Spiritual friendship in the writings of St. Aelred.

Introduction

 My first experience as a Bernardine with Aelred wasn’t not very positive!  But here I am a convert talking to you on Aelred and you know that converts can go overboard in their devotion sometimes, fortunately the time limit will force me to stop lest I do a St. Paul and bore you to tears and you fall asleep!  Why was it not positive?

1.      My first novitiate after 36 hours as a postulant was on St. Bernard’s 19th sermon on the Songs of Songs.  All I remembered was that it was all about kissing and you know how I run a mile from that sort of thing!!  I thought if this is Cistercian Father, I am not that interested!  When I heard that St. Aelred was regarded as a Bernard of the North, I thought, no thanks! 

2.      Secondly, in my misconceived ignorance as a staunch Lancastrian I though anything East of the Pennines was Yorkshire and like Nathaniel in the Gospel, “Can anything good come from that place”?  However Northumberland may be a cut above Yorkshire so once I overcame that prejudice I started to read Aelred. So as proof of the active hope that we can all become converted by living the monastic life, even misguided Lancastrians, Aelred has been a continued source of inspiration in my Bernardine life.

 

Thomas Merton in the introduction to Amédeé Hallier’s “Monastic Theology of St Aelred” states, “Christian life is for St. Aelred, simply the full flowering of freedom and consent in the perfection of friendship, friendship with other human beings as an epiphany of friendship with God.”

Aelred writes “How good it is for brethren to dwell together in unity[1]  which shows the basic theme running through his life, a search for relationships which ultimately lead to Christ. 

I think what interested me in looking at this topic was the popularity of the idea of spiritual friendship in the writings of the 11th and 12th century.  I’ve identified 5 possible reasons, which in are in no way a definitive list, or in order of importance and obviously they are linked in many ways.  These include:

1.     Growth of letter writing at this time – It is a shame that none of Aelred’s letters have survived.[2] 

2.     This coincided with a new fire in the church with a rise of new monastic movements and orders of Canons which helped to give rise to spiritual friendships and a rise in an experience or even a growth in a theology of relationships.  The Gregorian reform of the 11th century and the 12th renaissance opened up a whole new area of literary debate and discussion.

3.     The interest in a deeper quality of spiritual life for the individual and the impact this would have had on the life of the communities.

4.     The influence of St Anselm in particular and his use of the language of friendship in his theology and his writings.

5.     A changing society where people were becoming more mobile and a need to make links when the old life was left behind.  Rather like society today one could say.  This is obviously linked to the earlier points and has to refer to the upper levels and more literate levels of religious and secular society. 

 Sources and Influences

 As a young man he had been greatly affected by Cicero’s treatise ‘On Friendship’ and he adapts this teaching in the light of Scripture and the teaching of the Early Church Fathers.  He was possibly acquainted with the text whilst being educated at Hexham or at Roxborough whilst at the Court of Scotland.  Cicero’s treatise reflects classical concepts of friendship in the ancient world.  For aristocratic Roman and Greek males, friendship was the glue that bound men together, united societies and the polis, the city state, and the world also.  This can be seen especially in Aristotle’s work “Nichomachean Ethics” and Cicero’s “De amicitia”.  Aristotle or possibly his pupil Theophrasus wrote “Friendship seems to hold states together.”[3]

Aelred in his Prologue talks about the impact on Cicero’s book. “At length there came into my hands the treatise which Tullius wrote on friendship...”[4] One third of his book is found in Aelred’s book and it has a similar threefold structure:

a)     Origin and essence of friendship

b)    Utility  and limits of friendship

c)     Random practical difficulties

In De amicitia Cicero defines friendship as “Agreement on matters human and divine, with charity and good will.”[5]  He follows the practice of Ciceronian dialogue, where Aelred answers questions posed by other speakers. 

