The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #67470   Message #1126984
Posted By: Steve Parkes
01-Mar-04 - 10:36 AM
Thread Name: BS: Faith
Subject: "Love" v "charity"
Paul used the word agape in that letter to the Christian community at Corinth, which was usually rendered as love elsewhere in the NT (where it applies to God's love). Agape in classical Greek writing has the senes of love, founded in admiration, veneration, esteem; i.e. human love, but not in the erotic sense. Jerome, translating into Latin, used caritas to distinguish this sense; charity, the English equivalent, has largely lost this sense today (although the opposite of uncharitable would be nearly right). Think of the sense Jesus meant when he said inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

Just be good to one another!

Steve