Agape

Agapē (in Greek written αγάπη; pronounced /aga̍pe/ or /a̍gape/) is the Greek word for divine, unconditional, self-sacrificing, active, volitional, thoughtful love. Greek philosophers at the time of Plato used it in a way that suggested a universal, as opposed to a personal, love; this could mean love of truth, or love of humanity. The term was used by the early Christians to refer to the special love for God and God's love for man, as well as the self-sacrificing love they believed all should have for each other. It is a prominent term in the works of C.S. Lewis.

Agape were love-feasts among the primitive Christians in commemoration of the Last Supper, and in which they gave each other the kiss of peace as token of Christian brotherhood.

Christian love

Agape is Christian love, "charity" (1 Corinthians 13:1–8). Tertullian, in his 2nd century defense of Christians remarks how Christian love attracted pagan notice: "What marks us in the eyes of our enemies is our lovingkindness. 'Only look' they say, 'look how they love one another.'" (Apology 39). Saint Ignatius of Antioch and Saint Hippolytus of Rome (second century) use Eucharist and Agape as synonyms (cf.1 Corinthians 11); in Jude 12, the "love feasts" are most naturally understood to be the combined Agape–Eucharists. The Agape (in Didache, 70–110) is a Jewish meal (Chaburah) Christianized as in the "new meal" of Christ’s Kingdom and Love. Today the term Agape refers to the Easter Sunday’s Vespers (held either in the morning or the afternoon) which is also called the Second Resurrection Service. During this Service the Gospel reading relating to the first appearance of the Resurrected Christ to His disciples is read in many languages besides Greek.

Descriptions of Love in the New Testament

The New Testament provides a number of definitions and examples of love.

The greatest Commandment

Jesus said, "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (Gospel of John 13:34-35) He went on to say, " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments." (Gospel of Matthew 22:37-41)

Love for enemies

Jesus also said:

"You have heard that it was said, 'Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth. But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well. If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles. Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.
"You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect."

Thus, agape, as a form of love, is both unconditional and volitional, i.e., it is non-discriminating with no pre-conditions and is something that one decides to do.

The example of Paul and Silas

One of the best examples of Love comes from the Book of Acts, Chapter 16, verses 19-34:

The owners of a slave girl realized that their hope of making money was gone. They seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. They brought them before the magistrates and said, "These men are Jews, and are throwing our city into an uproar by advocating customs unlawful for us Romans to accept or practice."
The crowd joined in the attack against Paul and Silas, and the magistrates ordered them to be stripped and beaten. After they had been severely flogged, they were thrown into prison, and the jailer was commanded to guard them carefully. Upon receiving such orders, he put them in the inner cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.
About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody's chains came loose. The jailer woke up, and when he saw the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was about to kill himself because he thought the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted, "Don't harm yourself! We are all here!"
The jailer called for lights, rushed in and fell trembling before Paul and Silas. He then brought them out and asked, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?"
They replied, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household." Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all the others in his house.
At that hour of the night the jailer took them and washed their wounds; then immediately he and all his family were baptized. The jailer brought them into his house and set a meal before them; he was filled with joy because he had come to believe in God—he and his whole family.

Paul's definition of Love

Paul described Love as follows: "Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." (First Epistle to the Corinthians Chapter 13, verses 4-8a). It is very interesting to note that in the original Greek language text that these descriptions of agape are all in verbs, a matter of action, although most languages, such as English, will need to translate this using adjectives. To gain a better understanding of Paul's definition read all of 1 Corinthians 13.

John's definition of God

John equated God with Love in his first letter, (1st John): "Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love." (1 John 4:7-8 KJV)

Origin of the Agape

So far as the Jerusalem community was concerned, the common meal appears to have sprung out of the koinōnía or communion that characterized the first days of the Christian church (compare Act_1:14; Act_2:1 etc.). The religious meals familiar to Jews - the Passover being the great type - would make it natural In Jerusalem to give expression by means of table fellowship to the sense of brotherhood, and the community of goods practiced by the infant church (Act_2:44; Act_4:32) would readily take the particular form of a common table at which the wants of the poor were supplied out of the abundance of the rich (Act_6:1). The presence of the Agape in the Greek church of Corinth was no doubt due to the initiative of Paul, who would hand on the observances associated with the Lord's Supper just as he had received them from the earlier disciples; but participation in a social meal would commend itself very easily to men familiar with the common meals that formed a regular part of the procedure at meetings of those religious clubs and associations which were so numerous at that time throughout the Greek-Roman world.

