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

Today we will reflect on Anders Nygren’s influential book,
Agape and Eros.
Why did the Greeks have three different words for love:
Agape, Phileo, and Eros?
How did the apostles John and Paul define Agape-Love, or
Divine Love? What were the differences in emphasis
regarding Agape-Love between the Synoptic Gospels, the
Book of John, and the Pauline Epistles?
What role does self-love play in the Christian life?

Please, we welcome interesting questions in the
comments. Let us learn and reflect together!
At the end of our talk, we will discuss the sources
used for this video.
Please feel free to follow along in the PowerPoint
script we uploaded to SlideShare, which includes
illustrations. Our sister blog includes footnotes, both
include our Amazon book links.

YouTube Channel (click to subscribe):
Reflections on Morality, Philosophy, and History:
© Copyright 2024 Become a patron:
Anders Nygren: Agape and Eros:
Types of Love In New Testament
https://youtu.be/KniBalQMemM
https://www.patreon.com/seekingvirtueandwisdom
https://amzn.to/47koUk2
https://www.youtube.com/@ReflectionsMPH

To find the source of any direct
quotes in this blog, please type in
the phrase to the search box in
my blog to see the referenced
footnote.
YouTube Description has links for:
• Script PDF file
• Blog
• Amazon Bookstore
© Copyright 2024
Blog and YouTube Description
include links for Amazon books
and lectures mentioned, please
support our channel with these
affiliate commissions.
Link to blog: https://wp.me/pachSU-19n

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

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

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

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

Overview, Anders Nygren’s Agape and Eros
The translator notes that Nygren’s
views of Plato’s heavenly Eros, or
Divine Love, is “as a human Love for
the Divine, a Love of man for God.”
“Eros is an appetite, a yearning
desire;” “and in Eros-Love man
seeks God in order to satisfy his
spiritual hunger by the possession
and enjoyment of the Divine
perfections.” Jupiter Chariot between Justice & Piety, by Noël Coypel, 1671

The translator continues his summary: “But the
Love of man for God in the New Testament is
quite different: it is a whole-hearted surrender to
God, whereby man becomes God’s willing slave,
content to be at His disposal, having entire trust
and confidence in Him, and desiring only that His
will should be done.”
“This love is not, like Eros, a longing and striving
after something man lacks and needs, but a
response of gratitude for something freely and
bountifully given, namely, God’s own Agape, and
although it can itself be called Agape, its character
as response is more clearly marked when it is
described, by St Paul especially, as faith.”
Venus and Adonis, by François Lemoyne, 1729

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

https://youtu.be/DgL7Y5pIFAU
https://youtu.be/6VffPIzfT-o https://youtu.be/wlr55ddb-lc
Planned for 2024

Divine Love and Happiness, or Eudaemonia
Jesus’ Charge to Peter, Peter, Do you Love Me?, by Raphael, 1515

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

Nygren teaches us, “The dominant
question was that of eudaemonia,”
the Greek word for happiness.
Different traditions defined this
differently, for “hedonism,
happiness is the pleasure of the
moment; for Aristotle, happiness is
the striving for and attainment of
perfection; and for Stoicism, it is
ataraxia,” a Greek word that denotes
“an independence and indifference
towards the external vicissitudes,”
or uncertainties, “of life.”
The Marriage at Cana, by Maerten de Vos, 1596

How does Christianity differ?
“The question of the Good is
no longer seen from the
point of view of the isolated
individual, but rather from
that of man in society, man
in his relation to God and to
his fellow men.” “Agape-love
is a social idea which has
nothing to do with
individualistic and
eudemonistic ethics,” Agape-
love is “the Good-in-itself.”
Allegory of the transience of happiness, by Theodor van Thulden & Adriaen van Utrecht, 1645

The real question, which is an
implied question in all ages, up
to modern times, is this: Does
the world and God revolve
around man, or does man and
the world revolve around
God?” As Nygren asks: “Are we
interested in God as the One
who can satisfy all the needs
and desires of the ego, or are
we interested in the sovereign
Lord who has absolute
authority over the ego?”
The Resurrection of Christ, by Luca Giordano, 1665

