[B-Greek] AGAPAN and FILEIN in John 21
Michael
mjmorthotics0 at msn.com
Mon Dec 14 06:16:38 EST 2009
§ xii. SYNONYMS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. p. 41-44; from R.C. Trench, 9th
ed.,1880; Google Books, pdf edited extraction ( The copy I used had this
handwritten note: "The bequest Joseph Henry Thayer late professor in the
school, 20 March 1902" ) [ Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Cambridge,
Massachusetts.].
§ xii.{ 'agapao, phileo.} AGAPAW, FILEW
We have made no attempt to discriminate between these words in our
English Version. And yet there is often a difference between them, well
worthy to have been noted and reproduced, if this had lain within the
compass of our language ; being very nearly equivalent to that between
'diligo 'and 'amo' in the Latin. To understand the exact distinction
between these, will help us to understand that between those other which are
the more immediate object of our inquiry. For this we possess abundant
material in Cicero, who often sets the words in instructive antithesis to
one another. Thus, writing to one friend of the affection in which he holds
another (Ep. Fam. xiii. 47) : 'Ut scires illum a me non diligi solum, verum
etiam amari;' and again (Ad Brut. : 'L. Clodius valde me diligit, vel, ut
{'emphatikoteron} dicam, valde me amat.' From these and other like passages
(there is an ample collection of them in Doderlein's Latein. Synon. vol. iv.
pp. 98 seq.), we might conclude that 'amare,' which answers to FILEIN
{philein}, is stronger than diligere,' which, as we shall see, corresponds
to AGAPAN {'agapan}. This is true, but not all the truth. Ernesti has
successfully seized the law of their several uses, when he says : 'Diligere
magis ad judicium, amare vero ad intimum animi sensum pertinet.' So that,
in fact, Cicero in the passage first quoted is saying,' I do not esteem the
man merely, but I love him ; there is something of the passionate warmth of
affection in the feeling with which I regard him.'
It will follow, that while a friend may desire rather 'amari' than
'diligi' by his friend, there are aspects in which the 'diligi' is more than
the 'amari,' the AGAPASQAI { 'agapasthai } than the FILEISQAI {phileisthai
}. The first expresses a more reasoning attachment, of choice and selection
('diligere' = 'deligere'), from a seeing in the object upon whom it is
bestowed that which is worthy of regard; or else from a sense that such is
due toward the person so regarded, as being a benefactor, or the like; while
the second, without being necessarily an unreasoning attachment, does yet
give less account of itself to itself; is more instinctive, is more of the
feelings or natural affections, implies more passion ; thus Antonius, in the
funeral discourse addressed to the Roman people over the body of Caesar:
{'ephilesati 'auton hos patera, kai 'egapesate hos 'euergeten} (Dion
Cassius, xliv. 48). And see in Xenophon (Mem. ii. 7. 9, 12) two passages
throwing much light on the relation between the words, and showing how the
notions of respect and reverence are continually implied in the {'agapan},
which, though not excluded by, are still not involved in, the FILEIN
{philein}. Thus in the second of these, {hai men hos kedemona 'ephiloun, ho
de hos 'ophelimous 'egapa}. Out of this it may be explained, that while men
are continually bidden AGAPAN TON QEON {'agapan ton Theon} (Matt. xxii. 37;
Luke x. 27; i Cor. viii. 3), and good men declared so to do (Rom. viii. 28 ;
i Pet. i. 8; i John iv. 21), the FILEIN TO QEON {philein ton Theon} is
commanded to them never. The Father, indeed, both AGAPA TON hUION {'agapa
ton Huion} (John iii. 35), and also FELEI ton hUION {phelei ton Huion} (John
v. 20); with the first of which statements such passages as Matt. iii. 17,
with the second such as John i. 18 ; Prov. viii. 22, 30, may be brought into
connexion.
In almost all these passages of the N. T., the Vulgate, by the help of
'diligo' and 'amo,' has preserved a distinction which we have let go. This
is especially to be regretted at John xxi. 15-17 ; for the passing there of
the original from one word to the other is singularly instructive, and
should by no means escape us unnoticed. In that threefold " Lovest thou Me?
