Aristotle, from Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers
"Abraham ... was called a friend of God."
The Epistle of St. James
St. Paul closes his letter to the Phillippians with the words, "And now, friends, farewell." He was writing from Rome while under house arrest, waiting for a trial as a Roman citizen after being arrested in Jerusalem for his troublesome preaching. He had become particularly close to these Philippian Christians to the point that they, when hearing of his imprisonment, had sent one of their own, Epaphroditus, to assist him and to bring him gifts. In this most heartfelt letter of thanks Paul mentions his friendship to Timothy and Epaphroditus and his appreciation for their assistance. The great Saint, an older man now, wrote with the affection reminiscent of Jesus' concern for the twelve disciples in His last words of instruction to them. He was writing to friends.
Jewish and Christian sacred scripture speak often of the word friend. Indeed, St. Paul uses the word eight times in this epistle. Abraham was called a friend of God as was Moses and David. The book of Wisdom states that he who attains wisdom wins the friendship of God. As mentioned above, Jesus told his twelve followers at the Last Supper discourse in what is arguably the most poignant moment in the Sacred story, that these men were "no longer servants but friends."
Friendship was esteemed in the other ancient cultures of Bible times. The Roman statesman Cicero wrote eloquently about friendship and considered no life worth living without friends, as did Greek philosopher Aristotle, who spoke of three types of friendship, the highest being friendship for its own sake. It should be noted that both men considered virtue a requirement for true friendship.
The English word "friend" has German origins, not Latin. Freund in old German meant to love or set free. We English speakers more readily relate the word friend to the Latin, amare, because of the commonly known words amigo, ami, and amici, the Spanish, French, and Italian, respectively, or even the Greek, phileo, from which we get the name for our city, Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love. But for reasons unknown we adopted the German word for brotherly fidelity and charity, friend. The meaning is the same, in it’s highest form a friend is someone to whom we show and are shown charity, for its own sake, for its own enjoyment, that is, not for some ulterior end.
Maybe it's an obvious simplification, but it should be mentioned, I think, that friendship exists between we humans because God exists. When St. John says that God is love, he is declaring that God's very existence is a kind of friendship. And from this I conclude that man, created by God and in His likeness, is being most human and godly when he is being a friend. And indeed, that friendship is inseparable from our being human, it is in the "warp and woof," of our nature. And that we are not alone; that we are not solitary creatures scraping out an existence in never-ending "survival of the fittest" competition with other solitary creatures, but persons made in the image of his or her Creator, who by that very special place in creation wants and needs, friendship.
One of my favorite stories of friendship is the lifelong friendship between southerners and writers, Shelby Foote, author of the best-selling books, The Civil War Series, and novelist Walker Percy. The two became friends as children in Greenville, Mississippi and remained friends throughout their lives. I knew of Walker Percy through his novels and Shelby Foote through the PBS/Ken Burn's adaptation of his Civil War Series books.
Because of the recognition Foote had received for the television series, C-Span's, Brian Lamb conducted several long interviews with Mr. Foote, one of which related to the recent publication of a book of letters, The Correspondence of Shelby Foote & Walker Percy. The interview was essentially a discussion about the friendship of the two men, as seen particularly, through these published letters.
Not long into the conversation Mr. Lamb got around to Walker Percy's death and asked "Could anybody ever be a better friend of yours than Walker Percy? Foote replied, "Nobody was a better friend, and nobody will ever be a better friend than Walker Percy… he was a friend that could never be replaced.”
Later in the conversation Shelby Foote mentions that he had spent the last seven days of Walker's life at his home in Covington, Louisiana while Percy was in home-hospice. Mr. Lamb seemed a little surprised by this and asked Foote why he do such a thing. Foote paused a little and said, "well…that's just what friends do," which struck me as a simple but insightful statement about friendship. To watch this interview with Mr. Foote is to see in his expressions and to hear in his voice what Aristotle meant when he said that friends are a single soul dwelling in two bodies. I have watched it a dozen times.
Friendship is a gift in both its existence and in its loss. The loss of a loved one, the sadness and emptiness that accompanies the loss is a consequence of that friendship, and is reason to be thankful even in sadness, that is, that we were so fortunate to have such a friend, whether that friend be a brother or sister, husband or wife, or, as in the case of Mr. Foote, a childhood chum.
St. Thomas Aquinas put it most succinctly when he wrote,
"Among all worldly things there is nothing which seems worthy to be preferred to friendship… It is what brings with it the greatest delight, to such an extent that all that pleases is changed to weariness when friends are absent, and all difficult things are made easy and as nothing by love.”
My final thought is a personal one. I have had the double good fortune to have been raised in a good family and to have made good friends throughout life. The older one gets the more one realizes how good that good fortune is. In this year of the pandemic twice I met online with high school buddies even though it has been 50 years since we ran around and got in trouble together. I still meet for lunch with the men with whom I worked for 30 years years. We’re old now and repeat the same old stories and laugh at the same bad, off-color jokes. And, still, the more the politically correct soccer moms at the next table are offended by our school boy antics, the more we like it.
Which reminds me that maybe I should add a last thought from the wise, old Roman, Cicero. He said that one of the most difficult accomplishments in life is to keep a friend from childhood to old age. The natural changes in life, our conflicting interests, and each man’s own faults tend to keep him from a lifelong friendship. Here again, for the most part, thankfully, I have had good fortune.
Now, I’m near the end. It’s been a good life. Friendship made it very good.
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de Amicitia (On Friendship), CiceroNicomachean Ethics, Books VIII, IX, Aristotle
The Book of Job
The Norton Book of Friendship, by Ronald A. Sharp (Editor), Eudora Welty (Editor)
The Correspondence of Shelby Foote & Walker Percy, edited by Jay Tolson
Epistle to the Phillipians. St. Paul
The Silent Friendships of Men, by Roger Rosenblatt. Time Magazine
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