"Near Misses" On The Road To True Friendship

We continue to look at what Christian leaders in history have written on the vital subject of friendship, and especially the deep, pure heart bond that can be between Christians who have gone below the surface together.

Where better to start a new year, then, than with a real giant on the subject: Augustine of Hippo (354-430). Of all the Church Fathers, Augustine pondered the most on the matter of human relationships in general, and heart-friendships in particular. What makes him so readable on this - and on so much else - is the sheer humanity and honesty with which he wrote. His autobiographical Confessions make no attempt to cover his colourful pre-conversion life ("the madness of lust" made him live "a life in which I was seduced and seducing, deceived and deceiving").

His conversion experience at age 33 took place in the company of a friend, Alypius, and for the rest of his life he lived in various degrees of Christian community, surrounded by others, sharing his life with them. Some of these were particularly close to his heart. With hindsight, Augustine reassesses some earlier relationships which had seemed to be 'the real thing', but which proved not to be, as they were founded on two close but wrong 'cousins'. Let us consider two of these: sex and infatuation (or co-dependency).

In Books 3-6 of the Confessions we find a young woman, whom he does not name, who became the mother of his child. "I loved the idea of love", he writes, "but I muddied the clear spring of friendship with the dirt of lustful desire." The couple remained together for 13 years and the bond clearly went deep. When his faith led to a parting, "my heart, which clung to her, was broken and wounded and dripping blood." He adds that the woman never took another man. In a culture where the term "friend" was usually only applied to men, Augustine says a lot about this relationship by referring to his ex-partner as his "friend".

So sexual union is not the fulfilment of the heart's desire for friendship. In our day, when sex is billed as everything and leaves hearts broken and empty when it turns out not to be so, many may be wishing they could peep over the fence at what might be missing.

In Book 4 we read of a childhood friend in his native Tagaste (in modern Algeria). They were the same age and had played and gone to school together. The friendship with this lad continued into manhood. It was "sweeter to me than anything I had ever known. My soul could not be without him." Augustine was devastated when his friend died of a fever. "Tears took the place of my friend in my heart's love. I was in misery, for I felt that my soul and my friend's had been one soul in two bodies."

At this point, a 21st century reader may already be thinking "gay", even as the archetypal male heart-bond of David and Jonathan in the Bible is interpreted as "gay" in some circles today [1 Samuel 20:17; 2 Samuel 1:26]. But remember, such a branding of all same-sex attraction is an invention of the 19th century; it was not thought about that way in previous centuries and we must avoid crude retro-projections of modern interpretations.

More useful to us is Augustine's own judgement with the benefit of hindsight: "We depended too much on each other... He was not a friend in the true meaning of friendship." Here, then, is the second 'near miss' on the road to deep heart-friendship: the persuasive but largely mythical idea of the "bosom buddy" who will meet all your emotional needs and where the relationship seems almost instant, requiring no real hard work.

In the next few posts we'll look at what Augustine has to say about true heart-friendship.