The Blessing of Friendship
NEANDER thus quotes Chrysostom, of “true friendship:” “If thou namest a thousand treasures to me, none is of so much worth as a genuine friend. Let us first of all say what high joy friendship insures of itself. The communion of souls gives overflowing joy. I speak of genuine friends who are one soul, ready to die for another. Do not suppose, when you think of those persons who are commonly called friends, that what I say is contradicted by such. Whoever has such a friend as I have described will understand what I say. If he sees him daily, yet that is not enough. He prays on his behalf what he prays for himself. I know one who requested pious men first to pray for his friend and then for himself. So great a blessing is a friend, that we love a place and a time on account of our friend. If we often come without friends to the same place we weep, for we recollect the day on which we there met with our friends. I speak of spiritual friends, our love to whom surpasses all things. Such an one was Paul. 1 Thess. ii, 8. Thus we ought to love with glowing hearts. Do not name to me the present time. This with other things, this blessing also has departed from us. Think of the apostolic times: and I will not say, think of the most distinguished, but only of ordinary believers. All were of one heart and of one soul. It was imparted to every one as he had need. There was then no meum and tuum. This is friendship when a person does not reckon his own as his own, but as if it belonged to his friend; a friend will not rule or command, but rather be thankful when the other commands him to do anything. He would rather show some kindness to the other than receive kindness from him; for he loves, and feels as if he had received no satisfaction to his propensity to love. Friendship conceals its good deeds. The friend would not hold the other as a debtor, but appear himself as a debtor. Friendship is a plant of heaven.”