In Christian literature (particularly in popular theological publications, on Christian web sites, and also in homilies) the threefold differentiation of love, referring to the ancient Greek linguistic reality, frequently appears: it is said that the lowest, self-interested love corresponds to the Greek term of eros, the higher love based on mutual sympathy corresponds to the term philia, and the highest, selfless, unconditional love was allegedly called agape by the ancient Greeks. The article refutes this myth and presents the Greek words of “love“ and “to love“ as they were used by non-Christian writers and the Church Fathers. The subsequent article will compare these findings with the situation in the Septuagint and the New Testament.
Cleopatra and Eros in Plutarch’s Antonius. On overinterpretation of Plutarch’s work Historians, writers and artists who wanted to pay homage to Cleopatra once again, referred to and still refer to Plutarch’s Life of Antony, first and foremost. It can seem that this main, if not the only ancient work, being quite a compact story about the Egyptian queen, has been ultimately interpreted in numerous review editions and biographies of Cleopatra. However, Plutarch’s Cleopatra has not been analysed as a separate work - excerpts from Life of Antony have always been combined with other sources in order to obtain a single picture. And in belles-lettres, the work of this ancient moralist have been exploited for centuries in such a way that it is no longer Plutarch’s property. Literary works from different epochs, in the form of interpretations, with Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra at the head of the list, have distorted the ancient moralist’s message. It turns out that when we reject Shakespeare’s prism that we usually use when examining Plutarch’s Cleopatra and we start to analyse Antony’s biography only in the context of other works written by the moralist of Chaeronea, considering them to be a peculiar comment on Life of Antony, we are able to see a completely different picture to the one we are used to. Divine powers, present on the pages of the ancient work and implicating gods and people in love and desire do not have access to the queen. However, everything suggests that in the case of “the romance of all time” we can see in the moralist’s work something he did not write at all. We refer to Life of Antony and we envisage the character of Cleopatra described by Shakespeare and his successors.
In 2021 was published a unique monograph on the interpretation of the evocation of Ignatius of Antioch, “My Eros”, presenting research from the beginning of Christianity (the letters come from the beginning of the 2nd century) to our times. It is a book by Krzysztof Abucewicz entitled The Crucified “Eros” of Ignatius of Antioch (Katowice 2021, 676 pages). The book is unique due to the wide scope of research and the extremely high competency of its author. The extensive amount of the work put into the research is awe-inspiring. The aim of the article is to show the content and main qualities of the book and to critically analyze of the conclusions drawn by Krzysztof Abucewicz. This article tries to clarify answers to the question about the possibility of establishing unequivocal conclusions, which researchers of history, literature and theology come to, regarding the interpretation of the evocation of Ignatius of Antioch. In this sense, the article is polemical in nature, aimed at encouraging theologians to read the discussed monograph and use it in their own theological research.
Artykuł jest próbą przedstawienia relacji zachodzących w sferze praktyk codzienności, które odnoszą się do obszaru intymności. Punktem wyjścia jest analiza fotografii Annie Leibovitz zrobionych Susan Sontag w trakcie ostatnich lat jej życia, podczas których zmagała się z chorobą. Charakterystyczna jest tu obecność erosa i tanatosa, które determinowały zapośredniczone w obiektywie fotografa spojrzenie. To uwikłanie w pewną formę erotyzmu a jednocześnie wizualna transgresja, która może wywoływać kulturowy skandal.
EN
Article is an attempt of presenting set of relations in the area of everyday life practices connected with intimacy. Start point is an analyze of Ann Leibovitz’s photogtaphy of suffering because of cancer, Susan Sontag’s last days of life. Presence of Eros and Thanatos is very significant, this two qualities determined the way in which the (mediated by object glass) gaze is seen. This erotic value of the photograpfy entagled it into visual transgression which can be a source of cultural scandal.
