀγαπᾶν, ἀγάπη—chiefly to express the great conceptions of love which permeate the Christian revelation. The equipment of the New Testament to express the idea of love consists, thus, in the possession in ἀγαπᾶν, ἀγάπη, of a high general term the native suggestion of which was a worthy one, and which had already been trained by the writers of the Septuagint to receive the great conceptions of revealed religion; and the possession by its side, of a subsidiary term by which, when occasion offered, a special aspect of love could be thrown into view—that aspect, to wit, in which love appears as the response of the soul to the perception of something which pleases it, is congenial to it, in the object. This is, to be sure, not as rich an equipment as was possessed by the Greek of the classical

writers. It possessed four terms φιλεῖν, φιλία; ἐρᾶν, ἔρως; στέργειν, στοργή; ἀγαπᾶν, ἀγάπησις. But the comparative poverty of its terminology is offset in the case of the New Testament by the intrinsic superiority of its general term for love, ἀγαπᾶν, and by the higher content which it had acquired by its employment to express the conceptions of love embodied in the divine revelation. We must guard also against supposing that the resources for its expression of loving activities were absolutely exhausted by these, its direct vehicles. There were other terms which it might call to its aid when it wished to speak of love in one or another of its active exercises. There were such terms, for example, as οἰκτείρω, ἐλεέω, σπλαγχνίζομαι, with their accompanying substantives, and above all there was χάρις. As it was this aspect of love—love in gracious action—that the New Testament writers had most occasion to celebrate, their vocabulary was not quite so restricted as it sounds, when we say that only ἀγαπᾶν, ἀγάπη, with an exceptional use of φιλεῖν, φιλία, lay at their disposal.

It does not fall within our present purpose, however, to discuss the number and variety, or the nature and use, of such a subsidiary vocabulary. Let it only be further noted that compounds in φιλ-are in the New Testament, as in the Greek literature of all ages, numerous, 173 and that some of these compounds were significant, on one side or another, for the expression of love. We may mention, for example, such as φιλαδελφία (five times), φιλάδελφος (once), φίλανδρος (once), φιλανθρωπία (twice), φιλανθρώπος (once), φιλόθεος (once), φιλοξενία

(twice), φιλόξενος (three times), φιλόστοργος 174 (once), φιλοτέκνος (once). By the aid of such forms a number of modifications of the idea of love are given expression. After all said, however, it is not the variety of the vehicles for the expression of love for which the New

Testament is notable, but the depth and height of the conception of love

which it is able to express through its fundamental terms, ἀγαπᾶν and ἀγάπη. The great fact which comes to view is that, in the providence of God, the noblest word which the Greek language afforded for the expression of love came into its hands as the natural term for it to use to express its conception of love, and that, as already trained to express love at the height of its conception by its use for that purpose in the Septuagint version of the Old Testament.

Literature. J. H. Heinrich Schmidt, "Synonymik der griechischen Sprache," III, 1879, pp. 474–491 (= § 136: on ἐρᾶν, φιλεῖν, στέργειν, ἀγαπᾶν). Edward Meredith Cope, on στοργή, ἔρως, φιλεῖν, ἀγαπᾶν, in "The Rhetoric of Aristotle, with a Commentary," 1877, v. i, pp. 292–

296 (printed also in the Journal of Philology, v. i, No. 1 (1868), pp.

88–93). J. B. Light-foot, in The Cambridge Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, v. iii, (1857), No. 7, pp. 92ff. (see also Lightfoot's comment on Ignatius, "Rom.," vii, p. 222). R. C. Trench, "Synonyms of the New Testament," 9th ed., 1880, xii, on ἀγαπάω, φιλέω. J. A. H.

Tittmann, "Remarks on the Synonyms of the N. T.," E. T. in "The Biblical Cabinet," v. iii, 1833, pp. 90–97. Hermann Cremer, "Biblischtheologisches Wörterbuch der Neutestamentlichen Gräcität," 10th ed.,

1915, sub voc. E. Buonaiuti, "I vocaboli d'amore nel Nuovo Testamento," in the "Rivista Storico-critica di Scienze Teologiche," v. v, 1909, pp. 257–264. E. Höhne, "Zum Neutestamentlichen

Sprachgebrauch: 1. 'Ἀγαπᾶν, φιλεῖν, σπλαγχνίζεσθαι," in Luthardt's Zeitschrift für k. Wissenschaft und k. Leben, III, 1882, pp. 6–19. K. A.

G. von Zezschwitz, "Profangräcität und biblischer Sprachgeist," 1859, p. 62. W. G. Ballantine, "Lovest Thou Me?" in "Bibliotheca Sacra,"

July 1889, v. xlvi, pp. 524–542. Sally Neil Roach, "Love in Its Relation to Service," in The Review and Expositor, 1913, v. x, pp. 531–

553. T. D. Woolsey, "The Disciple Whom Jesus Loved," in The

Andover Review, iv. 1885, August, pp. 163–185. G. A. Deissmann, "Bible Studies," E. T., 1901, pp. 198ff. W. M. Ramsay, The Expository

Times, 19. p. 568. Fr. Vermeil, "Étude sur le 21, Chap, de l'Évang. selon S. Jean," 1861. John A. Cross, "On St. John 21:15–17," in The Expositor, iv. vii., 1893, pp. 312–320. Henry Burton, "The Breakfast on the Shore," in The Expositor v. i, 1895, pp. 450–472. A. Klöpper,

"Das 21. Kap. des 4. Evang. erläutert," in Zeitschrift für wiss.

