Spiritual Friendship: Learning to Be Friends with God and One Another

Chapter 5: Choosing Spiritual Friends (Book 3.1–38)

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Because slander does harm to a person’s reputation, it extinguishes the flame of Christian love. For the malice of humankind is so great that, whatever one friend blurts out against another under in a fit of anger, even if it is not believed, is passed around as though it came from the confidant of his deepest secrets. xii 24. For many people delight as much in reviling others as they do in receiving praise themselves. But what is more criminal than slander that fills the face of its innocent victim with pitiable blushing over its false accusation? Or what is less to be tolerated than the sort of arrogance that excludes the remedy of humble confession, which alone can restore a broken friendship? It is arrogance that makes a person bold to commit the injury in the first place, and then too haughty to accept correction. Then there is the betrayal of a friend’s innermost secrets; nothing is more shameful than this, or more abominable, since it leaves no room for love, or favor, or pleasure between friends, but fills all their relationship with bitterness and sours it with the gall of indignation, hatred and pain. 25. Hence it is written, “Whoever betrays secrets destroys confidence” (Sir 27:16). And a little later, “Whoever has betrayed secrets is without hope” (Sir 27:21). For who is more miserable than the one who destroys trust and grows weak to the point of hopelessness? And finally, there is backstabbing, the last fault which dissolves friendship, which is nothing other than secret character assassination. xiii Indeed, it is a deceitful blow, like the fatal blow delivered by a viper or asp: “If the serpent bites before it is charmed,” says Solomon, “there is no advantage to the charmer” (Eccl 10:11).