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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 29 July 2016
The brief prologue to Aelred of Rievaulx's De spirituali amicitia is written with a disarming simplicity that allows the reader to follow it and feel its charm the very first time he comes across it. Aelred invites his reader into the intimacy of his own early life and shares with him the experiences from which his reflections on friendship, and his book, were to grow. It is a confidence which he is sharing, one that he must have revealed to many of his friends, and the reader is made aware of the privilege from the very first line: ‘Cum adhuc puer essem in scholis ….’ Nothing holds an audience or a reading public like a story, as Aelred well knew; and if the story is of the speaker or writer, it is of double value: it is an invitation to relax in the presence of the storyteller, the friend. Aelred's instinct is unerring. He is a skilled communicator, he is confident of his audience, he knows himself, and he wants his public to know him. How many medieval books have such an appealing incipit as this one- or rather, how few? How many writers of that, or any, period have presented the emotional upheavals of adolescence with such clarity and compassion in a mere dozen lines? And how many writers on the very subject of friendship have scored their overture in such a masterly fashion? The direct Augustinian quality is there unmistakably from the very start of this work; much as it will indeed owe to Cicero, its first tones have the vibrant, experiential directness of the author of the Confessions, from whom the opening four words are drawn (Conf. 1.11.17).
1 A list of the MSS and editions of Aelred's works, together with a bibliography, is to be found in Hoste, A., Bibliotheca Aelrediana (Instrumenta Patristica II; Steenbrugge 1962). The De spirituali amicitia is critically edited in Hoste, A. and Talbot, C. H., Aelredi Rievallensis Opera omnia: I. Opera ascetica (CCCM I; Turnhout 1971) 287–350. J. Dubois presents a good text: Aelred de Rievaulx, L'Amitié spirituelle (Bibliothèque de spiritualité médiévale; Bruges-Paris 1948). Translations: Christian Friendship by St. Aelred of Rievaulx (tr. Talbot, H.; London 1942); Aelred of Rievaulx On Spiritual Friendship (Cistercian Fathers Series V tr. Laker, M. E.; Washington, D. C. 1974). A full bibliography on amicitia in Aelred would be very long; a useful chapter is to be found in Squire, A., Aelred of Rievaulx: A Study (London 1969). Among recent articles Mauro, L., ‘L'amicizia come compimento di umanità nel De spirituali amicitia di Aelredo di Rievaulx,’ Rivista di filosofia neo-scolastica 66 (1974) 89–103, is well worth reading. See also CCCM I xii and the studies by Courcelle, referred to in n. 23 below. — I wish to thank my colleague Mr. Timothy Lynch for reading a draft of this study and making valuable suggestions.Google Scholar
2 See the long entry in Blaise, A., Dictionnaire latin-français des auteurs du moyen-âge: Lexicon latinitatis medii aevi (CCCM; Turnhout 1975) 328b .Google Scholar
3 Cicero exclaims, in Laelius 6.15: ‘Quid dulcius quam habere quicum omnia audeas sic loqui ut tecum?’ An examination of the language of friendship in late Republican times reveals that ‘suavis,’ ‘dulcis,’ and ‘iucundus’ were standard epithets for friends and friendly relations, but that such expressions, like the relationships themselves, were likely to be, or to become, insincere, granted the well-established political overtones surrounding the notion of friendship. See further Brunt, P. A., ‘Amicitia in the late Roman Republic,’ Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society n.s II 191 (1965) 1–20 esp. 3–6.Google Scholar
4 The term ‘iucundus’ had a firm place in the traditional writings on friendship; see St. Ambrose, , De officiis 3.129: ‘Aperi pectus tuum amico, ut fidelis sit tibi et capias ex eo vitae tuae iucunditatem.’ The classical notion which lay behind this ‘joy of life,’ or fullness, was perhaps that of Ennius, which was developed by Cicero, , Laelius 6.22: ‘Principio qui potest esse “vita vitalis,” ut ait Ennius, quae non in amici mutua benevolentia conquiescit?’ Google Scholar