Theologie, 1899, pp. 337–381. Max Eberhardt, "Evang. Joh. c. 21; ein exeget. Versuch," 1897. K. Horn, "Abfassung, Geschichtlichkeit und

Zweck vom Evang. des Johannes, Kap. 21.," 1904, pp. 167–171. R. H.

Strachan, "The Appendix to the Fourth Gospel," in The Expositor, 8, 7, 1914, pp. 263ff. H. W. Magoun, "The Bible Champion," Oct. and Nov.

1919, pp. 404 ff., 446 ff.

1. Στέργειν, στοργή are not found in Homer, but are in good Attic use, and, though not of such common occurrence as, say φιλεῖν, φιλία, yet remain in constant employment throughout the whole history of the language, and apparently survive in modern Greek. N. Contopoulos in his

"Modern Greek and English Dictionary," at least, lists both, with the definitions, for στέργω, of "to consent, to agree, to comply, to answer; to embrace with natural affection; to love"; and for στοργή, "tenderness, affection." Its etymology seems to be obscure. W. Prellwitz, "Etym.

Wörterb2.," 1905, records only Keltic analogies, with a reference to Stokes, BB. 23. 58.

2. "Synonymik der griechischen Sprache," iii, 1879, p. 480 (136. § 4).

3. Plutarch, "Pericles," 24 (ed. B. Perrin, pp. 70–71).

4. "The Greek Anthology," v, 180 (ed. W. R. Paton, I, p. 216). Other instances of the use of στέργειν, στοργή of illicit love are found in v, 8 (p. 132); v, 166 (p. 206); v, 191 (p. 222); vii,

476 (v. ii, p. 258). In v, 180 (p. 216) we have also an instance of the use of στέργει with object of thing in the sense of yearning: "And yearns for anger like the waves."

5. Xenophon, "Symposium," viii, 14: cf. 21.

6. v 7. Euripides, "Medea," 80–88 (A. S. Way's translation).

8. As cited, pp. 489–490.

9. Page 754 B. (Jowett's translation of the Dialogues, 1874 v. iv, p. 276): καθάπερ παῖς … στέργει τε καὶ στέργεται ὑπὸ τῶν γεννησάντων.

10. For the note of necessity in στέργειν see Schmidt, as cited, p. 482. Schmidt even says that with στέργειν it is often not a matter of pleasure at all, and never a matter of sensuous pleasure: it often conveys the meaning of yielding quickly and with constant mind to the inevitable. He cites such passages as Sophocles, "Phil.," 538: I think that no other man would endure to look on such a sight, "but I have learned by hard necessity to στέργειν ills"—that is, to acquiesce in them, accept them, take them as belonging to me; so "Lys.," 33.4: it was necessary to στέργειν this fortune. This sense of toleration—"to put up with"—is shared by it with αἰνεῖν and ἀγαπᾶν.

11. Line 543.

12. "Trach.," line 486.

13. "Anabasis," ii, 6. 23.

14. "Eq.," line 769 (al. 715 or 748).

15. 12. D (Otto, p. 56).

16. "Apol.," i, 15.

17. Aristotle, "Nic. Ethics," viii. 4, discusses what happens to the lover and his mistress

(ἐραστῇν καὶ ἐρωμένῳ) when the grounds on which their love (φιλία) is built fall away.

Sometimes the love (φιλία) passes away too. Sometimes—if the two are alike in their natures

—custom has inspired them with an abiding affection and it holds (ἑὰν ἐκ τῇ συνηθείας τὰ στέρξωσιν ὁμοήθεις ὄντες). Their love is thought of as στοργή only when they are conceived as constituting together a unity by reason of their similar natures.

18. "Frogs," line 229.

19. Æschylus, "Eumenides," line 912. The passage is a difficult one. We have followed Verrall.

E. H. Plumptre renders thus: "For I, like gardener shepherding his plants, This race of just men, freed from sorrow, love."

20. C. 2: "Eusebius Werke," ed. I. A. Heikel, v. 1, 1902, p. 155 (τὴν πρὸς τὸ θεῖον στοργὴν ἔμφυτον).

21. C. 25: as above, p. 192 (τὴν τοῦ θεοῦ πρόνοιαν καὶ τὴν πρὸς τοῦς ἀνθρώπους στοργήν).

22. The derivation of the word is uncertain. It is ordinarily referred to the primitive Aryan root

RA (see for example Skeat, "Etymolog. Dict. of the English Language," no. 289; cf. LAS, no.

324 which is an expansion of RA), which is given the senses of "to rest, to be delighted, to love." W. Prellwitz connects with the Old-Indian aris, with the meaning of trustworthy; but notes that Uhlenbeck, "Kurzgef. etym. Wörterb. d. altind. Sprache" connects aris with Gothic aljam, Old High German ellen, with the sense of "ardor."

23. Page 475 (136. 2).

24. I. 11. ii, ed. E. M. Cope, 1877, v. i, p. 209; Cope, however, explains the passage as saying that lovers take pleasure in busying themselves with the beloved object in his absence, talking about him and sketching his features, and doing everything they can think of to recall him to their memories.

25. 5. 1. 10.–12. We use a version that lies at hand, but have enclosed in square brackets some of the words which have been inserted by the translator to give greater lucidity to the passage, in order that the reader may not be misled with respect to the frequency of the occurrence of ἐρᾶν, or with respect to apparent variations in the term used.

