Friendship

FRIENDSHIP. - Mutual affection between person and person.

1. IN THE NATURAL ORDER

Friendship (φιλία) was studied by Aristotle, who defines it as: "a reciprocal and manifest love reigning among several persons, consisting in an exchange of gifts and benefits." First among all gifts is affection itself (Ethica ad Nicom., 8, 2-3). Not every love - he observes - merits the title of friendship; this is love of benevolence, by which one wills the good of another person, instead of loving them only in relation to oneself; it therefore differs from, indeed is opposed to, love of self or of concupiscence. It further requires that such love of benevolence be bilateral or reciprocal. But this is not enough, since even two men who barely know each other can bear mutual benevolence; for friendship a certain sharing of life is required, convictus (living together, συζῆν), a certain communion of ideas, sentiments, and wills. Cicero goes so far as to call friendship "the greatest agreement concerning all things human and divine, joined with benevolence and mutual affection" (De amicitia, 1). The presupposition for the arising and prospering of any friendship is living together and conversing. The dynamic principle of mutual attraction is similarity in nature: "nihil est enim appetentius similium sui, nihil rapacius quam natura." The indispensable psychological ground for human friendship is the conformity of personal tastes and temperaments, since love tends by innate impulse to the fusion of the lover with the beloved object, so as to make the friend another self: "alter idem."

From the end or object, Aristotle distinguishes three kinds of friendship, according as it is founded on the common pursuit of either the pleasurable good, or the useful good, or the honorable good which is the object of virtue. There are therefore the friendship of young people who seek above all to enjoy themselves together, of merchants intent above all on their material interests, and finally of honest men who pursue above all the honorable good, both in individual and in social life. But friendship merits this name only insofar as it aims at the true and inalienable good, virtue. Therefore true friendship is a virtue. The qualities and safeguards of friendship are sincerity, fidelity, and disinterestedness; while egoism, pretense, and flattery are opposed to it. Therefore true and lasting friendship is extremely rare, like a precious treasure (Eccli. 6, 15-16).

Many among the Greek philosophers wrote on friendship; they have been studied by R. Eucken. Theophrastus, a disciple of Aristotle, composed a treatise on which, according to Aulus Gellius, Cicero depends in the Laelius, de amicitia.

2. IN THE SUPERNATURAL ORDER

The concept of friendship was placed on a new foundation by Christianity. φιλία is transfigured into φιλαδελφία (II Pt. 1, 7), in the school of Jesus (Io. 13, 34; 17, 21), and flourishes in ἀγάπη (v. CARITÀ). In the climate of the Gospel, human friendship was rectified and sanctified, its motives and intentions were raised beyond the contingent sphere. But besides having ennobled human friendship, Christianity inaugurated among men a true and proper supernatural friendship, consisting in a mutual love between God and men and of these among themselves, having as its specific fruit the exchange of goods of a divine order.

According to Sacred Scripture, infused charity is a true friendship between the just man and God, and among the children of God. In the Old Testament Abraham is called "friend of God" (Iud. 8, 22; cf. Iac. 2, 21). Ps. 138, 17, according to the Septuagint and the Vulgate: "Thy friends, O God, are made exceedingly honorable."

But above all the New Testament outlines charity as friendship: "I will not now call you servants, for the servant knoweth not what his lord doth; but I have called you friends, because all things whatsoever I have heard of my Father, I have made known to you," said Jesus to the apostles (Io. 15, 15). St. Thomas (Sum. theol., 2° 2° 2°, q. 23, a. 1) demonstrates that infused charity cannot indeed exist without mutual benevolence between God and the just man: God wills the good of the just man, and the latter wills the glory of God; and there is a sharing of life (convictus) between them, by the fact that the just man has received sanctifying grace, a participation in the divine life, and the seed of eternal life in union with God seen face to face. With charity there also occurs a true supernatural friendship of the just among themselves, since they are truly children of the same heavenly Father; they even have friendship also for sinners, insofar as they desire their conversion, so that they may become children of God and glorify Him eternally. It is said therefore: "Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that persecute and calumniate you" (Mt. 5, 44).

In this way the various forms of friendship are harmonized and raised one upon the other: the human or natural friendship whose characteristics we have described; the Christian friendship, which is a moral virtue and principle of supernatural love, existing among Christians already bound to one another by human friendship; the divine friendship, which is the theological virtue of charity, and has as its term of reference and first object of love God Himself, infinite goodness.

Regarding friendships in relation to the interior life, let what St. Francis de Sales teaches be held (Intr. à la vie dévote, cap. 20 ff.): if the sensible element predominates in the friendship, one must renounce for a long time every particular relationship outside of unavoidable encounters; if instead the spiritual element dominates, one may cultivate the friendship, purifying it through the custody and mortification of the senses and of the heart.

Thus the spiritual masters, who echo the saying of Eccli. 6, 14: "A faithful friend is a strong defense; and he that hath found him hath found a treasure; a faithful friend is the medicine of life; and they that fear God shall find him." Sirach (like Proverbs) gives many practical counsels on the relations of friendship: Eccli. 6, 7 ff. matches Ennius' "Amicus certus in re incerta cernitur"; id. 6, 13 is paraphrased by St. Ambrose (De off., 3, 137): "Inimicus vitari potest, amicus non potest, si insidiari velit"; elsewhere St. Ambrose (ibid., 128: "Sunt bonae correptiones et plerumque meliores quam tacita amicitia") recalls Prov. 27, 6.

Reinaldo Garrigou-Lagrange - Luigi Ciappi