Ἀγαπάω, Ἀγάπη, Ἀγαπητός, In the TDNT

ἀγαπάω, ἀγάπη, ἀγαπητός → φιλέω A. Love in the OT. 1. Lexical analysis shows that the main word employed to express the concept of love in the OT is the root אהב with its derivatives אֹהַב, אֲהָבִים, אַהֲבָה Like the English word, this is used with reference to persons as well as things and actions, and there is a most informative religious as well as a profane use. LXX mostly renders it ἀγαπᾶν, and only seldom and in a secular context φιλεῖν (10 times; φιλία 5 times for אַהֲבָה), ἐρᾶσθαι (twice) or φιλιάζειν (once). The next term which calls for notice is the common Semitic root רחם which is used as a verb in the OT with one exception in the piel. In most cases this restricts the concept of love to that of pity for the needy, and it is often used, therefore, to denote the love of God. In almost every case God alone is called רַחוּם (“merciful”). In translation of רחם the LXX uses ἀγαπᾶν only 5 times, in other cases using ἐλεεῖν as the most common rendering (26 times) or οἰκτείρειν (10 times). To this circle also belong the roots חפץ (in the LXX mostly ἐθέλειν, otherwise βούλεσθαι, βουλεύεσθαι, εὐδοκεῖν and ἀγαπᾶν) and רצה (LXX εὐδοκεἰν, προσδέχεσθαι, παραδέχεσθαι, εὐλογεῖν, and ἀγαπᾶν). These cause the person or thing by which the emotion is evoked to be followed by בְּ “to have pleasure in.” Mention may also be made of חשׁק “to adhere to someone in love” (LXX, προαιρεῖσθαι, ἐνθυμεῖσωαι, ἐλπίζειν), and חבב which in the OT is found only in Dt. 33:3, but which is common in Aramaic. Limited to the secular sphere is עגב which denotes the sensually demanding love of the female, being used of the male only in Jer. 4:30. So, too, are the nouns דּוֹדִים and יְדִידֹת. יָדִיד “beloved” is used only in the phrase יְדִיד יהוה “beloved of Yahweh.” From this analysis we learn that love in the OT is basically a spontaneous feeling which impels to self-giving or, in relation to things, to the seizure of the object which awakens the feeling, or to the performance of the action in which pleasure is taken. Love is an inexplicable power of soul given in the inward person: מְאֹד (Dt. 6:5). One loves “with all one’s heart and soul and strength” (Dt. 6:5; 13:4) if one does justice to the feeling of love. Love and hate are the poles of life (Qoh. 3:8; 9:6). To the natural basis residing in sexuality it best corresponds that the power of love is directed to persons, so that the numerous statements about love for things or actions seem at once to belong to a weaker or more metaphorical usage. Indeed, it may be concluded that only where there is reference to the love of persons for persons does the living basis emerge on which the concept rests. This is present, of course, in the religious use. For the authors of the OT the love of God is always a correlative of His personal nature, just as love for Him is quite strictly love for His person, and only for His Word or Law or temple etc. on this basis of love for His person. Nevertheless love is such a powerful expression of personal life that even the metaphorical use of the term in relation to things hardly ever loses its passionate note except perhaps in the case of lesser objects. In the OT the thought of love is both profane or immanent and religious or theological. The former usage relates primarily to the mutual relation of the sexes, then to parents and children, then to friends, to masters and servants and society generally. It is natural that we should use this group to interpret the numerically less frequent but for that very reason much more significant passages in which it is used religiously. For it is easier to grasp the content of the thought in the immanent sphere, and to judge the scope and bearing of the religious statements accordingly. 2. The Profane and Immanent Conception of love. a. The most obvious passages calling for notice are those in which love unambiguously signifies the vital impulse of the sexes towards one another. For here we can see at a glance the impelling element behind it and its uniqueness, especially its complete difference from law. Sexuality is often strongly emphasised, and most strongly by Ezekiel, who uses אהב almost exclusively in the piel to denote sexual desire. Hosea and Jeremiah, too, often speak of love in this sense, and when the imperative אֱהַב occurs in Hos. 3:1 it is simply denoting the sexual act even if in an obviously euphemistic form. But even where there is no emphasising of its unrestricted nature, the love of man and woman, and particularly of husband and wife, is generally recognised quite simply as a given natural reality, and the fact that in Israel, too, it contributed to the ennoblement of life may be seen from its elevation to the theme of poetic glorification. The most forceful expression of the passion of love, almost hymnic in style, is to be found in the Song of Solomon 8:6: עַוָּה כַמָּוֶת אַהֲבָה Love is the positive power which in the erotic sphere is confronted by negating hatred as a primitive force of equally unknown origin. The story of Amnon and Tamar presents the brutal nature of both impulses with undisguised clarity (2 S. 13:1–22), and in the hysterical words of the bride of Samson: רַק שְׂנֵאתַנִי וְלֹא אֲהַבְתָּנִי (Ju. 14:16; cf. 16:15; Gn. 29:31, 33), the same element finds haunting expression. Finally, even the Law has had cause to concern itself with the erotic symptoms of love and aversion (Dt. 21:15 ff.; 22:13 ff.; 24:1 ff.). b. We seem to be dealing with something quite different when the same words אהב, רצה or חפץ are used to denote personal relationships which have no connexion with sexuality. Parenthood, blood relationship, friendship and legal partnership are the spheres in which the love which is free of the libido applies. Their connexion with sexual love is admitted to be very difficult to explain psychologically, and it may be that OT usage, like our own, relates under these modes of expression things which intrinsically have nothing to do with one another, so that in the analysis of such expressions we are rightly forced to speak metaphorically. That is to say, using the same words for sexual love and for non-sexual social relationships, we necessarily compare the latter with the love which bears an erotic emphasis. Yet this is perhaps going too far when we remember that in Hebrew, so far as we can see, there is absolutely no possibility of expressing, even though it may be felt (2 S. 1:26), the distinction between the two magnitudes of ἔρως and ἀγάπη. This means that the element common to both must have controlled the conceptions of the OT authors so strongly that they did not feel any need for verbal variation. Hence we should find particularly instructive for a perception of this normative element in the content of the word those passages which indicate the spontaneous and irrational nature of love as a feeling which wells up from personality. Jonathan loves David אַהֲבַת נַפִשׁוֹ, i.e., with the love which is proper to his own soul and which flows out from it (1 S. 20:17). Saul loves David מְאֹד, i.e., after the manner of a force which asserts itself in him (1 S. 16:21). Or Jonathan loves David כְּנַפְשׁוֹ (“as his own soul,” 1 S. 18:1, 3), i.e., his relation to David was not merely close, but just as much impelled by and necessary to life as his relationship to his own soul. He was identical with David in the same way as a man is identical with his soul. If it would seem that there could be almost no way of emulating this simple comparison as an expression of spiritual communion, the poetic form of the same thought in David’s lament for his friend is the more impressive: נִפְלְאַתָה אַהֲבָתְךָ לִי (“thy love to me was wonderful”). For here the irrational element in the experience is more strongly emphasised, though there is not strictly any religious connexion. c. We cannot always gather from the language the same intensity of feeling, nor perhaps is it always present, when the friend or relative is simply described as אֹהֵב But it constitutes the greatness of the OT ethos that it can always orientate itself by the thought of love. Love is regarded as the inalienable constituent of humanity, and for this reason it is declared to be the norm of social intercourse and set under the impress and protection of the theonomic law. Basically, it is of little consequence that such regulations apply only to compatriots and fellowcitizens. The legal character of the statements, their claim to validity within a definite circle of jurisdiction, makes it necessary that there should be specific reference to certain legally defined persons—a form which is necessarily felt to be an alien restriction when the living basis of the term אהב reminds us of the inner paradox of attempting to apply a non-legal word in a legal direction. Hence a statement like Lv. 19:18: וְאָהַבְתָּ לְרֵעֲךָ בָמוֹךָ, although couched in the legal style of the usual demand, and containing the legally very closely circumscribed term רֵעַ, is not really a legal statement, because the attitude denoted by the word אהב is one of natural feeling which cannot be legally directed. If the statement were really to have the force of law, then the word אהב would have to be taken purely phenomenologically as an injunction to act as one usually does in love. It is obvious, however, that even on this side it cannot be taken seriously as a legal ordinance, and in the analogous command to hate the observation בִּלְבָבְךָ reveals that what is envisaged is a disposition. Hence all claim to legal competence must be renounced, and we are not to see in the legal form any more than an oxymoron designed to make the reader sharply aware that the ultimate concern of social legislation is to protect, foster and sometimes awaken the sense of brotherliness. This should be the basis of the legal relations, and to fulfil the command of love can only consist in not hindering the feeling of love, the rise of which is not connected with any act of will, but rather in accepting it in relation to the רֵעַ as though dealing with oneself: כָּמוֹךָ. If the concern of the legislator is to order social life, he knows that all his ordinances in this direction can only be half measures if they are purely legal, and that the thought of power will always have a disruptive effect on society. Hence, whether or not he perceives its legal incongruity, he formulates the paradoxical command to love. There is the obvious danger that in this way there might be established a much weakened and therefore legally competent concept of love in the sense of favouring etc. But if we tried to interpret it along these lines, we should have great difficulty in proving it from analogous legal expressions. For Lv. 19:34, which gives us in the same form a command to love in relation to resident aliens (נֵּר), is burdened with the same difficulties. It seems rather that the conception of Jesus, namely, that this is one of the two commands on which the whole Law depends (Mt. 22:40), does more justice to the meaning of what is said. Jesus isolates the command to love from the other legal materials, and protects it from all attempts at juristic interpretation, which in any case can only be forced. For a command to love arrayed in the garb of law reduces the law ad absurdum, since it indicates the limit at which all divine or human legislation must halt, and demands a moral direction of life transcending that of law. This observation leads us to a definite judgment concerning particularism, which lies in a restriction to fellow-nationals rather than to fellow-residents. In his apparently exclusive concern with the wholly concrete relations of law, the legislator introduces into his definitions a thought which presses rather beyond the actual wording when he specifically envisages as neighbours not merely those who are such by law but simply men who are worthy of an act of love. The LXX translator is hardly guilty of a material error when he greatly weakens the legal sound of רֵעֲךָ with his rendering ὁ πλησίον σου. The real concern is in fact with men who live in the most