De Amicitia

On Friendship, One Book. Chapter One. The Occasion for Writing This Book. When I was still a boy in the schools, and took great delight in the favor of my companions, among the habits and vices by which that age is commonly endangered, my whole mind gave itself over to affection and devoted itself to love, so that nothing seemed to me sweeter, nothing more pleasant, nothing more useful than to be loved and to love. And so, fluctuating among various loves and friendships, my spirit was carried hither and thither; and, ignorant of the law of true friendship, I was often deceived by its likeness. Finally, a book came into my hands which Tully wrote on friendship, which immediately appeared to me both weighty in the gravity of its sentences and sweet in the smoothness of its eloquence. And although I saw myself as not yet fit for that kind of friendship, I nevertheless rejoiced to have found a certain rule of friendship, to which I could recall the wanderings of my mind and affections. But when it pleased my good Lord to correct my straying, to raise up what was cast down, to cleanse the leprous with a healthful touch, having abandoned the hope of the world, I entered a monastery and immediately gave myself to the reading of the Sacred Scriptures, where the honey-sweet name of Christ wholly claimed my affection for itself, so that nothing else can be for me either satisfying or delightful.

Chapter 11. Among whom true friendship may exist. It is clear to me that Cicero was ignorant of the virtue of true friendship, since he was utterly unaware that its beginning and end is Christ, who is alpha and omega, the beginning and the consummation of all goods. What is friendship? Cicero says: "Friendship is a concord of human and divine affairs, with benevolence and charity." What pagan has expressed the force of the affection of charity and the work of benevolence as he did? But this true friendship cannot exist among those who are without Christ. From love, as it seems to me, "friend" is derived; from friend, "friendship." Love is a certain affection of the rational soul, by which it seeks and desires something with longing, in order to enjoy it; by which it also enjoys it with a certain inner sweetness, embraces it, and preserves what has been attained. Moreover, a friend is called the guardian of love or of the soul itself, because my friend ought to be the guardian of mutual love, or of my own soul, so that he may keep all its secrets in faithful silence; whatever he sees that is vicious in it, he may, for the sake of life, beware of and remove; with whom he may rejoice when rejoicing, and grieve when grieving, and with whom all things may be shared, as friends are. Therefore, friendship itself is the virtue which, by a bond of such sweetness and affection, is united to the friend himself, so that one is made from many. Hence, friendship itself, unless it has cast aside these base and contemptible things.

We must beware that a more tender affection does not hinder greater advantages, while we are unwilling to absent ourselves from those whom we embrace with a more ample charity, nor to burden them, if a great hope of richer fruit shines forth. For this is ordered friendship: that reason rules affection, and we attend not so much to what the sweetness of those persons demands, as to what the utility of many requires. He who does not love himself cannot love another. But he never loves himself who demands or bestows upon himself something base, dishonest, or unbecoming. Therefore, the first thing is that each person purify himself, indulging nothing in himself that is indecent, withholding nothing that is fitting. But because this love loves many, from among them let him choose whom to admit to the secret law of familiar friendship, into whom he may abundantly pour his affection, laying bare his breast even to the inspection of his entrails, his marrow, and the thoughts and intentions of his heart. Let him not be chosen according to the wantonness of affection, but according to the perspicacity of reason, the likeness of morals, and the contemplation of virtues. Let him so devote himself to a friend that all levity is absent, cheerfulness is present, and the orderly observances and duties of benevolence and charity are not lacking. Let his faith, honesty, and patience be tested. Let there be a communion of friends’ counsels, the assiduity of like pursuits, and a certain conformity of countenances. Thus chosen and tested, let him wish nothing that is unbecoming either to ask of a friend or to provide when asked.

To think friendship a virtue, not a gain; to reject flattery, to detest adulation; free in discernment, patient in correction, firm and steadfast in affection: it is then useful to grieve for one another, to labor, to bear one another’s burdens, to neglect oneself for the other, to prefer the other’s will to one’s own, to attend to the other’s need more than to one’s own, to oppose and expose oneself to adversities; it is sweet to converse with one another, to disclose one’s pursuits mutually. Prayer for one another is added, which, in the memory of a friend, is admitted the more efficaciously as it is more affectionately, with flowing tears, which either fear shakes out, or affection draws forth, or grief brings out. Thus, praying to Christ for a friend, one directs oneself to him with longing and diligence: when suddenly, the affection passing into affection, and touching the sweetness of Christ himself, one begins to taste how sweet he is, and to feel how gentle. Thus, from that holy love with which one embraces a friend, ascending to that with which one embraces Christ, one reaps the fruit of spiritual friendship.