Laudator Temporis Acti

John A. Scott, "The Words for 'Love' in John XXI. 15 ff. Second Note," Classical Weekly 40.8 (December 16, 1946) 60-61:

In THE CLASSICAL WEEKLY for Dec. 10, 1945, p. 71 I referred to a note by Professor Gildersleeve in his Justin Martyr, A. 15.27. The note is: 'Ἀγαπᾶν is a colder word than φιλεῖν and less intimate. The larger use in Christian writers is perhaps due to an avoidance of φιλεῖν in the sense of "kissing". The refinements of commentators on John 21.15-17 seem hardly tenable when we remember that the Evangelist himself did not see the point, as Augustine notes (Civ. Dei 7.11)'. This note aroused the learned wrath of Professor Benjamin B. Warfield of the Princeton Theological Seminary, who devoted the issue of The Princeton Theological Review for April 1918 to an exhaustive study of these two words for 'love', and he thought his victory so complete that he dared to print: 'B.L. Gildersleeve in that unfortunate edition of Justin Martyr which brought grief to all his admirers'. However, Professor Gildersleeve was absolutely right and Professor Warfield surely was wrong in this matter. Ἀγαπᾶν does not denote a more intimate and delicate sentiment than φιλεῖν either in Classical or in Biblical Greek.

Id. (at 61):

As to the charge that the edition of Justin Martyr brought grief to all of Professor Gildersleeve's admirers, it seems to me as unfounded as the assumed distinction in the words for 'love'. I have read the book many times and always with increased wonder at its wide and accurate learning, and the brilliant discussions of language and of literature, but it is far over the heads of the college students for whom the books in that Series were intended. However, that was a characteristic of all his writings and of his teachings: he aimed to set a very high standard and hoped that others would struggle to come up to him, as he would not descend to them.

The reference is to Benjamin B. Warfield, "The Terminology of Love in the New Testament," Princeton Theological Review 16 (1918) 1-45, 153-203 (at 35, 185).