... For continual absence from your cell is harmful. It deprives you of the grace of stillness, darkens your mind, withers your longing for God.
Evagrios the Solitary, “Outline Teaching on Asceticism and Stillness in the Solitary Life,” The Philokalia: The Complete Text (Vol. 1), p. 34.
A true friendship, what Aristotle calls a virtuous friendship, fosters in us not simply the “grace of stillness” (that is, peace) but illumines rather than “darkens” our use of reason and enflames rather than “withers [our] longing for God.” Friendship, in the fullest sense of the word, is a school for charity through which I gain accurate self-knowledge as well as a deeper commitment to Christ.
But where can those who are not monastics turn to understand what—in a practical sense—it means to be a friend? Where can the spiritual father or mother point their spiritual children to how to be and have a friend?
For the solitary, this means his friendships with other monks encourage him to remain in his cell, to guard his intellect, and to desire God above all else. For the priest, a true friendship, fosters fidelity to the demands of his office. But where can those who are not monastics turn to understand what—in a practical sense—it means to be a friend? Where can the spiritual father or mother point their spiritual children to how to be and have a friend?
Marriage: The Model of Christian Friendship
I ask you to consider that the best, everyday example of friendship is not to be found in monastic life, central though it is to the life of the Church, but marriage. It is the everyday, often overlooked and undervalued fidelity of husband and wife that we see most clearly what it means to be a friend in Christ. We see in the day-to-day struggles of conjugal friendship what it means to live in lifelong fidelity to the divine “commandments in a pure heart,” to walk together in “peace, performing in righteousness the commandments of God,” and of keeping to “the paths of the Law” they live a life well-pleasing to God.1
All of this is first revealed to us in the creation of the Man and the Woman:
And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.” Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.
And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.
And Adam said:
“This is now bone of my bones
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman,
Because she was taken out of Man.”Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed (Genesis 2:18-25).
For the married person, friendship is found first and foremost in the face of this spouse. Any friendship that distracts—or worse, undermines—conjugal friendship is a (to borrow from Aristotle) friendship of thieves. This is why, painful though it can be, the young couple must leave “father and mother” and join each other to create a new community.
What the solitary discovers alone in his cell—that communion requires separation—the married couple discover together, in their home.
What the solitary discovers alone in his cell—that communion requires separation—the married couple discover together, in their home. Addtionally, the solitary’s fidelity to his cell is the fruit of fidelity of his parents and this even this founding, parental faithfulness was imperfect or failed. Conjugal fidelity is the touchstone for not only the monastic’s own fidelity to his monastic vocation but for all Christian vocations.
Shortly before honoring us with the name of “friend,” (John 15:15) Jesus us this:
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another (John13:34-35).
It is precisely our love of each other, that is friendship with all its risks and costs, that forms the heart so that it can respond positively and sacrificially to the command to love one another.
The Necessary Risk of Friendship
The developmental psychologist Erik Erikson is helpful for the spiritual father or mother looking to understand the role of friendship in our life in Christ. Like Evagrios, Erikson sees friendship as important to human growth and development. But, and again like Evagrios, he also understands that friendship is not an unalloyed good but can entail significant moral risks.
Young people can also be remarkably clannish, and cruel in their exclusion of all those who are ‘different,’ in skin color or cultural background, in tastes and gifts, and often in such petty aspects of dress and gesture as have been temporarily selected as the signs of an in-grouper or an out-grouper.
Nevertheless, “It is important to understand (which does not means condone or participate in) such intolerance as a defense against a sense of identity confusion.” he goes on to say that
For adolescents not only help one another temporarily through much discomfort by forming cliques and stereotyping themselves, their ideals, and their enemies; they also perversely test each other’s capacity to pledge fidelity. The readiness for such testing also explains the appeal which simple and cruel totalitarian doctrines have on the minds of the youth of such countries and classes as have lost or are losing their group identities (feudal, agrarian, tribal, national) and face world-wide industrialization, emancipation, and wider communication.2
Feeling overwhelmed by his own internal conflicts and insecurity in himself, the adolescent looks to his peers to bolster his fragile sense of self. Depending on how this is done and the moral character of the peers and his relationship with them, this can as easily be a source of virtue or vice, of self-knowledge or indifference to the teen’s own inner life.
Complicating our moral calculus and pastoral practice, however, is the anthropological fact, as Solzhenitsyn writes, that “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts.” Moreover, this “line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained.” Harder still for us is that “even in the best of all hearts there remains ... an unuprooted corner of evil.”
Evagrios is mindful of that small, “unuprooted corner of evil.” This is why (like the desert fathers), he warns his readers not to abandon their cells. To do so, he says, is “deprives” the monk “of the grace of stillness.” In quick succession the monks are told that having lost inner quiet they will also suffer the darkening of the mind and a “wither[ing]” of the desire for God.
For good or ill—and indeed often for both—friendship is the crucible in which we discover what it means to be faithful not only to others but to projects and—maybe most importantly of all—ourselves. Along the way, I will hurt others and be hurt by them. Likewise, whether well-conceived or spontaneous I will suffer the pain of failed plans and unrealized dreams. Most painful or all, I will harm myself. This might happen because I fail in my commitments. But just as easily, I might seek to cement my friendship by intentionally hurting a third party or by abandoning my own mostly deeply held values.
Stepping back, as Erikson’s mention of “totalitarian doctrine” makes clear, it isn’t simply the adolescent who will build a friendship on the foundation of betrayal. While friendship is essentially both to my healthy psychological development and my life in Christ, it can also be a source of serious temptations.
Friendship helps me learn about myself; it is a source of consolation in times of sorrow and strength in times of temptation. But it can just as easily be a source of temptation, sorrow, and callous indifference to my own inner life
Seen in this light, Evagrios’s counsel that the monk avoid “continual absence” is prudent. Yes, I need other people. Friendship helps me learn about myself; it is a source of consolation in times of sorrow and strength in times of temptation. But it can just as easily be a source of temptation, sorrow, and callous indifference to my own inner life. None of these benefits or challenges are absent from marriage which is why the spiritual father or mother should look to marriage to understand what it means to be a friend.
“The Service of Marriage - Liturgical Texts of the Orthodox Church,” www.goarch.org, accessed January 3, 2024, https://www.goarch.org/-/the-service-of-the-crowning-the-service-of-marriage.
Erik Erikson, “Eight Ages of Man,” International Journal of Psychiatry 2, no. 3 (1966): 290.
Insightful essay.