Chapter XXII.
Virtue must never be given up for the sake of a friend. If, however,
one has to bear witness against a friend, it must be done with caution.
Between friends what candour is needed in opening the heart, what
magnanimity in suffering, what freedom in finding fault! Friendship is
the guardian of virtues, which are not to be found but in men of like
character. It must be mild in rebuking and averse to seeking its own
advantage; whence it happens that true friends are scarce among the
rich. What is the dignity of friendship? The treachery of a friend, as
it is worse, so it is also more hateful than another's, as is
recognized from the example of Judas and of Job's friends.
125. Nothing, then, must be set before virtue; and that it may never be
set aside by the desire for friendship, Scripture also gives us a
warning on the subject of friendship. There are, indeed various
questions raised among philosophers; [755] for instance whether a man
ought for the sake of a friend to plot against his country or not, so
as to serve his friend? Whether it is right to break one's faith, and
so aid and maintain a friend's advantage?
126. And Scripture also says: "A maul, and a sword, and a sharp arrow,
so is a man that beareth false witness against his friend." [756] But
note what it adds. It blames not witness given against a friend, but
false witness. For what if the cause of God or of one's country compels
one to give witness? Ought friendship to take a higher place than our
religion, or our love for our fellow-citizens? In these matters,
however, true witness is required so that a friend may not be assailed
by the treachery of a friend, by whose good faith he ought to be
acquitted. A man, then, ought never to please a friend who desires
evil, or to plot against one who is innocent.
127. Certainly, if it is necessary to give witness, then, when one
knows of any fault in a friend, one ought to rebuke him secretly--if he
does not listen, one must do it openly. For rebukes are good, [757] and
often better than a silent friendship. Even if a friend thinks himself
hurt, still rebuke him; and if the bitterness of the correction wounds
his mind, still rebuke him and fear not. "The wounds of a friend are
better than the kisses of flatterers." [758] Rebuke, then, thy erring
friend; forsake not an innocent one. For friendship ought to be
steadfast [759] and to rest firm in true affection. We ought not to
change our friends in childish fashion at some idle fancy.
128. Open thy breast to a friend that he may be faithful to thee, and
that thou mayest receive from him the delight of thy life. "For a
faithful friend is the medicine of life and the grace of immortality."
[760] Give way to a friend as to an equal, and be not ashamed to be
beforehand with thy friend in doing kindly duties. For friendship knows
nothing of pride. So the wise man says: "Do not blush to greet a
friend." [761] Do not desert a friend in time of need, nor forsake him
nor fail him, for friendship is the support of life. Let us then bear
our burdens as the Apostle has taught: [762] for he spoke to those whom
the charity of the same one body had embraced together. If friends in
prosperity help friends, why do they not also in times of adversity
offer their support? Let us aid by giving counsel, let us offer our
best endeavours, let us sympathize with them with all our heart.
129. If necessary, let us endure for a friend even hardship. Often
enmity has to be borne for the sake of a friend's innocence; oftentimes
revilings, if one defends and answers for a friend who is found fault
with and accused. Do not be afraid of such displeasure, for the voice
of the just says: "Though evil come upon me, I will endure it for a
friend's sake." [763] In adversity, too, a friend is proved, for in
prosperity all seem to be friends. But as in adversity patience and
endurance are needed, so in prosperity strong influence is wanted to
check and confute the arrogance of a friend who becomes overbearing.
130. How nobly Job when he was in adversity said: "Pity me, my friends,
pity me." [764] That is not a cry as it were of misery, but rather one
of blame. For when he was unjustly reproached by his friends, he
answered: "Pity me, my friends," that is, ye ought to show pity, but
instead ye assail and overwhelm a man with whose sufferings ye ought to
show sympathy for friendship's sake.
131. Preserve, then, my sons, that friendship ye have begun with your
brethren, for nothing in the world is more beautiful than that. It is
indeed a comfort in this life to have one to whom thou canst open thy
heart, [765] with whom thou canst share confidences, and to whom thou
canst entrust the secrets of thy heart. It is a comfort to have a
trusty man by thy side, who will rejoice with thee in prosperity,
sympathize in troubles, encourage in persecution. What good friends
those Hebrew children were whom the flames of the fiery furnace did not
separate from their love of each other! [766] Of them we have already
spoken. Holy David says well: "Saul and Jonathan were lovely and
pleasant, inseparable in their life, in death they were not divided."
