Eros and Agape (ISBN 0-8446-6051-5) is the title of a two-volume treatise written by the Swedish Protestant theologian Anders Nygren, first published in Swedish in 1930-1936. It analyses the connotations of two Greek words for love, eros and agape (unconditional love), and concludes that agape is the only truly Christian kind of love, and that eros (an expression of the individual's desires) turns us away from God. This may be contrasted with the conclusions of Pope Benedict XVI in his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, that both eros and agape are aspects of divine love.
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Famous quotes containing the words eros and/or agape:
“In America the chief accusation seems to be one of “Eroticism.” This is odd, rather puzzling to my mind. Which Eros? Eros of the jaunty “amours,” or Eros of the sacred mysteries? And if the latter, why accuse, why not respect, even venerate?”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“all afternoon
Their witless offspring flock like piped rats to its siren
Crescendo, and agape on the crumbling ridge
Stand in a row and learn.”
—William Stanley Merwin (b. 1927)