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

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Spiritual Friendship

finally he must be treated as is fitting. In dealing with the choice of friends, we concluded that those who are prone to anger, unstable, suspicious, and talkative are ineligible for friendship—not all, however, but only those who are either incapable or unwilling to order or control these passions. For many are beset by these disturbing vices in such a way that not only is their perfection not harmed in any way, but their virtue in controlling these vices is quite laudably increased. 56. For those who are always carried about headlong by these passions, like unbroken horses, inevitably slip and fall into the vices which, as Scripture bears witness, both harm and dissolve friendship, that is, “disputes, the betrayal of secrets and other improper matters, pride, and backbiting” (Sir 22:22). 8 57. Nevertheless, if you should suffer all these things from one whom you have taken into your friendship, I say that the friendship should not be immediately broken off, but rather dissolved little by little, and such reverence for the old friendship should be maintained as permits you to withdraw your inner secrets from your former friend. However, you should never withdraw your love from him, or refuse him aid, or deny him counsel. But if your former friend’s madness breaks out into blasphemy and curses, you should still defer to the bond that linked you—defer to charity—so that the one who blasphemes or curses is to blame, not the one who suffers the injury. 58. On the other hand, if a man is found to be harmful to his family, his country, his fellow citizens, his underlings, or his friends, the bond of familiarity must be broken

8 See Spiritual Friendship , 3.21−27.