Composed into the letter of Ignatius of Antioch to the Church of Rome, perhaps the most famous evocation – ho emos eros estaurotai – has a long tradition of interpretation, which being initiated by Origen and taking somewhat turbulent course reaches our times. Its manifestation is visible in the translations themselves, where already from the Latin rendering a significant diversity can be observed, and the wide range of interpretations is being reflected with its spread in the modern translations. Those of Greek Fathers who spoke after Origen essentially upheld the interpretation of the Alexandrian, seeing under eros – as he did – the Christ Himself. Finally they fastened so conceptualized eros in the spiritual theology and inscribed the Ignatius’ evocation into the liturgy of the Eastern Church for ages. However in the Western Church, it seems that the significant influence on the modern interpretation of the Ignatius’ evocation – starting from the nineteenth century – had the ongoing in the background discussion on authenticity of the Antiocher’s letters. The time of extensive research, beyond the contribution to the determination of the middle recension, from exacting blade of critics had adjudicated about fundamental error of Origen and the other Greek Fathers in the interpretation they adopted. The dominance of the newly discovered interpretation coincided with the adoption of middle recension and spreads to the present day. The resulting dissonance to the voice of the ancient Church born an undying question which – although with different intensity at different times – continues resounding. Could the Greek Fathers be so much wrong in taking the comment to the famous Ignatius’ evocation? How is it possible that those for whom the ancient Greek was the language of everyday life, and appropriate for the letters of Ignatius „Sitz im Leben” was the environment in which in the chronological proximity they grew up and lived, diverge from the actual socio-cultural and literary context from the inside of which Ignatius spoke? These and other questions have intrigued many scholars of the last century. It is, perhaps, their echo that outlines a certain circle being formed by modern translations and commentaries, running back to the beginning, to the first interpretations. This movement, presumably, shows unextinguished disagreement for leaving such a significant dissonance to the voice of the ancient Church. Perhaps it is also a hunch that in the content of the Ignatius’ words there is still something else, what more clearly saw the Fathers, and what in some sense remains hidden from modern researchers. By the same token, following the path of these assumptions, the undertaken analysis of the Syrian translation combined with the conclusions of the recent philological study on the Greek text put a question mark on the popular interpretation and allow to hypothesize in a way that is getting closer to the voice of Fathers again. It seems that the meaning of Ignatius’ evocation could have been more positive than it is used to be frequently commented.
Primeval East Church was very careful in the use of classical greek's terms specyfying love. The article presents conception breaking above tendency − the idea of ecstatic, ardent eros in St. Gregory's of Nyssa first written tractate − De virginitate, and is intended to submit variety of types of love and role of love in virginal life. The bishop of Nyssa, seeing main purpose of all human efforts in assimilation to God, emphasizes the virtue of chastity, which increases with love. Owing to this virtue, soul-bride reflects in itself intertrinitarian relations. Through love man rises his nature, assuming triad assigned to nature of God: holiness, impeccability and chastity, and becoming completely and entirely open to experience of spiritual marriage with God.
PL
Pierwotny Kościół wschodni zachowywał dużą ostrożność w stosowaniu greckich klasycznych terminów określających miłość. W artykule prezentowana jest przełamująca tę tendencję koncepcja ekstatycznego, żarliwego erosa w pierwszym spisanym traktacie św. Grzegorza z Nyssy – De virginitate. Autorka pragnie przybliżyć różnorodność typów miłości oraz jej podstawową rolę w życiu dziewiczym. Widząc w upodobnieniu do Boga cel wszelkich wysiłków człowieka, Nysseńczyk akcentuje wzrastającą wraz z miłością cnotę czystości, dzięki której dusza-oblubienica odzwierciedla w sobie relacje wewnątrztrynitarne. Dzięki miłości człowiek wznosi swą naturę, przybierając triadę właściwą naturze Boskiej: świętość, nieskazitelność i czystość, stając się całkowicie i niepodzielnie otwartym na doświadczenie duchowych zaślubin z Bogiem.
In Xenophon’s Symposium and Oeconomicus we can observe two ways of manifestation of Eros: eros paidikos (i.e. pederasty) and matrimonial love between man and woman. On the one side, Xenophon describes eros paidikos as a power creating true, lasting and deeply affectionate friendship, which, still, may not include sexual intercourses; on the other, matrimonial love can offer erotic reciprocity and mutual respect, but a man and his wife remain quite different and, in fact, unequal. This picture helps us to understand reasons of the ancient controversy between followers of these two kinds of eros, which remained unsolved for many centuries.
