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Ancient Notions of Love: Eros, Philia, Agape

I. INTRODUCTION

What is love? Love is one of the most intense and powerful human
experiences. At its best, it is what makes life most worth living. At its worst, it has
started wars, ruined fortunes, severed bonds and destroyed families.

Love existed before the world was formed. The scriptures teach that God is
the uncreated creator the first cause of everything else. It also teaches that God is
love, therefore love has been since the beginning. 1 I believe that each and every
one of us feels, have felt and surely will feel love. It is inevitable. In today’s society,
we only have one word for love and so we use the same word to casually describe
how we feel about iced coffees and how we feel about our girlfriends.

If we read what was written in the ancient era about love, you will know that
there are different kinds of love that may seem unfamiliar in terminology but is very
relatable in terms of our own experiences. The Greek language was much clearer on
exactly what they were referring to and actually had 7 different words for love. And
in this paper, what will be discussed is the 3 most commonly used terminologies of
love, which is the Platonic eros, Aristotelian philia, and the Christian Agape.

Since the time of the Ancient Greeks, love has played a significant role in
philosophy, inspiring theories that span the materialistic conception of love as a
wholly physical phenomenon—an animalistic or genetic urge that determines our
behavior—to theories of love as an intensely spiritual relationship that, at its
pinnacle, enables us to experience divinity. Plato's Symposium serves as the
founding text historically in the Western tradition because it gives us the immensely
appealing and influential idea that love is characterized by a series of elevations, in
which animalistic desire or base lust is superseded by a more intellectual
conception of love that is also superseded by what might be construed as a
theological vision of love that transcends sensual attraction and mutuality. Since
then, there have been opponents and proponents of platonic love as well as a
1
https://firelifeministries.org/grow-your-relationship-with-God-blog/what-is-the-difference-
between-agape-eros-and-phileo-love
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variety of competing theories. One such theory is that of Aristotle, a disciple of

Plato, who offered a more secular view of real love that reflected what he called
"two bodies and one soul."2 Furthermore, this paper aims to educate us, especially
this generation, to know what love really is and how it works.

II. LIFE AND WORKS

A. PLATO
2
Peter Heath trans., The Nature of Sympathy Scheler, Max (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1954)
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LIFE
Plato was born in the year following the passing of the illustrious Athenian
leader Pericles. His parents are Ariston, his father, and Perictione, his mother. In
Plato's masterpiece The Republic, his brothers Glaucon and Adeimantus are
portrayed as interlocutors, and his half-brother Antiphon appears in The
Parmenides. The aristocratic and illustrious Plato family claimed genealogy from the
god Poseidon on his father's side and the lawgiver Solon on his mother's side (c.
630–560 BCE). Less admirably, the close cousins of his mother, Critias and
Charmides, were among the Thirty Tyrants who took control of Athens and
governed for a short time before democracy was restored in 403.

When he was a young man, Plato belonged to the group that included
Socrates. Since the latter didn't write anything, what we know about his distinctive
habit of conversing with his fellow residents (and the rare traveling celebrity) comes
entirely from the works of others, most notably Plato. The works of Plato that are
referred to as "Socratic" are an accurate representation of what the real Socrates
was up to. He would ask those who claimed to be experts to discuss various aspects
of human greatness, such as courage, piety, and so forth, or perhaps the entirety of
"virtue," and they would typically falter in their attempts to defend their positions.
Resentment against Socrates grew, leading ultimately to his trial and execution on
charges of impiety and corrupting the youth in 399. Plato was profoundly affected
by both the life and the death of Socrates. The activity of the older man provided
the starting point of Plato’s philosophizing. Moreover, if Plato’s Seventh Letter is to
be believed (its authorship is disputed), the treatment of Socrates by both the
oligarchy and the democracy made Plato wary of entering public life, as someone of
his background would normally have done.

