Eros and Agape

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.

Editions

The title of the English translation is Agape and Eros, not Eros and Agape. The Original Swedish title is: Den kristna kärlekstanken genom tiderna: Eros och Agape (the Christian idea of love through the ages: eros and agape); a later reprint reduces this to: Eros och agape (Stockholm, 1966). Most translations seem to have adopted that order, with the exception of the English translation. The earliest seems to be from 1930: Agape and Eros, London, 1932.

External links