Towards Friendship-Shaped Communities: A Practical Theology of Friendship

5 Friendship in Classical and Christian Traditions

While many Biblical texts were expressions of resistance to imperial metanarratives, and to assimilation into the cultural worlds of various empires, the philosophers of antiquity wrote from positions of privilege within empire. Their writings influenced early Christian writings and practices and continue to inform conversations regarding friendship. In this chapter the insights of Aristotle, Cicero, and Epicurus are intertwined with themes emerging from the lives and writings of conversation partners within subsequent Christian traditions, including Augustine, Aelred of Rievaulx, Thomas Aquinas, and Teresa of Avila. While these conversation partners led very different lives, engaged in distinctively different forms of community, and diverge when it comes to the possibility of friendship with the divine, their writings point to the essentialness of friendship, portray the interrelationship of friendship and community, and depict a range of communities in which friendship has been fostered.

Voices from antiquity teach us that friendship is fundamental to a good human life; voices from the Christian tradition teach us that friendship is also integral to the Christian life. Within this fifth chapter, insights of the classical philosophers Plato (429?–347 bce), Aristotle (384–322 bce), Cicero (106–43 bce), and Epicurus (341–270 bce), are intertwined with themes emerging from the lives and writings of conversation partners within ...