Following the execution of Socrates in 399, Plato left Athens for Megara and
spent the ensuing 12 years traveling. Upon his return, he established the Academy,
a center for intellectual and scientific study, where Aristotle was one of his pupils.
He created a complex and comprehensive philosophical philosophy that became
known as Platonism, building on but also straying from Socrates' ideas. Although his
ideas have elements of logic, epistemology, and metaphysics, their primary purpose
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is often ethical. It is given in his numerous conversations, many of which feature

Socrates prominently, including the Symposium. 3

WORKS

All of Plato's surviving writings, with the exception of a collection of dubious-

provenanced letters, are dialogues, and all but one of them feature the figure of
Socrates. His 36 dialogues are typically categorized as early, middle, and late, albeit
style and content, rather than exact dates, dictate their chronological sequence.

The first dialogues of Plato provide a thorough examination of Socrates'

dialectic approach of dissecting and evaluating concepts and premises. In the
"Euthpyro," Socrates' relentless interrogation forces a religious expert to
acknowledge his lack of comprehension of what "piety" entails. These analyses
encouraged his students to consider the so-called Platonic forms, which are the
indefinable ideals (such as truth, beauty, and the ideal appearance of a chair) by
which people evaluate things and experiences.

Though they are never explicitly endorsed, Plato's unique opinions and beliefs
begin to show through in the middle dialogues' Socratic structure. The "Symposium"
is a collection of drinking-party lectures by Socrates on the subject of love, in which
he asserts that the best way to deal with romantic passion is to turn it into peaceful
truth-seeking (a concept later writers dubbed "Platonic love"). In the "Meno,"
Socrates shows how learning is less important than "recollecting" what the soul
already knows by describing how an untaught kid might be led to uncover a
geometric argument on his own.

The monumental “Republic” explores the souls of both a nation and an

individual in simultaneously. In both, Plato discovers a three-tiered hierarchy
between reason, passion, and desire as well as between rulers, auxiliaries, and
citizens. Just as a smart king should dominate a society, reason should always take
precedence in every individual.

Only those with wisdom (ideally a sort of “philosopher-king”) are able to

discern the true nature of things. The experiences of the lower tiers of the state and
3
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Plato#ref281696
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of the soul are—as Plato’s famous analogy has it—related to true knowledge the
way the shadows on the wall of a cave are related to, yet wholly different from, the
forms that cast them.

Plato’s late dialogues are barely dialogues at all but rather explorations of
specific topics. The “Timeaus” explains a cosmology intertwined with geometry, in
which perfected three-dimensional shapes—cubes, pyramids, icosahedrons—are the
“Platonic solids” out of which the whole universe is made. In the “Laws,” his final
dialogue, Plato retreats from the pure theory of the “Republic,” suggesting that
experience and history as well as wisdom can inform the running of an ideal state. 4

B. ARISTOTLE
LIFE
Aristotle was born in northern Greece on the Chalcidic peninsula of
Macedonia. His father, Nicomachus, served as the court physician to Amyntas III,
the Macedonian king and great-grandfather of Alexander the Great, who ruled
between 393 and 370 BCE (reigned 336–323 BCE). Aristotle moved to Athens after
the passing of his father in 367, when he enrolled in the Academy of Plato (c. 428–c.
5
348 BCE). He remained there for 20 years, studying under and working with Plato.

Aristotle studied and wrote about history, literary theory, rhetoric, logic, and
metaphysics in addition to physics, chemistry, biology, zoology, and botany. He also
studied and wrote about political philosophy, psychology, and ethics. He developed
a complete framework for the study of formal logic, known as syllogistic, which was
regarded as the pinnacle of the field until the 19th century. His work in both
observational and theoretical zoology was similarly unsurpassed until the 19th
century. His ethical and political theory, especially his conception of the ethical
virtues and of human flourishing (“happiness”), continue to exert influence in
philosophical debate. He wrote prolifically; his major surviving works include
the Organon, De Anima (“On the Soul”), Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean
Ethics, Eudemian Ethics, Magna Moralia, Politics, Rhetoric, and Poetics, as well as
other works on natural history and science. 6
4
https://www.history.com/topics/ancient-history/plato
5
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aristotle
6
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aristotle
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Aristotle was summoned by Philip II to the Macedonian capital at Pella to act

as tutor to Philip’s 13-year-old son, the future Alexander the Great. Little is known of
the content of Aristotle’s instruction; although the Rhetoric to Alexander was
included in the Aristotelian corpus for centuries, it is now commonly regarded as a
forgery. By 326 Alexander had made himself master of an empire that stretched
from the Danube to the Indus and included Libya and Egypt. Ancient sources report
that during his campaigns Alexander arranged for biological specimens to be sent to
his tutor from all parts of Greece and Asia Minor.7