Primeval East Church was very careful in the use of classical greek's terms specyfying love. The article presents conception breaking above tendency − the idea of ecstatic, ardent eros in St. Gregory's of Nyssa first written tractate − De virginitate, and is intended to submit variety of types of love and role of love in virginal life. The bishop of Nyssa, seeing main purpose of all human efforts in assimilation to God, emphasizes the virtue of chastity, which increases with love. Owing to this virtue, soul-bride reflects in itself intertrinitarian relations. Through love man rises his nature, assuming triad assigned to nature of God: holiness, impeccability and chastity, and becoming completely and entirely open to experience of spiritual marriage with God.
For the God of self-giving, kenotically-donated love, the decision to express love at all times comes first. In my conception, “full-Oorded” love would encompass what is ordinarily contained within the definition of agape love, but it would also include “eros love”, for the latter is the love of co-laborment. In my appropriation has of this terminology of eros love, it would be the type of love that the desires to, e.g., expand one’s territory or one’s domain, which makes it applicable to the modern theory of evolution by natural selection. Evolution – i.e., “descent with modification”, to invoke a Darwinian phrase – then, recognizes self-giving love, and the goodness thereof, in that species regularly undergo commensalist symbiotic relationships in nature, whereby one is aided by the other, while the “other” is neither “aided” nor “harmed”. This is self-giving love in its entirety, and a proper demonstration of it. My understanding of necessarily-expressed, “full-Oorded” love also includes dimensions of philia love. Philia could be akin to the symbiotic relationship known as mutualism in biology, especially since philia love has historically been associated with friendship or the interrelatedness of the natural world. Notably, Aristotle indicates that even nonhuman animals can express philia love . The relationships marked by philia, then, could be identified by mutuality, reciprocity, and cooperation , which fits the above biological connotation well. While agape or eros might benefit from cooperation, reciprocity, and mutuality, those two forms of love do not require any of those three nouns. Philia does. I contend, in fact, that the kenosis of the Spirit into creation amounts to self-giving, betrothed love through self-donation. The union, then of agape, eros, and philia love could be expressed as mutual aid, or full-orbed, or even as I like to say, “full-Oorded” love. Flourishing lives – be they human or some other mammal – I aver, consistently and necessarily express “full-Oorded” love. Oord suggests that Process philosophy can aid one to see that full-orbed love – that which I have designated “full-Oorded” love – plays an important part in the work to increase the common good of society as a whole. Indeed, “full-Oorded” love would repay evil with good as agape would; such a “full-Oorded” love would additionally welcome the intrinsic value and beauty in others, just like eros love does; and “full-Oorded” love would also recognize the import of friendship and mutuality as does philia love. Following Oord and Wojtyla again, since God commands that we show necessarily “self-giving”, “self-donating” love, we therefore indeed have the ability to love others as kenotically-donating entities, just as the creating Spirit does. When we act as a genuine conduit and amplifier of the creating Spirit’s self-donating and self-giving love, we can truly and entirely and infinitely love others, just as God does. Of course, we cannot expect that we humans will always love alike unto how God does because we do not have an eternal and unchanging nature that is necessarily inclined toward love , but we are at least always able to do it.
In my article I present two concepts of love. One is developed by Anders Nygren, and it rejects any human needs from the space of love. The second tries to defend human needs as an important background of human relations. My own thesis underlines the possibility of understanding love as accepting human needs. I am defending the vision of human nature which includes needs, like sense of security, acceptance, freedom, autonomy or sense of life. On this ground I try to show that human fundamental needs are conditions of love.
The article presents the subject of God’s love in J. Ratzinger/Benedict XVI’s interpretation. The theme of God’s love, according to Ratzinger, is not to be reduced to one of the many theological issues to be discussed. Pope puts the love of God at the center of the Christian life as a principle and interpretative key. It is no coincidence that the first encyclical Deus caritas est, inaugurating his pontificate, begins with the words which are the profession of faith in the name of God who is Love. This agapetological feature of the Papal reflection sets the frame of his theology and points at the sphere where it reaches its essence and consummation. The subject of God’s love is discussed in two parts of the article: the first one consists of the analysis of the three terms: eros, agape and caritas, which are the three aspects of love. The philosophical and biblical analysis of these expressions made by Benedict XVI allows him to extract the essence of divine love. In the second part of the present article, the three moments reflecting the whole dynamics of love in the teaching of the Pope will be discussed: the source of love in the Triune God (1), the concretization and the fullest revelation of love in the person and work of Jesus Christ (2), and the relationship between the love of God and the love of man (3). The latter ultimately becomes a human response based on the primacy of God’s love, and turns into a divine-human love.