Anders answers this question, “It is in
Christianity that we first find egocentric religion
essentially superseded by theocentric religion.”
Anders Nygren teaches us that “Heavenly Eros is
a broad river that overflows its banks, carrying
everything with it, so that it is not easy even in
thought to dam it up and make it flow in an
orderly course. When the Eros motif invades
Christianity, it endeavors to drive out and
supplant the Agape motif.” “We are tempted to
equate Eros with earthly, sensual love and Agape
with heavenly, spiritual love as we seek to
compare and contrast them. But if we do that,
we shall certainly do no justice to Eros.”
The Resurrection of Jesus Christ, by Piero
della Francesca, 1463

Anders Nygren reflected on Plato’s dialogues on love and
friendship, including the Symposium, where Socrates
remembered his discussions on Divine Love with his lady-friend
Diotima, and where his dinner companions pondered both carnal
love and Divine Love, pondering when carnal love can be a type
of Divine Love.
We know that Greek moral philosophy was a secondary influence
for Christianity, so perhaps you would benefit from reading the
chapters reflecting on Platonic love before reading the opening
chapters on love as described in the New Testament in Anders
Nygren’s work.

Love in the Torah and Synoptic Gospels
Anders Nygren observes
that Love for God and
neighbor was key for
Judaism. “There was never
lacking in Judaism a
tendency to make love
central in ethical and
religious relationships. It is
not true to say that the
commandment of love is
merely one among many
legalistic traditions.” Moses and Tablets of the Law, Marc Chagall, 1966, Jew With Torah, 1925

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

We should remember Anders Nygren was
writing in the interwar years before the
Holocaust. Nygren observes: “One of the most
striking differences between the
Commandment of Love as it is interpreted in
the Old Testament and in Christianity, is that in
the latter it is universal in scope.” In Judaism,
“Love towards God has its counterpart in love
for one’s neighbor, which is understood as
love for the Chosen People of God, the
‘peculiar people.’ The scope of love can also
be extended to embrace even aliens resident
among the Chosen People. Yet, even so, love
always preserves its limits.” Ruth and Boaz, by Barent Fabritius, 1660

Nygren emphasizes: “The Christian is
commanded to love his enemies, not
because the other side teaches hatred
of them, but because there is a basis
and motive for such love in the
concrete, positive fact of God’s own
love for evil men.”
The Ear of Malchus, by James Tissot, 1894
After Jesus prays at the Garden of Gethsemane, the Roman
soldiers approach to arrest Him. Peter, in defense, cuts off
the ear of Malchus, a Roman soldier, but Jesus heals him.

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

Jonah and
the Whale,
by Pieter
Lastman,
1621

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

https://youtu.be/DpmuhZJUJn0
https://youtu.be/7lI2ZQ50wRc
https://youtu.be/bGHHD7XTvr0
https://youtu.be/ynIx-AVI2f8

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

https://youtu.be/7QAZ_s6zw4E https://youtu.be/bGHHD7XTvr0
https://youtu.be/O67cmVRvBtA https://youtu.be/poyvJajCXnE

Anders Nygren emphasizes that “Old
Testament piety with its devotion to the
Law was by no means the external
legalism it is often assumed to have
been. There was an inward bond that
held the godly man to the Law. The
righteous felt no sense of external
compulsion when confronted by the Law,
but a sense of inner solidarity with it. Its
observance gave him value and made
him acceptable to God. His prevailing
mood was expressed in Psalm 1,” the
Psalm that sings of Law as Gospel.
Moses with the Ten Commandments, by Rembrandt, 1659

Planned for 2024
Psalm 1 begins with: “Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
and on his law he meditates day and night.

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

Christian Concept of Agape Love
Let the Little Children Come unto Jesus, by Carl Bloch, 1800
Anders Nygren describes the
main features of Agape-Love:
“Agape is spontaneous and
unmotivated:” “Motivated love is
human; spontaneous and
unmotivated love is Divine.”
“When God Loves man, that is
not a judgment on what man is
like, but on what God is like.”
“Agape is the new wine which
inevitably bursts the old
wineskins.”

