Genesis Vol 3.pdf - College Press

I
FOR MEDITATION AN RMONIZING
Isa. 41:s; 2 Chron. 20:7; cf: Jas. 2:23:
Many eminent philosophers, eyayists, poets, etc., have
written eloquently on the subject of friendship. . Aristotle,
for example, in Books Eight and Nine of his Nicovnacbeun
Ethics, tells us that “there are three- kinds of friendship,
corresponding in number to the objects worthy of affection.”
These objects (objectives) are usehlness, pleasure,
and virtue. Virtue, in Aristotle’s ‘thought, means an excellence.
He writes: “The perfect form of friendship
is that between good men who are alike in excellence or
virtue. For these friends wish alike for one another’s good
because they are good men, and they are good per se, that
is, their friendship is something intrinsic, not incidental.
“Those who wish for their friends’ good for their friends’
sake are friends in the truest sense, since their attitude is
determined by what their friends are and not by incidental
considerations.” To sum up: True friendship is that kind
of affection from which all selfish ends are eliminated.
This Aristotelian concept is indicated in Greek by the word
philia (brotherly love), as distinct from cyos (passion,
desire, lust) and from agape (reverential love). Cicero, in
his famous essay OTL Fi4eizdsbilsip (De Amicitia) writes in
similar fashion: “It is love (u~oY), from which the word
‘friendship’ (amicitia) is derived, that leads to the establishing
of goodwill. . . , in friendship there is nothing false,
nothing pretended; whatever there is is genuine and comes
of its own accord. Wherefore it seems to me that friendship
springs rather from nature than from need, and from
an inclination of the soul joined with a feeling of love
rather than from calculation of how much profit the
friendship is likely to afford.” One is reminded here of
Augustine’s doctrine of pure love f o ~ God: “Whosoever
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