The article, taking into account the essence of love and its meaning for personal development, explains the diversity of forms of love and indicates that the attitude of love is based upon kindliness, goodness, forgiveness, tolerance, overcoming weakness and upon hope. The attitude of love is geared to creation of good, waiving offences and drawing conclusions from every difficult or unpleasant situation. Thanks to love a man transgress himself, his world grows and he develops himself spiritually. The paper also emphasizes that the ability to love and the need of love are one of the deepest, most primal human needs and the transmission of feelings of love on different stages of human's development, starting from childhood, is the most common human experience. The carried out analysis also stresses that the process of the upbringing to love cannot be left to its fate, but to loving and correctly formed family. The author of the paper, making use of many years’ standing research on the legacy of John Paul II, outlines his understanding of love and tasks that arise from the relation to this important value and attitude, for married couples and families. The parenthood and upbringing are depicted as the communio personarum and family as the place of upbringing to love and live in the community of persons. Writing about types and the essence of love author apart from Karol Wojtyła, quotes views of other thinkers: St. Thomas, rev. F. Sawicki and contemporary philosopher G. Reale. She emphasizes that love is a personal relation that we learn in family. The article provides the detailed description of tasks for individual family members in the process of shaping the attitude of love and indicates on family as the most important and irreplaceable environment.
Carnival with the dead (Miroslav Krleža: Kraljevo) Kraljevo, a one-act play written by Miroslav Krleža in 1915, is a representation of “carnival” events accompanying a church fair day in the cathedral of St. Stephen in Zagreb. Among the participants of the fair party, are the suicides condemned to eternal wandering between the worlds of the dead and of the living. The article’s goal is to reflect on the function of death’s anthropomorphization in the expressionistic image of Zagreb society. Krleža exposes how loftiness is replaced with base erotic instincts, and reveals that when society is immersed in medieval rituals, what results is a cannibalistic vision of (non)reality of hell, which serves to render Zagreb at the beginning of the 20th century. The author’s carnival with the dead reverses values, orders, and hierarchies, and undermines at least three essential components of identification: ludic tradition derived from local folklore, Catholic pathos, and Croatian patriotism.
PL
Karnawał ze zmarłymi (Miroslav Krleža: Kraljevo) Jednoaktówka Mirosława Krležy z 1915 roku, zatytułowana Kraljevo, jest zapisem „karnawałowych” wydarzeń towarzyszących dniu odpustu w zagrzebskiej Katedrze świętego Stefana. W jarmarcznej zabawie uczestniczą samobójcy skazani na wieczne błądzenie pomiędzy światami żywych i umarłych. Celem artykułu jest namysł nad funkcją antropomorfizacji śmierci w ekspresjonistycznym obrazie zagrzebskiego społeczeństwa. Krleža pokazuje wzniosłość zastąpioną przez niskie erotyczne popędy, społeczeństwo zanurzone w średniowiecznych rytuałach, rysuje kanibaliczną (nie)rzeczywistość piekła — Zagrzebia początku XX wieku. Krležiański karnawał ze zmarłymi odwraca wartości, porządki i hierarchie, a także podważa co najmniej trzy istotne elementy identyfikacyjne: ludyczną tradycję wyrastającą z folkloru, katolicki patos i chorwacki patriotyzm.
To evoke poetic writing is, more often than not, to bring to memory a sum of artistic conventions established from age to age through genres, currents and conceptions of poetry. Thus, in spite of the revolutions and upheavals that have taken place, the poetic art is difficult to separate from generic and theoretical partitions, at the very least, watertight. However, the topicality of French literature reveals that some texts of the second half of the 20th century seem to grant a sort of ‟vacancy” to poetry, so that it may be more active in language autonomy. Denis Roche’s Éros énergumène illustrates fundamentally this aptitude of poetic writing to ‟see oneself” as such and to dematerialize oneself in a perspective altogether spiritualist. Roche’s poem can be understood as a way of accessing a form of intellectual play where the informed reader is finally engulfed in the whirlwinds of a language that has no other stake than an absolutely ‟liberated” freedom.
