Considered as a monument of the Greek language at a particular stage of its development, the New Testament is a very interesting document; and not least so in the terminology which it employs to express the emotion of love. The end-terms of this development, so far as it is open to our observation, are found—we are speaking in broad categories—in the literature which we know as “classical” on the one side, and in the speech of the modern Greek world on the other. In passing from one of these end-terms to the other, a complete revolution has been wrought in the terminology of love; a revolution so radical that the ordinary verb for “to love” in classical Greek has lost that sense altogether in modern Greek, its place being taken by a verb in comparatively infrequent use in the classics; while the ordinary substantive for “love” in modern Greek, formed from this latter verb, does not occur even once in the whole range of classical Greek literature. Coming in somewhere between these two end-terms, the New Testament, flanked on the one side by the Septuagint version of the Old Testament and its accompanying Apocrypha, and on the other by the Apostolic Fathers, forms a compact body of literature in which alone we can observe the revolution in progress; or, we should better say, in which this revolution suddenly appears to sight already nearly completed. Without any heralding in the secular literature, all at once in this religious literature the change presents itself to our view as in principle already an accomplished fact.
All the terms expressing the idea of love current either in classical or in modern Greek are found in this body of religious literature. But they are found in it in such distribution as to make it evident that we are witnessing the dying of one usage while the other has already reached its vigorous youth. This phenomenon is the more impressive because this body of literature stands out in this respect in a certain isolation. Neither in the secular literature of the early Christian centuries, nor even in the immediately succeeding religious literature— in the Greek of the Apologists and the early Church Fathers—is the change in usage anything like so manifest. We have an odd feeling that, with respect to the expression of the idea of love at least, the Greek of the New Testament (along with that of the Septuagint and the Apostolic Fathers) has run ahead of its time, and reflects a stage in the development of the language not yet by some centuries generally attained. This is due doubtless in part to the extremely popular character of these writings. They tap for us the Greek language of their day as it was actually spoken; and enable us to see how far the spoken Greek was outstripping in its development the language of “the prigs who write books.” In the Apologists at any rate we have a partial return to the more literary usage, with the effect that the language of the New Testament (with the Septuagint and Apostolic Fathers) seems more modern than that of even the Christian writers that came after them.
There are four verbs which, with their accompanying nouns (of course there are also various derivatives), are employed by the classical writers to express the idea of love. Of these φιλεῖν (φιλία) is in universal use as the general term for love, though naturally it has its specific implication which on occasion comes sharply into sight. By its side stand its synonyms, ἐρᾶν, ἐρᾶσθαι (ἔρως), στέργειν (στοργή), ἀγαπᾶν (ἀγάπησις), each of which also is no doubt employed (with decreasing frequency in the order in which they are here set down) to express every kind of love, but each with a specific implication which comes clearly into evidence whenever there is occasion for it to do so. What we mean to say is that, as synonyms, these terms do not so much cover a common ground over the edge of which each extends at a particular place to occupy an additional field all its own; as that they are so used that, within the common ground which they all alike cover, each has a particular quality or aspect which it alone emphasizes, and which it alone is fitted to bring into sight. If we should endeavor to hit off the special implication of each with a single word, we might perhaps say that with στέργειν it is nature, with ἐρᾶν passion, with φιλεῖν pleasurableness, with ἀγαπᾶν preciousness. The idea of love includes all these things, and these terms come severally to mind, therefore, in speaking of love, whenever love is contemplated from the angle of the special implication of each. If it is a question of the constitutional efflux of natural affection στέργειν is the most expressive word to use. If, of the blind impulse of absorbing passion, ἐρᾶν. If, of the glow of heart kindled by the perception of that in the object which affords us pleasure, φιλεῖν. If, of an awakened sense of value in the object which causes us to prize it, ἀγαπᾶν. It is probable that no one of the terms is ever used wholly without some sense in the speaker’s mind of its specific implication. Nevertheless each of them is actually employed of every kind and degree of love—because there is no object which is fitted to call out the emotion of love at all which cannot be approached from numerous angles and envisaged from distinct points of view. Not merely differences in the objects on which the affection terminates, but also differences in the mental attitude of its subjects, determine the appropriateness of one or another of the terms, when love is spoken of.