WORKS

Aristotle’s writings fall into two groups: those that were published by him but
are now almost entirely lost, and those that were not intended for publication but
were collected and preserved by others. The first group consists mainly of popular
works; the second group comprises treatises that Aristotle used in his teaching. 8

The lost works include poetry, letters, and essays as well as dialogues in the
Platonic manner. To judge by surviving fragments, their content often differed
widely from the doctrines of the surviving treatises. The commentator Alexander of
Aphrodisias (born c. 200) suggested that Aristotle’s works may express two truths:
an “exoteric” truth for public consumption and an “esoteric” truth reserved for
students in the Lyceum. Most contemporary scholars, however, believe that the
popular writings reflect not Aristotle’s public views but rather an early stage of his
intellectual development.9

The works that have been preserved derive from manuscripts left by Aristotle
on his death. According to ancient tradition—passed on by Plutarch (46–c. 119 CE)
and Strabo (c. 64 BCE–23? CE)—the writings of Aristotle and Theophrastus were
bequeathed to Neleus of Scepsis, whose heirs hid them in a cellar to prevent their
being confiscated for the library of the kings of Pergamum (in present-day Turkey).
Later, according to this tradition, the books were purchased by a collector and taken
to Athens, where they were commandeered by the Roman commander Sulla when

7
Ibid.
8
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aristotle/The-Lyceum#ref33165
9
Ibid.
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he conquered the city in 86 BCE. Taken to Rome, they were edited and published
there about 60 BCE by Andronicus of Rhodes, the last head of the Lyceum. Although
many elements of this story are implausible, it is still widely accepted that
Andronicus edited Aristotle’s texts and published them with the titles and in the
form and order that are familiar today. 10

III. “EROS”
A. ETYMOLOGY

From Greek ἔρως, "god or personification of love; (carnal) love,"

from eran, eramai, erasthai "to desire," which is of uncertain origin.
10
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aristotle/The-Lyceum#ref33165
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Eros was the Greek god of love, or more precisely, passionate and physical
desire. Without warning he selects his targets and forcefully strikes at their
hearts, bringing confusion and irrepressible feelings or, in the words of
Hesiod, he 'loosens the limbs and weakens the mind. Eros is most often
represented in Greek art as a carefree and beautiful youth, crowned with
flowers, especially of roses which were closely associated with the god. 11

B. PLATONIC EROS

The word "erotic" refers to the aspect of love that involves a

passionate, intense yearning for something; it is frequently used to allude to
a sexual desire (Greek erotikos). However, eros is seen in Plato's works to be
a universal need that yearns for transcendental beauty—the unique beauty of
a person serves to remind us of ultimate beauty, which exists in the world of
Forms or Ideas “he who loves the beautiful is called a lover because he
partakes of it.”12 . According to the Platonic-Socratic viewpoint, we will never
fully satisfy our passion for beauty until we pass away, but in the meanwhile,
we should strive to look beyond the current stimulating image and consider
beauty itself.13

The Platonic theory of eros implies that ideal beauty, which is reflected
in the specific images of beauty we find, becomes interchangeable across
people and things, ideas, and art: to love is to love the Platonic form of
beauty—not a specific individual, but the element they possess of true (Ideal)
beauty. According to Plato, love does not require reciprocity because the
desire is for the thing itself (beauty), not for things like being in someone
else's company or pursuing interests that are similar to one's own. 14

Many adherents of the Platonic school of philosophy believe that love

has a higher value than appetite or bodily lust. They point out that physical
desire is shared by both humans and animals. It is therefore of a lower order
of response and stimulus than a rationally induced love, which is a love