FR
Évoquer l’écriture poétique consiste, le plus souvent, à faire resurgir à la mémoire une somme de conventions artistiques établies d’âge en âge à travers les genres, les courants et les conceptions de la poésie. Malgré les révolutions et les bouleversements intervenus, l’art poétique se départit difficilement des cloisons génériques et théoriques pour le moins étanches. Cependant, l’actualité de la littérature française révèle que certains textes de la seconde moitié du XXe siècle semblent accorder une sorte de « vacance » à la poésie afin qu’il lui soit loisible de s’investir davantage dans l’autonomie langagière. Éros énergumène de Denis Roche illustre fondamentalement cette aptitude de l’écriture poétique à « se voir » comme telle et à se dématérialiser dans une perspective, somme toute, spiritualiste. Le poème de Roche s’appréhende, de ce fait, comme une voie d’accès à une forme de jeu intellectuel où le lecteur averti se retrouve englouti finalement dans les tourbillons d’un langage qui n’a d’autre enjeu que la liberté absolument « libérée ».
Das Konzept der erotischen Liebe von Wladimir Solowjow bildet eine originelle theosophische Liebesvorstellung. Die Theorie der Liebe von Solowjow ist nämlich eng mit der eschatologischen Problematik verbunden und ist darüber hinaus eine Resultante der materialistischen (stricte biologischen) und der spiritualistischen Auffassung der Thematik. Solowjows philosophische Analysen der Geschlechtsliebe beweisen, dass es weniger ein Akt ist, der über die rein biologische Ebene hinausgeht, als viel mehr einer, der unsere biologische Natur verwandeln lässt. Er beruht auf der Überhöhung oder Vergöttlichung unserer Natur. Der Sinn einer so interpretierten erotischen Liebe liegt in dem Herausbilden einer breitgefassten Einheit, deren Grundlage darin besteht, das geistig-körperliche Ganze zu erreichen und die Teilung aufgrund des Geschlechts zu überwinden, d.h. das weibliche und männliche Prinzip des menschlichen Daseins zu integrieren.
EN
Vladimir Solovyov’s concept of erotic love represents a rather original theosophical vision of this issue for his theory of love is closely connected with eschatological matters and, in addition to that, constitutes the product of materialistic (strictly biological) and spiritualist presentation of the subject in question. Solovyov’s philosophical analyses of sexual love demonstrate that intercourse is not so much an act that exceeds purely biological level as the one that causes transformation of our biological nature and consists in over-spiritualisation and divinisation (deification) of our nature. The meaning of erotic love, as construed by Solovyov, lays in creating a widely understood unity based on attaining a spiritual and bodily integrity as well as overcoming disintegration connected with the existence of gender, that is integrating the female and male principle of human existence.
PL
Włodzimierza Sołowjowa koncepcja miłości erotycznej to dość oryginalna koncepcja teozoficzna. Sołowjowowska teoria miłości wiąże się bowiem ściśle z problematyką eschatologiczną, ponadto stanowi wypadkową materialistycznego (stricte biologicznego) oraz spirytualistycznego ujęcia tej tematyki. Sołowjowa filozoficzne analizy miłości płciowej wykazują, że jest to akt nie tyle wykraczający poza poziom czysto biologiczny, co powodujący transformację naszej biologiczności, polegającą na przeduchowieniu czy przebóstwieniu naszej natury. Sens tak zinterpretowanej miłości erotycznej tkwi w wytworzeniu szeroko pojętej jedności, której podstawę stanowi uzyskanie duchowocielesnej całości oraz pokonanie rozpadu związanego z faktem płci, czyli integracja żeńskiej i męskiej zasady ludzkiego bytu.
