ST. AUGUSTINE’S CONCEPT OF FRIENDSHIP
It is unthinkable for someone to be without friend. Such a person is either not normal or getting very close to suicide. The human person is naturally gregarious in nature and this is exhibited more in modern societies where there are different kinds of alliances, fraternities and associations. It is also usual to find friendly ties within a family (nuclear or extended) and within religious communities.
For St. Augustine of Hippo, friendship is one of the most essential things in life. If one looks critically at his life, friendship played very pivotal part. In his Confessions he states clearly “… what could make me happier than to love and be loved” (Confessions II, 2; III, 1). Augustine did not only seek to be loved by people, he actually loved people and clearly expressed it in his actions. Above all, he always loved companionship. Right from his elementary school days, through his years of restless search for knowledge and truth, to his new life in Christ and his ministry as priest and bishop, Augustine was energized by friendship. Even though he admitted that some of his friends had negative impact in his life, he was convinced of the positive impact friendship had in his life. Augustine’s understanding of friendship, like other subjects, developed as he progressed in his intellectual search and in his religious experience as a person. From a rather “selfish understanding” of friendship, Augustine arrived at a more “altruistic understanding”: friendship is a union and companionship that must include God, reciprocal love and trust.
The Goal of Friendship
It is generally believed that Augustine’s understanding of friendship is inspired by both neo-Platonism and Cicero. Several Scholars on Augustine believe, however, that Augustine did not just sheepishly copy the ideas of these two strands of philosophy. Rather, Augustine used these ideas as launching pads and definitely added new (Christian) perspectives to them.
Influence of Neo-Platonism
From neo-Platonism came two ideas of the goal of friendship. The first idea is that one sees in the friend an image of the Beautiful which one’s soul longs for. (Phaedrus, 250-251; Symposium, 210-212). In this perspective, the interest is really not on the friend, but on the ultimate thing this friend leads one to, the Beauty. Commenting on this idea of friendship, Meileander states: “The beloved is a sign and a call. … It is not the friend but the form of beauty which inheres in the friend that is loved.”[i] The second perspective of the goal of friendship adopted from neo-Platonism comes from the Lysis which states that the primary goal of friends is to strive together for ideas. This goal is conceived as extrinsic to either of them in friendship. This perspective does not truly consider any of the two persons involved in the friendship. The friends are not really interested in discovering each other better, nor in expressing love for each other such that the other may grow or get better. As long as the friend is there to help me attain knowledge, he is useful.
Following these two ideas of the goal of friendship one can define a friend as that person in whom one finds the image of that Beauty which one is seeking. Or that person who strives for the same ideas or knowledge as I do. In these definitions, it is clear that the friend is “secondary and replaceable”; what is really loved is something else – either the Beauty or the knowledge or idea sought together with the friend.
In some of Augustine’s writings he follows this neo-platonic understanding of friendship. For instance he writes: “He loves his friend who truly loves God in him” (Sermon 336). In the Soliloquies (I, 20, 22) he adopts the neo-platonic idea of friendship as helping each other seek knowledge. No matter how noble the ultimate reason/object is, it is still not the friend that is loved in essence.
The Influence of Cicero
Augustine’s idea of friendship was hugely influenced by Cicero. Cicero defined friendship in this way: “Now friendship is nothing other than the most complete agreement on all points divine and human, combined with goodwill and love” (De Amicitia, VI, 20). Augustine completely agreed with this definition of friendship that he quoted it not less than three times (Answer to Skeptics III, 6, 13; Letter 258). In fact, Augustine describes this definition of Cicero as “most correct and most holy”.
One main point that comes out clearly in this understanding of friendship is “reciprocity and mutuality”. Friends wish each other well and love each other. Augustine brings out this quality of reciprocity and mutuality in friendship when he writes:
… to talk and to laugh with them; to do friendly acts of service for one another; to read well-written books together; sometimes to tell jokes and sometimes to be serious; to disagree at times, but without hard feelings, just as a man does with himself; and to keep our many discussions pleasant by the very rarity of such differences; to teach things to the others and to learn from them. To long impatiently for those who were absent, and to receive with joy those joining us. These and similar expressions, proceeding from the hearts of those who loved and repaid their comrade’s love, by way of countenance, tongue, eyes and a thousand pleasing gestures, were like fuel to set our minds ablaze and to make but one out of many. (Confessions IV, 13).
In another work Augustine expressed the importance of friendship in human existence: “… What consolations have we in this human society, so replete with mistaken notions and distressing anxieties, except the unfeigned faith and mutual affections of genuine, loyal friends?” (City of God, XIX, 8).
Augustine’s adaptation of the Ciceronian idea of friendship shows a departure and advancement from his neo-platonic expressions. At least, in this later perspective, the friend is considered to be important, and not just what one can get from or through the friend.
