Here Friendship Ends
In his dialogue on friendship, Cicero’s main character, Laelius, recounts a moment in a then-new play written by a guest and friend of his. In this play are two friends. One of them, Orestes, is condemned to death. The king, however, cannot carry out the sentence at once, because he does not know which of the two is Orestes. He therefore demands that Orestes step forward, but this does not work. Both of the friends arose at once, each declaring, “I am Orestes!”
What was going on? Pylades, Orestes’ friend, did not want his friend to die, and so he stepped forward in an attempt to die in his friend’s place.
Orestes, intuitively knowing his friend would try to do that, pushes himself forward, because he does not want his friend to die.
In short, each of them would lay down his life for his friend. Laelius reports that when this happened in the play, “The people in the audience rose to their feet and cheered.” Although the audience, he laments, would lack the courage actually to imitate this selflessness in their own lives, nonetheless nature in them “asserted her own power” as they approved what they saw performed in drama as human greatness precisely in friendship. (See Cicero, Laelius de amicitiavii.24).
---
The willingness to lay down one’s life for one’s friend is exemplified not in a theater-play but in real life by Jesus. He in fact interpreted in advance his crucifixion as just that: laying down his life for his friends. (See John 15.)
---
We take on many people as “friends,” starting with that click on the Social Network. It doesn’t mean much. But don’t be deceived: the end of growing in friendship with other people is to be willing to die in their place. Friendship in that sense is inherently substitutionary.
In the medium-range, where friendship is more than F*book but less than death, we know this is true. A friend will take you to your day-surgery and bring you home. A friend will come and help if your car breaks down. A friend will talk with you about things that are on your heart. And, in each case, conversely: you will do those things for your friends.
The name the Quakers give themselves is the name that really belongs to any church, or indeed any society. We are, or are meant to be, a society of friends.
---
Out & About. This Sunday, May 9, I am to preach at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Dallas: at 8 a.m. indoors, and at 10:30 a.m. on the lawn. These services are open to all without registration; at 10:30, bring a lawn chair or blanket.
If you don’t yet have a copy of Friendship: The Heart of Being Human, and you can’t get it at your local bookstore, it is available at Behemoth and also Christianbook.com, bn.com, etc.