agape- (Greek > Latin: love feast of the early Christians; love, love feast; to love).In Christian Theology, God's love for man, divine love; or spontaneous, altruistic love.agape:
1. Christian love.
2. Spiritual, as opposed to sexual, love. 3. The love feast accompanied by Eucharistic celebration in the early Christian church. agapism:
The doctrine exalting the value of love, especially in its general, nonsexual sense.
An iconoclastic view:
" 'Love Feast,' first of Aphrodite's holy whores (Horae), was canonized as a Christian saint when icons of the Horae were re-lableled 'virgin martyrs': Sts. Agape, Chione, and Irene. Agape originally personified the rite of sexual communion, as practiced in Aphrodite's temples and adopted by some early Christian sects as a Tantric type of 'spiritual marriage.' By the 7th century C.E. (Common Era) the agape ceremony was declared heretical, but it continued secretly throughout the Middle Ages."
by Barbara G. Walker; Harper San Francisco, A Division of Harper Collins Publishers; 1983; page 12. |