As a Christian Philosopher and Theologian, Augustine added something specifically Christian to the notion of friendship. Augustine added the notion of God into the understanding of friendship. For him, God has to have a special place in friendship before it can be true friendship. The feelings that friends have for one another and the friend himself are gifts from God. A true friend is therefore soldered by “the love of God poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit” (Confessions IV, 7). He further stresses the need to establish friendship in God when he states: “But blessed is the man who loves you, and his friend in you. … If you find pleasure in souls, let them be loved in God. In themselves, they are but shifting things; in him they stand firm; else they would pass and perish. In him, therefore, let them be loved, and with you carry up to him as many as you can” (Confessions IV, 14, 18).
This realization came to Augustine after the long lament of the death of a friend (in book IV of the Confessions). He came to realize that the tears that became the only things pleasing to him after the death of his friend could not bring his friend back to life. If he loved his friend in God them he would not lose him forever because each time he found God he would find his friend.
SOME CHARACTERISITICS OF FRIENDSHIP
For St. Augustine, it is not all forms of union and companionship that can be qualified as true friendship. Informed by his personal practical experience of friendship Augustine believes that certain forms of friendship are either incomplete or fake. He once wrote to one of his friends, Martianus: “Dearest friend, at one time we were in complete agreement about material things, when I wanted to enjoy those things in the ways of the world, but in the more important things (those of the spirit), there was something lacking in our friendship” (Letter 258, 4).
When Augustine was still searching, and had not discovered God, he clung to all kinds of relationship and companionship that could aid him in his search for beauty and knowledge. Having discovered Christ, however, he became critical of certain forms of friendship. He was convinced, after this conversion, that true friendship has to include God and exclude evil and selfishness. It is important to infer from this that there is a great difference between “partners in crime” and “friendship”. The person who helps to hide one’s evil deeds cannot be correctly described as one’s friends. The person who connives with one to defraud another person is a partner in crime, a “fellow rogue” and not one’s friend. Such a union is not true friendship because it is motivated by evil and leads to evil.
Reciprocal Love and Commitment
For Augustine true friendship must include love, and this love must be reciprocal. Friendship is a very special type of love, the mutual love of one person for another, based on a certain resemblance or congruence.[ii] The essence of friendship, therefore, in the thinking of Augustine, is a reciprocal love that is based on the sharing of the same commitment. This reciprocity is very important in friendship. The persons in friendship are not stingy to one another. Rather, certain values, ideas and interests are generously shared, with utter freedom. If a partner only wants what he can gain from his ‘friend’, such a friendship is not healthy. Mutuality and reciprocity in expressing love for each other is required for a friendship to be real. “What could make me happier than to love and be loved?” (Confessions II, 2; III, 1). Augustine always emphasized that the greatest stimulus to love is to know that one is loved. A person loves more if he himself is loved (see Treatises on the Gospel of John, 32, 3).
Self-Transcendence
Friendship is self transcending in the sense that one has to look beyond himself as he enters into a friendship. The other person has lots of quality that one may not know initially, that is why it is important to give time for friendship to grow. One’s friend enriches one greatly because in our diversity, variety and spice is brought to bear in a friendship. The only wish of friendship should be “the well-being of the other person and his unimpeded development. In this way, friendship is not self-seeking, but on the contrary, self-transcending”[iii] For love to be unselfish, Augustine says that the love of friendship must desire the other person in its totality. If you love someone for his or her beauty or wealth, you love something else and not that person. If friendship is not unselfish then there is no friendship at all. “The measure of true friendship is not temporal advantage, but unselfish love” (Letter 155, 1; Commentary on the Psalms, 55, 17). The other person should be for me the embodiment of goodness and love, and not some accident in the person (cf. Letter 20, 2). Self-interest love is a contradiction in term, and can be better described as lust. In true friendship one must transcend oneself and equally transcend the accidents in the other person. It is only true friendship that can reach what is deepest, and real in the other person. Because of this conviction Augustine uttered the famous aphorism: “no one can be truly known, except through friendship” (De diversis quaestionibus 83, q 71, 5).
Entails Trust
In the understanding of Augustine friendship cannot exist where the affection is one-sided: “Friendship means that love which has been given requires love in return” (Contra duas epistulas Pelagianorum 1, 1; De fide rerum quae non videntur 2, 4; De diversis quaestionibus 83, q 31, 3). There has to be trust that the love one gives in friendship will be returned by the person to whom one shows that love. In the love of friendship reciprocity destroys fear and provides certainty and security (Letter 192, 1). It is in this situation that the persons in friendship can “become one”. Augustine actually describes his friend as his “Other Self”: “As you are my other self, what better topic of conversation could there be, than one already held with myself?” (Letter 38, 1).
