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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it unbroken, and to reach a holy end without any bothersome disagreements? 6. AELRED: I marvel that you think I am worthy to answer such questions, especially since nearly everyone agrees that these matters have been dealt with more than adequately by ancient authorities who were extraordinarily learned. But I marvel most of all, since you have spent your youth pursuing matters of this sort, and you have read Cicero’s treatise On Friendship . 5 In this work Cicero has treated very fully and in a pleasant style everything that seems to have any bearing upon friendship. 7. IVO: I am not entirely ignorant of Cicero’s work, since I have been accustomed from time to time to take great delight in it. But from the time when I began to recognize the sweetness of the Holy Scriptures and the honey-sweet name of Christ claimed my affection for itself, whatever lacked the salt of heavenly literature and the seasoning of that most pleasant name could not be tasty or attractive to me, no matter now cleverly argued what I read or heard seemed to me. 8. And so I wish to see for myself our most common assumptions about friendship proved by the authority of Scripture—even if these assumptions rest upon arguments that are in keeping with reason—and of course we must also provide scriptural proof of those other matters which the usefulness of this discussion on friendship demands. I also wish that you would treat more fully how that same friendship which ought to hold among us is both formed in Christ and preserved according to Christ and how

5 This work is available for free from the Internet History Sourcebook at https:// sourcebooks.fordham.edu/ancient/cicero-friendship.asp.