| 释义 |
▪ I. agape, adv., prop. phr.|əˈgeɪp|
[A prep.1 of state + gape.]
On the gape; with open mouth of expectation or wonder: hence fig. in an attitude or state of wondering expectation.
1667Milton P.L. v. 357 Their rich retinue..Dazzles the crowd, and sets them all agape. 1765Tucker Lt. of Nat. II. 73 When the moon interposes between us and the sun so as to cover his whole body, it sets every eye agape. a1845Hood T. of Trumpet xxxvii, At a door ajar, or a window agape. 1848‘L. Mariotti’ Italy Pref. 22 Wild with excitement; agape with breathless expectation. 1855Tennyson Maud x. ii, A rabbit mouth that is ever agape.
▪ II. ‖ agape|ˈægəpiː|
Pl. agapæ, -ai, rarely agapes.
[Gr. ἀγάπη brotherly love.]
1. A ‘love-feast’ held by the early Christians in connexion with the Lord's Supper. Also in revived use, applied loosely to any Christian ritual meal. Also transf.
1607R. Parker Scholast. Disc. agst. Antichrist i. ii. 70 The Christians had their Agapæ at communions. 1696in Phillips. 1727Chambers Cycl. s.v., In the primitive days the Agapes were held without scandal or offence. 1837W. & M. Howitt Rur. Life (1862) vi. v. 449 The Agapai, or love-feasts of the early Christians. 1850A. Jameson Sacr. & Leg. Art 156 Agapæ or love-feasts. 1920A. Huxley Limbo 77 There is a large upper chamber reserved for agapes. 1958B. Behan Borstal Boy iii. 285 He had a custom of giving a special breakfast for his Holy Communicants, which was called ‘Agape’, the Greek word for a love feast. 1968Listener 25 July 103/1 They prayed all night in Uppsala's great Gothic cathedral,..and, towards dawn, held an agape. 1975Church Times 11 Apr. 14/4 This Sunday the Parish Eucharist will be followed by an Agape in the church grounds. 1985Emmanuel Coll. Mag. LXVII. 57 Subsequent events, notably agapes and informal gatherings, were also well attended.
2. Now used commonly in its simpler N.T. sense of Christian love (of God or Christ or fellow Christians: see charity); freq. contrasted with Eros, earthly or sexual love.
1856H. G. M. Lascelles Compensation I. x. 88 Mr. Grant was..animated by real charity, or love, the ‘Agape’—so rare to find—of which she had read and admired the true meaning in her Greek testament. 1932A. G. Hebert tr. A. Nygren's Agape & Eros i. i. 23 Christian love is essentially Agape. Ibid. 32 The idea of Agape is not merely a fundamental idea of Christianity, but the fundamental idea par excellence. The idea of Agape is a new creation of Christianity. 1938J. Burnaby Amor Dei i. 15 From the fact that the world into which Christianity brought the Gospel of divine Agape, of God's self-giving love to men, already knew that thirst for the Divine which Platonism called Eros, it did naturally result that when Christians spoke of love they did not always mean the same thing. 1950W. H. Auden Enchafèd Flood (1951) iii. 100 He exhibits Christian forgiveness and Christian agape without the slightest effort. 1953R. Niebuhr Chr. Realism & Polit. Probl. (1954) ix. 132 The agape form of love in the New Testament fails to be appreciated particularly in two of its facets: (a) the equality of the ‘two loves’..(b)..the notion of sacrificial love. 1955P. Tillich New Being (1956) i. vi. 47 Calculating love is not love at all. Jesus did not raise the question about how much eros and how much agape, how much human passion and how much understanding was motivating the woman.
Hence agapeˈistic a., (R. B. Braithwaite's term) of or characterized by Christian love.
1955R. B. Braithwaite Empiricist's View Relig. Belief 18 Unless a Christian's assertion that God is love (agape)..be taken to declare his intention to follow an agapeistic way of life, he could be asked what is the connexion between the assertion and the intention. 1966I. T. Ramsey Christian Ethics 86 When the Christian asserts, ‘God is Love’, he declares primarily not his commitment..to an agapeistic way of life, but his commitment to certain ‘facts’. 1976Christian III. 173 The Christian religion used language to encourage what he [sc. Braithwaite] called ‘the agapeistic’ view of life. |