There is reference to friendship in the Patristic writings.  Some of the earliest monastic authors convey a distinct ambivalence towards the value of friendship, especially the danger of “particular friendships”. Cassian focuses on the dangers that friendship can bring in community life, especially distractions and anger which lead the monk astray from the pure love of God.  Paulinus of Nola wrote verses to his friend Ausonius while Augustine in his Confessions 6:6-10 celebrates the joy of friendship and the benefits it can bring.  Augustine seems to have had a less positive view than Aelred as he also sees it as a cause of pain and being distracted a from God.  Gregory the Great referred to the concept of a friend as “custos animi”, a friend as a guardian of the soul.  I suppose that would be similar to the Celtic idea of ‘anam cara’, or soul friend.  He refers to 3 elements of friendship:

1.     Responsibility for the person’s well being and their salvation

2.     Knowledge of interior life

3.     Spiritual dimension to the relationship

 

Yet there was also a strong undercurrent of suspicion of friendships. This can be seen in the writings of the desert fathers, especially in Pachomius’ Rule and in Benedict’s insistence on silence, no muttering, fractions etc in the community.  Some of the monastic development did not allow that freedom or encourage an atmosphere where friendships could develop, possibly due to a concern with temptation and sin as well as a fear of homosexual activity as well.

 

Jean Leclerq shows us that there was a very strong popular genre of letter writing on the subject of friendship either as a practical scholarly activity or as a development of theology that began to show how human relationships can reflect the love of God.  Anselm’s writings also may have had an impact on Aelred.  He wrote many letters to friends and promoted the ideal of monastic friendship.  While at Bec, Anselm wrote his “Prayer for Friends[6]”.  For Anselm, what was important was not the personal affection between one monk and another, but the state of loving within a monastic community and the fact of living a good life, leading to God.  Christ became the cornerstone of community life and friendship within community.  In Anselm’s writings, as in the writings of Aelred, saints are addressed as friends.  The other major influence on Spiritual Friendship was of course Scripture, and I’ll refer to that briefly in a separate section. 

Structure and composition.

Aelred’s idea on friendship can be found in many of his books, especially in the Mirror of Charity and Spiritual Friendship.  In the Mirror of Charity Aelred wrote on the love of God and humanity, showing the beginnings of his ideas on friendship and his love and humour. This is especially seen in the closing chapters of 2: 23 – 70.  It contains three main sections:

a)     The nature of charity.

b)    Replies to objections of complainers.

c)     Discernment required in the practise of charity.

 Some of the main themes would include a theology of community, humanity as capax dei, the capacity to know and love God and each other.  I mention this briefly as it is important to understand that his theology of friendship can’t be separated from his theology of love and charity.  Aelred's deep knowledge of Scripture, his joy in his brethren, and his love of Christ shine from every page. Because the divine nature is love, as the Bible tells us, directing our love to God-love conforms us to the image of God that has been lost through sin. All love, to Aelred, is a participation in God-love and leads us to God. "The Mirror of Charity," written at the beginning of his monastic life, and "Spiritual Friendship," written near its end, form a set. Together they demonstrate both the consistency of his teaching and his unswerving love of God in Christ.

 The book on Spiritual Friendship seems to have been begun after his election as abbot in 1147.  It is set somewhere in a monastery dependent on Rievaulx, probably Wardon.  The text seems to indicate this by Ivo’s speech in Book 1

“As often as you visit your sons here...”[7] One of the speakers is Ivo of Wardon who was a close friend of Aelred.  Aelred dedicated his treatise on Jesus’ at the age of 12 to him.  The book took a series of years to write, possibly because of the demands as abbot, also because of his continuing experience. I think what comes through from this book is his understanding of human experience and his own natural wisdom.  This was not an experience borne from a school education, or philosophical wisdom as he came from a fairly backward part of the world!  He had a gift for friendships and a love that was gentle and kind, not the fire and passion of Bernard, but nevertheless leaving just as strong a love on the people around him.  The important thing in the eyes of Aelred was that human friendships were good because they led to God.  The third part of the Mirror of Charity had been on the principles that lay behind friendship.  Spiritual Friendship develops this and it is divided into 3 sections:

 

a)     The nature and origin of friendship

b)    Vindication of its value – fruition and excellence

c)     The practice of friendship – Conditions and characters requisite for unbroken friendship.

