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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And so you must now judge whether I have said enough about the fruit of friendship; or whether I have clearly distinguished those people, among whom friendship can certainly arise and be preserved and be perfected; or whether in addition I have showed palpably those sure goals toward which the love of friends ought to be directed. 65. WALTER: I do not remember that this last matter has been sufficiently explained. 66. AELRED: You recall, I think, that I have refuted the opinion of those who set up the goals of friendship in an agreement on vices and crimes; I have also refuted those who think that for the sake of a friend one ought even to go into exile, or to do any shameful deed whatever, provided that no harm is done to another. 67. I have also refuted those who measure the degree of friendship according to a standard of expected practical benefit. For I did not think it worth discussing the two opinions Walter mentioned, since what can be more inappropriate than to believe that friendship is extended only as far as repaying one’s friend in turn through duties and kind words, when all things ought to be in common between those who surely ought to share “one heart and soul” (Acts 4:32)? How shameful is this also, to feel no differently about a friend from how one feels about oneself, for each person ought to feel humility with regard to himself, and exaltation with regard to his friend. 68. Therefore, after dismissing these false goals of friendship, I maintained that the goal of friendship