ONLY IN AGAPE
THE MEANING OF LOVE IN THE RESTORATION IDEAL
by Catherine Aller

Confused and hesitant the Christian world stands today before the unfolding drama of history. Appalling situations develop with relentless urgency. Instinctively we know that we are confronting momentous decision. Yet wherever we look we are struck with the tentative and insecure nature of temporal opinion. Outside the churches, political leaders, scientists, the writers of our great periodicals and daily papers, grope for plans, suggestions, answers. Within the churches, mostly under the surface in the seminaries as well as in the various denominations, there is in process not only a reappraisal of traditional methods but a re-valuation of certain long established orthodox doctrines. The trumpets are uncertain. There is no clear call to action.

In a modern translation of the Book of the Acts, The Young Church in Action, J. B. Phillips dramatically records another hour in history when an unprecedented period of anxiety and uncertainty was turned suddenly into a blazing conviction of victory with a dynamic outburst of energy never until then found in human affairs—and never since. It was the birth of the Christian Church—Whitsuntide.

“Here we are seeing the Church in its first youth,” he writes in the preface, “valiant, unspoiled—a body of men and women joined in an unconquerable fellowship never before seen on earth . . . We cannot help feeling disturbed as well as moved, for this surely is the Church as it was meant to be.” As we read this absorbing translation we too are convinced that “Someone was at work beside mere human beings. . . . The Spirit of God had found what surely He must be always seeking—a fellowship of men and women so united in love that they can be used by God for His own ends on earth.”

Looking back over two thousand years of history can we say precisely what this young Church had that we today have lost? And why did we lose it? What bearing may it have on the strange apathy and confusion of today? Without wandering through mazes of theological discussion and abstractions of metaphysics, but depending rather on the clear perspectives of history, we come upon certain facts that have direct and obvious bearing on the foregoing questions. It is vital that these facts be clearly grasped, in order that we may face intelligently the difficulties of the present hour. Briefly summed up—too briefly it must be admitted—they are as follows:

During the reign of Pontius Pilate all the little world involved in the matter decided to reject the “Word made flesh” in Jesus Christ. Everyone of His disciples forsook Him and fled. He died on His cross—and they buried Him in a stone tomb. A long epoch of time had reached its end. Then came the Resurrection morning. A little group of beaten, cowardly, despairing men began to realize that they had just made the greatest mistake ever made in history. He had come back from His grave. He was in their own world again, visibly, convincingly, historically. Something of eternity had broken in on man’s sense of time. History had reached its maximal point. All events before it had led up to it; all events since have stemmed from it and must be evaluated in relation to it. Someone had called it “The only thing that ever really happened.” They were ordinary men like us, but the wind-driven, flame-lit energy of sudden new inspiration and positive conviction utterly transformed them. God’s Word was passing into action on the human plane and it altered the course of human affairs.

They called the unprecedented energy that took hold of them “The Holy Spirit.” That is a vague term today, even to the devoutly religious. It was a spiritual mystery then, of course, but it was anything but vague in its demands upon them! It was more than a benevolent Presence, a diffuse good-will, an impulse to love everybody, good, bad or indifferent. It was like an electric shock, a discharge of spiritual power, that struck them out of confusion, apathy, despair. It galvanized them into thinking, speaking, acting as they had never done before.

As the oral accounts of Jesus’ life and words passed out of the Aramaic vernacular and took form in the Greek language, the Church began calling the Spirit which had been given them by another name —Agape. In the original Greek it meant love, affection, caring for. “Continue ye in my Agape,” Jesus says. “God is Agape,” writes John. “Who shall spearate us from the Agape of Christ?” Paul asks. A wholly new thing had happened to them and it required a specific name, lest it be confused with ordinary love. This love had its origin in God, not in themselves. It had been demonstrated to them in the life of Christ and now it was suddenly and mightily at work in them, not as individuals only, but as a community of believers in Him. It possessed them, it poured through them, in all manner of acts of power and love. They gave it out to each other and to their bitter enemies as well, in the face of amazement, ridicule, persecution and martyrdom. They could not have understood it before it happened to them. They could not have created it out of their own hearts. They saw Agape as GIVEN LOVE translated into human action through their acceptance of its Source. What their Lord had asked for them had come to pass. “That they may all be ONE, even as Thou are in me and I in Thee. . . . that they may be perfectly ONE.” (John 17:21, 23 R. S. V.) THIS ONENESS IS AGAPE. There lay the strength of it and the pattern of it. They were bound to the Father, bound to their Lord Christ, bound to each other in one unbroken power line of Love. This was being “in Christ,” “in Agape.”