26. Eur., Frag. "Erecht.," 19 (Dind.) ap. Stob. 79, p. 454. (Teubner's ed. of Euripides' Works, ed. by A. Nauck, 1892, v. iii, p. 90, fragment 360).

27. "Brutus," c. 29.

28. "Hi.," xi. 11.

29. i. p. 4M.

30. "Phaedr.," 231 C: τούτους μαλιστά φασι φιλεῖν ὧς ἃν ἐρῶσι: "regard with affection those for whom they have a passion" (Liddell and Scott, 8th ed. 1901); "feel the highest (moral) affections for those who have inspired them with the sensual passion" (E. M. Cope, "The Rhetoric of Aristotle," 1877, i, p. 293).

31. "Anal. Pr.," 2.29.1.

32. Apollon., "De Constr.," p. 292.1 cited by Stephanus, "Thesaurus," 1829–1863, v. 3, col.

1966.

33. Cope, op. cit., i, 293 describes ἔρως shortly as "the sexual form of ἐπιθυμία or natural appetite," supporting himself on Plato, "Phaedrus," 237D: "It is evident to all that ἔρως is an

ἐπιθυμία," and "Timaeus," 42A: "Love is a mixture of pleasure and pain," which, he adds, is

"the characteristic of ἐπιθυμία." This applies to ἔρως, however, only in one of its uses.

34. "Lysis," 221D, 222A (Jowett, i, p. 63).

35. "The Christian Platonists of Alexandria2," 1913, p. 7.

36. "De Praem. et Poen.," (Mangey, ii, 421).

37. "De Profugis," §11 (Mangey, i 554–555). Cf. the remarks of W. Lütgert, "Die Liebe im

Neuen Testament," 1905, p. 48.

38. Ch. vii.

39. The two sides of the question have been well stated and argued respectively by J. B.

Lightfoot in his comment on the passage ("My (earthly) passion has been crucified": he actually renders it in his version of the letter, "My lust has been crucified"), and by Charles

Bigg in the preface to his Bampton Lectures on "The Christian Platonists of Alexandria" ("My

(divine) Love has been crucified"). There is a third possible view: "My preference (for death) has been crucified."

40. "Prologue to the Song of Songs," Lommatzsch, xiv, pp. 299, 301, 302.

41. Cited with other mystical writers by Lightfoot, as above.

42. "Dial.," viii. 1.

43. "Cohort.," 71.

44. "In Joann.," I. 14. (11): ed. Preuschen, p. 14, line 29.

45. "Strom.," vi. 9. (72).

46. As cited, p. 475.

47. "Eth. Nic.," ix. 10; 1171A. 12: ἐρᾶν … ὑπερβολὴ γὰρ τις εἶναι βούλεται φιλίας. But as he is thinking of ἐρᾶν in its sensual application, he adds: τοῦτο δὲ πρὸς ἔνα.

48. The Andover Review, August, 1885, p. 167.

49. The etymology of φιλεῖν is not very clear. G. Heine, "Synonymik des Neutestamentlichen

Griechisch," 1898, p. 154, suggests for φίλος (after Vaniček): "one's own, that to which one is accustomed, and on which he depends, dear, worthy."

50. Pp. 476–477.

51. "Phaedr.," 231C.

52. "Il.," ix, 450.

53. "Odyss.," xviii, 325.

54. W. Lütgert, "Die Liebe im N.T.," 1905, p. 37: he sends us to E. Curtius, "Altertum und

Gegenwart," i, p. 183ff. for the matter. Consult also the remarks of Paul Kleinert, "Th. S. K.,"

86 (1913) i, pp. 16f.

55. "Supplement to Biblico-Theological Lexicon of New Testament" Greek 1886, p. 593 (sub voc. Ἀγάπη).

56. E. g., "Eth. Nic," viii, 2. 1: "For it appears that not everything is loved (φιλεῖσθαι) but [only] τὸ φιλητόν: this is good (ἀγαθόν) or pleasant (ἡδύ) or useful (χρήσιμον)."

57. "Magna Moralia," II. 11: p. 1208 B. The translation of St. George Stock is used.

58. "Magna Moralia," p. 1210 A.

59. "Magna Moralia," p. 1210 A: "It is evident then that friendship (φιλία) based on utility occurs among things the most opposite."

60. "Ethica Eudemia," vii, 3 (p. 1238b). J. Solomon's version is used.

61. "Il.," vi, 15.

62. "Odyss.," xiv, 128.

63. "Il.," iii, 207.

64. As cited, p. 477.

65. Herodotus, Xenophon and Attic writers generally.

66. E. A. Sophocles says ("Bibliotheca Sacra," July 1889, p. 525): "As to the modern φιλῶ, it retains only the meaning, to kiss."

67. It is the sense of all the instances in which ἀγαπᾶν or ἀγαπάζειν occurs in Homer, except one—"Odyss.," xxi, 289, where it means "to acquiesce in," "be content with." Cf. Cope, as cited, p. 295.

68. "Odyss.," xxiii, 214.

69. Andover Review, August 1885, p. 167.

70. "Odyss.," xvi, 17.

71. "Odyss.," vii, 33.

72. "Odyss.," xxi, 224.

73. "Pyth.," iv, 241.

