Epictetus on Friendship 10

. . . And let every man among you who has seriously resolved either to be a friend himself or to have another for his friend, cut out these opinions, hate them, drive them from his soul.

And thus, first of all, he will not reproach himself, he will not be at variance with himself, will not change his mind, he will not torture himself.

In the next place, to another also, who is like himself, he will be altogether and completely a friend.

But he will bear with the man who is unlike himself, he will be kind to him, gentle, ready to pardon on account of his ignorance, on account of his being mistaken in things of the greatest importance; but he will be harsh to no man, being well convinced of Plato's doctrine that every mind is deprived of truth unwillingly.

 If you cannot do this, yet you can do in all other respects as friends do, drink together, and lodge together, and sail together, and you may be born of the same parents, for snakes also are: but neither will they be friends nor you, so long as you retain these bestial and cursed opinions.

—Epictetus, Discourses 2.22, tr Long

Those bestial and cursed opinions are nothing else than the assumption that we measure ourselves, and others, by the externals. As soon as I add my own conditions and requirements to friendship, then I am no longer a friend. 

I will love you, but only if you are kind to me. I will love you, but only if you make me laugh or are still attractive. I will love you, but only if it does not conflict with my career, or with what I want, or with what is useful to me.

The only thing ’useful’ to any of us, of course, is really just the excellence of our own character. No other person needs to be merely employed or discarded in order to achieve this.

Perhaps some of us may nod in agreement, but I find that few of us will follow through in practice. It might now be quite easy for me to reject and cast aside all of those who live and act differently. After all, their very values, which depend upon circumstances and not upon the content, make it impossible for them to know or practice true friendship.

And if I were to do such a thing, I would be absolutely no better. Only an honest, loving, and virtuous man can be a friend. But I must still show justice, charity and understanding even to the man that cannot be a friend. If I were to do otherwise, I am hardly practicing virtue myself.

One of the most difficult things in life, I have found, is to show love to those who will not love us in return. This is one of the greatest tests of character, because as soon as I meet hate with hate, I have become the very opposite of what I intend to be. I will have become the very thing that I condemn.

You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.”

But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

For if you love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?

And if you salute only your brethren, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.

Love and friendship are never in the receiving, but in the giving. This conforms with the Stoic ideal that a man is measured by what he does, and never by what is done to him.

 Written on 2/2002

Image: Hermann Kern, "Good Friends" (1904)