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

Chapter 2: The Definition and Origin of Spiritual Friendship (Book 1.31–71)

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A friend not of persons but of wealth is he, Who for better is faithful, and for worse flees. 6 44. Nevertheless the beginning of this sort of flawed friendship often starts many on the road to a certain element of true friendship. This is the case especially with those who first enter a bond of friendship in the outward hope of common gain while they keep faith with themselves in the expectation of outstripping their associates in riches; in human affairs, at least, they attain the greatest pleasure and mutual agreement ( Luke 16:9 ). Still, that which is undertaken and preserved for the sake of temporal advantage can in no way be called true friendship. “Spiritual Friendship” Is the Third and True Kind of Friendship (1.45−49) 45. For spiritual friendship, which is what we mean by true friendship, should be desired not with a view to any worldly good, nor for any reason extrinsic to itself, but from the worthiness of its own nature, and the feeling of the human heart, so that it offers no advantage or reward other than itself. 46. So the Lord says in the Gospel of John, “I chose you . . . that you should go and bear fruit,” that is, so that you might love one another (John 15:16−17). For in this true friendship one makes progress by bettering oneself, and one bears fruit by experiencing the enjoyment of this increasing degree of perfection. And so spiritual friendship is born among good people through the similarity of their

6 Aelred is quoting from“Letters from the Black Sea”, a poem by a Roman poet named Ovid who was alive at the time of Christ. We could also give “worldly friends” the title “fair-weather friends.”