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

Chapter 1: The Definition and Origin of Spiritual Friendship (Book 1.1–30)

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are accustomed to endanger themselves, my mind gave itself totally to passionate affection, and devoted itself to love. The result was that to me nothing was more pleasant or more delightful or more useful than to seem to be loved and to love in return. 2 2. And so, being tossed about among different loves and friendships, my mind was carried this way and that; and not knowing the law of true friendship, I was thus often deceived by what resembled friendship. Then, after some time, I acquired Cicero’s famous book, On Friendship , and at once it seemed to me both useful in its weighty thoughts and pleasant in its agreeable eloquence. 3 3. And although this book did not allow me to see myself as capable of the kind of friendship it described, I was still glad to have found a kind of principle for friendship, according to which I would be able to control my wandering loves and affection. But when it truly pleased the good Lord to correct my wandering, to raise me when I had fallen ( Pss 145:14; 146:8 ), and to cleanse this leper with his healing touch ( Matt 8:2; Luke 7:22 ), I abandoned worldly hope and entered a monastery. 4. And immediately I began to read the Holy Scriptures intently although in my prior life I would become bleary eyed even before skimming over the Bible, and usually satisfied my gaze with mere fleshly shadows. Thus, as the 2 Aelred describes himself using the same language Augustine used in his spiritual autobiography ( Confessions , 2.2). This is one of many places where Aelred has learned from wise Christian mentors and passes on their wisdom about friendship to us. For a thorough list, see the edition of Spiritual Friendship edited by Marsha Dutton. 3 For example, Cicero’s “first law of friendship” states: “Ask of friends only what is honorable; do for friends only what is honorable” ( On Friendship , 13.44).