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

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Spiritual Friendship

case of Pylades and Orestes. 15 Were they not powerful in the virtue of true friendship, even according to Cicero’s definition, of whom it is written, “Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common” (Acts 4:32)? 29. How could Cicero’s highest “agreement on both human and divine affairs, with affection and good will” fail to exist among those who were of “one heart and soul” (Acts 4:32)? 16 How many martyrs laid down their lives for their brothers! How many did not spare their possessions, their toil, even their own physical agony on the cross! I believe that you have read many times, and not without tears, of how that well known maiden of Antioch, rescued from the brothels by a certain soldier in a most admirable deceit, found in that soldier an ally in martyrdom shortly thereafter—and this the same man whom she had previously found to be a guardian of her chastity when she was in the brothel. 17 30. I could give you many examples of this sort, except that the size of the topic prevents it, and our vow of 15 Cicero uses the famous Greek friends, Pylades and Orestes, who were willing to die for one another as an example of true friendship ( On Friendship , 7.24). He identifies such friendships as “the rarest in the world, and all but superhuman” ( On Friendship , 2.17). 16 Cicero, On Friendship , 6.20. 17 Aelred uses this story to illustrate how a Christian man and woman who were neither married, nor siblings, displayed true friendship with one another. It is one of a number of places where Aelred shows that Christian men and woman can be true friends, a fact that was denied by many (e.g. Aristotle) in the ancient world. The story of the two Christian martyrs can be found in one of Jerome’s books ( On Virgins , 2.4.22−32).