This mutual trust between friends breeds openness, sincerity and trust. When this happens a friend can be the only person to tell his friend the truth. For Augustine it is a real act of friendship to point out another’s faults. A true friend is not the person who flatters us but the person who dares to tell us the truth. Augustine considers flattery an act of “inimical” friendship (Letter 110, 2).[iv] The trust friends have for each other should make them accept corrections or cautions of their friends as coming from goodwill and meant to build up and not destroy. On this issue of trust, Augustine distinguishes between love of enemy and friendship. Commenting on Matthew 5:44, 46: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. … For if you love those who love you, what rewards have you?” Augustine states that it is possible to love one’s enemies without actually being their friend. Christian fraternity is due to all, even to those who hate us. However, Augustine’s concept of friendship extends only to those whom we love and who love us.[v] In the love of one’s enemy, reciprocity, which for Augustine is the basis of friendship, is lacking. Therefore, he believes that one has to love one’s enemy cautiously and “with caution” while one loves one’s friends ‘freely” and “with confidence” (Letter 130, 6, 13; 192, 1). This explains the attitude that Augustine would recommend for us in the face of terrorist attacks, armed robbery, kidnapping, etc. Think of the activities of Boko Haram and other terrorists around the world today. What about those people who deliberately destroy your name by concocting and spreading despicable things about you. How do you treat the person who deliberately pulls down everything you make effort to build up? Should we or can we love these obviously brutal and wicked elements? Yes, we should because Jesus has commanded us to do so, and it is possible. Can they or should they be our friends? No. It is not possible because the essential elements of reciprocity and mutuality are lacking in such a relationship:
Augustine obviously does not equate friendship with fraternal charity, nor does he make it into an incidental part of the more noble category of charity. Rather, there is a grudging cordiality and lack of hostility which one is commanded to extend to everyone, even to an enemy who is persecuting one. But where there is real agreement, trust, and love, there is a real friendship which one can enjoy with confidence and security. And it is this latter type of relationship which Augustine seems to have treasured above all others through out his life.[vi] Fraternal charity must be extended to our enemies, but not real friendship, at least, until they repent and begin to reciprocate one’s acts of kindness.
Conclusion
Augustine’s understanding of friendship is very real and very human. He does not over-spiritualize the notion of friendship nor does he treat it as something totally mundane and without the help of God. He gives a very important place to friendship in life existence. In fact, friendship ranks after life itself, in the order of things in human existence. Lienhard notes:
Augustine’s love for friendship never diminished; if anthing, it became more intense as his life drew to its close. … Passion was very much a part of his life. … Augustine always held on to human aspect of friendship, to human affection, to the inclination, to the delectation added to dilectio. … he found it easier to bestow his love on some than on others. Augustine never made his ideas simple by ignoring his experience, and his experience taught him that friendship meant a good deal more than fraternal charity.[vii]
It is not surprising, therefore, that the spirituality of St Augustine is centered on a special form of friendship called community life. The dynamism of Augustinian spirituality is a balance between interiority, community life and apostolate: both interiority and apostolate receive life and drive from community life. We cannot totally equate friendship with community life though, because within a community of friars, some sort of friendship can be found. Augustine accepts this, as long as it does not destroy the community.
Our society that is replete with strife, suspicion, rancour, unhealthy competition and different forms of wickedness is in need of love, but desperately needs more of friendship. In other words, following Augustine’s understanding of friendship, we need more of reciprocal and mutual love than a grudging love of our enemies. This demands a form of conversion. We need to re-evaluate what we regard as friendship. It is also vital to take another look at the people we call our enemies. We need the three basic characteristics of friendship we treated in this article: reciprocal love, self-transcendence and trust. Selfishness is a silent but powerful destroyer of true friendship. Sycophancy is a dangerous shadow cast over friendship. Augustine believes that “it is lack of candor which endangers friendship, and failure to be frank is a sign of imperfect friendship” (cf. Letter 155, 3, 11; Letter 73, 2, 4. Sermon 87, 10, 12).[viii] This article was written by Rev Fr. Jude Ossai, OSA. He is a Nigerian Augustinian Priest, currently working in St Augustine's Priory Ibusa, Delta state, Nigeria.
[i] G. Meilander. Friendship: A Study in Theological Ethics. Notre Dame: University Press, 1981. pp. 11-12. [ii] T.J. Van Bavel, Christians in the World: Introduction to the Spirituality of Augustine. New York: Catholic Book Publishing company, 1980. p. 22. [iii] T.J. Van Bavel, p 25. [iv] T.J. Van Bavel, p 26. [v] Cf. Kim Paffenroth, “God in the Friend, or the Friend inGod?: The meaning of Friendship for Augustine. Augustinian Heritage 38 (1992) p. 128). [vi] Kim Paffenroth , p. 128 [vii] J. Lienhard, “Friendship in Paulinusof Nola and Augustine,” Augustiniana 40 (1990), p. 295, 296. as cited in Kim Paffenroth, p 135).