74. John U. Powell in his edition of the "Phoenissae," 1911, p. 206. The passages are

"Phoeniss.," 1327; "Suppl.," 764; Helen.," 937. Cf. also Woolsey, as cited, p. 167.

75. "Cyrop.," vii, v. 50: ed. Holden, 1890, p. 74.

76. "Pericles," 1.

77. "Johannine Vocabulary," 1905, p. 261, note (1744, iv, b).

78. Lightfoot in loc. comments: " 'welcomed, embraced.' The word here refers to external tokens of affection, according to its original meaning."

79. "Acta Pauli et Thec.," 18: καταφιλοῦσης his chains: Tertullian, "Ad. Uxor.," ii, 4, osculanda the martyr's chains.

80. See Zahn, "Ignatius von Antiochien," 1873, p. 415, and also his comment on the passage itself.

81. "Otium Novicense," Pars Tertia, 1881., ad loc.

82. See [J. Hastings], Expository Times, xviii, 99 (Hastings generalizes: "In any case the word is that word for loving which means manifesting love in action"); Edwin A. Abbott, "Johannine

Vocabulary," 1905, pp. 257 ff.; J. H. Moulton and G. Milligan, "The Vocabulary of the New

Testament," i, 1914, p. 12, sub voc. ἀγαπᾶν.

83. Swete, for example, rejects it decisively.

84. It would be easy to reply, it is true, that both might be given an internal meaning, and perhaps the usage of ὑπεραοπάζεται encourages this view.

85. J. B. Lightfoot argues for the originality of the external sense in an article published in the Cambridge Journal of Classical Philology, v. iii (1857), no. 7, p. 92; and again in his note on Ignatius "ad Polyc.," 2, where he states the case with his accustomed compressed force. "The word," he says, "seems originally to have referred to the outward demonstration of affection.…

This original sense appears still more strongly in ἀγαπάζω. The application of the term to the inward feeling of love is a later development, and the earlier meaning still appears occasionally." But after all it is difficult to believe that the word began with this external sense, and Homer does not record an absolutely primitive usage. E. M. Cope, op. cit., pp. 295–296 properly therefore rejects this reading of the history of the word. Liddell and Scott's article on ἀγαπάω exaggerates the externality of the term and might even give the impression that the internal affection of love scarcely falls within its range at all.

86. Cf. "The Oxford Dictionary of the English Language," sub voc. "Love, subst.," no. 6 (p.

464 med.): "the animal instinct between the sexes and its gratification." Maurice Hewlett, "The Fool Errant," 1905, p. 247: "We ate frugally, drank a little wine and water, loved temperately, and slept profoundly."

87. Cf. on this subject the excellent remarks of R. C. Trench, "On the Study of Words," ed. N.

Y. 1855, pp. 50 ff.

88. Lucian, "Jup. Trag.," 2: Hera accused Zeus of having a love-affair (ἐρωτικόν) on hand and, plagued by love (ἔρωτος), of thinking of falling through some roof into the lap of his ἀγαπωμένης. So, "Vera Hist.," ii, 25: Cinyres had fallen in love (ἤρα) with Helen, and she was plainly also enamoured (ἀγαπῶσα) with him; so, driven by love and despair (ὑπʼ ἔρωτος καὶ ἀμηχανίας). they ran off. A hundred years before Lucian, Plutarch has the usage: cf. the passages cited by Thayer under φιλέω.

89. J. S. Watson translates: "Who could find pleasure in the company of such a man, who, he would be aware, felt more delight in eating and drinking than in intercourse with his friends, and preferred the company of harlots to that of his fellows?" This sense of "to be satisfied with," is a not infrequent one for ἀγαπᾶν.

90. Cope, as cited, p. 296: "In Plato's "Symposium," 180 B, it takes the place of ἐρᾶν in the representation of the lowest and most sensual form of the passion or appetite of love, ὅταν ὁ ἐρώμενος τὸν ἐραστὴν ἀγαπᾷ, ἢ ὅταν ὁ ἐραστὴς τὰ παιδικά."

91. According to T. D. Woolsey, as cited, the indices record ἀγαπάω, ἀγαπητός, ἀγαπητῶς for Demosthenes twenty-two times; for Plato eighteen; for Lysias and Isocrates, each three times.

These figures are, however, misleading: in Isoerates, for example, the words are of much more frequent occurrence.

92. Cf. Lobeck on Phrynicus, p. 352, and Stephanus sub voc. Thayer sub voc. ἀγάπη, seems to intimate that the word appears first in Aristotle: Liddell and Scott, in Plato.

93. The facts are carefully stated by Moulton and Milligan, as cited, sub voc.

94. On this etymology see Cope, as cited, p. 294, also p. 296. Other etymological suggestions are made. Cremer, in his third edition, finds the fundamental notion to be, "to find one's

satisfaction in something"; but in his tenth edition reverts to the simple suggestion of a connection with ἄγαμαι in the sense of admiring. W. Prellwitz traces the word back to an OldAryan root Pō (Old-Indian Pā) bearing the sense of "protecting"; hence ἀγα-πός, "protecting," and the denominative ἀγαπάω, "entertain," or, as in Homer, "welcome." This view of the etymology favors the external sense of the word as original.

