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

Chapter 6: Testing Spiritual Friends (Book 3.39–75)

117

of a friend ought not to outweigh religion, or faithfulness, or love for one’s fellow citizens, or the good of the people. 47. King Xerxes hanged that exceedingly proud man Haman on a cross, although he had considered him a friend above all others, because the king preferred the good of his people and the love of his wife to the friendship which Haman had damaged with his dishonest counsels ( Esth 7 ). And although there were good relations between Sisera and the house of Heber, Jael, the wife of Heber the Kenite, killed Sisera with a hammer and nail because she believed that the safety of her people was more important than this friendship ( Judg 4:17–22 ). According to the law of friendship the holy prophet David ought to have kept alive the relatives of Jonathan; but he heard from the Lord that the people had been beset by hunger continuously for three years on account of Saul and his bloody house, because they had killed the Gibeonites, and so he handed over to the Gibeonites seven of Saul’s relatives to be punished ( 2 Sam 21:1–9 ). 48. However, I do not wish you to be unaware of the fact that there can be no rupture between those perfect friends who have been wisely chosen and carefully joined together in true spiritual friendship. When friendship has made two people one, just as that which is one cannot be divided, so also friendship cannot be separated from itself. Therefore, it is clear that friendship which suffers division was never true friendship in that respect in which it is damaged, since “friendship which can cease was never true friendship.” 7

7 Jerome, Letters , 3.6.