Eros and Agape is the title of a two-volume treatise written by the Swedish

Sweden

Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....

 Protestant theologian

Theology

Theology is the systematic and rational study of religion and its influences and of the nature of religious truths, or the learned profession acquired by completing specialized training in religious studies, usually at a university or school of divinity or seminary.-Definition:Augustine of Hippo...

 Anders Nygren

Anders Nygren

Anders Theodor Samuel Nygren was a Swedish Lutheran theologian. He was professor of systematic theology at Lund University from 1924 and was elected Bishop of Lund in 1948...

, first published in Swedish

Swedish language

Swedish is a North Germanic language, spoken by approximately 10 million people, predominantly in Sweden and parts of Finland, especially along its coast and on the Åland islands. It is largely mutually intelligible with Norwegian and Danish...

 in 1930-1936. It analyses the connotations of two Greek

Greek language

Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...

 words for love

Love

Love is an emotion of strong affection and personal attachment. In philosophical context, love is a virtue representing all of human kindness, compassion, and affection. Love is central to many religions, as in the Christian phrase, "God is love" or Agape in the Canonical gospels...

, eros

Eros (love)

Eros is one of the four words in Ancient Greek which can be rendered into English as “love”. The other three are storge, philia and agape...

and agape

Agape

Agape is one of the Greek words translated into English as love, one which became particularly appropriated in Christian theology as the love of God or Christ for mankind. In the New Testament, it refers to the fatherly love of God for humans, as well as the human reciprocal love for God; the term...

(unconditional love), and concludes that agape is the only truly Christian

Christian

A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...

 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

Pope Benedict XVI

Benedict XVI is the 265th and current Pope, by virtue of his office of Bishop of Rome, the Sovereign of the Vatican City State and the leader of the Catholic Church as well as the other 22 sui iuris Eastern Catholic Churches in full communion with the Holy See...

 in his first encyclical

Encyclical

An encyclical was originally a circular letter sent to all the churches of a particular area in the ancient Catholic Church. At that time, the word could be used for a letter sent out by any bishop...

, Deus Caritas Est

Deus Caritas Est

Deus Caritas Est is a 2006 encyclical—the first written by Pope Benedict XVI, in large part derived from writings by his late predecessor, Pope John Paul II. Its subject is love, as seen through a Christian perspective, and God's place within all love...

, 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.