[767]
132. This is the fruit of friendship; and so faith [768] may not be put
aside for the sake of friendship. He cannot be a friend to a man who
has been unfaithful to God. Friendship is the guardian of pity and the
teacher of equality, so as to make the superior equal to the inferior,
and the inferior to the superior. [769] For there can be no friendship
between diverse characters, [770] and so the good-will of either ought
to be mutually suited to the other. Let not authority be wanting to the
inferior if the matter demands it, nor humility to the superior. Let
him listen to the other as though he were of like position--an equal,
and let the other warn and reprove like a friend, not from a desire to
show off, but with a deep feeling of love.
134. Let not thy warning be harsh, nor thy rebuke bitter, [771] for as
friendship ought to avoid flattery, so, too, ought it to be free from
arrogance. For what is a friend but a partner in love, [772] to whom
thou unitest and attachest thy soul, and with whom thou blendest so as
to desire from being two to become one; to whom thou entrustest thyself
as to a second self, from whom thou fearest nothing, and from whom thou
demandest nothing dishonourable for the sake of thine own advantage.
Friendship is not meant as a source of revenue, [773] but is full of
seemliness, full of grace. Friendship is a virtue, not a way of making
money. It is produced, not by money, but by esteem; not by the offer of
rewards, but by a mutual rivalry in doing kindnesses.
134. Lastly, the friendships of the poor are generally better than
those of the rich, [774] and often the rich are without friends, whilst
the poor have many. For true friendship cannot exist where there is
lying flattery. Many try fawningly to please the rich, but no one cares
to make pretence to a poor man. Whatsoever is stated to a poor man is
true, his friendship is free from envy.
135. What is more precious than friendship which is shared alike by
angels and by men? Wherefore the Lord Jesus says: "Make to yourselves
friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that they may receive you
into eternal habitations." [775] God Himself makes us friends instead
of servants, as He Himself says: "Ye are My friends if ye do whatsoever
I command you." [776] He gave us a pattern of friendship to follow. We
are to fulfil the wish of a friend, to unfold to him our secrets which
we hold in our own hearts, and are not to disregard his confidences.
Let us show him our heart and he will open his to us. Therefore He
says: "I have called you friends, for I have made known unto you all
things whatsoever I have heard of My Father." [777] A friend, then, if
he is a true one, hides nothing; he pours forth his soul as the Lord
Jesus poured forth the mysteries of His Father.
136. So he who does the will of God is His friend and is honoured with
this name. He who is of one mind with Him, he too is His friend. For
there is unity of mind in friends, and no one is more hateful than the
man that injures friendship. Hence in the traitor the Lord found this
the worst point on which to condemn his treachery, namely, that he gave
no sign of gratitude and had mingled the poison of malice at the table
of friendship. So He says: "It was thou, a man of like mind, My guide
and Mine acquaintance, who ever didst take pleasant meals with Me."
[778] That is: it could not be endured, for thou didst fall upon Him
Who granted grace to thee. "For if My enemy had reproached Me I could
have borne it, [779] and I would have hid Myself from him who hated
Me." An enemy can be avoided; a friend cannot, if he desires to lay a
plot. Let us guard against him to whom we do not entrust our plans; we
cannot guard against him to whom we have already entrusted them. And so
to show up all the hatefulness of the sin He did not say: Thou, My
servant, My apostle; but thou, a man of like mind with Me; that is:
thou art not My but thy own betrayer, for thou didst betray a man of
like mind with thyself.
137. The Lord Himself, when He was displeased with the three princes
who had not deferred to holy Job, wished to pardon them through their
friend, so that the prayer of friendship might win remission of sins.
Therefore Job asked and God pardoned. Friendship helped them whom
arrogance had harmed. [780]
138. These things I have left with you, my children, that you may guard
them in your minds--you yourselves will prove whether they will be of
any advantage. Meanwhile they offer you a large number of examples, for
almost all the examples drawn from our forefathers, and also many a
word of theirs, are included within these three books; so that,
although the language may not be graceful, yet a succession of old-time
examples set down in such small compass may offer much instruction.
[755] Cic. de Off. III. 10.
[756] Prov. xxv. 18.
[757] Cic. de Off. I. 17.
[758] Prov. xxvii. 6.
[759] Cic. de Amic. 19, § 67.
[760] Ecclus. vi. 16.
[761] Ecclus. xxii. 25.
[762] Gal. vi. 2.
[763] Ecclus. xxii. 26.
[764] Job xix. 21.
