MEANINGS OF THE TERM EROS AT SAINT SIMEON THE NEW THEOLOGIAN
MEANINGS OF THE TERM EROS AT SAINT SIMEON THE NEW THEOLOGIAN

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this article is to highlight the meanings of the Greek term eros (“love passion”, in ancient Greek, usually opposite to agape, “Christian love”) in Saint Symeon the New Teologian’s main writing. It is well known that, in Antiquity, there was a very clear distinction between the terms that expressed love: eros, philia and agape and that, in Christianity, the term agape specializes, expressing Christian love, in opposition to eros, used for expressing sensual, bodily, inferior love. Nevertheless, in Saint Symeon the New Theologian’s writings, this stereotypic dissociation is not respected at all, both terms coexisting and referring to approximately the same realities.

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