Designs for Loving

What is this thing called love?' The question has been debated times without number: by the great poets, philosophers, mystics; by alert little logicians and portentous statisticians; by playwrights, novelists, songsters; and of course by lovers of various kinds, from those who indulge in a fever of passionate introspection to the simpler souls who sometimes briefly wonder in a bemused and befogged sort of way what has hit them. The plain man may well find himself confused by the variety of often conflicting answers given to the question, the variety of names given to the experience or to different aspects of it. In an interesting analysis of Moral Values in the Ancient World Professor John Ferguson discusses such concepts as the Greek eros, philia, philanthropia, homonoia, the Latin amicitia, pietas, humanitas, and the Hebrew chesed and 'ahabah-the former of these last two being the steadfast, covenanted loving-kindness of God and pietas of man, the latter the deeper, unconditioned love that has in it something alike of eros and of philanthropia. But the two worlds of thought, the Jewish and the Graeco-Roman, were fundamentally different and could impinge but little on one another until Christianity brought to the world its new inspiration, its new concept of love, and what was in effect a new word to describe it: agape.Again there has been a great deal of discussion about the difference, and the relationship, between eros and agape; and again the discussion has led to confusion because of the varying interpretations or emphases put on the words by various writers

Citation · Library science · Catholicism and Religious Studies · Computer Science · Religious Tourism and Spaces