We have made no attempt to discriminate between these words in our English Version. And yet there is often a difference between them, well worthy to have been noted and reproduced, if this had lain within the compass of our language; being very nearly equivalent to that between ‘diligo’ and ‘amo’ in the Latin. To understand the exact distinction between these, will help us to understand that between those other which are the more immediate object of our inquiry. For this we possess abundant material in Cicero, who often sets the words in instructive antithesis to one another. Thus, writing to one friend of the affection in which he holds another (Ep. Fam. xiii.47): ‘Ut scires illum a me non diligi solum, verum etiam amari;’ and again (Ad Brut. 1): ‘L. Clodius valde me diligit, vel, ut ἐμφατικώτερον dicam, valde me amat.’ From these and other like passages (there is an ample collection of them in Döderlein’s Latein. Synon. vol. iv. pp. 98 seq.), we might conclude that ‘amare,’ which answers to φιλεῖν, is stronger than ‘diligere,’ which, as we shall see, corresponds to ἀγαπᾶν. This is true, but not all the truth. Ernesti has successfully seized the law of their several uses, when he says: ‘Diligere magis ad judicium, amare veto ad intimum animi sensum pertinet.’ So that, in fact, Cicero in the passage first quoted is saying,—‘I do not esteem the man merely, but I love him; there is something of the passionate warmth of affection in the feeling with which I regard him.’
It will follow, that while a friend may desire rather ‘amari’ than ‘diligi’ by his friend, there are aspects in which the ‘diligi’ is more than the ‘amari,’ the ἀγαπᾶσθαι than the φιλεῖσθαι. The first expresses a more reasoning attachment, of choice and selection (‘diligere’==‘ deligere’), from a seeing in the object upon whom it is bestowed that which is worthy of regard; or else from a sense that such is due toward the person so regarded, as being a benefactor, or the like; while the second, without being necessarily an unreasoning attachment, does yet give less account of itself to itself; is more instinctive, is more of the feelings or natural affections, implies more passion; thus Antonius, in the funeral discourse addressed to the Roman people over the body of Caesar: ἐφιλήσατε αὐτὸν ὡς πατέρα, καὶ ἠγαπήσατε ὡς εὐεργέτην (Dion Cassius, xliv. 48). And see in Xenophon (Mem. ii. 7. 9. 12) two passages throwing much light on the relation between the words, and showing how the notions of respect and reverence are continually implied in the ἀγαπᾶν, which, though not excluded by, are still not involved in, the φιλεῖν. Thus in the second of these, αἱ μὲν ὡς κηδεμόνα ἐφίλουν, ὁ δὲ ὡς ὠφελίμους ἠγάπα. Out of this it may be explained, that while men are continually bidden ἀγαπᾶν τὸν Θεόν (
In almost all these passages of the N. T., the Vulgate, by the help of ‘diligo’ and ‘amo,’ has preserved a distinction which we have let go. This is especially to be regretted at
I observe in conclusion that ἔρως, ἐρᾶν, ἐραστής, never occur in the N. T., but the two latter occasionally in the Septuagint; thus ἐρᾶν,
Πόθος δ᾽ ὄρεξις ἢ καλῶν ἢ μὴ καλῶν,
Ἔρως δὲ θερμὸς δυσκάθεκτός τε πόθος.
1 Bengel generally has the honour ‘rem acu tetigisse;’ here he has singularly missed the point and is wholly astray; ‘ἀαπᾶν, amare, est necessitudinis et affectûs; φιλειν, diligere, judicii.’
2 On the attempt which some Christian writers had made to distinguish between ‘amor’ and ‘dilectio’ or ‘caritas,’ see Augustine, De Civ. Dei, xiv. 7: ‘Nonnulli arbitrantur aliud esse dilectionem sive caritatem, aliud amorem. Dicunt enim dilectionem accipiendam esse in bono, amorem in malo.’ He shows, by many examples of ‘dilectio’ and ‘diligo’ used in an ill sense in the Latin Scriptures, of ‘amor’ and ‘amo’ in a good, the impossibility of maintaining any such distinction.
3 I cannot regard as an evidence of such reconsecration the well-known words of Ignatius, Ad Rom. 7: ὁ ἐμὸς ἔρως ἐσταύρωται. It is far more consistent with the genius of these Ignatian Epistles to take ἔρως subjectively here, ‘My love of the world is crucified,’ i.e. with Christ; rather than objectively, ‘Christ, the object of my love, is crucified.’
[The following Strong's numbers apply to this section:G25,G5368.]
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