immediate vicinity. On this basis the interpretation can move confidently to the conclusion that the רֵעַ or גֵּר can from the human standpoint signify an enemy or hater and yet the attitude to him must be determined by love. The remarkable mutual interrelation of the two passages Dt. 22:1–4 and Ex. 23:4 f. seems at any rate to be concerned with and to give grounds for some such consideration. The passage in Dt. imposes an obligation of assistance in the case of a brother, i.e., a fellow-national, that in the book of the covenant in the case of an enemy. Whether we understand Ex. 23:4 f. as a development of Dt. 22:1–4, or the latter conversely as a weakening of the former, there can be no doubt that a comparison of the passages indicates the possibility of love of enemies as well being incorporated into the command to love in Lv. 19:18. The רֵעַ may be a friend or a foe, but he is to be the object of the feeling of love and not of legal definition. This implies a primacy of the man over the legal person. In this form the demands of Ex. 23:4 f., and perhaps to an even higher degree the basic statements in Prv. 25:21: לָחֶם וְאִם־צָמֵא הַשְׁקֵהוּ מָיִם אִם רָעֵב שׂנַאֲךָ הַאֲכִילֵהוּ are designed to serve the practical inculcation of love for enemies, not being concerned directly with the disposition towards them, but making obligatory a specific line of conduct. The example of Joseph in the Joseph stories provides a practical illustration of the repayment of evil with good which also calls attention to Joseph’s obedience to God (Gn. 50:19). It is also true, of course, that the OT indicates the limits of love towards enemies, most impressively in the anguished 109th Psalm. The petitioner remembers his love, but this can only serve to nourish his hate in dreadful illustration of the sentence in Sir. 37:2: הלא דין מגיע עד־מות ריע כנפשׁ נהפך לצר. Even to the poor it often happened as described in the cutting saying in Proverbs (14:20), and it seemed almost impossible to attain a personal and human relation to the foreigner in view of the tribal organisation and cultic exclusivism. Yet the occasional visible clashes between theory and practice cannot destroy the greatness of the ethical demand, especially when it is recalled that it is proclaimed with divine authority and that there is also a place in the OT for the living value of love in religious experience as well. 3. The Religious Conception of Love. a. From what we have seen already of the nearness to life of the concept of love it is surely obvious that it must have high theological value once it comes to be used in the language of religion. This is generally true even in the OT, although it is applied here only in statements concerning the mutual relation between God and man which are either very restrained or constricted by thelogical speculation and therefore easily underestimated. This restraint has its basis in the powerful predominance of the concept of the covenant, which asserts itself so strongly in the theological thinking of the biblical writers that they can seldom free themselves from the legal way of thinking which conditions this theory, and represent in its religious significance and with its unique force the thought of love as an expression of physical reality alien to the legal world. Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that the thought of the covenant (→ διαθήκη) is itself an expression in juridical terms of the experience of the love of God. Hence the concept of love is the ultimate foundation of the whole covenant theory. It is a mark of Israelite religion that this connexion is for the most part only tacitly recognised, as though there were a fear of finding so typical a creaturely emotion and its resultant power in the nature of God, or of estimating too highly such an experience in dealings with God. No less striking are the attempts to approximate the thought of love to such concepts, imported into theology from law, as חֶסֶד, מִשְׁפָּט. צֶדֶק, אֱמֶת. etc., which are preferred to describe ethical and religious conduct. These do, in fact, bring about a levelling of the whole heritage of religious thought, and effectively hinder the fruitfulness of the concept of love in the OT. Yet they do not block it so completely that it cannot emerge in its full greatness in occasional statements. These statements tell us on the one side that man loves God, and on the other that God loves man. Rather strikingly, no logical relationship is established between the two groups, and only the teacher of Deuteronomy attempts anything along these lines, sometimes demanding Israel’s love for Yahweh on the ground of Yahweh’s love for the fathers (Dt. 10:14–16), and sometimes promising Yahweh’s love as a reward for covenant faithfulness (Dt. 7:14). It is not advisable, however, to investigate a thought in the light of its hortatory evaluation. Hence in what follows we shall take each group alone irrespective of any order of rank. b. Love as a basic feeling of the pious in relation to the Godhead is accepted in the OT without any attempt to define the content of this feeling by way of instruction. If sometimes it is brought into connexion with fear, this is obviously an improper use for the sake of plerophory of expression. For love in the OT is a contrary feeling to fear, striving to overcome distance and thus participating as a basic motive in prayer. To love God is to have pleasure in Him and to strive impulsively after Him. Those who love God are basically the pious whose life of faith bears the stamp of originality and genuineness and who seek God for His own sake. If, then, Abraham is called a אֹהֵב יהוה on account of his intimate intercourse with God, he is a model of piety. As men of a distinctive inner life, members of the community of Yahweh in general can then be called אֹהֲבֵי יהוה This designation embraces religion on its active side, although without slipping over into the cultic and ethical. Quite evidently it is not in any sense a mere theologoumenon, but its origin lies in simple experience. It attempts to describe a vital religious process of an active kind which leads beyond or even apart from passive creaturely feeling to the distinctive joy of faith which the pious man needs and to which he gives expression in every hymnic motif. Love finds salvation in the Godhead, and is the strongest basis of confidence. The wealth of hymnic motifs which we find in the OT allows us to deduce the high significance and rich cultivation of this form of piety in the religion of Yahweh, which we might otherwise fail to appreciate in view of the fact that when the formal concept of love occurs, especially outside the prophetic books, it is almost always turned to exhortatory or confessional use and thus seems to be more of a rational product than is really the case. Thus we find such favourite combinations as to love Yahweh and keep His commandments, or to love Him and serve Him (Dt. 10:12; 11:13; Is. 56:6), or to love Him and walk in His ways (Dt. 10:12; 11:22; 19:9; 30:16; Jos. 22:5; 23:11). These powerfully link love with cultic and ethical conduct and thus militate to some degree against a deeper understanding. As against this, Dt. 30:6 impressively teaches us to understand love for God as a deeply inward and finally God-given experience. Yahweh circumcises the heart of Israel so that Israel loves Him with all its heart and soul. The prophetic picture (Jer. 4:4), which is in every respect a polemic against the secularisation of the concept of the covenant, serves, with a characteristic modification in sense of Jer. 31:33 (and also of Ez. 11:19), to indicate the irrational origin of the most powerful vital forces of the community. But often the usage, as our examples have shown, is utterly alien to this thought. When the love of God is considered, the tendency in most authors is for the act, i.e., the ethical expression, to be ranked above the feeling, so that the impression is left that man himself decides whether or not to love. This impression is most strongly left by the command which Jesus calls the greatest in the Law: יהוה אֱלֹהֶיךָ בְּכָל־לְבָבְךָ וּבְכָל־נַפְשְׁךָ וּבְכָל־מְאֹדֶךָ וְאָהַבְתָּ אֵת. (Dt. 6:5). The paradoxical element is the same as in the commands of Lv. 19:18, 34, and what we said in relation to these applies here too. There is ordered as a law that which cannot be the subject of legal enactment. This cannot, of course, be understood by those who lack the spiritual power to which the command refers. The command presupposes and demands this in order to be raised. All the emphasis is placed on the threefold כֹּל (totality), and we may rightly paraphrase as follows: Thou shalt recognise the totality of the power indwelling thee, producing from the emotion of love a disposition which determines the total direction of thy life, and placing thy whole personality, לֵבָב and נֶפֶשׁ in the service of the relationship to Yahweh. It is true that this relationship already exists as a wholly personal (אֱלֹהֶיךָ) one. Man loves his God. But the concern of the law-giver is to make clear that there is contained therein a demand and a duty. As an instructor and leader he realises that whatever does not issue in action is worthless. He thus seeks by paradoxical formulation to make the most positive power in religion fruitful for covenant faithfulness. Yahweh Himself will test the seriousness of love (Dt. 13:3). In such thoughts the Deuteronomist is at one with Jeremiah, who bases the new fellowship between God and the people, the covenant of the coming age, on the law inscribed upon the heart and therefore on a law which is no true law any more (Jer. 31:33). He means nothing other than the free impulsion of love for God. c. The message of the love of God takes on a national and an individual form in the OT. If chronological priority must be ascribed to the former, the nature of love finds purer and more instructive expression in the latter. It is striking how seldom the OT says that God loves a specific person. Only on two occasions do we meet with the expression יְדִיד יהוה, loved of Yahweh, while turns of phrase with אהב are to be found only three times, and they are there used in relation to the rulers Solomon (2 S. 12:24; Neh. 13:26) and Cyrus (Is. 48:14?), so that they may well be linked with the theory of the divine sonship of kings which came to be accepted in Israel but which had an indisputable origin in pagan mythology in spite of the purification of its form. For this reason these passages can hardly be explained from within the circle of ideas proper to the religion of Yahweh. Elsewhere אהב is completely avoided in statements concerning God’s love. Instead, רצה is used, which as a sacrifical expression does not indicate anything like the same immediacy of feeling, or חפץ, which does at least carry within it the element of recognition. It may thus be concluded that basically the love of Yahweh is not usually related to individuals. For even those who pray prefer the thoughts of Yahweh’s majesty, power or kindness to that of His love when they seek favour in respect of their personal affairs, or else in addresses like מַלְכִּי they conceal as it were in the suffix “my” their desire for the loving remembrance of their God. To this there corresponds the fact that for the most part only collective objects of the love of God are mentioned. On the borderline there stand the designations in the singular of certain types of persons such as fellow-citizens, the pure in heart, those who seek after righteousness etc., whom God loves or directs as does a father his son (Prv. 3:12). Behind such instructive statements there may perhaps stand certain experiences of faith such as emerge in the motifs of confidence in the Psalms, but their true religious content is hard to fix, since in them love approximates so closely to recognition or even to patronage in the case of the people of the land. Again the pedagogic debasement of the father-son relationship in its more pedantic application militates against a deeper conception of love in such a connexion. The