I have been working on this book off and on for a number of years now, and there are many friends and colleagues whom I would like to thank for the assistance, advice, and comments with which they have helped me both to get it finished and to eliminate many mistakes which I would otherwise have overlooked. I would also like to thank the president and fellows of Wolfson College, Cambridge, for electing me visiting fellow in 1982. Their hospitality enabled me to start collecting material on love and thus to get this project started. Furthermore, I would like to thank my students in Utrecht to whom I have lectured on this material for many years. Their comments and questions, as well as their need for clarity and relevance, have not been without effect on the final form of the book. I am especially grateful to the Department of Theology in the University of Durham for its hospitality during my term as Richardson Fellow in 1991. It was during that delightful stay that I was able to finish the greater part of the book. Among the friends I made in Durham, I am most grateful to David Brown, Carol Harrison, Margaret Harvey, Ann Loades, and Alan Suggate for reading and commenting on various parts of my manuscript, and especially to Ann Loades for so graciously allowing me to use her room in Abbey house as a workplace during my stay in Durham.