The paper discusses the writing and philosophy of Jolanta Brach-Czaina, connecting it to micrology and maieutics. This poetological reflection considering the function of detail and work of similarities and differences in Brach-Czaina’s most significant works (Sofa, Szczeliny istnienia, Błony umysłu) identifies two tendencies of her philosophy: searching for a textual “representation of meaning” and a sensual description of “particles of being”. The paper discusses Brach-Czaina’s ambivalent approach to metonymy and synecdoche, and characterizes her style, which combines a focus on inconspicuous detail and non-conclusiveness of paradoxes. Absorption of concrete and abstraction, creating an impression of precision, and at the same time vagueness are key features of Brach-Czaina’s poetics. Her philosophy has much in common with Italo Calvin and Anne Carson, whose parallel way to seeking the essence of cognition and poetic language has led to the Socratic theory of Eros.
PL
Artykuł omawia pisarstwo i filozofię Jolanty Brach-Czainy, wiążąc je z projektem mikrologii i sokratejską majeutyką. Poetologiczna refleksja nad działaniem detalu, pracy podobieństwa i różnicy, w najważniejszych utworach (Sofie, Szczelinach istnienia, Błonach umysłu) wydobywa dwie tendencje myśli Brach-Czainy: poszukiwanie tekstowego „przedstawicielstwa znaczenia” i zmysłowego opisu „drobin bytu”. Artykuł omawia ambiwalentne podejście filozofki do metonimii i synekdochy oraz charakteryzuje styl pisarstwa, który łączy skupienie na niepozornym detalu oraz niekonkluzywność paradoksów. Kluczową cechą poetyki Brach-Czainy jest absorpcja konkretu i abstrakcji, wywołanie jednoczesnego efektu dokładności i nieokreśloności. Projekt Brach-Czainy wiele łączy z poetologicznymi refleksjami Itala Calvina oraz, przede wszystkim, Anne Carson. Ich równoległa droga w poszukiwaniu istoty poznania i języka poetyckiego doprowadziła do sokratejskiej teorii erosa.
Przedstawiona w biblijnej Pieśni nad pieśniami miłość, która łączy mężczyznę (oblubieńca) i kobietę (oblubienicę), stanowi ideał, wolny od negatywnych faktorów zniekształcających lub wręcz przekreślających tę relację. Wydarza się ona między nimi jako realizacja podstawowego powołania, które otrzymali w momencie stworzenia „mężczyzną i kobietą”. To dlatego miłość ta stanowi wyzwanie i szczęście zarazem; ona nadaje najgłębszy sens ich życiu, czyni je pełnym blasku i radości. Oblubieniec i oblubienica przeżywają miłość w trzech wymiarach: oczarowania (zakochania się), erosa i agape. Autor artykułu wydobywa z Pnp to wszystko, co pokazuje ważność każdej z tych sfer oraz ich ponad-naturalne źródło i ukierunkowanie. Ma świadomość, że miłości te wzajemnie się przenikają i niejako stopniowo na siebie się nakładają. Są organicznie ze sobą zintegrowane. W każdej z nich na pierwszy plan wysuwa się właściwy jej dynamizm i odpowiedzialne zań komponenty cielesno-duchowej osoby oblubieńca i oblubienicy. Odkrywając je, możemy dostrzec to, co może rzeczywiście chronić oblubieńczą i małżeńską miłość w czasach współczesnych przed największymi zagrożeniami.
EN
The love presented in the biblical Song of Songs, which unites a man (the bridegroom) and a woman (the bride), is an ideal situation free of negative factors that distort or even delete this relationship. It occurs between them as the realization of the basic vocation which they received at the time of their creation as “man and woman.” That is why this love is a challenge that at the same time brings them happiness; it gives their lives deepest meaning, making them fully shine with joy. The bridegroom and the bride experience love in three dimensions: enchantment (falling in love), eros and agape. The author of the article takes from the Song of Songs everything that shows the importance of each of these spheres with their their supernatural source and orientation. He is aware that these types of love interpenetrate and gradually overlap each other. They are organically integrated with each other. In each of them, the proper dynamics and responsible components appear, which concern the bodily and spiritual functions of the bridegroom and bride. By discovering these, we can see what can actually protect spousal and marital love in modern times from its greatest threats.
JavaScript is turned off in your web browser. Turn it on to take full advantage of this site, then refresh the page.