11
“EROS,” World History Encyclopedia, 13th ed.
12
Jowett, trans., Phaedrus 249E: by Plato
13
https://iep.utm.edu/love/#SH1c
14
Ibid.
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generated by rational discourse and intellectual inquiry, which defines the

pursuit of Ideal beauty. In light of the fact that love is a reflection of the
aspect of an object, an idea, or a person that participates in Ideal beauty,
physical love of such an object, idea, or person is therefore not a proper form
of love.15

IV. “PHILIA”
A. ETYMOLOGY

15
https://iep.utm.edu/love/#SH1c
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From Ancient Greek φιλία meaning "friendship, fondness, tendency

toward," and in recent use "abnormal attraction to," from Greek philia
"affection", from philos "loving", which is of uncertain origin. 16

B. ARISTOTELIAN PHILIA

The importance of Philia in Aristotle’s ethical thought is evidently clear.

Philia is necessary in the practical sphere of man’s activity because it is both
a virtue and implies virtue. In the particular sense of philia, it is the mean
amount of philēsis, neither excessive as in pleasure-friendship nor insufficient
as in utility-friendship. Philia implies virtue since the truest and best
expression of each of the virtues is found in the context of philia between two
virtuous individuals. Without friends, the good guy finds it difficult to live up
to his virtues because there aren't many occasions that call for his perfection.
However, opportunities increase when you have friends since it is not only
easier to be brave or amazing to them, but also because having friends
makes it simpler to carry out good deeds. Even the title of "crown of the
virtues" is lost to philia: philia understands the action of all virtues, just as
justice does, but between friends, philia becomes more important. Because
we can only fully embody our virtuous characteristics through our friendships,
17
philia is necessary for Eudaimonia.

Philia completes man's practical side while simultaneously perfecting

our ability to reflect. Philia offers an "expanded field of being" in which two
distinct "Is" merge into a single "we." This moves us closer to the viewpoint of
God, who engages in self-thinking mental activity while reaching out to a
cosmos that is not different from itself. Similar to this, when two friends' lives
are combined, they are able to recognize a larger amount of the cosmos as
being similar to themselves. Philia helps us to refine our contemplation.
Furthermore, we may observe that there is a form of philia toward God in
some ways. Aristotle exhibits the same philia between primary principles and

16
https://www.etymonline.com/word/-philia
17
Bruce Derek Russell, “Aristotle on Philia” (M.A., diss., Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova
Scotia August 2014), 70-71.
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people that we find in Plato's dialogues. Because he loves himself first and
foremost, the virtuous man also loves his nous, a quality that is both divine
and human. Since God cannot reciprocate, this philia is one-sided but still
qualifies as philia because it "seems to reside in loving rather than being
loved. Philia is thus necessary for hypothetical Eudaimonia. 18

V. “AGAPE”
A. ETYMOLOGY

From Greek ἀγάπη, "brotherly love, charity," in Ecclesiastical use "the

love of God for man and man for God," a late and mostly Christian formation

18
Bruce Derek Russell, “Aristotle on Philia” (M.A., diss., Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova
Scotia August 2014), 70-71.
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from the verb agapan "greet with affection, receive with friendship; to like,
love," which is of unknown origin. It sometimes is explained as *aga-pa- "to
protect greatly," with intensifying prefix aga-. 19

B. CHRISTIAN AGAPE

Agape is a term that describes a brotherly love for all of humanity in

addition to the paternal love of God for man and of man for God. In
comparison to agape, the Hebrew word ahev has a slightly larger meaning
range. In that it seeks a perfect sort of love that is simultaneously a fondness,
a transcending of the particular, and a desire without the need for reciprocity,
agape may be said to borrow characteristics from both eros and philia. 20 The
idea of loving God is further developed in the Judaic-Christian tradition of
"loving the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all
your might"21 and "loving thy neighbor as thyself" 22.