thought of fatherhood does not penetrate to the private piety of ancient Israel. d. What the OT has to say about the love of God moves for the most part in national trains of thought, where it finds its natural soil. Love as a basic motif in Yahweh’s dealings with His people seems first to have been experienced and depicted by Hosea, so far as we can see. To be sure, the thought of the Father-God is also found in Isaiah (1:4; 30:1, 9), but for him the emphasis falls rather on the element of authority than on the inner feeling of attraction, as may be seen in the bitter words of Yahweh concerning the ingratitude of His sons. As against this, Hosea clearly perceives at the depths of the thought of the election and the covenant the spontaneous love of the acting God. Seeing that the forms and guarantees of law are inadequate to express the way in which Yahweh is bound to His people, he depicts this God as a man who against custom, legal sense and reason woos a worthless woman (Hos. 3:1). Hosea has to love the adulteress as Yahweh loves the children of Israel. This means that the whole of official religion has long since disintegrated, and that only an unfathomable power of divine love, apparently grotesque to sound common-sense, still sustains the existence of His people. Even the experience with Gomer, if we do not include chapter 3 in this, expresses something of the same. The prophet is to take a harlot to wife, for only a marriage which is nonsensical in the eyes of men and dishonouring to the husband can really give a faithful picture of the relationship of Yahweh to the land of Israel (Hos. 1:2). The threatening character of the names of the children, Not-beloved and Not-my-people, gives us an insight that the attitude of the husband is, of course, far from passive or supine, that the adulterous wife is lightly playing with fire, that she is unsuspectingly (2:8: “she did not know”) moving towards the fate of one who is accused by her own children (2:2). She becomes an object of pity. The One who stands over the whole miserable situation knows her wretched plight better than she does herself, and takes her under His legal protection (2:19: ארשׂ) for ever (בְּרַחֲמִים). Then she will “know” Him in the full sense (2:20). This is how Hosea seeks to understand the rule of God. He pulls down the structure of the covenant theory in order to lay bare its foundation in the love of God and then to build it again with צֶדֶק, מִשְׁפָּט, חֶסֶד and אֱמוּנָה But the foundation stone is רַחֲמִים or mercy. With the same tenderness and depth Hosea introduces the thought of God’s love in other motifs which cause us to think of fatherly love, although the actual terms father and son are perhaps deliberately avoided and we are simply given a picture of the fatherly instructor who is disappointed but who for this very reason loves the more passionately, Israel has had a time of childhood and has thus won the love of Yahweh (11:1). Ephraim has learned to put its arm in His (11:3), and thus to be drawn by cords of love, with no calling nor direction. Hence when he stands before a destruction brought upon himself, and it seems to be for Yahweh almost a duty to fulfil His righteous wrath, the love of God breaks through in terms of lament: “How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel? … mine heart is turned within me, my repentings are kindled within me. I will not execute the fierceness of mine anger, I will not turn to destroy Ephraim: for I am God and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee” (11:8–9). In this basic statement we may justly see the final fulfilment of the OT thought of love. A precedence of divine love over human is affirmed. It is to be found only in the fact that divine love does not let itself be affected by emotions or doubts which threaten it. It works irresistibly as an original force in the nature of God. When He acts in love, God demonstrates no less than His proper character as the holy God. Hence He suffers under the lovelessness of His people, whose covenant faithfulness is only like the morning dew which quickly dispels (6:4). In face of its sin He is overcome by a kind of helplessness: “O Ephraim, what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto thee?” This motif of the suffering love of God gives a peculiar note to all the threats in Hosea. It helps us to understand the degree of comfortlessness in such sayings as 9:15: לֹא אוֹסֵף אַהֲבָתָם “I will love them no more.” They have for him the significance of God’s ceasing to be God, and therefore of absolute chaos. If the concluding chapter withdraws all these threats with the saying: אֹהֲבֵם נְדָבָה (14:4), there can be no doubt that this is spoken in the sense of the basic tendency of his message, whatever may be the relation of this chapter to the rest of the prophecy. In a rather different and, as it seems to be, somewhat weakened form, the motif of the suffering love of God is also used in Jeremiah (12:7–9). Yahweh hates His heritage because it roars against Him like a lion. Nevertheless He calls it יְדִדוּת נַפְשִׁי and the whole poem is a lament. Yahweh Himself cannot say why Ephraim is to Him such a dear son that He is inwardly moved when He thinks of him and has to have mercy on him. He loves His wife Israel with an eternal love, and this love is the basis of His faithfulness (31:3). In other places, too, Jeremiah adopts the motif of Hosea—whether consciously or unconsciously we need not decide. He thinks of a youth of Jerusalem-Judah celebrated with Yahweh in love like a honeymoon, and in this connexion he describes the Word of Yahweh as the fountain of living water (2:2 f.), 13). He shows how Yahweh waited in vain to hear from His beloved the tender word “my father” (3:19), and how He must feel it that she speaks to Him only hypocritically (3:4), and yet how He does not cease to call her to repentance (4:1). Deutero-Isaiah, too, takes up the theme of the beloved of youth adopted again by God with eternal mercy (Is. 54:5–8), but he distinctively rejects the motif of the harlot. Instead, the wife of Yahweh has been left by her Husband for a עֲזוּבָה וַעֲצוּבַת רוּחַ, a moment. It is not she who has left Him; He has left her in wrath, as is now sadly interjected, though without specifying the reason for this wrath. The conception of Zion as the wife of Yahweh is perhaps also in the background when Deutero-Isaiah gives his emotionally most effective description of God’s love in comparing it to, and even rating it above, motherly love. It may be, says Yahweh to Zion, that mothers sometimes forget their children, “yet will not I forget thee.” The theme of the father and son is also introduced as a variation when Yahweh addresses Israel in the masculine and declares to him his redemption: “I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee, since thou wast precious in my sight, and art worthy, and I love thee” (Is. 43:3f.). If in spite of varying estimates of their originality the prophetic passages all prove to be elemental expressions of piety untrammeled by theorising, the sayings in Deuteronomy concerning the love of God display a different character. They attempt to make the lofty thought fruitful by pedagogic presentation, though this necessarily entails a certain weakening, since the fulness of experience out of which the prophets speak is obscured by the style of Torah. The experience is transformed into dogma. As we have seen already, the thought of love in Dt. serves predominantly to undergird the thought of election and the covenant. The irrational singularity of love is presented, therefore, in a way which is strictly formal and ineffective. Thus we are told that Yahweh has chosen Israel of all the nations on earth as His peculiar people. It was not because Israel was more numerous than others, on the contrary, it is the smallest of all peoples—but because He loved Israel that He bound Himself (חשׁק) to it (Dt 7:6 ff.). In the same breath, however, we go on to read of the oath which Yahweh swore to the fathers, so that the impression is only too easily given that the legal guarantee given in the oath is the truly valuable and estimable feature, and the expression can thus become and be used as an exhortation to perceive from all this that Yahweh, the true God, is also the faithful God, who binds Himself by covenant to all those who for their part love Him and keep His commandments. Indeed, Dt 7:13 links the love of God with blessing as a reward which Yahweh will give for covenant faithfulness. Hence the thought of love unintentionally acquires a note of Do ut des which it does not have in the prophets. It is integrated into the way of life of the pious man, and thus robbed of its best part, of its freedom. The integration is more happily made in Dt. 10:14 f.), because there the thought of the oath is dropped and it is simply stated that Yahweh had a delight in the fathers to love them, and that He elected their seed after them. If the circumcision of the foreskin of the heart is demanded, this seems to be more in keeping with the message of the love of God, since it does not enter the sphere of law. The thought of the father best corresponds to the educative purpose of Dt “Consider also in thine heart,” we read in Dt 8:5, “that, as a man brings up (יסר pi) his son, so Yahweh will bring up thee.” But obviously even in this form the thought is rather different from what we find in Hosea. The clear development of the concept of love into a dogma in Dt. has some most important consequences. This fact is bound up specifically with the close interrelating to the dogma of election, so that it is involved in the process of hardening which the latter doctrine undergoes. We can see this by way of example in the use made of the thought in Malachi. At the beginning, we have a statement which startles us by its very simplicity: “I love you, saith Yahweh” (1:2). This message, however, is not understood with the depth and consequent breadth to be found in the word אהב, but it provides the occasion for a remarkable discussion of the question how this love works itself out and what is its basis. This can hardly be meant as a question of truth, but only as a question of law. Enquiry is made into the circumstances which have the fact אֲחַבְתָּנוּ as consequence or presupposition. Thus the tenderness of the thought is violated and its force shattered. As the continuation shows, the good news is unfortunately estimated according to its legal implications. These are shown to consist in the privileged status of Jacob as compared with Esau. The misfortune of Esau-Edom discloses that he is hated by Yahweh, whereas Jacob should learn to regard the fact that he is spared the same fate as a proof of the “love” of Yahweh. If the use of the usual marital terms אֲהוּבָה and שְׂנוּאָה may have had some influence in producing this antithesis, there is still every reason to deplore the distortion of the thought of love in the argumentation: Yahweh loves because He hates. Even the thought of the father is mutilated in this book. It is expounded as a legal claim against the priests: “If then I be a father,” says Yahweh to them, “where is mine honour?” (Mal. 1:6). Or it is almost completely reduced to a relationship of service such as obtains between a father and the son who works in his business (Mal. 3:17). e. Yet the prophetic concept of the love of God is powerful enough of itself to be able to paralyse such distortions. To the same degree as the prophetic thought of God, it ultimately bears within itself the tendency to universality. Naturally, we do not find in the OT any direct expressions of a love of God which reaches beyond Israel. To interpret it in this way we should have to try to see it against Messianic contexts in which it may perhaps be presumed. Yet this would mean wresting our exposition, since even where Messianic conceptions escape from particularism and lead to the idea of humanity they are too pale and general to find a place for such a vital motif. The short statement in Dt 33:3: אַף חֹבֵב עַמִּים can in itself, according to Mas. and most versions, be interpreted in an absolutely universalist sense. But the context shows that it is not intended in this way, and that there is thus some corruption in it. In any case it is questionable whether עַמִּים can mean “nations.” Again, the international question of Malachi 2:10: “Have we not all one father?”, does not refer to the love of God but to His creative work, as is shown by the second question: “Hath not one God created us?” The story of the tower of Babel in Gn. 11:1–9 indicates actual opposition to the idea of humanity. B. The Words for Love in Pre-biblical Greek. Basically, there are three expressions for love in pre-biblical Greek: ἐρᾶν, φιλεῖν, and ἀγαπᾶν. 