5 ‘utilius’: Aelred was of course aware that his sources expounded the classical theory of the three levels or kinds of friendship, repeated from Greek (ultimately Aristotelian) sources by Cicero, , Laelius 6.22 et passim: friendship may be based on utility, or pleasure, or may exist purely for its own sake. However, Aelred's emphasis falls on the inclusive nature of true friendship, which embraces all advantages precisely by transcending them. Hence he does not choose to oppose the three notes of friendship he enumerates here.Google Scholar
6 See Ps. 119.142 and John 14.6.Google Scholar
7 ‘volens … nec valens’: This contrast breathes the atmosphere of Augustine's doctrine of the will; cf. Conf. 4.7.12: ‘nec volebam nec valebam.’ Google Scholar
8 For a full and expert exegesis of this passage see Courcelle, P., Recherches sur les ‘Confessions’ de S. Augustin (nouv. éd.; Paris 1968) 55–60.Google Scholar
9 Augustine, , Contra academicos 1.3.7; 3.7.14; cf. Contra adversarium legis et prophetarum 1.24.52. For other places where Augustine mentions the Hortensius, see De beata vita 10; 22; 26; Contra Julianum 4.14.72; 4.15.78; 5.7.29; De Trinitate 13.4.7; 14.9.22; 14.19.26.Google Scholar
10 Peter Brown writes perspicaciously of the purpose of the Confessions: ‘He was entering middle age …. Since 391, he had been forced to adjust himself to a new existence, as a priest and bishop. This change had affected him deeply. It had already driven him to anxious self-examination…. The kind of life which Augustine had set himself to live in his prime would not last him into old age. He must base his future on a different view of himself; and how could he gain this view, except by reinterpreting just that part of his past that had culminated in the conversion, on which he had until recently placed such high hopes?’; see Brown, P., Augustine of Hippo: A Biography (London 1967) 463, also 163–64.Google Scholar
11 The bibliography on the ancient friendship-ideal is extensive, but all that is of value will be found in the book-list of Fraisse, J.-G., Philia: La notion d'amitié dans la philosophie antique: Essai sur un problème perdu et retrouvé (Paris 1974), a thorough and detailed study of the whole subject which has replaced Dugas, L., L'Amitié antique (Paris 19142). The best short survey of the Greek Freundschaftsideal that I have come across is in Gigon, O., Grundprobleme der antiken Philosophie (Bern-Munich 1959) 302–14: ‘Die menschliche Gemeinschaft.’ H.-I. Marrou has dedicated luminous pages to one aspect of the whole subject in his A History of Education in Antiquity (trs Lamb, G.; London 1956) ch. 3: ‘Pederasty in classical education.’ Google Scholar
12 Daniel, Walter, The Life of Ailred of Rievaulx (ed. and tr Powicke, M.; Oxford 1978).Google Scholar
13 On lectio divina and its place in the monastic life, see the remarks of Leclercq, J., The Love of Learning and the Desire for God (tr Misrahi, C.; New York 1977) ch. 1.Google Scholar
14 For further information on this opposition see Van Steenberghen, F., Introduction à l'étude de la philosophie médiévale (Philosophes médiévaux 18; Louvain–Paris 1974) 471ff. Google Scholar
15 See Dom, P. Antin's interesting article, ‘Autour du songe de S. Jérome,’ Revue des études latines 41 (1963) 350–77.Google Scholar
16 See Leclercq, J., op. cit. part II, ch. 7. Gilson has aptly remarked of the first generation of Cistercian writers, ‘They are stylists. Brought up in the school of Cicero and St. Augustine, they have renounced everything, save the art of good writing’; and of St. Bernard he writes, ‘Later on he was to recommend his novices to leave their bodies behind at the monastery gates and bring nothing inside but their minds. He had done the thing himself; but then, how much else had entered the monastery along with his mind! … above all, an unexpected guest slipped quietly in, insinuating himself by unforeseen ways into the very heart of mystical theology: Cicero’; see Gilson, É., The Mystical Theology of St. Bernard (tr Downes, A.H. C.; London 1940) 7f. Google Scholar
17 The table of quotations from Scripture printed by J. Dubois in his edition and translation of the De spirituali amicitia should be consulted: Aelred de Rievaulx: L'Amitié spirituelle 203ff.Google Scholar
