Recently a friend loaned me a copy of the book Prayers of the Cosmos: Reflections on the Original Meaning of Jesus’s Words. It is a study of an Aramaic version of the Gospels. The author, Neil Douglas-Klotz, speculated about the Aramaic word that Jesus would have used in the statement, “Love your enemies” (Luke 6:27, 35). The assumption is the word that eventually we have translated into English as ‘love’ was ‘ahebw.’
When I discovered that translation, I was able to finish a major step in the research that has produced this blog about agape. Of course, that means throughout the New Testament the word translated from the ancient Aramaic into Greek as ‘agape,’ was ‘ahebw.’ And just as my research showed me that ‘agape’ was not commonly used as a word for love, so Douglas-Klotz showed that ‘ahedw’ was not an Aramaic word commonly used for love.
So I found it helpful to read what Douglas-Klotz said about ‘ahebw’ in his notes at the end of that book, Prayers of the Cosmos. In the Textual Notes (p. 85) to Luke 6:27 and 35, he compares the Aramaic word for love, ‘rahm,’ with ‘ahebw’ and he comments about ‘ahebw’: “Here one does not find the breath of compassion and mercy, but an even more mysterious impersonal force, one that acts in secret to bring separate beings together to create new life. This root has been used throughout native Middle Eastern mysticism and survives in a famous Sufi saying, ‘Mahabud lilac,’ ‘God is the receiver and giver of love, as well as the love itself.’”
Of course, I think that’s just as much a mistranslation of the Sufi saying as “Love your enemies” is a mistranslation of the Aramaic words of Jesus. Douglas-Klotz alluded to that when he described ‘ahebw’ as a mysterious impersonal force that creates new life.
Because his book is about an Aramaic version of the Gospels, Douglas-Klotz did not use the Greek word ‘agape.’ But if ‘ahebw’ was the Aramaic word used by Jesus that was translated into Greek as ‘agape’ and mistranslated into the English word ‘love,’ I decided to do some altering of Douglas-Klotz quotes to fit into what I’d done with other quotes throughout this blog.
So because I found deeper understanding whenever the spiritual meaning of ‘love’ is replaced with ‘agape’, that ancient Sufi saying would read: ‘God is the receiver and giver of agape, as well as agape itself.’
So in the following quotes from Douglas-Klotz wherever ‘love’ is used in a spiritual/mystical sense, it was changed to ‘agape.’
“Tuned to the Source are those who shine from the deepest place in their bodies. Upon them shall be the rays of agape. Aligned with the One are those whose lives radiate from a core of agape; they shall see God everywhere. Aligned with the One are the compassionate; upon them shall be compassion.”
“As human beings, one of the most precious things we can give one another is our complete understanding and support, each day and each moment as we are able, with all our perceived limitations included.
“Blessed are those in emotional turmoil; they shall be united inside by agape.
“From the deepest part of yourself, let agape be born for the rays of the One that shine around you. From this self liberate your whole animal energy and life force to flood your entire grasping mind with agape.
“Help us share agape beyond our ideals and sprout acts of compassion for all creatures. As we find your agape in ours, let heaven and nature form a new creation. Create in me a divine cooperation — from many selves, one voice, one action.”
The study that he gave of the word for ‘heart’ is very helpful to understand Romans 5:5 “God’s agape has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” Douglas-Klotz reported:
“The word translated as ‘heart’ (‘lebak’ or ‘lebhon’), literally the center of one’s life, also carries the sense of any center from which life radiates — a sense of expansion plus generative power: vitality, desire, affection, courage, and audacity all rolled into one. In the old roots the picture is given of an interior action of creative generation that expands from the center.”