Relation to the Eucharist

In the opinion of the great majority of scholars the Agape was a meal at which not only bread and wine but all kinds of viands were used, a meal which had the double purpose of satisfying hunger and thirst and giving expression to the sense of Christian brotherhood. At the end of this feast, bread and wine were taken according to the Lord's command, and after thanksgiving to God were eaten and drunk in remembrance of Christ and as a special means of communion with the Lord Himself and through Him with one another. The Agape was thus related to the Eucharist as Christ's last Passover to the Christian rite which He grafted upon it. It preceded and led up to the Eucharist, and was quite distinct from it. In opposition to this view it has been strongly urged by some modern critical scholars that in the apostolic age the Lord's Supper was not distinguished from the Agape, but that the Agape itself from beginning to end was the Lord's Supper which was held in memory of Jesus. It seems fatal to such an idea, however, that while Paul makes it quite evident that bread and wine were the only elements of the memorial rite instituted by Jesus (1Co_11:23-29), the abuses which had come to prevail at the social gatherings of the Corinthian church would have been impossible in the case of a meal consisting only of bread and wine (compare 1Co_11:21, 1Co_11:33) Moreover, unless the Eucharist in the apostolic age had been discriminated from the common meal, it would be difficult to explain how at a later period the two could be found diverging from each other so completely.

Separation from the Eucharist

In the Didache (circa 100 C.E.) there is no sign as yet of any separation. The direction that the second Eucharistic prayer should be offered “after being filled” (x.1) appears to imply that a regular meal had immediately preceded the observance of the sacrament. In the Ignatian Epistles (circa 110 C.E.) the Lord's Supper and the Agape are still found in combination (Ad Smyrn viii.2). It has sometimes been assumed that Pliny's letter to Trajan (circa 112 C.E.) proves that the separation had already taken place, for he speaks of two meetings of the Christians in Bithynia, one before the dawn at which they bound themselves by a “sacramentum” or oath to do no kind of crime, and another at a later hour when they partook of food of an ordinary and harmless character (Ep x.96). But as the word “sacramentum” cannot be taken here as necessarily or even probably referring to the Lord's Supper, the evidence of this passage is of little weight. When we come to Justin Martyr (circa 150 C.E.) we find that in his account of church worship he does not mention the Agape at all, but speaks of the Eucharist as following a service which consisted of the reading of Scripture, prayers and exhortation (Apol, lxvii); so that by his time the separation must have taken place. Tertullian (circa 200 C.E.) testifies to the continued existence of the Agape (Apol, 39), but shows clearly that in the church of the West the Eucharist was no longer associated with it (De Corona, 3). In the East the connection appears to have been longer maintained (see Bigg, Christian Platonists of Alexandria, 102ff), but by and by the severance became universal; and though the Agape continued for long to maintain itself as a social function of the church, it gradually passed out of existence or was preserved only as a feast of charity for the poor.

Reasons for the Separation

Various influences appear to have cooperated in this direction. Trajan's enforcement of the old law against clubs may have had something to do with it (compare Pliny as above), but a stronger influence probably came from the rise of a popular suspicion that the evening meals of the church were scenes of licentious revelry and even of crime. The actual abuses which already meet us in the apostolic age (1Co_11:20; Jud_1:12), and which would tend to multiply as the church grew in numbers and came into closer contact with the heathen world, might suggest the advisability of separating the two observances. But the strongest influence of all would come from the growth of the ceremonial and sacerdotal spirit by which Christ's simple institution was slowly turned into a mysterious priestly sacrifice. To Christ Himself it had seemed natural and fitting to institute the Supper at the close of a social meal. But when this memorial Supper had been transformed into a repetition of the sacrifice of Calvary by the action of the ministering priest, the ascetic idea became natural that the Eucharist ought to be received fasting, and that it would be sacrilegious to link it on to the observances of an ordinary social meal.

Sources

The New Testament of the Bible, especially the Gospels.
The Four Loves, by C.S. Lewis
The Greek New Testament, Aland, United Bible Societies
A Textual Commentary on the Greek NT, Metzger
The Apostolic Fathers, Lightfoot, Harmer, Holmes

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