When love is more than love

The following statements are all true: I love pizza. I love my friends. I love to lift weights. And it was out of love that I sacrificed everything to care for a parent with Parkinson’s Disease.

Now, of course, the truths of each of these statements are not quite the same. But, alas, for all its rich complexity thanks to so many linguistic influences—from the Anglo Saxons to the Normans, from Latin to the Old Norse—the English language is rather stubborn in its offering only one word, “love,” for all the meanings, and more, used above.

This is unfortunate because love isn’t always love. And other languages are more nuanced in this matter.

The best example for Christians is the Greek language, since the books of the New Testament were written in Greek—which has three principal words (and several others) for what English refers to as love.

As Benedict XVI unravels in his first encyclical Deus Caritas Est, this is important because one can learn much from which of these words were used by the New Testament authors, which all impacts a better appreciation for the Church’s proclamations to the world.

The first of these words is eros. The second is philos. And the last is agape (pronouciation info here).

You’ll recognize several English words stemming from the first two of these Greek words. Erotic and Philadelphia come to mind—the former from the passions of eros and the later, as the City of Brotherly Love informs us, from the communal bonds of philos.

We all experience the meaning of these words often—and often deeply—throughout our lives. Both the physical yearnings of eros and the deep, collective bonds of philos make up much of who we are as human beings, to say nothing of our history, literature, and soap operas.

But here’s the caution: while both erotic love and the love of friends and community are vital to human existence, they can sometimes go awry. They can become inwardly focused, leading to unpleasant realities. A frustrated eros can become jealousy or, when forced, rape. A limited philos can become tribalism and gang warfare.

Hence the dominant usage in the New Testament of the other Greek word agape.

Infrequently used two thousand years ago and somewhat alien to modern English, agape is, put simply, the love of the Cross. It is the love that St. Paul sings of in his first letter to the Church in Corinth.

Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, [love] is not pompous, it is not inflated

it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury,

it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.

It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never fails. (I Corinth 13: 4-8)

The love of agape—often translated into the English word charity—rises above the self-centered tendencies of eros and philos. It seeks the good of the beloved first and foremost. It is not limited to a single romantic relationship or a collective of one’s own racial, philosophical, or socio-economic tribe.

It is instead universal. 

Love, in the Christian sense, is the love of heaven. It seeks not an insular good but the common good. It is the love of parents for children and then, in time, the children’s caring love for their elderly parents. It is the love of those in need and even the love for our enemies.

We are, after all, made in the image and likeness of the God who is love (1 Jn 4:8), that is, agape. And our God who is love is indeed pure relationship—that of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

So, the point of it all: being made in God’s image, we’re meant to love and love all our human brothers and sisters—sometimes with the love of eros, sometimes with the love of philos, but always and everywhere with the agapic love of the Jesus Christ, who makes all things new.