1. ἐρᾶν is passionate love which desires the other for itself. In every age the Greeks sung glowing hymns to sensually joyous and daemonic ἔρως, the god who is compelled by none but compels all. This god played a great role in the cult, became in philosophy from the time of Plato the epitome of the uttermost fulfilment and elevation of life, and was completely sublimated and spiritualised in the mysticism of Plotinus to signify desire for union with the ἕν. What the Greek seeks in eros is intoxication, and this is to him religion. To be sure, reflection is the finest of the flirts which the heavenly powers have set in the heart of man (Soph. Ant., 683 ff.); it is the fulfilment of humanity in measure. More glorious, however, is the eros which puts an end to all reflection, which sets all the senses in a frenzy, which bursts the measure and form of all humanistic humanity and lifts man above himself. The great tragic dramatists estimate it with no less horror than enthusiasm: ἔρως ἀνίκατε μάχαν … ὁ δʼ ἔχων μέμηνεν. Σὺ καὶ δικαίων ἀδίκους φρένας παρασπᾷς ἐπὶ λώβᾳ (op. cit., 781 ff.). It is a god, and he is powerful even above the gods: τύραννος θεῶν τε κἀνθρώπων (Eur. Fr., 132, Nauck). All the forces of heaven and earth are forces of second rank compared with the one and only supreme power of eros. No choice is left, nor will, nor freedom, to the man who is seized by its tyrannical omnipotence, and he finds supreme bliss in being mastered by it. Where the daemonism of sensual intoxication is celebrated with religious enthusiasm, there conversely religion itself seeks the supreme point of experience in this ecstasy. Creative eros stands at the heart of the fertility rites, and prostitution flourishes in the temples of the great goddesses, often under oriental influence. The sexual unions of gods and men narrated in mythology find current actualisation in the cultus. In the ἱερὸς γάμος (→ γάμος) the devotees experience physical union with the world of the gods. Religion and ecstasy come together in religiously transmuted eroticism. But the intoxication sought by the Greek in eros is not necessarily sensual. Already in the Greek mysteries, as so often in mysticism, erotic concepts are spiritualised in many ways as images and symbols for the encounter with the suprasensual. Plato works in this direction, devoting a whole dialogue to eros. For him, too, eros is an ecstasy which transports man beyond rationality (cf. Phaedr., 237 ff., 242 ff.), which has its source in an elemental need, and which finally issues in creative inspiration (Symp., 200, 206). But corporal beauty, which enkindles eros, is only a signpost to the αὐτὸ τὸ θεῖον καλόν which is intended and sought in all loving, to eternal being and the true good (Symp., 210 f.). Plato decisively lifts eros above everything sensual. Similarly, Aristotle frees it from the merely experiential and understands it as a cosmic function. It is the power of attraction in virtue of which the original principle maintains all being in order and movement: κινεῖ δὲ ὡς ἐρώμενον. This loving which inwardly holds the world together has nothing more to do with intoxication. It is an act which is strictly volitional in character. The πρῶτον κινοῦν is not ἐπιθυμητόν but βουλητὸν πρῶτον, just because τὸ ὂν καλόν (Metaph., XII, 7, p. 1072a, 27f.). In later Platonism, too, there is a tendency to purge eros of its original daemonic characteristics, and to subject it to the ideal of humanity. In typical fashion, the tractate τίς ἡ Σωκράτους ἐρωτική by Maximus of Tyre, who is more Platonic than Plato himself (Symp., 181 f., 208/9), contrasts the desire of the senses and the desire for beauty: ἐκεῖνος Ἑλληνικός, βαρβαρικὸς οὗτος. ὁ μὲν ἄκων νοσεῖ, ὁ δὲ ἑκὼν ἐρᾷ (Max. Tyr., XIX, 4, Hobein); and more fully:. ἔρως … ἐστὶν χρῆμα … ἐλεύθερον (XX, 2). The mystical understanding of eros recurs in Plotinus (Enn., III, 5 π. ἔρωτος, Volkmann), in whom it finds its fullest expression. For him the true eros, the meaning of all love, is the impulsion of the soul beyond the world of sense and reason to the ὑπερβαλόν and ὑπεροχόν (cf. V, 5, 8), beyond all limitations to the point of coincidence: ἐράσμιον καὶ ἔρως ὁ αὐτὸς καὶ σὑτοῦ ἔρως (VI, 8, 15). The eros which celebrated its orgies in the social life of the time, which was on the look-out for piquant adventures in the myths of the gods, and which led to adventures in the temples, was developed humanistically by Maximus and sublimated mystically by Plotinus. Nevertheless it is the same eros, the natural impulse to the transcending of one’s own life. Hence the original form of erotic religion is sensual intoxication and the supreme form ecstasy. 2. φιλεῖν/φιλία, on the contrary, signifies for the most part the inclination or solicitous love of gods for men, or friends for friends. It means the love which embraces everything that bears a human countenance; the love of Antigone’s συμφιλεῖν ἔφυν. Here we see most clearly the nobility of love. It is not an impulse or intoxication which overcomes man, but an order or task which he may evade (→ φιλεῖν) 3. In the word ἀγαπᾶν the Greek finds nothing of the power or magic of ἐρᾶν and little of the warmth of φιλεῖν. Its etymology is uncertain, and its meaning weak and variable. Often it means no more than “to be satisfied with something;” often it means “to receive” or “to greet” or “to honour,” i.e., in terms of external attitude. It relates more to the inward attitude in its meaning of “seeking after something,” or “desiring someone or something.” The verb is often used to denote regard or friendship between equals, or sometimes sympathy. Particularly characteristic are the instances in which ἀγαπᾶν takes on the meaning of “to prefer,” “to set one good or aim above another,” “to esteem one person more highly than another.” Thus ἀγαπᾶν may be used of the preference of God for a particular man. The ἠγαπημένος ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ has a position of preference before God. He is blessed by God with particular gifts and possessions. The specific nature of ἀγαπᾶν becomes apparent at this point. Ἔρως is a general love of the world seeking satisfaction wherever it can. Ἀγαπᾶν is a love which makes distinctions, choosing and keeping to its object. Ἔρως is determined by a more or less indefinite impulsion towards its object. Ἀγαπᾶν is a free and decisive act determined by its subject. Ἐρᾶν in its highest sense is used of the upward impulsion of man, of his love for the divine. Ἀγαπᾶν relates for the most part to the love of God, to the love of the higher lifting up the lower, elevating the lower above others. Eros seeks in others the fulfilment of its own life’s hunger. Ἀγαπᾶν must often be translated “to show love”; it is a giving, active love on the other’s behalf. The use of ἀγαπητός, too, moves for the most part in the same sphere and enables us to trace the nuances of meaning of the verb. Ἀγαπητός can be applied to a thing which is right or a person who is dear. It is used above all of an only and precious child. Yet the meaning of ἀγαπᾶν etc. is still imprecise, and its individuation still tentative, as may be seen when it is conjoined or interchanged with ἐρᾶν or φιλεῖν. For in these cases ἀγαπᾶν is often a mere synonym which is set alongside the other two for the sake of emphasis or stylistic variation. To be sure, in Plotinus ἀγαπᾶν seems to be consciously used for condescending and ἐρᾶν for upsoaring love. But whereas eros consistently engages the thinking of poets and philosophers from Homer to Plotinus, ἀγαπᾶν hardly ever emerges as a subject of radical deliberation. It is indeed striking that the substantive ἀγάπη is almost completely lacking in pre-biblical Greek. The examples of ἀγάπη thus far adduced are few in number, and in many cases doubtful or hard to date. The reference in older indexes to Plut. Quaest. Conv. VII, 6, 2 (II, 709e): φιλίας καὶ ἀγάπης, cannot be sustained, Wyttenbach already having found the correct solution to ΑΓΑΠΗΣΩΝ: τοῦτο φιλίας ποιησόμενος ἀρχὴν καὶ ἀγαπήσων (instead of ἀγάπης ὦν) τὸ ῥαδίως … ἀφικέσθαι (finally adopted in Plut. ed. Dübner, p. 865). The scholion on Thucydides, II, 51, 5 (Hude, p. 142): ἀρετῆς: φιλανθρωπίας, ἀγάπης, is obviously late. Late and uncertain, too, is the appearance of ἀγάπη on a heathen inscription from Pisidia: πένψει δʼ εἰς ἀγά[πη]ν σε φιλομμειδὴς Ἀφροδείτη. Pre-Christian, but by no means certain, is Philodem. περὶ παρρησίας, 13, 3: διʼ ἀ[γ]άπης. Most important is the recent discovery of a papyrus from the early 2nd century a.d. containing an ancient Isis litany. It lists the cultic names with which Isis is invoked at different points: 1. 27 f.: ε[ν Θώνι ἀγάπ[ην …] ω, 1. 109 f. ἐν Ἰταλίᾳ ἀ[γά]πην θεῶν (so P. Oxy., XI (1915), 1380. In the second passage, of course, revised collation gives us the reading ἀ[γα]θην, ἀθολον (A […] THN ΑΦ-ΟΛΟΝ), cf. ἀλάθην, 1. 95. But there can be little doubt that ἀγάθην is used as a cultic name for Isis in 1. 28, cf. 1. 94, φιλίαν. On the other hand, ἀγαπησμός and ἀγάπησις are more numerous, obviously older and at any rate more certain than ἀγάπη. These both mean love or the demonstration of love. C. Love in Judaism. 1. The picture changes completely when we turn to the OT (→ Α.). אהב, the main word for love in the Hebrew text, applies to the passionate love between man and woman (Cant. 8:6 f.), to the selfless loyalty of friendship (1 S. 20), and to resolute adherence to righteousness (Ps. 45:8). The Hebrew word thus covers all the wealth of the three Greek terms. But there is lacking one feature, i.e., religious eroticism, and this lack distinguishes OT religion no less sharply from the fertility cults of surrounding nations than from the Greek world. The love of God for Israel (Dt 7:13) is not impulse but will; the love for God and the neighbour demanded of the Israelite (Dt 6:5; Lv. 19:18) is not intoxication but act. The distinctive characteristic of Israelite אַהֲבָה is, of course, its tendency to exclusivism. Greek eros is from the very outset a universal love, generous, unbound and non-selective. The love extolled in the OT is the jealous love which chooses one among thousands, holds him with all the force of passion and will, and will allow no breach of loyalty. It is in קִנְאָה that there is revealed the divine power of אַהֲבָה. Not for nothing does Cant. 8:6 link in its parallelism the love which is as strong as death with the jealousy which is as hard as hell. Jacob has two wives, but his love belongs only to the one (Gn. 29); he has twelve sons, but he loves one above all the rest (Gn. 37:3). God has set many nations in the world, but His love is for the elect people. With this people He has made a covenant which He faithfully keeps and jealously guards like a bond of marriage (Hos. 1 ff.). Transgression of the provisions of the covenant is a breach of faith, and the worship of false gods is adultery provoking the passionate קִנְאָה of Yahweh. For He is a jealous God, punishing guilt, but showing grace (חֶסֶד) to those who love Him and keep His commandments (Ex. 20:2 ff.). The same exclusive motif asserts itself in the principle of love for the neighbour. It is a love which makes distinctions, which chooses, which prefers and overlooks. It is not a cosmopolitan love embracing millions. The Israelite begins his social action at home. He loves his people with the same preferential love as is shown it by God. He