 

It takes the shape of vivid and intimate dialogue.  The first part seems to take place at Wardon, where Ivo, one of the speakers, lived.  The second part was written after a lapse of time and two new characters have been introduced, Gratian and Walter Daniel.  The third section has Aelred responding to the more practical and immediate concerns of his questioners.  He ends the book by tying up loose ends and with a personal reflection on his own experience of friendship.  It was written after a lifetime of practical experience as an Abbot, a leader of men and a wise pastoral experience.  The book reflects Aelred’s personal understanding of friendship, his quest to deepen his knowledge and help others to do the same, always rooted in love, love of God.

 

Biblical models

I will mention a few general points.

 Virtually every page of his book has a biblical quote or more frequently an allusion to Scripture.   He replaced Cicero’s classical references with biblical examples.  The idea of God as friendship is a variation of John’s idea of God as love.  Aelred looks at friendship from the divine perspective; it flows from God, an outpouring of love for his creation and for his creature.  For Aelred, friendship may be understood as a willingness to lay down one’s life for another, as in John[8] or as in James, putting friendship with Christ before friendship with the world.[9]  He also refers to Matthew 18:30 “where two or three are gathered in my name there am I” and the harmony of the early Christians as an example of how the brethren should be one in heart and soul from Acts 4.  For him, friendship was a natural aspect of human behaviour and he also uses OT examples to illustrate this point.  In particular, the friendship of David and Jonathan is referred to in 2:63 and £:92 - 95.  We can see the influence of ideas in the Wisdom books, especially Proverbs 17:17, but there are several references to other sections in Ecclesiastes and Wisdom. 

Theology of Friendship

We can see from the ‘Mirror of Charity’ how enthusiastic Aelred was about friendship even at the beginning of his monastic journey.[10]  Also, Aelred writes in Book 2 of Spiritual Friendship “I call them more beasts than men, who say life should be led so that they need not console anyone nor occasion distress or sorrow to anyone, who take no pleasure in the good of another nor expect their failures to distress others, seeking to love no-one and be loved by none.” [11]

For Aelred love has three parts:

a)     Attraction – this is the natural impression made on our mind.

b)    Intention – this is the inclination after the decision has been made to act on the attraction.

c)     Fruition – this is the result of our decision to act upon our attraction.

 

He is aware that original sin cannot be avoided if we decide to follow up sinful or wrongful inclinations.  The result of this would be wrongful fruition.  This becomes cupidity, not love. We will be only able to love with perfect freedom in heaven.  We have to discipline our will if our natural attraction is at fault.  Imperfect human love can begin to be perfected by placing Christ at the centre of friendship.  Friendship needs to be tested to avoid being corrupted.  For Aelred there is no conflict in loving friends and in loving God as all love is one and has its course in God.  Rather, it is necessary to love our neighbours if we are to love God fully.  (It is not an added extra to love our community! Cf. Mark Epraim during the 2006 retreat, “If we do not love our brothers and sisters, we are not living the paschal mystery!”)  All are called to charity but that is not the same as friendship, it doesn’t mean we have to be friends with everyone in community. Cupidity is divisive according to Aelred but true love and friendship unites and builds up community. 