18 The most compendious work on the theme of friendship in St. Augustine is by MacNamara, M. A. Sr., Friends and Friendship in St. Augustine (Studia Friburgensia; Fribourg 1958). More recent studies include the following: Monagle, J. F., ‘Friendship in St. Augustine's Biography,’ Augustinian Studies (Villanova) 2 (1971) 81–92; Lotz, J.-B., Die drei Stufen der Liebe (Frankfurt/Main 1971; tr. Pour aimer: Désir, amitié, charité, Paris 1974); Sage, A., La Vie religieuse selon St. Augustine (Paris 1972) ch. 3: ‘La vie fraternelle’; Heslinga, R. A., One Mind, One Heart: Augustinian Spirituality of the Religious Life (printed for the Augustinian Order 1973); Agostino di Ippona: L'amicizia Cristiana: Antologia dalle opere e altri testi di Ambrogio, Gerolamo e Paolino (Civiltà letteraria di Grecia e di Roma, Serie latina 31; Turin 1973); Pizzolato, L. F., ‘L'amicizia in Sant'Agostino e il Laelius di Cicerone,’ Vigiliae Christianae 28 (1974) 203–15; Van Bavel, A., Augustinus: Van Liefde en Vriendschap (Het Wereldvenster/Baarn: Theologische Monografieën, 1978). The pioneering study in this field was by Nolte, V., Augustins Freundschaftsideal in seinen Briefen (Würzburg 1939).Google Scholar
19 St. Ambrose, , De officiis 3.22 (PL 16.180c, 181a, 182a, 182c-183a).Google Scholar
20 St. Jerome, , Epistolae 3.6 (PL 22.335a).Google Scholar
21 The story is related by St. Ambrose in his De virginibus 2.4 (PL 16.224ff.).Google Scholar
22 On Paulinus, see Fabre, P., S. Paulin de Nole et l'amitié chrétienne (Paris 1949). John Cassian's Conference X VI De Amicitia is published in A Select Library of Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church N.S. 11.450–60.Google Scholar
23 This is perhaps a suitable opportunity to refer the reader to the other autobiographical passages in Aelred's works; I have not mentioned them thus far because they do not appear to shed any light on his life before his entry to the cloister. The third of the dialogues that make up the De amicitia spirituali closes with Aelred's reflections on the two closest friendships of his life. Simon, whose loss he laments in Speculum caritatis 1.34 (CCCM IV 56–65; tr. Talbot, , Christian Friendship appendix 119–29) was presumably one of these. The passage in his Regula which begins ‘I knew a monk …’ no doubt refers to his own early attempts at self-mastery through fierce ascetical practices; see the relevant passages in his De institutis inclusarum (SC 76; Paris 1961) and the Oratio pastoralis (SC 76; Paris 1961), where a brief description of the passions of adolescence recalls the language of Augustine in Conf. 2.1.1. P. Courcelle has studied all these passages and demonstrated their intimate dependence on the Confessions: ‘Aelred de Rievaulx à l'école des Confessions,’ Revue des études augustiniennes 3 (1957) 163–74; cf. his Les Confessions de S. Augustin dans la tradition littéraire: Antécédents et Postérité (Paris 1963) 291–301, where he points out that Aelred's narrative of his own conversion (Spec. car. 1.28) ‘pose le problème de la conversion dans les termes mêmes d'Augustin,’ and traces in detail the reminiscences of the scene in the Garden at Milan (Conf. 8.6.14ff.). Aelred's love of this book was common knowledge among his fellow-monks, and antedated his entry into the monastery, as Walter Daniel makes clear: he ‘generally had in his hand the Confessions of Augustine, for it was these that had been his guide when he was converted from the world’ (Life of Ailred ed. Powicke, 50). The Psalms, the Gospel of St. John, and the Confessions were the three books found in his cell after his death. Google Scholar
24 I am preparing a book on friendship-writings from the Greeks down to Renaissance times; it will include a long chapter on Aelred.Google Scholar
25 Pace Philippe Delhaye, who writes: ‘Son traité n'est qu'un décalque de celui de Cicéron. La plupart du temps les seules modifications qu'il apporte consistent à remplacer les exemples païens par d'autres empruntés à la Bible et à fonder sur les arguments scripturaires l'enseignement de Cicéron. Pour le reste, ses exposés personnels sont brefs’; see Delhaye, P., ‘Deux adaptations du De Amicitia de Cicéron au XIIe siècle,’ Recherches de théologie ancienne et médiévale 15 (1948) 304–31 at 307. J. Dubois (L'Amitié spirituelle xlviii) refers, with less exaggeration, to the Laelius as ‘le canevas unique sur lequel il [= Aelred] va broder’; but remarks with justice of Cicero, ‘lui aussi, il brode sur un canevas étranger,’ save that we cannot identify his source with certainty (possessing as we do only fragments of Panaetius).Google Scholar