Of True Friendships.
O Philothea, love all people with a great love of charity; but have no particular friendship save with those who can join with you in virtuous things; and the more excellent the virtues you share, the more perfect will your friendship be. If it be a question of learning, assuredly your friendship will be most praiseworthy; but it will be far more so if it be a question of virtues, such as prudence, discretion, fortitude, or justice: and if charity, devotion, and the desire for Christian perfection are the foundation of all your converse, O God! how precious then will your friendship be! how excellent! excellent, because it will come from God; excellent, because it will be referred to God; excellent, because God will be its bond; excellent, because it will endure eternally in God. Oh! how good it is to love on earth as they love in Heaven, and to learn to love one another in this world as we shall do eternally in the next! I speak not here of the simple love of charity which must extend to all people; but I speak of spiritual friendship, whereby two or three souls, or a greater number, share their devotion and spiritual affections with one another, and together make but one and the same spirit. With good reason may those blessed souls sing: _Oh! how sweet and pleasant it is for brethren to live and dwell together!_ Yes, for the delicious balm of devotion continually pours forth from the hearts of some into the hearts of others, so that one may say that God hath poured His blessing upon this friendship, and that life is assured to it unto the end of the ages.
O Philothea, love all people with a great love of charity; but have no particular friendship save with those who can join with you in virtuous things; and the more excellent the virtues you share, the more perfect will your friendship be. If it be a question of learning, assuredly your friendship will be most praiseworthy; but it will be far more so if it be a question of virtues, such as prudence, discretion, fortitude, or justice: and if charity, devotion, and the desire for Christian perfection are the foundation of all your converse, O God! how precious then will your friendship be! how excellent! excellent, because it will come from God; excellent, because it will be referred to God; excellent, because God will be its bond; excellent, because it will endure eternally in God. Oh! how good it is to love on earth as they love in Heaven, and to learn to love one another in this world as we shall do eternally in the next! I speak not here of the simple love of charity which must extend to all people; but I speak of spiritual friendship, whereby two or three souls, or a greater number, share their devotion and spiritual affections with one another, and together make but one and the same spirit. With good reason may those blessed souls sing: _Oh! how sweet and pleasant it is for brethren to live and dwell together!_ Yes, for the delicious balm of devotion continually pours forth from the hearts of some into the hearts of others, so that one may say that God hath poured His blessing upon this friendship, and that life is assured to it unto the end of the ages.
All other friendships are but shadows beside this one, and their bonds are but chains of glass or jet in comparison with this great bond of holy devotion, which is all of gold.
Never form any friendship save of this kind; I mean, any friendship which it is in your power to form; for you must neither abandon nor despise on that account the friendships which nature and duty oblige you to cultivate, such as those of parents, relations, benefactors, neighbours, and others. I speak here only of those which you choose for yourself.
Never form any friendship save of this kind; I mean, any friendship which it is in your power to form; for you must neither abandon nor despise on that account the friendships which nature and duty oblige you to cultivate, such as those of parents, relations, benefactors, neighbours, and others. I speak here only of those which you choose for yourself.
Several may tell you that you ought not to have any particular friendships, because they occupy the heart, distract the mind, and engender jealousies; but they are mistaken in their counsels: they have seen in the writings of several holy authors that particular friendships were exceedingly harmful to religious, and they have believed that it was the same for the rest of the world; but there is much to be said on this matter; for, as in a well-ordered monastery all conspire to the same end, which is true devotion, there is no need to form particular friendships there, and, on the contrary, it would be feared that, in seeking privately what is common to all, one might pass from particularities to partialities; but for those who live among worldly people, and who nevertheless wish to embrace true and solid virtue, it is necessary for them to unite with one another in a holy and sacred friendship, so that by means of it they may encourage, love, and bear one another up in goodness. And just as those who walk on level ground have no need to lend one another a hand, whereas those who go along rough and slippery paths must support one another in order to walk in safety; so those who live in religion have no need of particular friendships, but those who live in the world need them, to encourage and help one another amid so many dangerous passages that they must cross. In the world, all do not conspire to the same end, nor do all have the same spirit: it is therefore necessary to withdraw apart and form friendships that accord with our tastes; and it is true that this particularity will make for partiality, but it will be a holy partiality, a partiality that will cause no division save the division between good and evil, sheep and goats, bees and hornets; a separation absolutely necessary.
Certainly, it cannot be denied that Our Lord loved Saint John, Lazarus, Martha, and Magdalene with a tender and special affection, since Scripture bears witness to it. It is known that Saint Peter tenderly cherished Saint Mark and Saint Petronilla, as Saint Paul did his Timothy and Saint Thecla. Saint Gregory of Nazianzus boasts on a thousand occasions of the unequalled friendship that united him to the great Saint Basil, and describes it in these terms, more or less: “It seemed that there was but one soul in us to animate two bodies. We must not, then, believe those who say that each thing is in itself all that it is, and not in another; for we were both in one of us, and one was in the other. We both had one and the same purpose, which was to cultivate virtue and order our lives according to our future hopes, so that we were beyond this mortal earth before we died.” We see also, from the testimony of Saint Augustine, that Saint Ambrose particularly loved Saint Monica, because of the rare virtues he saw in her, and that she, in turn, cherished him as an angel of God.
But I am wrong to linger over such evident things. Saint Jerome, Saint Augustine, Saint Gregory, Saint Bernard, and all the greatest servants of God had very special friendships, without their perfection suffering in any way thereby. Saint Paul, reproaching the Gentiles for their faults, accuses them of having been without affection, that is, of having had no friendship; and Saint Thomas, like all good philosophers, recognizes that friendship is a virtue. Now, he speaks of particular friendship, since he says that friendship cannot extend to many persons. Perfection, then, does not consist in having no friendship, but in having only good, holy, and sacred friendships.
But I am wrong to linger over such evident things. Saint Jerome, Saint Augustine, Saint Gregory, Saint Bernard, and all the greatest servants of God had very special friendships, without their perfection suffering in any way thereby. Saint Paul, reproaching the Gentiles for their faults, accuses them of having been without affection, that is, of having had no friendship; and Saint Thomas, like all good philosophers, recognizes that friendship is a virtue. Now, he speaks of particular friendship, since he says that friendship cannot extend to many persons. Perfection, then, does not consist in having no friendship, but in having only good, holy, and sacred friendships.