 

In Aelred’s work friendship formed a major part of monastic life and was an indispensable step on the path to God.  Monastic friendship is a most noble form of charity.  Jesus transformed friendship by assuming human form and being friends with his disciples.  5 times in his work he states that spiritual friendship leads us to God. I think this book can be seen as a distillation of Aelred’s life experience into a set of rules for friendship and a safeguard for monks who wanted to integrate everything in their lives into the love of God.  Aelred was a man of his time who followed the Cistercian school’s emphasis on experience; he looked within himself and recorded what he found within.  Brain McGuire writes in his book[12]

“In seeking friends and friendships, medieval men and women sought self –knowledge, the enjoyment of life, the commitment of community, and the experience of God. In such people we find ourselves.” 

 

Trinitarian nature of love and relationship

Really Aelred should be known as the Doctor of Spiritual love. He knew how to love and be loved.  Love it is that makes him capable of union with God and therefore love restores the image and likeness of humanity to love.  This capacity to love is explored more in the Trinitarian relationship in Book I of the Mirror of Charity.  Humanity is not meant to love alone.  But love of self is also important because according to Aelred, my friend is another self whom I must love as myself.  If we can’t love ourselves, warts and all, we are not capable of loving others fully!  In his sermons on Pentecost he refers to the idea of God being infinitely happy, yet in his happiness he willed all beings to Trinitarian happiness.  God wanted us to have friendship so that we may be true images of Himself. 

In his Letter to Gilbert, Bishop of London, he writes “Love, caring only for unity of nature, so unites things of one nature that they become one heart and one soul.” [13] and “Outside Christ, true friendship is impossible.”[14]  Of course in today’s multicultural and pluralistic society this statement raises huge issues today! This Trinitarian concept of relationship was not unique to Aelred and Richard of St Victor continued this idea later in the 12th century.   

 

False friendship

Cicero had used the idea of friendship incorporating good will and charity.  By good will, Aelred understood Cicero to mean a rational and voluntary choice to benefit someone.  By charity, he understood enjoyment of the natural affection toward someone. (Cf. Spiritual Friendship 1:18 – 21) Cicero understood that friendship could involve doing immoral acts for the sake of friendship. Not so Aelred, who parts company with Cicero’s definition and develops an idea of false friendship into 2 categories:

1.     Carnal pleasure – those satisfied with staying at the physical level and acting upon wrongful desires.

2.     Material gain – offends charity as material things are not the whole sum of the individual.

 

True friendships contain good will and aren’t there for material gain. There must be a consensus on the human and divine level.  God has built a need for love into our nature and even bad people need friends.  Aelred suggests that the friendship of bad people is not true friendship however. 

 

Question?

What are the moral limits of friendship, of ‘good will’? Aelred doesn’t answer this fully but Aelred goes back to the example of Jesus in the Gospel, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”[15] There is no limit to friendship if it is rooted in the love of Christ.  Therefore immoral acts cannot be part of friendship as friendship is only possible between those who reject sin and greed.  Gratian objects in Book II that true friendship must be possible for only an heroic few but Aelred disagrees. ( 2:43 – 44 gives Aelred’s reply) It is available he suggests for all who seek it humbly.  God in one sense has built love into out nature so that even bad people search for friendship.  Book III specifically addresses the question of making and keeping friends even with difficult characters.  All are capable of true friendship.  Book III 17 – 20 and 33 – 38 refers to his own experience on this topic. 

 How can friendship break down?

In Book III 23 – 26 he refers to the question of how relationships go wrong. He answers by referring to the conditions in Sirach 22:25 – 27.

1.     Insult

2.     Betrayal

3.     Arrogance

4.     Betrayal of secrets

5.     Stab in the back

6.     Harm done to anyone for whom we have responsibility (Aelred’s addition)

 He disagrees with Jerome’s idea that friendship that ends was never genuine. [16] He also suggests that even if friendship ends, we still have a responsibility to love them and pray for that former friend. 

 Sexuality within friendship?