extends his love to foreigners only is so far as they are incorporated into his house or nation (Ex. 20:10; 22:20 etc.). Even the enemy (שׂנא) is to have my assistance when in difficulty, and is expressly referred to my help (cf. Ex. 23:4 f.). It will be seen that the organic relationship and concrete situation are always normative for social responsibility. The general love of the Hellenistic cosmopolitan is eccentric. Neighbourly love for the native Israelite is concentric. The LXX almost always renders the אהב of the Hebrew text by ἀγαπᾶν (→ p. 21). To the substantive אהבה there corresponds the Greek ἀγάπη, which now comes into use. Ἔρως and φιλία and derivatives are strongly suppressed. The harmless ἀγαπᾶν carries the day, mainly because by reason of its prior history it is the best adapted to express the thoughts of selection, of willed address and of readiness for action. But the true victor in the competition is the ancient βηα, which impresses upon the colourless Greek word its own rich and strong meaning. It was once thought that ἀγάπη was a completely new word coined by the LXX. This no longer seems likely. Much more significant, however, is the fact that the whole group of words associated with ἀγαπᾶν is given a new meaning by the Greek translation of the OT. 2. Hellenistic Judaism. a. In the wide circle of the Jewish world the predominant influence of the OT intermingles with modes of thought and expression partly from a Greek and partly an oriental background. There is much reference to the love of God. God loves His creation more than any man can do so. Above all, however, He loves Israel: ἡ ἀγάπη σου ἐπὶ σπέρμα Ἀβραάμ. His particular good-pleasure again rests on the pious (ἠγαπημένος, Da. 3:35 etc.). In Greek fashion, Josephus uses “the good” for “the pious,” but when his thought takes more biblical lines he says “the penitent” (Ant. 2, 23). In the Wisdom literature and related writings the fulfilment of the commandments and mercy are the way to earn God’s love. He who treats orphans like a father will be loved by God like a son (Sir 4:10 f.; cf. Test. N. 8:4, 10). Supremely, however, ἀγάπη is a relationship of faithfulness between God and man. Οἱ πιστοὶ ἐν ἀγάπῃ προσμενοῦσιν αὐτῷ. The martyr who decides unconditionally for God and accepts all kinds of torments for His sake will experience the more deeply in all his sufferings the faithfulness of God, and will receive eternal life in the future world. πιστὸς κύριος τοῖς ἀγαπῶσιν αὐτὸν ἐν ἀληθείᾳ τοῖς ὑπομένουσιν … παιδείαν αὐτοῦ. Hence the love of God includes love for God. The source, however, is to be found in God, as is emphasised in the epistle of Aristeas. ἀγάπη, which constitutes the power of piety, is the gift of God (Ep. Ar., 229). Similar references are made to the love of wisdom or truth as to love for God (Sir 4:12). He who loves wisdom keeps the commandments (Wis. 6:18 f.). Love wisdom, and it will protect you (Test. R. 3:9). Josephus in particular loves descriptions which have a metaphysical ring, and speaks eloquently of the διάνοια … τὸ θεῖον ἀγαπῶσα. This echoes the Greek religion of culture. Philo speaks in mystical tones of ἀγάπη, the turning to true being, in which man overcomes all fear and attains to true life (Deus Imm., 69); ἀνάβηθι, ὦ ψυχή, πρὸς τὴν τοῦ ὄντος θέαν, ἀφόβως … ἀγαπητικῶς (Migr. Abr., 169; cf. Cher., 73: τὸν νοῦν ἠγαπηκέναι). b. Love for one’s neighbour is a favourite theme of Hellenistic Judaism. This is not merely the command of God; like love for God, it is rooted in God Himself. Hatred derives from the devil, love from God. Only the man who loves God is secure against the assaults of Beliar (Test. G. 5:2; B. 3:4; cf. 8:2). Hatred leads to death, love by forbearance to deliverance (Test. G. 4:7). In many cases, the reference here is to family love, but more frequently to neighbourly love in the more general sense, as when “Menander” introduces the Golden Rule. Even love for enemies is expressly enjoined (Ep. Ar., 227). For the rest, the synthesis between the older Jewish concept of love and the Hellenistic ideal of humanity caused many difficulties to the Jews of the Dispersion. Philo in Virt., 51 ff. devotes to this problem a long chapter with the distinctive title: περὶ φιλανθρωπίας; and comparison with Josephus Ap., 2, 209 ff. makes it probable that we have before us here a solid τόπος of Jewish apologetic. All that deliberate exegesis can glean from the OT by way of philanthropic motifs is here picked out by Philo and fused into a systematic presentation. In the centre stand compatriots, including proselytes, and fellow-residents, then in widening circles (109 ff.) enemies, slaves, animals and plants, until love embraces all creation. This must have been impressive even to the Greeks. Yet consciously or unconsciously there still emerges in this structure the singularity of Jewish neighbourly love, its fundamentally concentric character. For all the desire for adaptation in externals, even Hellenistic Judaism remains on the soil of the older Jewish understanding of love. In any case there is a full differentiation from the ἔρως of the “unchaste Greeks” (Sib., 3, 171). Eros is not a god, but a corrupter (Phokylides, 194). The most powerful enemy of all passion or eroticism is the purity of ἀγάπη (Test. B. 8:2). The substantive ἀγάπη is more common in Test. XII (G. 4:7; 5:2; B. 8:2; R. 6:8 f.), but it occurs only once in Ps. Sol. (18:4), in Ep. Ar. (229) and in Philo (Deus Imm., 69), and not at all in Josephus, who also does not use ἀγάπησις. Cf. also Wis. 3:9; 6:18 f.; Sib., 6, 25. 3. Rabbinic Judaism. a. In the Hebrew-speaking world אָהַב remains the basic term for love, Alongside it there establishes itself in Rabbinic texts the Aramaic חִיבֵּב The energy of will and religious strictness are maintained in both words, being much deepened indeed by the suffering endured in times of persecution and the centuries long discipline of will and action. Love determines the relationship between God and man, but especially between God and the people of God. “Man is loved (חָבִיב) because he is made in the image of God … Israel is loved because they are called the children of God, and loved especially because it is declared to them that they are called the children of God.” This is how Akiba puts it (Ab., 3, 14; cf. also b.Joma, 52a). Other depictions bring out even more clearly the inwardness and fidelity of this love. God’s steadfast and merciful love for Israel is like the love of a king who after a short time seeks out again with grace his repudiated but favourite wife (Ex. r. 51 on 38:21). God is the Beloved of the Song of Solomon, always near, and always ready to pardon (b. Shab., 88b). Hence Israel must love its God with all its heart and soul and strength (Dt. 6:5). The Schema’ plays just as great a role in later Jewish piety as in Rabbinic exegesis and theology. A striking proof of God’s love for His people is given by the Torah: “Beloved is Israel, because He gave them a gift by which the world was created; and beloved especially because it is declared to them that He gave them this gift … Indeed, it is said: I gave you good doctrine; do not forsake my Law” (Akiba in Ab., 3, 15). The Torah is the patent of Israel’s nobility, but like all the gifts of God’s grace it carries with it obligations. God and the people of God (חָבִיב in b. Men., 99b) meet in love for the Torah, and love for the Law of God, which finds classical examples in men like Moses or Jethro, is a powerful incentive to self-sacrificing fulfilment of the commandments and unconditional faithfulness to the Law (b. Shab., 130 etc.). The point at which love between God and the people of God is particularly revealed is that of suffering and especially martyrdom. “Dear are the chastisements.” For sufferings are the correction of the man who loves God, and must be understood as loving chastisements (M. Ex. 20:23; b. Ber., 5b). Indeed, sufferings are a means to earn the good-pleasure of God, atoning for sin and being a pledge of participation in the coming world of God. Above all, they are the decisive fiery trial of our love for the Law of God and for God Himself. “Concerning those who are humiliated without humiliating others, who listen to insults without replying, who fulfil the commandments out of love and rejoice in chastisement, the Scripture says that those who love Him are as the sun rising in its glory.” It is obvious that this faithfulness to God cannot fail to have its influence on the future destiny of the martyrs. Yet the decisive thing is that God wills to be loved for His own sake. Tradition tells us that Akiba was controlled his whole life long by the thought that love with all one’s soul as required by the Schema˓ can find its final attestation and fulfilment only in martyrdom. He taught the Law untroubled by any fear of death. It was in the hour of the reading of the Schema˓ that he was brought to the place of judgment, and he died under the iron wheel with the אֶחָד of the conclusion of the first sentence of the Schema˓ on his lips (b. Ber., 61b). Nowhere do we have more glorious expression than in this story of the strength of will, the purity and the unreservedness of the love of suffering Israel for its God. But the thinking of the Rabbis constantly returns to the love of God. This stands supreme. It is perhaps concealed in this age of stress, but it will the more gloriously manifest itself in its own time. It is strong as death. Only the victorious words of the Song of Solomon are adequate to convey the elementary force of this love. And in a broad exposition of the Song of Solomon there is expression again of all the needs and experiences and truths which stand before the trampled people of God when it speaks of the love of God. The love of God is strong as death for a generation undergoing religious persecution. His jealousy is as hard as hell in the hour of idolatrous worship. Many waters cannot quench love, nor can the nations pluck Israel away from the love of its God. If a man would give all the substance of his house for love, he would be scornfully rejected. The love with which Akiba and his fellows sacrificed themselves is more precious than all the treasures of the world. Romantic love has always sought mystical sensations in the Song of Songs. Judaism has made of it a hymn to the defiant and faithful love between God and His maltreated people. b. Another note is sounded by the Judaistic expressions for love when it refers to the relationship between man and man. If love for God finds fulfilment in suffering, love for fellow-men does so in active and helpful work “To exercise love is to do beneficent works.” Who is the neighbour who has a claim to the help of the Israelite? First, it is the compatriot or the full proselyte in the sense of the concentric conception of the duty of love in ancient Israel. Again in the sense of the OT, a readiness to help is demanded in the case of enemies who belong to the people, or even sometimes in the case of national enemies (M. Ex. 23:4). Yet this last demand was contested by some. The neighbourly love of which Judaism speaks does not for the most part extend beyond the borders of the people of God. It is thus consistent that the love for God’s creatures so finely expressed by Hillel should be an incentive to the spreading of the Law and therefore the extension of the people of God: “Love (אהב) peace. Seek after it. Love creatures—lead them to the Law” (Ab., 1, 12). The concentric reference is thus preserved again. In its original sense Jewish neighbourly love is the attitude which the members of the people of God owe one another. But there is accorded to it as such the highest significance. “The world stands on three things, the Law, the service of God and works of love” (Simon the Righteous in Ab., 1, 2). Akiba declared neighbourly love to be the great and comprehensive general rule in the Torah (S. Lv. 19:18). Hillel did the same when he summed up all the commandments in the Golden Rule: “Do not do to thy neighbour what is hateful to thee. This is the whole Law. All else is explanation.” Yet