Nygren continues, “Agape is indifferent to value.” “It
is only when all thought of the worthiness of the
object is abandoned that we can understand what
Agape is.” “When God’s Love is shown to be
righteous and godly, there is always the risk of our
thinking that God Loves the man on account of his
righteousness and godliness.”
“Agape is creative love. God does not Love that which
is already in itself worthy of love, but on the contrary,
that which in itself has no worth acquires worth just
by becoming the object of God’s Love.” “Agape loves
and imparts value by loving. The man who is loved by
God has no value in himself; what gives him value is
precisely the fact that God Loves him.”
Resurrection of Christ, by Noël Coypel, 1700

Nygren continues: “Agape is the initiator of
fellowship with God.” “In the relations
between God and man, the initiative in
establishing fellowship lies with Divine
Agape.” “There is no way for man to come to
God, but only a way for God to come to man:
the way of Divine forgiveness, Divine Love.”
Anders Nygren celebrates: “When a man has
experienced God’s Agape, when in spite of
his unworthiness and absolute nothingness
he has been taken into fellowship with God,
it follows that he belongs absolutely to God.”
The Resurrection of Jesus Christ, by Raphael, 1502

When Jesus repeats the command
from Deuteronomy: “You shall
Love God with all of your heart
and with all of your soul and with
all of your mind and with all of
your strength,” he seeks to lead us
to “absolute devotion and
submission. Love towards God is
neither an acquisitive love nor a
love of friendship.”
Christ's Charge to Peter, by Peter Paul Rubens, 1616

Nygren emphasizes, “If Love towards God were an
‘acquisitive love,’ then God, even though He is
described as the highest good, would be the
means for the satisfaction of man’s desires. Nor is
there any room for the ‘love of friendship’ in a
theocentric relationship to God, for that Love
presupposes an equality between Divine Love and
human love which does not exist. It is excluded by
the sovereignty of Divine Love.”
“God’s Love is spontaneous and unmotivated;
consequently, man’s Love for God, if it is really to
deserve the name of Agape, must also be
spontaneous and unmotivated.”
Resurrection of Christ, by Alonso López de Herrera, 1625

This contrasts with those who feel they can buy God’s favor by charity or
devotion, like the aging Cephalus in the beginning of Plato’s Republic,
who seeks to buy the favor of the gods by buying many sacrifices to the
gods in the pagan temples.
Yet there is a famous verse at the end of the Gospel of John that
undercuts this distinction by Anders Nygren. When the disciples
encounter the resurrected Jesus on the beach cooking fish, he asks Peter
three times, “Do you Love Me? Feed my sheep.” The first two times the
Greek word Agape is used, but Phileo, or brotherly love, is used the last
time. Perhaps this illustrates how impossible it is to interpret Scripture
with a consistent theology.

Jesus’ Charge to Peter, Peter, Do you Love Me?, by Raphael, 1515

What is the character of a true Agape-
Love for God? Nygren tells us: “Love
towards God does not seek to gain
anything” “other than God. But neither
does it seek to gain even God Himself or
His Love.” “It is the free and spontaneous
surrender of your heart to God. When
God gives His Love freely and for nothing,
there remains nothing for man to gain by
Loving God.” This Love “is obedience to
God, without any thought of reward.” The Resurrection, by Francesco Buoneri, 1620

Christian Neighborly Love Rejects Self-Love
The loves in the two-fold Love of God and
love of neighbor are not separate loves, these
loves are intertwined like multiple vines
growing on a trestle. Nygren warns us that
“neighborly love loses its specifically Christian
character if it is taken out of context of
fellowship with God.” “Nothing could be
more disastrous for the Christian idea of love
than that it should be identified with modern
ideas of altruism, fellow-feeling,” and other
kumbaya sentiments.
The Good Samaritan, by Jacob Jordaens, 1616

Luke quotes Jesus: “If you love those who love
you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners
love those who love them. And if you do good
to those who do good to you, what credit is that
to you? For even sinners do the same. And if
you lend to those from whom you hope to
receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners
lend to sinners, to receive as much again.”
Nygren observes, “Man’s natural attitude is a
reflection of his neighbor’s attitude to him: love
is met with love, hate with hate. Christian love,
on the other hand, is a reflection of God’s Love.”
The Good Samaritan, by Aimé Morot, 1880

Nygren discusses over many pages that
this two-fold Love of God and love of
neighbor cannot be expanded into a
three-fold love, including self-love, as
this is a misinterpretation of the
command, “You shall love your neighbor
as yourself.” Nygren warns that “self-love
is man’s natural condition, and also the
reason for the perversity of his will.” “So
far is neighborly love from including self-
love that it actually excludes and
overcomes it.” Narcissuss, by Caravaggio, 1599

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

https://www.divorcecare.org/
Please, if you anyone who is facing divorce, let them know support is available.

https://www.catholicsdivorce.com/
Please, if you anyone who is facing divorce, let them know support is available.

