The noun dyd.7n] seems to have been coined by the LXX to translate the OT conception of religious love. It is not found in classical Greek, nor even with Philo and Josephus. Perhaps the fact tliat the profane literature does not have the noun is significant. It can be explained on the principle that only through transference into the moral, spiritual sphere could the habitual character of the act of loving, which is inherent in the noun, originate. The noun in the Vulgate is caritas, from cariim habere, which admirably expresses the specific character of the biblical conception. Caritas in turn gave rise to the ' charity ' of the English Bible (AV), in most passages used of love towards fellow-Christians (cf., however, 1 Co 8^, 1 Th 3®, 2 Ti 2^ 3^", where there is no reason so to restrict it). The KV substitutes 'love,' in all passages where the AV has ' charity ' (26 times in all), for the reason that ' charity ' has in modern usage become restricted to the love of beneficence or forbearance.
The following discussion confines itself to the love existing between God and man. For love as between man and man see art. Brotherly Love. 2. Love in the apostolic teaching. — Love is in the apostolic teaching a central and outstanding trait in the disposition of God towards man. In this respect the view taken by Jesus is fully adhered to. If in the witness of the early Church, as recorded in Acts, no direct affirmation of this principle is made, that can easily be explained from the apologetic purpose of this witness. In the fellowship of the first Christians among them- selves the indirect operation of the new force introduced by Jesus into the hearts of His followers manifests itself clearly enough (Ac 2^'"*^ i^-^-).
i. St. Paul.— With St. Paul love is explicitly placed in the foreground as the fundamental dis- position in God from which salvation springs and as that which in the possession of God constitutes for the believer the supreme treasure of religion. God is the God of love (2 Co 13'i). In Gal o-'^ love is named first among the fruits of the Spirit. It is associated with the Fatherhood of God (Eph 6^). In the apostolic salutations it stands co-ordinated with the grace of Christ (2 Co 13*S Eph 6'-^, 2 Th 3'). It is the greatest of the three fundamental graces of the Christian life, and the sole abiding one of these tiiree (1 Co 138-'*), This primacy love can claim even in comparison with faith. For, on the one hand, faith as well as hope is a grace made necessary by the provisional conditions of the liresent sinful world, and in both its aspects — that of mediate spiritual perception and that of trust — will be superseded by siglit in the world to come (2 Co 5^); on the other hand, faith as compared with love is instrumental, not an end in itself; it brings the Christian into that fundamental relation to God, wherein his religious faculties, foremost among which is love, can function normally (Gal 5^). The prominence of faitii in the Pauline teach- ing is not therefore indicative of its absolute and final preponderance in the Christian consciousness. It would, however, scarcely be in accordance with St. Paul's view to press the primacy of love to the extent of denying all independent signihcance
to other religious states. There is an aspect in which faith in itself, and apart from its working through love, glorihes God (Ro 4-"), and whatever thus directly contributes to the Divine glory has inherent religious value. The same must be affirmed of the knowledge of God. Tlie emphasis thrown throughout the NT on the value of truth cannot be wholly explained from its soteriological utility. It expresses the conviction that knowing and adoring God are in themselves a religious act, apart from all fructifying influence on theljeliever's life. When St. Paul includes ' knowledge ' (1 Co 13*) in the things that shall be done away, this applies only to the specific mode of knowledge in this life, the ' seeing in a mirror darkly,' the know- ledge of a child, which will make place in the world to come for a full knowledge ' face to face,' analogous to the Divine knowledge of the believer (v. 12), 'Knowledge,' while of value, is not equal in value to love (1 Co 8^).
(a) The love of God.— It has been alleged that in two respects the Apostle's teaching on the love of God marks a retrogression as compared with the gospel of Jesus : on the one hand, St. Paul restricts the love of God to the circle of believers, thus making sonship co-extensive with adoption = justifi- cation ; on the other hand, he emphasizes, side by side with love, the working of sovereignty and justice as equallj' influential attributes in God, whence also the effectual communication of the Divine love to the sinner cannot, according to the Apostle, take place except as a result cf the sovereign choice of God and after satisfaction to His justice. This charge, however, rests on a mis- understanding of the teaching of Jesus. Jesus, by way of correction to the prevailing commercial conception of God's attitude towards man in Judaism, brings forward the love of God. Never- theless the specific Fatherly love and the corre- sponding state of sonship are in His gospel, no less than with St. Paul, redemptive conceptions, per- taining not to man as such, but to the disciples, the heirs of the kingdom. This may be seen most clearly from the fact that in its highest aspect sonship is an eschatological attainment (Mt 5^, Lk 203« ; cf. Ro 8==*). It is true that a developed soteriology like St. Paul's, delimiting the mutual claims of the love and justice of God, is not fountl in our Lord's teaching. But this could not be expected before the supreme saving transaction — the Death of Christ — had actually taken place. The great principles on which the Atonement rests are enunciated with sufficient clearness (Mk 10^^). In comparisons between Jesus and St. Paul it is frequently overlooked that what corresponds to the Apostle's soteriology is the eschatological element in Jesus' teaching. As a matter of fact, St. Paul's doctrine of salvation was developed in the closest dependence on his eschatology. If the comparison be instituted with this in mind, it will be seen tliat in our Lord's eschatological utterances the sovereignty and justice of God occupy no less central a place than in the Pauline doctrine of salvation, and that the love of God in its eschato- logical setting is to Jesus as much a redemptive factor as it is in the Pauline gospel.