The doctrine exalting the value of love, especially in its general, nonsexual sense: Agapism was a belief in an unselfish, benevolent brotherly love.

An iconoclastic view: " 'Love Feast,' first of Aphrodite's holy whores (Horae), was canonized as a Christian saint when icons of the Horae were re-lableled 'virgin martyrs': Sts. Agape, Chione, and Irene. Agape originally personified the rite of sexual communion, as practiced in Aphrodite's temples and adopted by some early Christian sects as a Tantric type of 'spiritual marriage'. By the 7th century C.E. (Common Era), the agape ceremony was declared heretical, but it continued secretly throughout the Middle Ages."