95. Cope, as cited, p. 294, remarks that, whatever be the true derivation of the word, "this notion of selection or affection, conceived, on the ground of admiration, respect, and esteem, certainly enters into its meaning. Xen. "Mem.," ii. 7.9 is decisive on this point." On p. 295 he surveys the copious material in Aristotle's "Nicomachaean Ethics" and concludes that in every instance the word may, and in many instances it must, carry the implication of esteem. It is the worth of the object of preference which underlies the affection expressed by it.

96. So e.g., Schmidt.

97. So e.g., Gildersleeve. Woolsey, as cited, p. 182, with Trench in his mind, says very appositely: "We naturally avoid or distrust attaching this quality of coldness to ἀγαπάω or ἀγάπη; and while we ascribe to these words the consent of the will and benevolent regard, we do not strip them of feeling."

98. These sentences stand in all the editions from the third (1883) to the tenth (1915). Under ἀγάπη he says (ed. 10, p. 14): "It designates the love which chooses its object with decisive will."

99. It may be worth noting that Liddell and Scott, in explaining the distinction between ἐρᾶν and φιλεῖν, say it is that between amare and diligere; and in explaining the distinction between φιλεῖν and ἀγαπᾶν, say that this is that between amare and diligere. That is to say, φιλεῖν appears now as diligere and now as amare to meet the needs of the case.

100. There is no philological reason for supposing that the peculiarity of ἀγαπᾶν among the terms for loving was that it suggested that love is a voluntary emotion. There is also no trace of such a distinction having been made in usage by the Greeks. In arguing for it we are arguing without regard to the Greek consciousness. We have had occasion to observe Xenophon insisting that ἐρᾶν expresses a voluntary act. But it was not ἐρᾶν distinctively that he had in mind: what he was really arguing was that love as such, under any designation, is a voluntary act. It was a psychological, not a philological, question in which he was interested.

101. "The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living," ch. IV, sec. 3 (p. 21 of v. ii, of the Temple

Classics edition).

102. As cited, p. 482.

103. I. 11. 17.

104. Trench and Cope hold much the same view.

105. Cope, as cited, v. i, p. 214, paraphrases Aristotle's phrase thus: "And being liked or loved is to be valued, esteemed, for one's own sake and for nothing else." He remarks: "It is probable that little or no distinction is here intended to be made between φιλεῖν and ἀγαπᾶν, since it is the end and not the process that is here in question, and they seem to be used pretty nearly as

synonyms. They represent two different aspects of love, as a natural affection or emotion, and as an acquired value, which we express by esteem." We probably get Aristotle's whole meaning when we say that when we are loved, there is implied in that that we are valued for our own sake.

106. "Memorabilia," II, vii. 9 and 12. We give the text of the passage in the translation of J. A.

Watson. Fourteen free women—his relatives—had been introduced into Aristarchus' house as dependents. Socrates' comment and advice was this: "Under present circumstances, as I should suppose, you neither feel attached (φιλεῖν) to your relatives nor they to you, for you find them burdensome to you, and they see that you are annoyed with their company. For such feelings there is danger that dislike may grow stronger and stronger, and that previous friendly inclination may be diminished. But if you take them under your direction so that they may be employed, you will love (φιλήσεις) them, when you see that they are serviceable to you, and they will grow attached to you (ἀγαπήσουσιν) when they find that you feel satisfaction in their society; and remembering past services with greater pleasure, you will increase the friendly feeling resulting from them, and consequently grow more attached and better disposed toward each other." Aristarchus took this advice and the result was: "they loved (ἐφίλον) Aristarchus as their protector, and he loved (ἠγάπα) them as being of use to him."

107. P. 135.

108. As cited, p. 2, sub voc. ἀγαπᾶν.

109. J. H. H. Schmidt, as cited, p. 483, has a full and excellent discussion of the passage, which leaves no doubt of the general distinction that is drawn. Edward M. Cope, as cited, p. 294, pronounces it "decisive" in the matter. Cf. also T. D. Woolsey, as cited, p. 168; and E. A.

Abbott, as cited, p. 240.

110. xliv, 48, p. 175.

111. P. 215B (cf. Jowett, p. 54).

112. P. 220D (cf. Jowett, p. 61).

113. "Var. Hist.," ix, 1 (Tauchnitz ed. p. 124).

114. V. 148; V. 42. We draw these passages from Schmidt (p. 485), who presents them as involving no question of real love, but only of an esteeming or valuing.

115. "De Corona," p. 263, 7 Reiske.

116. "De Olynth.," ii, p. 23, 23.

117. "Aristides," 6.3.

118. How fully these synonyms covered the idea of love in its complete range is illustrated by the opening words of Deutsch's article on "Love (Jewish)" in Hastings' ERE. viii, p. 173b. In transcribing what he says we insert the Greek terms at appropriate places. "The dictionaries define love as 'a feeling of strong personal attachment, induced by that which delights (φιλεῖν) or commands admiration (ἀγαπᾶν).' The subdivisions of this sentiment comprise the impulses of attachment, due to sexual instinct, or the mutual affections of man and woman (?ἐρᾶν); the impulses which direct the mutual affections of members of one family, parents and children,

brothers and other relatives (στέργειν); the attachment that springs from sympathetic sentiments of people with harmonious character, friendship (φιλία); and finally, the various metaphorical usages of the word, as the love for moral and intellectual ideals." He adds: "To the last class belongs the religious concept of love for God, while the particular Biblical conception of God's love for Israel is closely related to the idea of paternal affection." As we shall see when we come to speak of the usage of the Septuagint, these higher religious conceptions were brought under ἀγαπᾶν.

