In a Christian
adaptation of Cicero's teaching about friendship Aelred, abbot of
Rievaux starts with a circle of his monks in the
cloister.
The day before
yesterday, when I was going round the cloister of the monastery,
sitting with the brethren in a loving circle, as though amid the
delights of paradise, I admired the leaves, the flowers, and the
fruits of every tree. I found no one in that great number whom I
did not love, and whom I did not believe loved me. I was filled
with such a joy as passes all the delights of this world. For I
felt as though my spirit were transfused into them all, and their
affection into me, so that I could say with the prophet: "Behold
how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in
unity".
Even in this world,
where not all we love can be our friends, how much easier it is to
live in an atmosphere of love and trust, rather than surrounded by
every kind of suspicion, loving no one and feeling oneself to be
loved by no one.
in Aelred
explicitly alludes to that note of disinterestedness in love which
so much appealed to the early Cistercian writers as an essential
way of insisting upon the worthwhileness of Christian love in
itself.
....the spiritual
friendship which we call genuine is sought, not with an eye on any
worldly expediency, or for some ulterior motive, but simply on
account of its own natural worth and the inclination of the human
heart, so that its profit and its reward is nothing other than
itself.
Thus the Lord in
the Gospel says: "I have appointed you that you should go and
should bring forth fruit", that is, should love one another. For in
true friendship one travels by making progress, and receives the
fruit in the experience of the delight of its
perfection.
Thus spiritual
friendship is begotten between the good, who have lives, habits,
and interests that are alike, which is "accord in benevolence and
charity on things human and divine". So this definition seems to me
to be adequate to express the notion of friendship if, however,
according to our usage, we understand "charity" to exclude from
friendship everything vicious.
When he goes on to
speak of the origin and source of friendship, Aelred makes it quite
clear that this disinterestedness in love, which is a reflection of
God's disinterested self-giving in creation, is in no sense
incompatible with a genuine sense of need. God alone is un-needy;
only to him every creature cries: "Thou art my God, for thou hast
no need of my goods."
Everything else
needs the completion of relationship for its fulfilment in a world
in which a vestige of God's own supreme unity has been left in the
natural tendency of all things to fall into an order in time and
place, from stones in the brook and trees in the wood to animals at
play, everything seems to long for companionship.
The theoretical
basis of the discussion is developed with reference to the belief
which Aelred shares with Cicero that "there is nothing more
advantageous to seek in human affairs, nothing harder to find,
nothing sweeter to experience" than friendship. It is not merely
that, as scripture says, "a faithful friend is the medicine of
life". It is also that, as a consequence, friendship is a step
towards that perfection "which consists in the love and knowledge
of God; so that, from being a friend of man, a man becomes a friend
of God, according to that saying of our Saviour in the Gospel: 'I
will not now call you my servants, but my
friends'".
According to Aelred,
the being which all things have is a participation or share in the
being of God, who is the 'being of all things that exist'. In
his defence of the worthwhileness of friendship Aelred takes the
view that it is actually a foretaste of heaven, "where no one hides
his thoughts or disguises his affection. This is that true and
everlasting friendship, which begins here and is perfected there.
Here, few know it, where few are good. There, everyone shares it,
where all are good".
The medieval image
or model of the cosmos into which Aelred's imaginings had to fit,
which, however grotesque its inaccuracies, was one of the most
attractive concepts of it ever devised. In this respect it is
likely that the Cistercians knew better than the monks of the urban
orders so many of the components of this grand design - the rocks
and trees among which they worked and slept, the birds and animals
he encountered each day in their wild valley, and –
around or above him - the elements, the sun and the moon, angels
and demons, Lucifer and God.
