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

Chapter 4: The Advantages and Excellence of Spiritual Friendship (Book 2.28–72)

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What Kind of People Must We Be to Begin, Develop, and Perfect Spiritual Friendships? (2.37−41) 37. GRATIAN: Then describe, please, the sorts of people among whom friendship can arise or be preserved. 38. AELRED: I will describe it briefly. Friendship can arise among the good, it can progress among the better, but it can reach its highest point only among the best. For as long as a person intentionally delights in evil, as long as he prefers the dishonorable to what is honorable, as long as pleasure is more pleasing to him than purity, and boldness than moderation, and praise than modesty, how is it right for him even to aspire to friendship, since the beginning of friendship

“Friendship can arise among the good, it can progress among the better, but it can reach its highest point only among the best.”

proceeds from the belief that one is virtuous? It is therefore difficult, if not impossible, for you to sample even the beginnings of friendship if you are ignorant of the source from which it arises.

39. For love is shameful and unworthy of the name of friendship, if in its name we demand something shameful of a friend; and this we force him to do, when he is either led or compelled to do evils of any kind whatsoever, when his own vices are neither laid to rest nor overcome. And so we ought to despise the opinion of those who believe that anything contrary to faith and honesty ought to be done on behalf of a friend. 40. For there is no excuse for sin, if you sin for the sake of a friend. The first man, Adam, would more safely have convicted his wife of presumption instead of taking the forbidden fruit by complying with her demand ( Gen 3:6 ).