Nothing of the kind had ever been known on earth. Agape came down like the rain from heaven on the just and the unjust. Therefore they were to love all men, just as God loved them, the good citizen and the sinning. Sin was sin, a disconnection from God; they had no confusion on that score, but they saw that all men were sinners, and all were forgiven and beloved of God. They knew that what was happening to them was inseparably connected with the life, death and Resurrection of Jesus. He had told them to be witnesses for Him to all people. They went therefore into all corners of the known world with it, spreading its good news everywhere, changing lives, changing world-old beliefs, changing the course of history.

The kind of love they had been given and in return gave out is the very essence of Christianity. It was AGAPE that established Christianity in the midst of an angry unbelieving world, a world then, as now, hovering upon the brink of momentous change. What happened to this clearly perceived, vividly acted upon living force in the lives of men? Why have relatively few individuals here and there in all history seen that love and committed their lives to it? Again we turn to the record of history. It will reveal some startling facts, controversial in some quarters, exciting and inspiring in others. But it will bring to a world situation which now finds religious leadership confused, divided and on the defensive, a clarifying knowledge of obscured events of the past, vital for today and too long neglected. From this knowledge emerges definite hope for a renewal of spiritual vigor in the Christian Church.

When the little band of Christ’s followers began to expand and enter the world of the Roman Empire they came face to face with a subtle and dangerous antagonist, presenting itself, however, in the role of a friend. They were brought in contact with the Platonic worship of Eros. It was the popular religion and philosophy of the day. Eros also meant love in Greek. It stood for the longing of the soul for the beautiful, good and desirable, for the divine in its highest form. This hunger was to be satisfied by climbing ever upward from good already possessed to a yet higher vantage point, as on a ladder set between earth and heaven.

At once the inquiring Greek mind, always attracted to the consideration of new ideas, on meeting the Christian faith, with its miracles of healing, its gentleness, joy and evident inspirational content, realized its usefulness to Eros. Surely this new doctrine could be assimilated into their own philosophy; each could benefit the other. Christianity could enrich Eros worship, while the Greek genius for philosophical reason and order could smooth out of Christianity its implausible and irrational features. Intellectual minds of the day, both within the Christian group and without it, set about to introduce the theories of pagan Eros into the living faith of Christ’s followers. The results were calamitous for Agape.

Few saw the irreconcilable differences involved. It all seemed reasonable on the surface that a religion searching for the divine should blend with one that offered a wholly new type of spiritual good. Few realized that Eros and Agape were diametrically opposite to each other in origin, principle and practice. No real synthesis was possible between them. The one crossed the other out. For Eros was at heart an ego-centric religion. Its adherents were out to get something, by their own works, for their own advantage. However high their motives, however subtle their reasoned idealism—long for God—they fundamentally sought their own inner self-satisfaction. Agape on the other hand was a love that gave at whatever cost, even unto death. It poured itself out not to attain good, or to the beautiful only, but to bestow good on the poor and the needy and the unbeautiful, as well. It sought for no reward. The Christian knew he had not created or invented Agape out of the goodness or the hunger of his own heart. It was love already possessed, given directly from God’s heart to theirs. As it flowed into them from God so it flowed out of them to man turning into historic act on the human plane. God originated and directed the entire process. The power of Agape lay in a continual hold on God. The Christian was God-centered, Agape-centered, not self-centered. Philosophy must debate the value of that which is desirable, delights in the subtle pride of intricate self-expression through processes of reason. The Christian loves spontaneously before he explains it. The primitive Christian practice was “to walk in love, as Christ hath loved us.” This was the ideal, never of course perfectly attained, but more nearly demonstrated in human action by more individuals than ever before or since in history.

THE GREAT DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CHRISTIANITY AND EVERY OTHER RELIGION ON EARTH IS JUST THIS: IN CHRISTIANITY GOD COMES TO MAN; IN ALL OTHERS MAN STRIVES TOWARD GOD.

The foregoing is put in capitals because it is essential to understand that it is true. Once this difference has become clear one is provided with a standard, a touchstone, whereby one can tell for himself whether any religion, philosophy, ideology is God-sustained or built on man’s own self-seeking. It is a pattern for individual Christian living and thinking as well as for collective unity.

