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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although among the good and the bad there can be no fellowship of wills or counsel. And so friendship, which like love was first preserved among all and by all, remained among a few good people according to natural law. These good people, seeing the holy laws of faith and fellowship violated by the many, joined themselves together by a closer bond of affection and friendship, and so among the evils which they saw and felt they rested in the pleasure of mutual love. 60. Nevertheless, even those whose unrighteousness obliterated all sense of virtue still did not lose their sense of reason, which in turn prevented them from entirely losing the desire for friendship and fellowship. The result was that without friends, riches could afford no delight to the greedy man, nor fame to the ambitious, nor pleasure to the sensuous. Even among the worst of people there are certain agreements, and even sworn bonds of fellowship. However, though these agreements have been cloaked with that most attractive name of friendship, it has long been felt that they should be distinguished both by law and by precept from true friendship, so that when one looked for true friendship, one would not be caught unawares in the other because of a certain resemblance between the two. Friendship and Wisdom (1.61−71) 61. So the authority of law regulates the same friendship which nature begins and custom strengthens. Thus it is abundantly clear that natural friendship is like virtue, wisdom, and other qualities which are both sought and preserved, as natural goods, for their own sake; each