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 'Having more doesn't make you happy' - Church Times
Selected online, original texts Plato A dialogue entitled Lysis telling of an encounter between Socrates, Hippothales, Lysis and Menexenus in which Socrates shows Hippothales how to befriend Lysis, and exposes the weaknesses of Lysis' friendship with Menexenus.
Aristotle Chapters VIII & IX of his Nicomachean Ethics: two closely argued chapters in which Aristotle takes a lead from Plato but presents an abstract rather than dramatic discussion; he offers a definition of friendship, and an analysis of its strengths and failings.
Cicero De amicitia is a dialogue between two historical characters in which they remember the exemplary friendship of someone who has died. Cicero can be seen developing Stoic ideas of friendship as well as reflecting on his own troubled times.
Augustine Chapter 4 of his Confessions is an intimate account of a close friendship in his pre-Christian youth that received a devastating blow when the friend died. In his subtle analysis of his feelings, Augustine concludes that it is foolish to love another human as if they were God.
Aelred of Rievaulx This 12th century abbot's dialogue, called 'Of Spiritual Friendship', lay at the heart of medieval celebrations of friendship which was seen as providing intimations of the love of God, including the now lost institution of sworn brotherhood. The text is not available online.
Thomas Aquinas Thomas considers various questions about friendship in what is arguably the greatest text of medieval Christianity, his Summa Theologica. A good place to start is in the Second Part of the Second Part in which he asks the question of whether charity is friendship, a critical question that throws up many insights.
Montaigne His essay on friendship is number 28 in the collection, the mid and best point, and recollects his extraordinarily close friendship with Etienne de La Boétie. It leads him to pen some very beautiful comments, reflecting on how a friend is another self, and some rather startling ones too.
Francis Bacon Another essayist, Bacon offers one on friendship that is practical, perhaps particularly suitable to one who aspired to be a counsellor in the courts of Elizabeth I and King James. He might be said to be the Machiavelli of friendship.
Ralph Emerson Emerson wrote his essay on friendship whilst reflecting on actual friends of his and so whilst the writing can at times seem circular, even contradictory, it breaths with a sense of life lived. However, he comes to paradoxical conclusions on how friendship may become a way of life.
C.S. Lewis In his book The Four Loves, the chapter on friendship is half way through. To my mind, Lewis seems anachronistic now; his account of friendship is perhaps too coloured my the male life of the Oxford don. But he can certainly turn a phrase. The text is not available online. |