The love of God necessitates complete commitment and involves an

erotic passion, wonder, and yearning that transcends earthly concerns and
barriers. The Aristotelian conceptions of friendship and love, on the other
hand, were adopted by Aquinas, who declared that God was the most rational
being and hence the one most deserving of one's affection, respect, and
attention.23

The universal command to "love your neighbor as yourself" refers to

people who are close to you, whom you should love unilaterally if necessary.
The directive makes use of the logic of reciprocity and alluded to an
Aristotelian foundation that the subject should love oneself in a way that is
proper, since it would be awkward if he did so in a particularly inappropriate
or perverted way! Philosophers can debate the nature of the "self-love"

19
https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=AGAPE
20
https://iep.utm.edu/love/#SH1c
21
Deuteronomy 6:5
22
Leviticus 19:18
23
https://iep.utm.edu/love/#SH1c
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implied in this, ranging from the Aristotelian idea that self-love is required for
any kind of interpersonal love to the condemnation of egoism and the poor
examples that pride and self-glorification to serve as the foundation for one's
love of another.24 St. Augustine ends the discussion by asserting that a man
can love himself without a mandate. 25 Similar to the axiom "it is better to give
than to receive," the universality of agape necessitates an initial invocation
from someone; in contrast to Aristotle, Christians place the onus of extending
love on the morally superior. However, the mandate also calls for egalitarian
love, which is why Christians are commanded to "love their adversaries". 26
Such love is beyond any aristocratic or perfectionist ideas that some people
are more lovable than others.

VI. CONCLUSION

Eros is directed towards things, people or/and even situations that simply
possesses beauty in the eye of the beholder. For instance, when we express our
love for someone when under the influence of eros, what we say is “I love you” or “I
love this popcorn” or “I love sunsets” but what we really mean to say is "I love you
because of how you make me feel” or “I love it because of how it makes me feel”.

24
https://iep.utm.edu/love/#SH1c
25
De bono viduitatis, xxi
26
Matthew 5:44-45
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As stated in above in the discussion of “Eros”, Plato asserts that eros is the highest
form of love because it is the means to experience beauty.

Philia, unlike eros, is more like a brotherly love like friendship. It is a kind of
love that is based on shared interests, common goals, or personalities that just
seem to get along well. To simplify it, in today’s generation we like to call it “same
vibes”, ignorant on what kind of love it is, our generation misidentifies Philia to Eros.
It responds to appreciation, respect, and kindness. It involves giving as well as
receiving; but when it is greatly strained, it can collapse in a crisis. It is a higher-
level love than eros because it is freely chosen. And whereas eros is me-oriented,
philia is we-oriented.

Agape on the other hand is the noblest of all the three, as stated above in
the discussion of “Agape”, it is the kind of love that the Lord encourages us to show
to others. Agape goes beyond passion. It goes beyond natural affection. It is not
kindled by the merit or worth of its object, but it originates in its own God-given
nature. It loves when the object is unlovable. It is the kind of love that acts and
sacrifices on behalf of others, even at great cost. “For God so loved the world that
He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have
eternal life”.27

Our relationships are intermingled with all three types of love, eros, agape,
and philia, contrary to what modern thought would have us believe. But it appears
that eros and Philia are the dominant forces in today's generation. In my own point
of view, we need to be reminded that Agape love is the love at the highest level, not
eros or philia, and that we are to practice it. Agape love is a sacrificial love that
binds. It is the love of God that we see through the cross of Jesus Christ. It is the
love that saves and restores humanity in the face of sin and death.

VII. BIBLIOGRAPHY

firelifeministries.org

27
John 3:16
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Heath, Peter, trans., “The Nature of Sympathy”, by Scheler Max. New Haven:

Yale University Press, 1954.

www.britannica.com

“EROS,” World History Encyclopedia. 13th ed.

Jowett, trans., Phaedrus 249E, by Plato.

iep.utm.edu

www.etymonline.com

Russel, Bruce Derek. “Aristotle on Philia.” M.A., diss., Dalhousie University

Halifax, Nova Scotia August 2014.

The Bible. Revised Standard Version