It was inevitable that controversy should enter the Christian community at an early period, both by argument from without and by weakness within. Paul fought magnificently to defend the clarity of Agape from the infiltrations of the man-made doctrine of Eros. “Even if I could talk like an angel, even if I had all knowledge—philosophy, theology—if I did not have Agape it would gain me nothing.” His message, he explained, was not with “plausible words of man’s wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might not stand in the wisdom of men but in the power of God. Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not the wisdom of this age.” (I Cor. 2; 4-6. R. S. V.) He was referring, of course, to Agape. No one has loved or lived Agape as Paul, nor given a clearer statement of the essential responsibility it involves that those who accept it must share it.

After his day, the first joyous spontaneity dropped steadily under the weight of argument among differing teachers and schools, in spite of councils and creeds that attempted bravely to stem the tide. Here and there an individual protest is found, shining with the fire of Agape, but organized Christianity as a whole lost the light in the subtle pride of self-expression, in the development of theories born of all sorts of mixtures of thought. At times the church dropped to a level lower than the ethics of pagan culture.

The great Augustine brightened the outlook in the fourth century by his emphasis on love, order, humility as prime requisites of Christian living. He had been an ardent Platonist before he adopted Christianity, and he never rid himself of the inherent human tendency to seek good by one’s own efforts even when he was most sincere, humble and eloquent in his love of God. He thought out an ingenious combination of Eros and Agape. Others had attempted it before him, but he was the first to make an apparent synthesis of the two opposite doctrines officially accepted by the church. He taught that God sent down Jesus Christ in order to assist man in climbing the steep to heaven, by three ways, by piety (good deeds, penitence, etc.), by intellectual striving and by mystic experience of God. All three involve man’s winning his own salvation, working toward God. What Augustine did not understand was the ever-presence of God in man’s own heart, more ready to give than man is to receive. Agape is not earned, it is freely given. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any man . . . open the door I will come in and sup with him and he with Me.” His amalgamation lasted for about a thousand years, now showing the influence of the true Agape, now of intellectually self-sufficient Eros. All through the middle ages his confusion of motifs troubled and darkened the minds of great thinkers. Wherever Eros gained a footing the life-giving force of Agape was depleted.

In the sixteenth century Martin Luther broke into the closed circle of ecclesiastical domination, declaring that “faith, not works” was the message of Christianity. “Good works do not make a man good but a good man does good works,” he explained. He understood Agape, the impartial love of God to man offered in spite of the universal heritage of sin in natural man. Sin was not condoned but the sinner was already forgiven, not condemned. In the practice of Christian love we are to love our fellow man just as he is, as God loves him; to love the unlovely as well as the pleasant neighbor, the personal enemy and the country’s dangerous foes—a hard condition, never fully realized of course, but the fundamental demand of Christ. This is possible only by depending on tbe grace of the Spirit, not on human will.

Other leaders of the Reformation and innumerable individuals since have seen the two conflicting ways of fellowship with God, but the Protestant movement as a whole has not yet brought to the world—not even to the Christian church—the true meaning of that power and unity of love the first Christian agreed to call Agape. Most church goers today would admit they have never heard of the word. Early in this century, however, in Europe and America scholars have been bringing the long ignored fact of the weakening of Agape by pagan Eros to the attention of a few thinkers in the seminaries and among the laity. They have been met with resistance in some quarters, confused or hesitant acceptance in others, and sometimes with immediate and profound gratitude. Hence the whole story of Agape has simmered for years in the seminaries and reached the larger Christian public only indirectly and insufficiently. Possibly the time has come for a movement among the laity, supported by those ministers and theologians who have accurately studied the facts and realized the critical challenge, and are ready to give up long-honored theory for insistent truth. Those who by education and training are inclined to place a high value on philosophical method and a cautious approach to human problems by traditional paths are, of course, less easily persuaded to act than the layman, who may, however, be closer to the grave human needs of the situation. This is by no means to imply that reason, ethics, method, and planning have no place in Christianity! They are, of course, essential to all human affairs. But a Christian is led by the Spirit—not by philosophy or by reason. In small things and in great things the Christian’s first resort is to God, in the humility. of prayer, and the inspiration of revealed truth. Human wit and planning are too subject to the frailty of human pride to be in command of the issues of life. Revelation belongs initially to individual discernment, the Word of God preparing mankind for action. The eclipse of the primitive power of the Christian Church shows that today we have indeed “lost something” that the early Church possessed. It was precisely the infringement by the limited theories of men upon the spontaneity of Agape that strangled its growth in the early days. Although depleted by Eros in organized Christianity Agape has been a living influence in the lives of countless individuals throughout the centuries. It is the essential lost element in Christianity and the ultimate possession of all religions. Only in Agape can an ecumenical movement succeed. Only in Agape can the Christian Church regain its unity, power and love.