the Rabbis are by no means content to estimate the significance of neighbourly love and to set up a formal canon for it. They also speak of the motives and reasons for the command to love. “Discharge the duties of love that men may discharge them to thee …” More profound is the thought that love itself rather than prudent calculation should inspire our action. Love itself gives decisive meaning and content to the duty of love. “All that ye do should be done only out of love.” Clearly something is here demanded which cannot in fact be demanded. This love cannot be regulated or enforced by legislation. It must have a deeper basis. The Rabbis discovered this basis, and gave neighbourly love a foundation in which the understanding of love came to fruition in later Judaism. c. The love of which the Rabbis speak is neither love between God and man exclusively, nor love between man and man exclusively, nor the two alongside, but both together and at the same time. It is the basic principle of the threefold relationship of God, man and man. “As the Holy One, blessed be He, clothes the naked, visits the sick, comforts the sorrowful and buries the dead, so do thou clothe the naked, visit the sick, comfort the sorrowful and bury the dead” (b. Sota, 14a). And again: “He who has mercy (רחם) on his fellow, heaven has mercy on him.” Hence mercy between men is no other than emulation of the mercy of God, or entry into the form of the divine action. Again, God Himself acts towards man according to the principle followed by man himself in his dealings with his fellows. Love is the principle laid down by God for the relationship between God, I and Thou. It must determine all dealings within this threefold relationship, or the relationship is snapped. First and finally it is God who asserts the principle. But it can also be man’s affair to assert this divine principle, the measure of goodness, before God. This is, perhaps, one of the boldest thoughts thus far conceived by Judaism. Yet it is no mere thought; it is a cry of need. Thus “Ezra” raises his voice at the climax of the powerful third dialogue with the angel of God: “Yet I know that the Most High is … the Merciful God, for He has mercy on those who are not yet come into the world … If He did not ordain in His goodness that sinners should be released from their sins, not even a ten thousandth part of humanity would attain to life” (4 Esr 7:132, 138). It makes no difference that the angel repulses him: “Thou art still lacking in much to love creation more strongly than I” (8, 47). The fact remains that it is Ezra who must appeal to God’s mercy. declaring that the greater part of humanity would inevitably perish if God were to weigh by the standard of justice and not of love. In Rabbinic Judaism, too, we meet with the same insight or attitude. The pious man, who loves righteousness and hates iniquity, intercedes for God’s creatures with confidence that the mercy of God will be greater than the sin of Israel, and with the clear recognition that God cannot order the world aright without love. This insight could not establish itself in its full scope without shaking the foundations of the Jewish view of God, the world and life. It did not do so. The lofty sayings about love remain isolated. The underlying basis of Judaistic theology and ethics is still righteousness—in spite of everything. Jesus alone broke free from the old foundations and ventured a radically new structure. D. Jesus. 1. The New Demand. a. Jesus summed up in two sentences the meaning of the old and new righteousness: ἀγαπήσεις τὸν θεόν, ἀγαπήσεις τὸν πλησίον Mk 12:28 ff.; Mt 22:40. Both are well-known OT sayings, frequently and impressively emphasised by the Rabbis. And the new formula advanced by Jesus for the practice of neighbourly love is only distinguished by its positive conception from Hillel’s famous rule. Jesus stands plainly and consciously in the moral tradition of His people. But He demands love with an exclusiveness which means that all other commands lead up to it and all righteousness finds in it its norm. For Jesus, too, love is a matter of will and action. But He demands decision and readiness for God and for God alone in an unconditional manner which startles His hearers. The possibility of love for God stands under a radical Either/Or: οὐδεὶς δύναται δυσὶν κυρίοις δουλεύειν· ἢ γὰρ τὸν ἕνα μισήσει καὶ τὸν ἕτερον ἀγαπήσει, ἢ ἑνὸς ἀνθέξεται καὶ τοῦ ἑτέρου καταφρονήσει (Mt 6:24 ff.); To love God is to exist for Him as a slave for his lord (cf. Lk 17:7 ff.). It is to listen faithfully and obediently to His orders, to place oneself under His lordship, to value above all else the realisation of this lordship (cf. Mt 6:33). It also means, however, to base one’s whole being on God, to cling to Him with unreserved confidence, to leave with Him all care or final responsibility, to live by His hand. It is to hate and despise all that does not serve God nor come from Him, to break with all other ties, to cut away all that hinders (Mt 5:29 f.), to snap all bonds except that which binds to God alone. Two forces particularly are mentioned by Jesus as forces which man must renounce and fight against if he is to love God, namely, mammon and vainglory. He who would heap up riches is a heathen of little faith who is of no use in the kingdom of God (Mt 6:24b, 30 ff.). And Jesus pronounces a woe on the Pharisees: ὅτι ἀγαπᾶτε τὴν πρωτοκαθεδρίαν ἐν ταῖς συναγωγαῖς καὶ τοὺς ἀσπασμοὺς ἐν ταῖς ἀγοραῖς. The love of prestige is incompatible with the love of God. Yet there is also a third danger which threatens this love, i.e., the stress of persecution. Like the great Jewish martyr theologians, e.g., Akiba, Jesus sees that the assaults and afflictions, the insults and sufferings, which will necessarily break over the heads of His disciples, will be a decisive fiery test of their loyalty to God (cf. Mt 10:17 ff; 5:10 ff.). When the great and final agony of death comes on humanity: τότε σκανδαλισθήσονται πολλοὶ καὶ … ψυγήσεται ἡ ἀγάπη τῶν πολλῶν. ὁ δὲ ὑπομείνας εἰς τέλος, οὗτος σωθήσεται. In these words the character of love for God is clear and conclusive. It is a glowing passion for God, the passion of a little flock which perseveres faithfully and unshakeably, in spite of every puzzle, power or threat, until He is manifested whom it loves. b. Love for God is the great and basic demand made by Jesus. δευτέρα ὁμοία αὐτῇ: ἀγαπήσεις τὸν πλησίον σου ὡς σεαυτόν (Mt 22:39). Jesus, too, accepts the Jewish sobriety which is neither an extravagant universal love of humanity nor a high-flown love ὑπὲρ τὴν ψυχήν σου (so Barnabas, 19, 5), but which requires loving one’s neighbour as oneself. Yet He frees neighbourly love once and for all from its restriction to compatriots. He concentrates it again on the helpless man whom we meet on our way. He makes the legal and contentious question a question of the heart with an urgency which there can be no escaping. By itself, the Golden Rule (Mt 7:12; Lk 6:31) might be misunderstood in terms of general philanthropy, and it has in fact been wrongly evaluated along such lines throughout the whole course of humanistic ethics from Aristotle to Kant. But the story of the Good Samaritan makes such an understanding impossible (Lk 10:29 ff.). The scribe asks: “Who is my neighbour?” Jesus does not answer by giving a systematic list of the various classes of men from my fellow-national who is nearest to me to the foreigner who is farthest away (Philo, supra, 40). Nor does He reply by extolling the eccentric love of those who are most distant, to which all men are brothers. He answers the question of the νομικός by reversing the question: “Who is nearest to the one in need of help?” This means that He shatters the older concentric grouping in which the I is at the centre, but maintains the organising concept of the neighbour, and by means of this concept sets up a new grouping in which the Thou is at the centre. This order, however, is not a system which applies schematically to all men and places. It consists only in absolute concreteness. It is built up from case to case around a man in need. Whoever stands closest to the man in need κατὰ συγκυρίαν, the same has a neighbourly duty towards him. Three men are equally near to the man who has fallen among thieves in his distress. Which of them fulfils his neighbourly duty? The alien Samaritan. Why? Ἰδὼν ἐσπλαγχνίσθη. The heart makes the final decision. He fulfils his neighbourly duty whose heart detects the distress of the other. At the decisive moment the two others hold back and thus violate their neighbourly duty. The introduction of this ἐσπλαγχνίσθη, however, does not imply emotional extravagance in neighbourly love. What is demanded is the most unsentimental imaginable readiness to help. The Samaritan does in all sobriety what the moment demands, taking care for the immediate future, no more and no less. He is an ἔλεος ποιήσας, who neither throws everything aside nor wastes words on the duties or guilt of others. He is one who does what has to be done, and what he can do. This is what gives to the story its inescapable urgency: πορεύου καὶ σὺ ποίει ὁμοίως. c. In one demand Jesus consciously opposed Jewish tradition, namely, the demand to love one’s enemies. Even in the brief words of Mt 5:43 f. and Lk 6:32 f. the threefold determination of the demand is clear. First, it is the new demand of a new age (“it was said by them of old time … But I say unto you,” Mt 5:21, 43). Second, it points to a χάρις (μισθός, περισσόν, Mt 5:46 f.). Third, it applies to a host of ἀκούοντες (cf. Lk 6:27) sharply distinguished from ἁμαρτωλοί (τελῶναι, ἐθνικοί, Mt 5:46 f.). The love of enemies which Jesus demands is the attitude of the children of the new people of God, to whom the future belongs, in relation to the children of this world and age. They should show love without expecting it to be returned, lend where there is little hope of repayment, give without reserve or limit. They should accept the enmity of the world willingly, unresistingly and sacrificially (Lk 6:28). Indeed, they should do good to those who hate them, giving blessing for cursing and praying for their persecutors (Lk 6:27 ff.; Mt 5:44). To some of these demands individually we can find isolated parallels in the Rabbinic world. But these are of no significance as compared with this full and resolute programme. Even the martyr spirit of the Jewish community, of the ancient people of God, is far surpassed by this unheard of will for martyrdom. A new intercession is here made the task of the martyr, namely, intercession for the hostile world, which hates God and destroys His faithful people. There have always been Utopians. But here speaks the One who without illusion or sentimentality has introduced the ideal of neighbourly love into reality. He speaks of these impossible demands with the same tone of steady seriousness and sense of reality as of that which every man should and can do. There have always been enthusiasts for brotherly love and a better world. Jesus knows this world, and He thus calls for a life within it wholly grounded in love. He does so with sober realism and certainty. The fact that it is now so self-evident is what is so strange about His demand for love. This is where its secret surely lies. 2. The New Situation. a. The fact that His demand for love is now so self-evident is an indication that He has more to proclaim than a new demand. He proclaims and creates a new world situation. He proclaims the mercy of God, not as a disposition which God always and in all possible ways expresses—pardonner, c’est son métier—but as an unheard of event which has the basis of its possibility in God alone, but which now places man in a completely different situation. Jesus brings forgiveness of sins, and in those who experience it a new and overflowing love is released. It is in this sense that Jesus says of the woman who sinned much: ἀφέωνται αἱ ἁμαρτίαι αὐτῆς αἱ πολλαί, ὅτι ἠγάπησεν πολύ. It is striking that in this passage ἀγαπᾶν is twice used without any precise indication of object, the more so as this