[765] Cic. de Amic. 6, § 22.
[766] Dan. iii. 16 ff.
[767] 2 Sam. [2 Kings] i. 23.
[768] Cic. de Off. III. 10, § 44.
[769] Cic. de Amic. 19, § 69.
[770] Cic. de Amic. 14, § 50.
[771] Cic. de Off. I. 38, § 137.
[772] Cic. de Amic. 21, § 80.
[773] Cic. de Amic. 15, § 51.
[774] Cic. Lact. 15, § 53.
[775] S. Luke xvi. 9.
[776] S. John xv. 14.
[777] S. John xv. 15.
[778] Ps. liv. [lv.] 13, 14.
[779] Ps. liv. [lv.] 12.
[780] Job xlii. 7, 8.
Introduction to the Three Books of St. Ambrose on the Holy Spirit.
The three books on the Holy Spirit are, as St. Ambrose says himself, a
sequel to those on the Faith, and the two treatises together have been
sometimes quoted as if one, with the title, De Trinitate. But we see
from Gratian's letter to St. Ambrose, and from the reply, that each
treatise is separate, and the De Spiritu Sancto was written some years
later, a.d. 381.
In the first book St. Ambrose commences by allegorizing the history of
Gideon and the fleece, seeing in the drying of the fleece and the
moistening of the threshing-floor a type of the Holy Spirit leaving the
Jews and being poured out on the Gentiles. Passing to his more
immediate subject, he proves that the Holy Spirit is above the whole
Creation and is truly God, alleging as a special argument that the sin
against the Holy Spirit can never be forgiven, here or hereafter. He
shows how the Holy Spirit is in Scripture called the Spirit of God;
that He spake by the prophets and apostles; that He sanctifies men, and
is typified by the mystical ointment spoken of in Scripture. Next, St.
Ambrose treats of His oneness with the other two Persons of the Holy
Trinity, and shows that His mission in no way detracts from this
oneness, but that there is in all the Divine Persons a perfect unity of
peace, love, and other virtues.
The second book commences with a treatment of the history of Samson in
the same way as that of Gideon in Book I. Samson always succeeded so
long as the Holy Spirit was with him, but fell into misfortune so soon
as he was forsaken. It is shown that the power of the Holy Spirit is
the same as that of the Father and the Son, and that there is an
agreement in design and working, and in vivifying man. He is Creator
and therefore to be worshipped, and He worked with the Father and the
Son in founding the Church, and in conclusion is proved the unity of
operation in the Three Persons.
The third book continues the same argument, showing that the mission of
prophets and apostles, and even of the Son Himself, is to be referred
to the Spirit, yet without any subjection on the part of the Son,
seeing that the Spirit also receives His mission from the Father and
the Son. The Godhead of the Holy Spirit is next taken up and proved,
when occasion is taken also to show that there are not three Gods or
three Lords, for the Three Divine Persons are one in holiness and
nature; and the work is concluded with a summary of some of the
principal arguments.
There can be but little doubt that this is the work, and St. Ambrose
the author, bitterly attacked by St. Jerome; the whole passage may be
read in the Apology of Rufinus, p. 470, in vol. iii. of this series.
St. Ambrose is compared to a daw decked in another bird's plumage, and
charged with writing "bad things in Latin taken from good things in
Greek," and St. Jerome even took the trouble to translate a work of St.
Didymus on the Holy Spirit (from the preface to which the above
extracts are taken), in order that those who did not know Greek might,
St. Jerome hoped, recognize the plagiarisms.
Rufinus vigorously defends St. Ambrose, and, pointing out many
inconsistencies in his opponent, says: "The saintly Ambrose wrote his
book on the Holy Spirit not in words only but with his own blood, for
he offered his life-blood to his persecutors, and shed it within
himself, though God preserved his life for future labours." [781]
The truth is that St. Ambrose being a good Greek scholar, and having
undertaken to write on the Holy Spirit, studied what others had written
before him, and made use of what had been urged by SS. Basil, Didymus,
and others. The opinion of the great St. Augustine concerning this
treatise may be set against that of St. Jerome. "St. Ambrose when
treating of the deep subject of the Holy Spirit, and showing that He is
equal with the Father and the Son, yet makes use of a simple style of
discourse; inasmuch as his subject required no the embellishments of
language, but proofs to move the minds of his readers." [782]
[781] See vol. iii. p. 471, of this series.
[782] De doct. Christ. IV. c. 21.