119. Woolsey's remark (as cited, p. 169): "Such a change … must have come from a higher condition of moral feeling," is sound in itself although made in a connexion not easily justified.

120. "Biblisch-Theologisches Wörterbuch der Neutestamentlichen Gräcität3," 1883, p. 11, near bottom: E. T., p. 592, bottom. The remark seems to have been omitted from 10th ed., 1915.

121. According to Gesenius, ֹא ֵהב means "a friend, loving and beloved, intimate, different fromַ

ֵד, a companion": ֵַד, he says, implies less than ֹא ֵהב. In the text, ἀγαπᾶν represents ֹא ֵהב and φιλεῖν ֵדַ.

122. But see below page 373.

123. As cited. We are quoting from 10th ed., 1915, but the passage has remained substantially unaltered since the 3d ed., 1883.

124. On these assertions see The Princeton Theological Review, January 1918, pp. 20ff.

125. "Bibliotheca Sacra," July, 1889, p. 534.

126. Lütgert, "Die Liebe im Neuen Testament," 1905, p. 35, remarks: "Here the commandment of love comes forward as a law of nature, and that because it ought to be presented as a rational thing." He is presenting it as an instance of the rationalization of Jewish thought under the influence of Hellenism.

127. As cited, p. 527.

128. The treatise is known from Herculaneum papyri alone, and the reading in question is restored thus: διʼ ἀ[γ]άπης ἐ[ναρ]γοῦς. It is recorded in Crönert's revision of Passow's

Lexicon, sub voc, who accompanies it with a note, "sicher (?)"; and it is reported from his record by Moulton and Milligan, sub voc. G. A. Deissmann, "Bible Studies," 1901, p. 200, points out a scholium to Thucydides II. 51, which reads "φιλανθρωπίας καὶ ἀγάπης." But there is no telling how late this scholium may be, or whether the glossator was a Christian or not.

129. § 229; ed. Wendland, p. 63. Aristeas uses ἀγαπᾶν (§ 123), ἀγάπησις (§§ 44, 265, 270) and ἀγάπη (§ 229); apparently not ἐρᾶν, ἔρως, or στέργειν, στοργή, at all; nor even φιλεῖν, but φιλία, §§ 40, 44, 225, 228, 231, φίλος a half-dozen times and compounds of φιλincluding φιλανθρωπεῖν, φιλανθρωπία, φιλανθροπότερον.

130. Ἀγάπησις is used in a less exalted sense. In § 44 (p. 15), Eleazar writes to Ptolemy that he would endeavor to do all that the king had asked, "for this is a mark of φιλίας and ἀγαπήσως."

Here ἀγάπησις is used of national amity (Done: "confederation and amity"). In § 270 (p. 73) it is said that a king ought to trust men whose loyalty (εὔνοια) towards him is indisputable, "for

this is a mark of ἀγαπήσεως rather than of ill-will and timeserving." For § 265 see note 22. The verb ἀγαπᾶν is used very distinctly in its native sense of valuing in § 123.

131. "Quod Deus sit Immutabilis," § 14, near the end; ed. Mangey, p. 283; ed. Cohn, v. ii, p.

72: Yonge's translation is used.

132. On Philo's independence of the Septuagint in his use of the word, see Deissmann, as cited, p. 199; and Moulton and Milligan, as cited, sub voc.

133. In Gen. 29:20, 1 Sam. 18:3, the clause containing אהבה is omitted in the Septuagint as printed whether by Tischendorf or by Swete; but it is supplied in some MSS.

134. The exceptions to the last statement are ἀγάπη, 2 Sam. 1:26, 13:15, and ἀγάπησις, 2 Sam.

1:26.

135. 1 Macc. 8:1, 12, 17; 10:54; 12:1, 3, 8, 16; 14:18, 22; 15:17; 2 Macc. 4:11; 1 Macc. 12:10, with ἀδελφότητα; 10:20, 23, 26 paralleled with συνθήκη.

136. In this passage ἀγάπησις is printed by both Tischendorf and Swete; ἀγάπη is read by א.

137. As cited, sub voc. ἀγάπη, near end.

138. Naturally the daily use of the word in its lower senses was not inhibited by its acquisition of its higher senses. It has continued up to the present day. Witness the lines of Christopoulos:

Εἰς βουνὸν ἐγὼ κιʼ ὁ Ἒρως Κʼ ἡ ἀγάπη μου μαζή …; or those of Zalokostas: Ἀπὸ τὴ μέση μὲ ἃρπαξε, μὲ φίλησε στὸ στόμα Καὶ μοὖπε γιὰ ἀναστεναγμούς, Γιὰ τῆς ἀγάπης τοῦς καϋμοὺς

Εἶσαι μικρὸς ἀκόμα. When Clement of Alexandria ("Paed.," III. xi. 257) tells us that love is not to be estimated by kissing, but by kind deeds (ἀγάπη δὲ οὐκ ἐν φιλήματι, ἀλλʼ ἐν εὐνοίᾳ κρίνεται), that involves the understanding that there was an ἀγάπη which expressed itself in kissing; and a similar implication lies in Chrysostom's declaration (Hom. vii. on Romans) that ἀγάπη does not consist in empty words or mere substantives, but in care and works. Even in the horrible story told by Epiphanius ("Adv. Haer.," 1. ii. xxvi, 4; Migne 1. 337c) of the Gnostic orgies, where the man bade the woman, "arise, do τὴν ἀγάπην with your brother," using ἀγάπη, as Sophocles says, κακεμφάτως,—ποιεῖν τὴν ἀγάπην was the standing phrase for celebrating the Ἀγάπη—the current use of ἀγάπη of the sexual act is doubtless implied.