" which the risen Lord addresses to Peter, He asks him first, AGAPAS ME
{'agapas me;} At this moment, when all the pulses in the heart of the now
penitent Apostle are beating with a passionate affection toward his Lord,
this word on that Lord's lips sounds far too cold; to very imperfectly
express the warmth of his affection toward Him. The question in any form
would have been grievous enough (ver. 17); the language in which it is
clothed makes it more grievous still.1=(( 1 Bengel generally has the honour
'rem acu tetigisse;' here he has singularly missed the point, and is wholly
astray: AGAPAN {'agapan}, amare, est necessitudinis et affectus; FILEIN
{philein}, diligere, judicii.' )). He therefore in his answer substitutes
for the AGAPAS {'agapas} of Christ the word of a more personal love, FILO
{philo se} (ver. 15). And this he does not on the first occasion only, but
again upon a second. And now at length he has triumphed ; for when his Lord
puts the question to him a third time, it is not AGAPAS {'agapas} any more,
but FILEIS {'phileis}. All this subtle and delicate play of feeling
disappears perforce, in a translation which either does not care, or is not
able, to reproduce the variation in the words as it exists in the original.
I observe in conclusion that {'eros, 'eran, erastes,} never occur in the
N. T., but the two latter occasionally in the Septuagint ; thus {'eran},
Esth. ii. 17; Prov. iv. 6; {'erastes} generally in a dishonorable sense as '
paramour' (Ezek. xvi. 33 ; Hos. ii. 5) ; yet once or twice (as Wisd. viii.
2) more honorably, not as ='amasius,' but 'amator.' Their absence is
significant. It is in part no doubt to be explained from the fact that, by
the corrupt use of the world, they had become so steeped in sensual passion,
carried such an atmosphere of unholiness about them (see Origen, Prol. in
Cant. Opp. tom. iii. pp. 28-30), that the truth of God abstained from the
defiling contact with them ; yea, devised a new word rather than betake
itself to one of these. For it should not be forgotten that {'agape} is a
word born within the bosom of revealed religion : it occurs in the
Septuagint (2 Sam. xiii. 15; Cant. ii. 4 ; Jer. ii. 2), and in the Apocrypha
(Wisd. iii. 9) ; but there is no trace of it in any heathen writer whatever,
and as little in Philo or Josephus; the utmost they attain to here is
{philanthropia} and {phildelphia}, and the last never in any sense but as
the love between brethren in blood (cf. Cremer, W. B. d. N. T. Gracitat,
p. 12). But the reason may lie deeper still. {'Eros} might have fared as so
many other words have fared, might have been consecrated anew, despite of
the deep degradation of its past history ; 1=((1 ' On the attempt which some
Christian writers had made to distinguish between 'amor' and 'dilectio' or
'caritas,' see Augustine, De Civ. Dei, xiv. 7: 'Nonnulli arbitrantur aliud
esse dilectionem sive caritatem, aliud amorem. Dicunt enim dilectionem
accipiendam esse in bono, amorem in male.' He shows, by many examples of
'dilectio' and 'diligo' used in an ill sense in the Latin Scriptures, of
'amor' and 'amo' in a good, the impossibility of maintaining any such
distinction.)) and there were tendencies already working for this in the
Platonist use of it, namely, as the longing and yearning desire after that
un-seen but eternal Beauty, the faint vestiges of which may here be
everywhere traced ; 2=(( 2 I cannot regard as an evidence of such
reconsecration the celebrated words of Ignatius, Ad Rom. 7 : {ho 'emos 'eros
'estaurotai}. It is far more consistent with the genius of these Ignatian
Epistles to take {'eros} subjectively here, 'My love of the world is
crucified,' i.e. with Christ ; rather than objectively, 'Christ, the object
of my love, is crucified.')) {'ouranios 'eros}, Philo in this sense has
called it (De Vit. Cont. 2; De Vit. Mos. I). But in the very fact that
['eros} (={ho deinos himeros}, Sophocles, Track. 476), did express this
yearning desire (Euripides, Ion, 67 ; Alcestis, 1101); this longing after
the unpossessed (in Plato's exquisite mythus, Symp. 203 b, {'Eros} is the
offspring of {Penia} ), lay its deeper unfitness to set forth that Christian
love, which is not merely the sense of need, of emptiness, of poverty, with
the longing after fulness, not the yearning after an unattained and in this
world unattainable Beauty ; but a love to God and to man, which is the
consequence of God's love already shed abroad in the hearts of his people.
The mere longing and yearning, and {'eros} at the best is no more, has given
place, since the Incarnation, to the love which is not in desire only, but
also in possession. That {'eros} is no more is well expressed in the lines
of Gregory Nazianzene (Carm. ii. 34, I50, 151) :
{ Pothos d' 'orexis 'e kalon 'e me kalon, 'Eros de thermos duskathektos te
pothos. }
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