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''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 two parts in 1930 and 1936. Nygren was one of the theologians who had formed the so-called Lundensian School of Theology, in which other important figures were Gustav Aulén and Ragnar Bring. They all shared a keen interest in rediscovering major motifs of Reformation theology, and examining how such motifs had been employed in different ways throughout history. In this context, Nygren was examining the motif of love.〔Werner Jeanrond, ''A Theology of Love'', (T&T Clark, 2010), p. 115.〕 ==Argument== Nygren analyses the connotations of two Greek words for love, ''eros'' and ''agape'' (unconditional love). *For him, ''eros'' is a needs-based and desire-based, egocentric and acquisitive love: in other words, we can love other humans and God with a love of ''eros'' in which we love them out of self-interest in order to acquire and possess them. It is drawn from Greek Platonic thought. *''Agape'', by contrast, is spontaneous, unconditional, theocentric, self-giving, self-sacrificial: in other words, we can love others and God with a love of agape in which we reject all self-gain and interest and surrender ourselves to other and love them purely for themselves. Nygren's argument is twofold. In the first place, he argues that ''agape'' is the only truly Christian kind of love, and that ''eros'' turns us away from God. Either we love others and God in the manner of ''eros'', purely for ourselves, in which case we do not really love them at all; or we love them in the manner of ''agape'', for themselves, with a true love, in which case we act against our own self-interest and happiness.〔Alan Vincelette, ‘Introduction’, in Pierre Rousselot, ''The Problem of Love in the Middle Ages: A Historical Contribution'', translated and with an introduction by Alan Vincelette (Marquette University Press, 1998), p. 11.〕 Secondly, he traces the historical roots of what he perceives as the loss of this concept of ''agape''. For Nygren, ''agape'' is the properly Christian understanding of love, as is evident from New Testament texts such as the Synoptic Gospels, Paul's theology of the cross, and the identification of God and agape in 1 John. However, he argues that from Augustine onward this focus on ''agape'' became polluted by an attempt to synthesis the concept with that of ''eros'', in a synthesis of ''caritas''. Nygren argues that most medieval theology of love was based around this attempt at a ''caritas''-synthesis. However, he argues, this is not a truly Christian synthesis, given the origins and nature of ''eros''. The Reformation, therefore, was hugely important because at this point Martin Luther exposed the fallacy of this synthesis, and made clear again the properly Christian ''agape'' conception of love.〔Alan Vincelette, ‘Introduction’, in Pierre Rousselot, ''The Problem of Love in the Middle Ages: A Historical Contribution'', translated and with an introduction by Alan Vincelette (Marquette University Press, 1998), p11.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Eros and Agape」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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