He addresses this in several areas if not explicitly.  He is certainly aware of the dangers of sexuality within intimate relationships.  He talks about the carnal aspects of relationships: I, I:38 – 41, II:57 – 58.   Relationship begin on a carnal level, sensual, that can lead to mutual harm in vice, they can be worldly, and focus on material gain for example.  But they can lead to the spiritual level of friendship.  It is the monk’s (and nuns!) responsibility to ensure it stays on a spiritual level. I found reference to his own experience in his “Letter to a Recluse”, the Rule he wrote for his sister.  He talks about a “cloud of lust, gushing up of puberty...” in his advice to his sister on keeping her purity.  It seems to imply that he had not.  I think perhaps for Aelred the physical aspects of homosexual or heterosexual activity were less important than the fire of desire that could consume an individual.  He condemns the act of homosexuality in Chapter 15 of the letter to his sister.  I think he believed that this desire or attraction towards to others, if properly channelled, could help monks to be spiritually closer to God and to others.  Like Bernard and other Cistercians he uses the imagery of the Song of Songs and the kiss imagery in chapter 1 especially to express the spiritual ties between God and humanity and people to one another.  (Having said I wasn’t keen on the kissing bit, this will be just a brief mention!)

For him the kiss had three aspects:

a)     Physical – represented bodily contact of lips.

b)    Spiritual kiss – indicated the joining of the spirits.

c)     Intellectual – arises from the unity of the spirit when grace is poured into the soul through the grace of God.

 

Examples of his friendship

 If the basis of the theology of friendship in Aelred’s writings was lived out in his own life especially, for me it reflects his inclination to love and to be loved. For Aelred this search for love is a reflection of the Divine love I think that he yearned for all his life.  This love can go badly wrong as Aelred is well aware of; it can be frustrated, twisted, inward looking, neurotic and even dangerous, but in its purest form it is directed toward Christ.  It is Christ alone, according to Aelred who gives us the gift of community and friendship.  Christ who heals our impure and untrue inclinations.  Yet Aelred made friends wherever he went and no other Cistercian writer dared to describe such a vivid picture of his own relationships.  In the Mirror of Charity 1:98 he laments the death of a friend, and throughout his writings friendship is never very far away.  Fr. Michael Casey commented in his talks in April on how Aelred refers to the saints almost as friends in his sermons at times even.

 The first ones we hear about are at the court of King David of Scotland where he befriended Waldef, the stepson of the king.  In the Mirror of Charity 1:79 he refers to his friendships at court.  He also seems to be have been disturbed by the extreme nature of his feelings at times, though it is hard to tell whether this is following a literary device based on St Augustine’s ‘Confessions’ or Walter Daniel’s hagiographical style where the faults of youth were exaggerated.  Possibly he coped with the dangers of sexual feelings by finding in his vocation the capacity for spiritual friendships.  Capable of great love, he didn’t let the monastic vocation inhibit his emotional freedom and he seemed aware of the danger of any sexual element in friendships and trusted his monks to do the same. 

 During his time as a novice he made a firm circle of friends, 2 we hear about particularly, Simon, and an older monk Hugh.  Simon in particular made a great impression on him.  Attractive in every way, sensitive, attentive and affectionate, this description of Simon could easily be applied to Aelred.  If the order was silent how did they communicate so much to each other? Possibly it was through non verbal communication or perhaps it wasn’t as strict as in the beginning of the Order.  Perhaps this attraction taught him a valuable lesson, that relationships that start off as a mutual attraction, ‘carnal’ as he called it, have a use if they later lead to spiritual friendship.  Friendship “may, with purer affections, mount to loftier heights.” Then as a young Novice master he met Bernard.  He also made friends with a Gerard, not Bernard’s brother, while on his visit to Clairvaux.  Another close friend was Walter Daniel who was his Infirmarian as well as the chronicler of his life.  Ivo of Wardon was another friend, mentioned in his book I of ‘Spiritual Friendship’, and to whom “Jesus at Twelve Years old” was dedicated. 

