agape means love, is a word of Greek origin. Agape can be self-giving love, unconditional love, self-giving love. The expression agape was used in many different ways among the Greeks, in Bible passages, in letters, in correspondence between friends, was used, in the same way as nowadays, the word is used at the beginning of a text "Dear".
The term was widely used in ancient Greece by philosophers such as Plato, meaning, for example, the love of a wife, or husband, or love of children, children, their family and work. As for affection, affection, affinity, love between brothers, the Greeks used the term philia. For an affection of a sexual nature, represented by a physical attraction, a memory was used the expression Eros, which represents the goddess of love.
Agape was a term widely used by Christian writers, and it appears a lot in the texts of the New Testament, where there are many definitions and examples of agape, filial love, love between spouses, and God's love for all beings. In the Commandments, the term appears at the beginning of each sentence: To love (agape) God above all things. In the Sermon on the Mount the term is also referred to from the first sentence. Pope Benedict XVI also uses agape in his encyclical “Deus caritas est”, recalling that self-giving love is the one that seeks good and peace for all human beings.
Agape was also the first meal that Christians in the early centuries ate in common. A fraternization banquet.