Echo and Narcissus, by John William Waterhouse, 1903

Loving your neighbor includes loving your enemies, as Jesus
exhorts in Matthew: “You have heard that it was said, ‘You
shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to
love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so
that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he
makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends
rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who
love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax
collectors do the same? And if you salute only your brethren,
what more are you doing than others? Do not even the
Gentiles do the same? You, therefore, must be perfect, as
your heavenly Father is perfect.”
Resurrection of Christ, by Hans Memling, 1400's

Nygren concludes: “When Christian love is
directed to enemies, it shows itself to be real
Agape, spontaneous and creative. It creates
fellowship even when fellowship seems
impossible. Christian love is action, not
merely reaction.”
Jesus shows us His Love for us even when he
judges us in the last days. As Nygren
observes: “Only that love which Has
pronounced judgment on all that is not love
is in the deepest sense a restoring and
saving love.” “Whoever refuses to be won by
the reckless self-giving of love cannot be
won at all.” Good Samaritan, after Delacroix by Van Gogh, 1890

The Agape of the Cross in Pauline Epistles
Some theologians have argued that the Pauline
Epistles promote a Christianity that is different from
the Christianity of the Synoptic Gospels, but this is too
extreme, though their perspectives differ. St Paul’s
experience is indeed unique: Nygren reminds us that
St Paul speaks from the perspective of “the persecutor
who becomes a disciple and an apostle.” Christ’s
calling Paul to the faith on the road to Damascus
“revealed to him the ways of God; it gave him an
insight in God’s Agape and Christ’s Agape; it showed to
him the unmotivated charter of God’s Love.”
Conversion on the Way to Damascus,
by Caravaggio, 1601

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

The Stoning of
St Stephen, by
Annibale
Carracci, 1604

In Acts 9 we read, “Now as Saul
journeyed, Saul approached
Damascus, and suddenly a light
from heaven flashed about him.
And he fell to the ground and
heard a voice saying to him,
‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute
me?’ And he said, ‘Who are you,
Lord?’ And he said, ‘I am Jesus,
whom you are persecuting; but
rise and enter the city, and you
will be told what you are to do.’”
The Conversion of Saul, by Michelangelo, 1545

Saul was temporarily blinded, but Jesus revealed to
his disciples thrhow they should welcome him into
the faith. Since Jesus appeared directly to him, St
Paul became an apostle, equal to the apostles.

Conversion
of St Paul,
by Luca
Giordano,
1690

To make his point about Paul’s experience with the
Agape-Love of Jesus for him, and for us, Anders
Nygren studies the classic passage from Romans 5:
“While we were yet helpless, at the right time
Christ died for the ungodly. Why, one will hardly
die for a righteous man, though perhaps for a good
man one will dare even to die. But God shows his
Agape-Love for us in that, while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we are
now justified by His blood, much more shall we be
saved by Him from the wrath of God. For if while
we were enemies we were reconciled to God by
the death of his Son, much more, now that we are
reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.”
Penitent, by Niccolò Frangipane, 1574

From these verses in Romans 5, Nygren notes:
• “If we ask what Agape is, we are pointed to the Cross
of Christ.” His Agape-Love “is a love that gives itself
away, that sacrifices itself, even to the utmost.”
• “The Agape revealed in the death of Crist is in no
way independent of God.” “Agape is the Love of God
in Christ Jesus.”
• “Nowhere is the absolutely spontaneous and
unmotivated nature of God’s Agape so clearly
manifest as in the death of Christ.”
• “The greatest message regarding God’s Love and its
spontaneous and unmotivated nature is that it is a
love for sinners, for the unworthy and unrighteous,”
as St Paul himself was unworthy and unrighteous
before his calling. Christ's crucifixion, burial, and resurrection,
Church of the Teutonic Order, Vienna

Christ’s death on the Cross is a sacrifice, as St Paul
relates in Ephesians: “And walk in love, as Christ
loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant
offering and sacrifice to God.”
The Old Testament sacrifices in the Temple were
votive offerings from man’s property, but higher
forms of sacrifices are “obedience, justice and
righteousness, and mercy and love.” But are these
sufficiently pure to be acceptable to God? Higher yet
is the sacrifice of a broken spirit. But, as Nygren
notes, “one who thinks of humility as a way to
fellowship with God and feels that his own humility
gives him an imperishable worth in God’s sight, is at
. bottom anything but humble.”
Entombment of Christ, by Caravaggio, 1603