 One of the things that really interested me was his friendship with three Gilberts.  One of these was Gilbert of Sempringham, one of the few English founders of an Order.  Influenced by Aelred he wanted to assimilate his Order into the Cistercians but was turned down as it was a double Order.  Another was Gilbert of Hoyland whose sermon on the death on Aelred I think is one of the loveliest sermons by any Cistercian.  Gilbert, like Aelred thought that through prayer the abbot comes to understand the needs of the monks, learns to understand to have compassion on their weaknesses etc.[17]  Possibly this view was influenced by Aelred’s Pastoral Prayer, where Aelred turns to prayer to help him govern and guide such a large community.  The third Gilbert was Bishop Gilbert Foliot, an archenemy of Thomas à Beckett to whom Aelred dedicated his sermons on the ‘Burdens of Isaiah’

 Relevance for today

 What could an obscure twelfth century monk teach us 21st century Christians about relationships today? Aelred does have something to say to us who set such high value today on relating easily.  He also speaks to those who probe the human need for intimacy, for deep human relationships based on self-disclosure and mutual acceptance, because he provides us with a Christo-centric view of these relationships.  So what was originally written for monastics in the twelfth century could be utilised today to help us come to a Christian understanding of how to relate to each other. 

I think his idea that human friendship is especially important for us as we look at what the school of charity means for us today, because of the idea that human friendships lead to God.  It is in each other that we meet God’s love, Aelred is saying to us today.   He didn’t always choose the best, or the holiest as friends but showed his compassion for the weak and possibly temperamental members of the community.  Neither was he the strongest or the best himself. That, I think, should give us hope too, that we don’t always have to strive to be the best, or the most prayerful or the most holy.  We just have to be ourselves!

 In Christian friendship each one shares, each listens, each gives and receives; it is an adult relationship.  He emphasises the equality of those involved in a spiritual relationship and the responsibility of each for how it develops, matures and its depths, because that the response we encounter in these relationships is a microcosmic image of what we shall discover eternally in God.

 “He was a man whose love was great enough to prove that greatness does not need to be brutal, and that to be a saint, one does not have to despise human affections.”[18] He made room for friends who spoke their mind, never tried to please him just because he was Abbot and accepted him also for who he was. Spiritual friendship can grow in crisis and challenge.  Aelred understood that we are all difficult in some ways but all capable of being friends with God and each other.  Developing understanding of the other leads to acceptance and a growth in love.   All this takes place in the love of Christ that embraces true friendship.  Friendship can turn sour, can lead to physical desire and sin, fractions can arise in community, even jealousy and hatred. Yet Aelred thinks it is all worth it as a way of embracing Christ and leading us to the one eternal friendship with Christ in heaven.  To conclude in his own words:

“...We shall rejoice in the eternal possession of supreme goodness; and this friendship, to which here we admit but few, will be outpoured upon all and by all outpoured upon God and God shall be all in all.” [19]

 

 


[1] Book 3:82 Aelred Spiritual Friendship

[2] Brian McGuire - Spiritual Friendships, chapter 6 The Age of Friendship pg. 231ff.

 

[3] Aristotle - Nichomacbean Ethics 1155a

[4] Spiritual Friendship – Prologue 2

[5]6:20

[6] St Anselm  - Prayer for Friends cf. Monastic Studies 3 pgs. 235 - 236

[7] Book 1:4 Spiritual Friendship  - Ivo’s response to Aelred

[8] John 15:12 – 17

[9] James 4:4

[10] Cf. II:36, book 3; 22-72, 107-113 approximately

[11] Book 2:10

[12] Introduction pg. l Friendship and Community  - The Monastic experience 350 – 1250

[13] Letter to Gilbert

[14] Ibid.

[15] John 15:13

[16] Jerome Letter 3:6 “A friendship which can cease to be was never genuine.”

[17] Sermon xiv Canticles

[18] Douglas Roby pg. 14 Introduction to Spiritual Friendship 

[19] Spiritual Friendship Book 3.134