absolute use of the verb is otherwise confined to the First Epistle of John. It brings out the more clearly what is at issue in Lk. 7:47, namely, that a new life is awakened and the person now has love, is filled with it, and is guided by it in all his actions, rather than that he is to show it to such and such people. Love here is a spontaneous movement up to the One by whom it is released (cf. also the absolute use of ἀγάπη in Ep. Ar., 229 and Mt 24:12, where the orientation on God is also dominant). But this is not the decisive element in the story, and it is certainly not the final goal of the divine act of forgiveness. By His act of forgiveness God has instituted for humanity a new order which removes and supersedes the old worldly order of rank and thus creates as many new tasks as possibilities. The new relationship of God to man lays the foundation for a new relationship of man to man: Γίνεσθε οἰκτίρμονες, καθὼς ὁ πατὴρ ὑμῶν οἰκτίρμων ἐστίν (Lk 6:36). Peacemakers are called the children of God. But those who judge their fellows place themselves outside the new order and thus fall victim to the merciless judgment of God. ᾧ γὰρ μέτρῳ μετρεῖτε, ἀντιμετρηθήσεται ὑμῖν. The constantly necessary request for the forgiveness of sins presupposes a constantly new readiness to forgive παντὶ ὀφείλοντι ἡμῖν. The synoptic Jesus hardly ever uses of the love of God either the substantive ἀγάπη or the verb ἀγαπᾶν (or indeed φιλία or φιλεῖν). He proclaims and brings ἄφεσις and speaks of God’s ἐλεεῖν, οἰκτίρμων εἶναι). Accordingly, in all passages where it is a matter of following God in the threefold relationship of God, man and man, primary emphasis is placed on the call for mercy and a spirit of reconciliation. b. The love of God which in this great historical moment is directed to the world of humanity is pardoning love. But Jesus also knows a different kind of divine love, namely, the preferential love which includes separation and special calling. This is God’s love as directed exclusively to Jesus Himself. It is in this sense that in the parable of the wicked husbandmen Jesus speaks of the υἱὸς ἀγαπητός (Mk 12:5; cf. Mt 12:18). The calling of the only Son (→ υἱός) is a calling to tread to the end the way which the prophets took and on which they met their deaths. The ἀγαπητὸς υἱός is the one Martyr at the turning point of the times whose death is an exercise of judgment on the whole world and lays the foundation of the new order of all things (12:8 ff.). Jesus Himself thereby becomes the Founder of the new people of God, so that it is by relationship to Him that membership of the coming world is decided. Hence the love which is ready to help even the least of brethren is equivalent to readiness to help the Son of Man, whereas lovelessness is the same as contempt for Him. Both will be judged by the Son of Man in His day (Mt 10:40 ff.; 25:31 ff.). For this reason, Jesus can call blessed the disciples who must suffer persecutions for His sake (Lk. 6:22 f.). For the same reason He can demand unconditional attachment to Himself even to death with the same radicalism as He calls for readiness for God: ὁ φιλῶν πατέρα ἢ μητέρα ὑπὲρ ἐμὲ οὐκ ἔστιν μου ἄξιος· … καὶ ὃς οὐ λαμβάνει τὸν σταυρὸν αὐτοῦ καὶ ἀκολουθεῖ ὀπίσω μου, οὐκ ἔστιν μου ἄξιος (Mt 10:37 ff.; cf. Lk. 14:26 f.). At this point everything that Jesus says concerning love is finally clarified and unified. God sends the ἀγαπητὸς υἱός into the world κηρύξαι ἐνιαυτὸν κυρίου δεκτόν. The Son brings the remission of sins to which man replies with grateful love and to which he should respond with an unconditional readiness to help and forgive his fellows. The Son calls for unreserved decision for God, and gathers around Him a band of “storm-troopers” (Mt 11:12) who leave everything, follow Him and love God with passionate devotion. He creates a new people of God which renounces all hatred and force and with an unconquerable resolve to love treads the way of sacrifice in face of all opposition. And He Himself dies, as the ancient traditions tells us, with a request for the hostile world (Lk. 23:34). The synoptic tradition uses ἀγαπητός wholly in the sense of Jesus when it places the saying about the ἀγαπητὸς υἱός at the beginning of His ministry and then again at the commencement of His passion (Mk 1:11; 9:7). And Mark makes clear at a single stroke the relationship between love, election and heightened demand in the short phrase introduced in 10:21: ἐμβλέψας αὐτῷ ἠγάπησεν αὐτὸν καὶ εἶπεν … Jesus loves the rich young ruler with the love of God which summons men to the very highest. But the one who is called starts back. For the rest, the Synoptists use ἀγαπᾶν only once outside the sayings of Jesus. and ἀγάπη never. Acts is even more reserved, for in it we find only ἀγαπητός (15:25), φίλος used in the same sense (27:3). and especially ἀδελφός (1:16). Neither ἀγάπη nor ἀγαπᾶν occurs at all, though we do find ἀφίημι (8:22 ff.), negatively expressed in the prayer of the first Christian martyr for his enemies in 7:60: κύριε, μὴ στήσῃς αὐτοῖς ταύτην τὴν ἁμαρτίαν. E. The Apostolic Period. 1. Paul. a. Paul clearly sees and sketches the new situation created by the loving work of God. The great argument of Romans on the theme of the new epoch which has now dawned rightly culminates in a hymn which, beginning with the love of the elect for God, moves on to the love of Christ, and finally closes with the assurance τῆς ἀγάπης τοῦ θεοῦ τῆς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ τῷ κυρίῳ ἡμῶν (R. 8:28, 31 ff.). This assurance rests on three facts. The first is that God has sent His only Son and that this act of love found fulfilment on the cross in the self-offering of the Son, τοῦ ἀγαπήσαντος ἡμᾶς. The second is that God has called the apostle and continually calls those whom He has chosen; His loving will is directed to them; they are ἠγαπημένοι, ἀγαπητοί. The third is that the ἀγάπη of God is shed abroad in our hearts and is thus the decisive reality in our existence. As Jesus did not distinguish His activity from that of God, but did what only God can do, forgiving sins, so Paul regards the love of God as basically one with that of His Christ (R. 8:37; 2 Th. 2:16). The loving action of God is revealed and executed in that of Christ: συνίστησιν … τὴν ἑαυτοῦ ἀγάπην εἰς ἡμᾶς ὁ θεός, ὅτι Χριστὸς ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν ἀπέθανεν (R. 5:8). The eternal love of God becomes in the love of Christ a world-changing event of which Paul usually speaks in verbal forms and then always in the aorist. The love of God implies election. Paul quotes OT passages which refer to God’s unconditional sovereignty in loving and hating, electing and rejecting (R. 9:13, 25), and he uses ἀγαπητοί and κλητοί, or even ἐκλεκτοὶ καὶ ἠγαπημένοι in formal parallelism (R. 1:7; Col. 3:12). It is natural that in the concept of electing love there should also be expressed the two basic thoughts of pretemporal ordination and temporal calling in the sign of the Christ event: ἀδελφοὶ ἠγαπημένοι ὑπὸ κυρίου, ὅτι εἵλατο ὑμᾶς ὁ θεὸς ἀπʼ ἀρχῆς εἰς σωτηρίαν ἐν ἁγιασμῷ πνεύματος … εἰς ὃ καὶ ἐκάλεσεν ὑμᾶς διὰ τοῦ εὐαγγελίου ἡμῶν εἰς περιποίησιν (2 Th. 2:13; cf. also Eph. 1:4 f.). The community of the elect which God in His χρηστότης and ἀποτομία has now separated from the mass of ἁμαρτωλοί stands in indissoluble fellowship with the God τῆς ἀγάπης καὶ εἰρήνης. In its midst He is at work in living power (R. 8:35; 2 C. 13:11 ff.). Love holds us captive (2 C. 5:14), or rather, ἡ ἀγάπη τοῦ θεοῦ ἐκκέχυται ἐν ταῖς καρδίαις ἡμῶν διὰ πνεύματος ἁγίου τοῦ δοθέντος ἡμῖν (R. 5:5). The reality of this new and vital power could hardly be more forcefully expressed than in these words of Paul. The meaning of the Pauline concept of ἀγάπη θεοῦ is plain. It is the orientation of the sovereign will of God to the world of men and the deliverance of this world. The work of love is God’s goal from the very first. From the days of Abraham God has foreseen a people free from the bondage of the Law. He has created this people by the sending of the Son and finally the Spirit. This Spirit, however, is represented in the great closing section of Galatians (5:2–6:10) as the Spirit of love (5:22). Thus the thoughts of the Epistle leave the path of history. b. The goal of the work of divine love is the new man. But this goal is not attained without man and his work of love. For all God’s work, whether in creation or redemption, presupposes both the possibility and the necessity of human action. God’s will does not exclude human volition. It includes it, finding its purest fulfilment in its fullest exercise. The imperious call of God is a call to freedom. This basic law, which is most clearly visible in the fact of Jesus and which according to Paul everywhere determines the relationship between divine and human work (cf. also Phil. 2:12 f.), is decisive for an understanding of what the apostle says concerning the relationship between divine and human love. God has the first word. He establishes the relationship. This is laid down once and for all in R. 8. His resolve, election and calling are decisive. From Him proceeds everything that may be called ἀγάπη. The love of the ἀγαπῶντες τὸν θεόν is nothing but the direct flowing back of the heavenly love which has been poured out upon the κλητός. More accurately, it is an act of decision, like the basic act of love itself. In it there is fulfilled the covenant which God has concluded with His elect and which defies all the powers of heaven and earth: τοῖς ἀγαπῶσιν θεὸν πάντα συνεργεῖ εἰς ἀγαθόν—τοῖς κατὰ πρόθεσιν κλητοῖς οὖσιν (R. 8:28, cf. 37). The same fundamental relationship brings Paul in 1 C. 8:3 to the pregnant formulation: εἰ δέ τις ἀγαπᾷ τὸν θεόν, οὗτος ἔγνωσται ὑπʼ αὐτοῦ. We are capable of active orientation on God only to the extent that we are passive before Him. The same schema of passive and active is used in the service of the same guiding thought in Gl. 4:9; 1 C. 13:12; Phil. 3:12. God creates for us the life which first makes us in any true sense men of will and action. God awakens in man the faith in which he is wholly referred to God. But πίστις only comes into action and finds true actualisation διʼ ἀγάπης (Gl. 5:6). God pours forth the πνεῦμα into His elect (v. supra R. 5:5; 2 Th. 2:13). Again, man is passive. But the πνεῦμα liberates man for supreme activity in love. Freedom constrains and completes itself in love. That the πνεῦμα precedes ἀγάπη, which is thereby liberated, is classically expressed in Gl. 5:22: καρπὸς τοῦ πνεύματος ἀγάπη …, but also in combinations like ἀγάπη πνεύματος (R. 15:30) and ἀγάπη ἐν πνεύματι … (Col. 1:8), and more elegantly in 1 C. 4:21. For the relation of πνεῦμα and freedom, cf. R. 8:2; and for ἀγάπη as the measure and goal of freedom, cf. Gl. 5:13. It is decisive that in the liberation for love the Law is fulfilled, transcended and overcome, and a new order set up which cannot suffer any retrogression or violation. However, it is not the goal of love that our love should respond to God, nor that we should attain freedom for our own sake. Its goal is that the man who is called should place his life in love and freedom in the service of his neighbour: διὰ τῆς ἀγάπης δουλεύετε ἀλλήλοις. ὁ γὰρ πᾶς νόμος ἐν ἑνὶ λόγῳ πεπλήρωται· ἀγαπήσεις τὸν πλησίον σου ὡς σεαυτόν. Paul takes up the command of Jesus that we should love our neighbours, and establishes it in the same way as the Lord. But his true interest is concentrated on brotherly love: ἐργαζώμεθα τὸ ἀγαθὸν πρὸς πάντας, μάλιστα δὲ πρὸς τοὺς οἰκείους τῆς πίστεως (Gl. 6:10). The organic principle which is given once and for all with the orientation of love to the neighbour is here worked out in terms of organisation. Neighbourly love, once a readiness to help compatriots in the covenant people of Israel, is now service rendered to fellow-citizens in the new people of God. It implies making the welfare of the brotherhood the guiding principle of conduct. Ἀγαπητός and ἀδελφός become interchangeable terms (1. Th. 2:8; Phlm. 16). Decisive definition is given to brotherly love, however, by the cosmic, historical