St Augustine was surprised to observe that
when “St Paul uses caritas,” or Latin for
Agape-Love, “he nearly always means love
to one’s neighbor, and only very seldom
means Love for God.”
Nygren summarizes the Pauline emphasis:
“It is not the connection between man’s
Love for God and his love for his neighbor
that guarantees the religious character of
neighborly love. Instead, it is the connection
between God’s Love and neighborly love
that Paul emphasizes; making this
neighborly love more profoundly religious.”
The Good Samaritan, by Rembrandt, 1633

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

Nygren teaches us that Paul
seeks to give man’s “Love
towards God” “its proper name,
which he calls ‘FAITH.’ Faith
includes in itself the whole
devotion of love, while
emphasizing it is a reciprocated
love. Faith is love towards God,
but a love of which the keynote
is receptivity, not spontaneity.”
Women at the empty tomb, by Fra Angelico, 1446

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

St Paul Writing
His Epistles, by
Valentin de
Boulogne, 1620

St Paul included a chapter on Love in his first
epistle to the Corinthians, where he cautioned
that while knowledge, or gnosis, will pass
away, that Agape-Love will last forever. This is
the core teaching: “Love is patient and kind;
love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant
or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it
is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice
at wrong but rejoices in the right. Love bears
all things, believes all things, hopes all things,
endures all things.” St Paul ends the chapter:
“So faith, hope, and love abide, these three;
but the greatest of these is love.”
Preaching of St Paul at Ephesus, by Eustache Le Sueur, 1649

Anders Nygren observes that “Agape
has for Paul a value and significance of
its own.” “It is not necessary to ask
every time the word occurs, to whom
the love is directed. Agape is primarily
God’s own Love, which is by nature self-
giving and overflowing.” “Whether
human love is one of the things that
pass away, or one of those that abide,
depends not on whether it is love for
one’s neighbor or Love for God, but on
whether it is a merely human love, or a
love born of God’s own image.”
Mosaic of St Paul in Basilica of San Vitale, Ravenna, Italy, 500's

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

Anders Nygren notes that “there is no
trace here of the Pauline reserve in
speaking of Love for God. Love for God
and love for the brethren belong so
inseparably together that one can be
inferred from the other.” The difference
between Paul and John is emphasis only:
“Just as love is for Paul essentially ‘the
Agape of the Cross,’ so for John it is the
Cross that reveals the deepest mysteries
of Divine Love.”
Raising of the Cross, by Sebastiano Mazzoni, 1600's

In John 13, Jesus proclaims: “A
new commandment I give to you,
that you love one another; even
as I have loved you, that you also
love one another. By this all men
will know that you are my
disciples, if you have love for one
another.” This is a New
Commandment because it has
been revealed through the
sacrifice made by Jesus, who died
for our sake on the Cross.
Crucifixion, seen from the Cross, by James Tissot, 1890

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

We cannot forget the most famous
passage in John 3:16: “For God so
loved the world that he gave his only
Son, that whoever believes in him
should not perish but have eternal
life.”
Nygren concludes, “The Johannine
conception of Love represents in a
measure the transition to a stage
where the Christian idea of love is no
longer determined solely by the Agape
motif, but by ‘Eros and Agape.’”
Way to Calvary, by Andrea di Bartolo, 1400

Although Anders Nygren’s Agape and Eros is addressed to fellow
scholars, it is still readable and quotable, though sometimes a bit
repetitive. We mostly skipped over his comments on related works by
Max Scheler, Kant, Nietzsche, Adolf von Harnack, and Richard
Reitzenstein, some of the scholarly arguments are probably stale a
hundred years later. Max Sheler was a philosopher who influenced the
views of Pope John Paul II, who earned a PhD in Philosophy.
We must mention our favorite country song by Rhonda Vincent, with
the telling refrain, “You don’t Love God if you don’t love your neighbor.”

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

https://www.meetup.com/Reflections/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLqDkfFbWhXOnzdjp__YZtg/

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

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

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

Similar to Anders Nygren, On Christian Agape-Love and Eros-Love in Gospels and Pauline Epistles (16)

More from Reflections on Morality, Philosophy, and History

More from Reflections on Morality, Philosophy, and History (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

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