LOVE-FEASTS. It is Godwin's opinion, that the agapae, or love-feasts, of the primitive Christians, were derived from the ???? or feasts upon the sacrifices, at which the Jews entertained their friends, and fed the poor; De 12:18; 26:12. There were also feasts of much the same kind in use among the Greeks and Romans. The former were wont to offer certain sacrifices to their gods, which were afterward given to the poor. They had likewise public feasts for certain districts, suppose for a town or a city, toward which all who could afford it, contributed, in proportion to their different abilities, and all partook of it in common. Of this sort were the ???????? of the Cretans; and the ??????? of the Lacedaemonians, instituted by Lycurgus, and so called ???? ??? ??????, (the ? being changed into ? according to their usual orthography,) as denoting that love and friendship which they were intended to promote among neighbours and fellow citizens. The Romans likewise had a feast of the same kind, called charistia; which was a meeting only of those who were akin to each other; and the design of it was, that if any quarrel or misunderstanding had happened among any of them, they might there be reconciled. To this Ovid alludes in the second book of his Fasti: