XIII
IDEAL FRIENDSHIP
ANTHUSA TO ST. JOHN
IDEAL FRIENDSHIP
Nothing comparable to a real friend
A TRULY faithful friend is the medicine of life; a truly faithful friend, a strong covering. For what would not a genuine friend do? what pleasure would he not create for us? what profit? what safety? Though thou wert to name a thousand treasures, there is nothing comparable to a real friend. And first let us say how much pleasure friendship contains. The friend is bright with joy, and overflows when he sees his friend. He is united to him according to an union having a certain ineffable pleasure of the soul. But if he barely think of him, he rises and is borne upwards in his mind. I speak of genuine friends, who are of one accord, of those who would choose
The grace imparted by friendship
to die for their friends, of those who love warmly. Do not imagine, when you think of those who love lightly, and are sharers of your tables, and friends with whom you have a bowing acquaintance, that you can refute this saying of mine. If any one have a friend such as I mention, he will understand my words; and, though he should see his friend every day, he is not filled with seeing him. He makes the same prayers for him as for himself. I know a certain man, who, when asking the holy man, on behalf of his friend, asks him to pray first for the friend and then for himself. A true friend is such that places and times are loved on his account. For, as brilliant bodies shed a lustre upon the adjoining places, even so friends impart their own grace to the places where they may come. And oftentimes,
The genuine friend