[Nuranar]

Not at all, Lush! I took no offense. On the contrary, I was pleased that someone had responded to my comments and pointed out the omission I had already found curious.

This is really incredible, though:

In the college class at church this morning, the college pastor spoke about being a disciple of Christ. ('By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.' John 13:35) And he 'happened' to begin by explaining the three Greek words for love:

Eros is romantic love, or desire, or lust.
Phileo is friendship love, brotherly love, deep comradeship.
Agape is the love of God - 'Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us' (Ephesians 5:1-2).

Interestingly enough, agape never occurs in any secular Greek literature - the New Testament writers had to invent a word to adequately convey God's love for us. And as I was beginning to think, eros never shows up in the New Testament. I don't think the NT writers were squares [img]smilies/wink.gif[/img] , but I do think that when they wrote of love they were speaking of the believers' relationships with God, with each other, and with the world.

Thus (to try to stay on topic - please forgive me for turning your topic into a Greek discussion!) the love of Beren and Luthien is I think both eros (not lustful, but romantic) and phileo. I still believe the love Paul writes of in I Corinthians is the deeper, greater abiding love of God that Christians are called to have.

[ February 16, 2003: Message edited by: Nuranar ]