All history is the infallible record of man’s response to the Word of God. When it is accepted and followed it leads on to human betterment. When it is not, evil ensues—invariably. Man has his allotted freedom of choice, within certain determined limits, of course, but all initiative is with God. His Word always precedes all human action on earth. “So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return unto me void. It shall accomplish what I please.” When evil in man’s affairs becomes so unbearable that he must do something about it he may choose either to experiment longer with theories of his own or he may decide that the time has come to turn to God for help. Every great swing in history toward better things, greater freedoms, clearer democracy, more extended humanities of kindliness and justice are the results of voluntary human decision to obey the Word of God consciously or unconsciously accepted as such. The record of the early Church is the most outstanding and convincing proof of this.

This is a plea for Christians and non-Christians to seriously study the historic struggle of Agape and Eros, not only in its early stages of two thousand years ago but in its continuing influence on world thought today. The immense prestige of philosophy in connection with theological studies and the authoritative approval given to Augustine’s doctrines not only in the Roman Catholic church but in Protestant theology as well, shows the confusion of today on the subject within the Christian Church. How many prayers, hymns, sermons, books reflect a striving toward God, not a recognition of His eternal ever-presence. We “climb the steep ascent to heaven,” we “rise on upward wing” we long to be “nearer to Thee.” God cannot be nearer than our inmost heart. “Closer is He than breathing; nearer than hands or feet.” The time has come for us to renounce all Eros-infected thinking for real Christian faith.

Among books that will be found of help in this study by far the most fundamental and important is Agape and Eros, by Anders Nygren, Bishop of Lund. This is a profound and scholarly treatise on the subject both from the historical and the spiritual point of view. It is published by the Westminster Press of Philadelphia. A shorter and simpler work is “The Greatest Word in the World,” by the present writer, which is based on Nygren’s monumental study. It is published by the Cowman Publications, Los Angeles 27, California. Well-known theologians are beginning to write on Agape, among them Emil Brunner. Some eminent and beloved ministers and scholars are still trying to combine Agape with Eros, not realizing even yet that the pattern of Agape, the stream that flows from God through man, sweeps away the counter-current of natural man’s efforts to draw toward himself, by his own efforts any good thing. Once the real stream of Agape is entered, self-seeking Eros is done away. We cannot travel north and travel south at the same time.

Many writers are now turning to the subject without using the word Agape. When one is acquainted with the issue the references are easily recognized. But there is no other word that can be substituted for Agape. Love is too vague a term; it means too many things to too many people, nor does it carry the historical content of the word the early Church selected to define their meaning of Love in Christ. It has not the driving force the situation today demands. We need Agape now for the same reason they needed it then, to carry to a rapidly worsening world situation the knowledge and confidence of a conscious connection with God, and always available in an invariable pattern, when a fellowship of men and women submit themselves to God, to be used by Him.

Within the “two and seventy jarring sects” of Christendom as well as out among the nations, regardless of color, creed, historic background, an imperative call goes first to individuals to become witnesses to Agape. Wherever you are in your daily activity cease living for yourself, your own pleasure, your own advantage; begin to accept God’s free love; begin to give it impartially to those with whom you are in daily contact. “Be open on the Godswardside.” When this change in the direction of individual thought enters the stream of human life it inevitably affects the life of others. One by one we will gather into a unity of action as individuals and as groups. We wait on God’s initiative. Whether this increasing movement shall become evident suddenly, as at Pentecost, or proceed with deliberate strength, we know that the Spirit is “always waiting” for the emergence of such a fellowship of men and women. Thanks to the lessons of tragic past history may we be aware this time of the necessity of abiding in the pattern of in flowing, out-flowing Agape, undeceived by the confusions of Eros, with its principle of acquisitive self-seeking.

The time has come for us to be converted to legitimate Christianity. It has not been sufficiently demonstrated on earth for two thousand years.

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Catherine Aller is an author who is seriously concerned with the predicament of man. You may obtain additional copies of this soul-stirring article for 15 cents each by writing her directly at Lakeville, Conn.

No book can do ALL a man’s thinking for him. The utility of any statement is limited by the willingness of the receiver to think.—Ezra Pound.

We need education in the obvious more than investigation of the obscure.--Oliver Wendell Holmes.