καιρός (cf. Gl. 6:10; R. 13:11) which demands it. Brotherly love is the only relevant and forward-looking attitude in this time of decision between the cross and the τέλος. It stands under the sign of the cross. It is a readiness for service and sacrifice, for forgiveness and consideration, for help and sympathy, for lifting up the fallen and restoring the broken, in a fellowship which owes its very existence to the mercy of God and the sacrificial death of Christ. The highest possible goal for the apostle himself is imitation of Christ for the good of the Church. He is ready to suffer what is still lacking of the sufferings of Christ. But this also means the requirement of even the most unassuming work of human love in the service of the great work of divine love according to the basic relationship between divine and human action which is fundamental for Paul. In love the work of God and the work of man unite. Love builds up (1 C. 8:1). It builds the work of the future. Ἀγάπη stands under the sign of the τέλος. This is the great truth of 1 C. 13. For this reason love is the heavenly gift surpassing all others, the καθʼ ὑπερβολὴν ὁδός, which not only stands at the heart of the trinity of faith, love and hope but is also greater than the other two. Faith and hope bear the marks of this defective aeon. Ἡ ἀγάπη οὐδέποτε πίπτει. With love the power of the future age already breaks into the present form of the world. As for Jesus, so for Paul ἀγάπη is the only vital force which has a future in this aeon of death. The triad faith, love and hope seems to be a formula; cf. πίστις, ἀγάπη, ἐλπίς in 1 Th. 1:3; 5:8; Col. 1:4 f. In all cases ἀγάπη is in the middle. Always where the interrelationship of the three is given with any precision, the emphasis falls wholly on ἀγάπη. Thus on the one side in Gl. 5:6: πίστις διʼ ἀγάπης ἐνεργουμένη, and on the other in R. 5:5: ἡ ἐλπὶς οὐ καταισχύνεται, ὅτι ἡ ἀγάπη … ἐκκέχυται … πίστις and ἐλπίς are both unequivocally and naturally ascribed by Paul to this present era, as in 2 C. 5:7: διὰ πίστεως γὰρ περιπατοῦμεν, οὐ διὰ εἴδους, and R. 8:25: ὃ οὐ βλέπομεν ἐλπίζομεν. As against this, the triumphant love of God delivers us in every distress and our own love for God overcomes every assault (R. 8:28, 35 ff.). In 1 C. 13 it is brotherly love which gives value and content to all other action or gifts. With ἡ ἀγάπη οὐδέποτε πίπτει in v. 8 the train of thought fixes on the last time when all other gifts will be pointless. The transitory and ultimately perishable nature of gnogsis is brought out in similar expressions, as is also the temporary character of πίστις and ἐλπίς. The conclusion begins with the typically eschatological concept of μένειν, which, e.g., in 1 C. 13:13 has the sense of outlasting. νυνὶ δὲ μένει—after all that has preceded, and all that Paul has said elsewhere, we should expect this to be followed by ἀγάπη, since this is the leading thought in the chapter which the whole hymn is designed to extol. Instead, there follows the favourite triad, which is stylistically most impressive but which is hardly justified materially nor prepared syntactically with its inclusion of three subjects in a singular predicate. To all appearances Paul has here sacrificed precision of thought to loftiness of expression. But he must then save his culminating thought by a subsidiary clause which forms a fine stylistic conclusion but which is overshadowed materially by the originally cosmic-historical opening: μείζων δὲ τούτων ἡ ἀγάπη. However, even if what was originally intended is temporarily obscured by the triad, it is adequately safeguarded, for love alone is seen to be no longer of this world but to stretch into the future aeon. 2. James. Faith acquires living force to the extent that it is active in love. This is perceived in essential necessity by Paul in Gl. 5:6. James translates this truth into practical commands which in sober yet unambiguous fashion prevent any pious or comfortable escape. Love implies primarily fulfilling immediate duties to our neighbours and not withholding rights from labourers (5:1 ff.). It means taking seriously the basic affirmation that all who love God are my brothers and are not to be put in the background even though they come shabbily dressed (2:14), since God has thought them good enough to be called into His βασιλεία (2:5). Love is indeed the Law of the new kingdom, the νόμος βασιλικός (2:8). This love is the work of faith, demanded by it, made possible by it, and counted for righteousness on account of it (2:14 ff.). The love for God which stands behind all brotherly love is also a work of faith. It holds fast to God, to His commands in the warfare against passions and to His promises in the long periods of tribulation and affliction. It is strong in ὑπομονή (1:2 ff.). 3. John. For Paul ἀγάπη is the principle of the future; for John it is the principle of the world of Christ which is being built up in the cosmic crisis of the present. Οὕτως ἠγάπησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν κόσμον, ὥστε τὸν υἱὸν τὸν μονογενῆ ἔδωκεν ἵνα (Jn. 3:16; 1 Jn. 4:9 f.). In this basic thought John and Paul (R. 8:32) are at one. But there is a difference in the way in which John constantly speaks of the love of the Father for the Son. All love is concentrated on Him. He is wholly the Mediator of the love of God. In contrast, John hardly ever speaks of the love of the Son for the Father (Jn. 14:31). He emphasises the more strongly, however, the love of the Son for those whom the Father has given Him, for His “friends.” Through the Son the love of God reaches the world of men. This love is at once crowned and released by His death. Through the death of the Son God reaches His goal of salvation for the world. Johannine ἀγάπη is quite explicitly condescending love (→ 37), or rather a heavenly reality which in some sense descends from stage to stage into this world. This heavenly reality, however, achieves revelation and victory in moral action. It is thus that John sees that which Paul clarifies in terms of the interrelation of divine work and human. The world of light and life is expressed in this world in the form of love. Hence John not only can but must emphasise the active character of ἀγάπη both in the life of Christ and in that of Christians. It is quite of a piece that John, too, allows love for God or for Christ to be overshadowed by love for the brethren which has its origin in God and its example in Christ. In brotherly love the circle of the Father, the Son and the people of the Son constitutes a fellowship which is not of this world. The love of God is the final reality for the life of this fellowship, and abiding in His love is the law of its life. Ὁ μὴ ἀγαπῶν μένει ἐν τῷ θανάτῳ. Ἀγαπᾶν remains without any definition of object, and not merely in this verse. The absolute positing of ἀγαπᾶν, of which we have an isolated instance in Lk. 7:47, is in common use in the First Epistle of John (3:18; 4:7 f., 19). This love is a vital movement, a form of existence, an actualisation of God in this world. To this there corresponds the fact that the law of love has drawn into itself all detailed requirements and is constantly repeated and set before the reader with magnificent monotony. Only occasionally is the demand for love more precisely defined by such expressions as to “love in deed and in truth.” More commonly in the Johannine Epistles exhortations are interrupted and emphasised by the urgent call ἀγαπητέ and ἀγαπητοί, which here has nothing to do with the thought of election but refers quite simply to the relation of brother to brother (3 Jn. 5; 1 Jn. 4:7). In Revelation the demand for brotherly love (cf. 2:19) is completely overshadowed by the passionate call to cling fast to God in this hour of division and distress, even to death. Here the understanding of what love means is completely determined by the thinking of a theology of martyrdom which has come to new life in the needs of the day. At the beginning of the book there is a hymn to the faithful witness, τῷ ἀγαπῶντι ἡμᾶς (1:5), followed by an alternation of eschatological pictures of the beloved city (3:9; 20:9) and the glory of those who have maintained πίστις and ἀγάπη and loved not their lives to the death (12:11) with threats against the enemies of God and the complaint τὴν ἀγάπην σου τὴν πρώτην ἀφῆκας (2:4). The time has come when the love of many has grown cold (Mt. 24:12). F. The Post-Apostolic Period. In the post-apostolic period the early Christian formulae are partly handed down in authoritative fashion and partly transcended by bold speculations. Under the old name of ἀγάπη ideals which are partly stricter and partly freer have found entry. The unity of breadth of theological outlook with stringency of demand, achieved in the Johannine writings, is now broken. But for all this there remained alive in the developing Church a respectful awareness, πῶς μέγα καὶ θαυμαστόν ἐστιν ἡ ἀγάπη, and an earnest practical sense of the significance of ἀγάπη for the community and the world. The hymn in 1 Clement (49 f.) is the finest testimony to this. ἀγάπη and ἀγαπᾶν become basic terms for the attitude and action of God towards man, for the work of Christ. ἠγαπημένος and ἀγαπητός are favourite terms for Jesus, sometimes linked with υἱός or παῖς, sometimes used as an independent title, the Only-Beloved. The Church and Christians are also loved and elected by God, and His good-pleasure rests upon them. Again, ἀγάπη and ἀγαπᾶν are often used in this period to sum up Christian piety. This is the response of love to the προαγαπήσας and the imitation of His φιλανθρωπία; ἀγαπῶμεν ἃ ἠγάπησεν, ἀπεχόμενοι … Love for God demands scorn and hatred of the world. This tension can invite to martyrdom, which here, as in Judaism, is highly estimated as an extreme expression of piety and love of God. In his most passionate epistle Ignatius seizes on the Greek term Eros to force it in abrupt antithesis to serve the thought of martyrdom: ζῶν … γράφω …, ἐρῶν τοῦ ἀποθανεῖν. ὁ ἐμὸς ἔρως ἐσταύρωται. In another form the tension between God and the σχῆμα τοῦ κόσμου τούτου, between heavenly and earthly love, can lead to asceticism. ἀγαπᾶν becomes a term for the disciplined and sometimes even abstemious life, or indeed for ascetic exercises. ἀγάπη ἁγνή is more powerful than erotic love. The most common use of ἀγάπη and its derivatives, however, is in the sense of brotherly love. The ancient sayings concerning faith, love and hope, concerning the meaning and fulfilment of the Law and concerning the love of enemies, are highly esteemed and applied, οὐ μισήσεις πάντα ἄνθρωπον, ἀλλὰ οὓς μὲν ἐλέγξεις, <οὓς δὲ ἐλεήσεις>, περὶ δὲ ὧν προσεύξῃ, οὓς δὲ ἀγαπήσεις ὑπὲρ τὴν ψυχήν σου (Did., 2, 7). In all cases to love the brethren means: μὴ μόνον ἑαυτὸν θέλειν σῴζεσθαι, ἀλλὰ καὶ πάντας τοὺς ἀδελφούς (M. Pol., 1, 2). The leaders of the community are unwearyingly concerned to strengthen the will for brotherly fellowship in service, in conciliatoriness and in the overcoming of evil with good. Ἀγαπητός is a current form of address. Ἀγάπη becomes a technical term for the fraternal love-feast which develops out of the beginnings of table fellowship and finds significant outworking even in a social sense. Ἀγαπᾶν in the Greek sense is respect and sympathy between equals. Christian ἀγάπη derives from a consciousness of equal unworthiness before God and His mercy. By this spirit of caritas the attitude and intercourse of the brethren are determined. These young brotherhoods thus grow up within a world which perishes through Eros and which vainly seeks to transcend itself by means of a sublimated Eros. In other words, there grows up a Church which knows of a love that does not desire but gives. The twilight of the sensual and suprasensual mystery cults yields before the clarity of the μυστήρια τῆς ἀγάπης. Stauffer Gottfried Quell and Ethelbert Stauffer, “Ἀγαπάω, Ἀγάπη, Ἀγαπητός,” ed. Gerhard Kittel, Geoffrey W. Bromiley, and Gerhard Friedrich, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1964–), 21–55.

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