A survey of how Christians through the ages have understood love. Beginning with the Old Testament, Brady examines the key resources and thinkers of the tradition: Scripture, St. Augustine, mystics such as Bernard of Clarirvaux, Hadewich, and Julian of Norwich, the great literature of courtly love, Thomas Acquinas, Martin Luther, Soren Kierkegaard, and others. In addition, Brady devotes chapters to several 20th century figures whose lives embodied Christian love: Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Jr., Pope John Paul II, and Reinhold Niebuhr. Finally, Brady addresses the current debate over the meaning of love, analyzing contemporary writers such as Martin D'Arcy, Margaret Farley, and Don Browning. In a stirring concluding chapter Brady offers his own understanding of the substance of Christian love, suggesting that it is an affective affirmation of another, that it is both responsive and unitive, and that it is steadfast and enduring. Many books have been written about Christian love. But no book has gathered together this kind of primary source material and covered such a wide range of perspectives.