139. Cf. Swete on Mk. 1:11: "Ἀγαπητός in the LXX answers to ָי ִח יד (μονογενής unicus, cf.

Hort, "Two Dissertations," pp. 49f.) in seven instances out of fifteen." Also Zahn on Mat. 3:17

(ed. 3, 1910, p. 149, note 68). The usage is classical from Homer down: cf. e. g., W. W.

Goodwin, "Demosthenes against Midias," 1906, p. 95; or more fully R. Whiston, "Demosthenes," 1868, 11, p. 324; and Holden, "Xenophon's Cyropaedia, iv.iv.5; Fritzsche

"Aristotle's Eth. Eud.," iii.6, 1233 and in criticism E. M. Cope, "Aristotle's Rhetoric," 1897, p.

150, esp. note.

140. An exception like the Homeric ἀγαπήνωρ only proves the rule.

141. Similarly Aristeas, § 290, ed. Wendland, p. 77, says that Ptolemy's greatness consisted not in the glory of his power and wealth, but in his ἐπιεικία καὶ φιλανθρωπία, "moderation and graciousness." Similarly in § 208, φιλάνθρωπος is "humane," and in § 36, φιλανθρωπότερον is

"very graciously." In § 265, p. 71, on the other hand it is said apparently that the most

necessary thing for a king to have is the φιλανθρωπία καὶ ἀγάπησις, "good feeling and affection" of his subjects, "for with these will come an indissoluble bond of loyalty (εὐνοίας)."

142. See some apposite remarks on the general matter in A. Thumb, "Die griechische Sprache im Zeitalter des Hellenismus," 1901, pp. 182 f. and 185. On the affinity of the Greek of Philo and Biblical Greek, cf. H. A. A. Kennedy, "Sources of New Testament Greek," 1895, p. 67.

143. φιλαδελφία, φιλανθρωπία, φιλάνθρωπος, φιλαργυρεῶ, φιλαργυρία, φιλάργυρος, φιλοδέσποτος, φιλόζωος, φιλονεικία, φιλόνεικος, φιλοξενία, φιλόξενος, φιλοπονεῖν, φιλόσοφος, φιλοστοργία, φιλότεκνος, φιλοτιμία, φιλόϋλος: eighteen.

144. Ἀγαπητός is found only in I Clement (18 times), Ignatius (6), and the Martyrium of Polycarp, Hermas, and the Didache (each once). Ἀγαπητοί is almost a peculium of I Clement

(15 times to Ignatius' 2).

145. See Jude 12 and 2 Peter 2:13, and compare Lightfoot's note on the passage.

146. It contains besides only φιλανθρώπως, 27:3.

147. E. F. Gelpke, "Theolog. Studien und Kritiken," 1849, pp. 646f., gives the following account of these words as they came to the hands of the writers of the New Testament. "The older profane writers know only the verb and adjective, not, however, the noun, precisely in which it was that the Christian writers found the abstract expression, recurring on every page, of the sentiment which bound all believers together. The verb, moreover, is found already with profane writers in the purer sense of reverential love, although it was later interchanged also, when conceived sensuously, with φιλεῖν, amare, the expression for personal affection. This usage is not only recognized in the LXX, where the word, it must be confessed, is used even more sensuously, and nevertheless also of the more sacred affection (Gen. 22:2); and again in the New Testament; but also it receives, first in this connection, its full content, as this follows of itself from the most Christian of all Christian declarations, 1 John 4:8, ὁ θεὸς ἀγάπη ἐστίν

(the abstract term is used, with the sense that God is the personal Love, presenting Himself personally), and from the religion of the spirit freed from all particularism and all sensuous elements. The word acquired, however, an entirely new, peculiarly Christian, sense, still further in the new demonstration of love conditioned by the deepened sentiment of love. Accordingly the word is used (1) of the love of God for Jesus and of Jesus for God, and of the love of both for men, and then again of the love of men for God and Christ, derived from the love of God and Christ, and of the love of men for one another inseparable from this as its vital basis; and then (2) of the actual, powerfully arising manifestation of love, the loving conduct in word and deed, 1 John 3:1, cf. James 4:8."

148. "Bibliotheca Sacra," July 1889, p. 533.

149. Schmidt remarks (p. 479): "Even when applied to things, φιλεῖν retains its ordinary meaning and designates therefore the satisfaction in things which are pleasing (φιλία) to us, the possession of which, or contact with which, is pleasant to us. Even evil or contemptible things are included, Aristotle, "Eth. Nic.," 8.2.1: 'For it appears that not everything is loved, but τὸ φιλητόν, and this is the good, or the pleasant, or the useful.' "

150. Lk. 11:43, Jno. 3:19, 12:43, 2 Thess. 2:16, 1 Pet. 3:10, 2 Pet. 2:15, 1 Jno. 2:15, Rev.

12:11, 15.

151. Cf. Swete in loc: "ὁ φιλῶν goes deeper than ὁ ποιῶν; he who loves falsehood is in his nature akin to it, and has through his love of it proved his affinity to Satan, who is ὁ πατὴρ αὐτοῦ (Jno. 8:44)."

