Eros and Agape
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Eros and Agape (ISBN 0-8446-6051-5) is the title of a two-volume treatise written by the Swedish theologian Anders Nygren, first published in Swedish in 1930-1936. It analyses the connotations of two Greek words for love, eros (sexual love)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.
It is more accurate to use "eros" as Nygren used it: transcendent acquisitive and/or philosophical love.
Note: The actual published work is titled Agape and Eros, not Eros and Agape.