152. Cf. Swete in loc: φιλῶ (Bengel: Philadelphiensem ἠγάπησεν, Laodicensem φιλεῖ) is perhaps deliberately preferred to the less emotional and less human ἀγαπῶ (1:5, 3:9) notwithstanding the use of the latter in Prov. 3:12 (LXX. ὃν γὰρ ἀγαπᾷ Κύριος ἐλέγχει), which supplies the groundwork of the thought."

153. A fresh study of ἀγαπᾶν and φιλεῖν, especially in John, by Sally Neil Roach taking its point of departure from G. B. Stevens, "Johannine Theology," Ch. 11.; is printed in The Review and Expositor, 1913, x. pp. 531ff. Her discrimination of terms is as follows (p. 533): "Ἀγαπᾷν

(and the same is true of the noun, ἀγάπη) carries with it invariably the idea of the rights or the good of the object, sought at the cost of the subject, while φιλεῖν as uniformly suggests the pleasure of the subject as associated with and derived from the object." She speaks of this as looking upon ἀγαπᾶν as the altruistic, and φιλεῖν as the egoistic term for love. Perhaps the same general idea might be better expressed by distinguishing the two as the love of benevolence and the love of complacency; and perhaps better still as the love of regard and the love of delight. All the Johannine passages in which φιλεῖν occurs are examined with a view to validating the suggested distinction.

154. Cf. Karl Horn, "Abfassung, Geschichtlichkeit und Zweck vom Evang. des Johannes, Kap.

21," 1904, p. 170: "In 15:19, it is said very significantly: 'If ye were of the world, ὁ κόσμος would love its own'; therefore natural inclination (Zuneigung) to that which is of kindred nature and has sprung from the same root is what is expressed."

155. This is excellently shown by Horn, as above.

156. So Westcott in loc.: cf. what Woolsey says, Andover Review, August 1885, p. 166.

157. As cited, p. 167.

158. E. A. Abbott, "Johannine Vocabulary," p. 241, bottom (1728 p.).

159. As cited, p. 167.

160. P. 177.

161. Meyer, E. T., ii, p. 367, says: "With ἐφίλει the recollection speaks with more feeling."

What he means is apparently that John, recording the events in his Gospel, was at this point suffused with deeper feeling than he ordinarily felt as the recollection rushed over him of the personal affection which Jesus showed toward him "in the days of His flesh"; and this expressed itself in ἐφίλει.

162. Westcott's actual phraseology is that ἐφίλει here "marks a personal affection."

163. "Justin Martyr," 1877, p. 135. Among later writers of the same mind, cf. W. G. Ballantine,

"Bibliotheca Sacra," July 1889, pp. 524 ff.; John A. Cross, The Expositor, 1893, iv, vii, pp. 312

ff.; Max Eberhardt, "Ev. Joh. c. 21: ein exegetischer Versuch," 1897, p. 52; cf. also G. B.

Stevens, "The Johannine Theology," ch. xi.

164. As cited, p. 2.

165. Roach, as cited, p. 544, on her principle, paraphrases ἀγαπᾶν here, not inaptly: "Do you love Me so that you can surrender your life to My interests?"; and φιλεῖν, in Peter's response:

"Yes, Lord, Thou knowest that my heart goes out to Thee and my pleasure is found in Thee."

This is, clearly, what was really meant by the terms—however we arrive at it.

166. So Trench: so also Henry Burton, The Expositor, v, i. p. 462 (1895), who paraphrases ἀγαπᾶν here, as the broader and weaker word of the two, by, "Do you care for me?" and represents it as "too cold, too distant for Peter's passionate soul," who asserts that he does not merely "care for" but loves His Lord.

167. So rightly Woolsey, as cited, p. 182.

168. P. 684.

169. Cf. A. Klöpper. Zeitschrift für wiss. Theologie, 1899, 42, p. 363, who supposes the contrast to be between the expression of a natural human inclination (φιλεῖν) and the efflux of such a love as might be expressed in Pauline phrase as ἀγάπη ἐν πνεύματι (Col. 1:8). In general he finds the distinction drawn by Schmidt from the classical writers valid for John also.

Ἀγαπᾶν is, however, he says, almost always used in the higher, spiritual sense, 3:35, 10:17,

14:21 (of God); 13:1, 23, 19:26, 11:5 (of Christ); 8:42, 13:34, 14:15, 21 (of the disciples).

170. Cf. Horn, as cited, p. 170: Φιλεῖν stands very suitably at 5:20: 'The Father loves the Son and shows Him all that He Himself does.' For here the more intimate relation of the filial relation of the Son to the Father is suggested, and at the same time, it is thought of as one wholly natural, resting on elective affinity. The Son 'can' nothing of Himself."

171. As cited, p. 170.

172. This is in effect the love of benevolence in distinction from the love of complacency.

Compare note 154.

173. Add to those mentioned in the text: φιλάγαθος, φιλαργυρία, φιλάργυρος, φιλήδονος, φιλονεικία, φιλόνεικος, φιλοπρωτεύω, φιλοσοφία, φιλόσοφος, φιλοτιμέομαι, φιλοφρόνως, φιλόφρων.

174. Consult on φιλόστοργος in the New Testament, E. Hoehne, Zeitschrift f. k. Wissenschaft und k. Leben, 1882 (III.) p. 6.

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