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Making connections: the material expression of friendship in the New Testament.

Article Excerpt
Regarding friendship in the New Testament, this essay makes three kinds of connections. The first is the connection between the explicit and the implicit, between denotation and connotation. Although rarely discussed explicitly, friendship (philia) is actually a prominent theme in the canonical compositions. But to recognize its prominence, readers need to grasp the connections that ancient readers would automatically make when they heard certain words and phrases by placing the New Testament's language within the context of the ancient Greco-Roman topos on friendship.

The second connection is between what is said and what is done, between discourse and practice. Here, body language comes into play. The ancient ideal of friendship was not simply about sharing ideas or feelings. It involved the real sharing of life through specific practices. The New Testament shows us a range of such practices and how such koinonia was an ideal expression of friendship.

The third connection is the one that the first Christians formed among themselves on the basis of the material expression of friendship. They formed a web of associations involving shared beliefs, commitments, and practices critical to their survival as an intentional community in a hostile environment. Such associations enabled the early Christian communities to be recognized as remarkable realizations of the ancient ideal of a polis of persons that had an inner spirit of philia.

COMMON CONCEPTIONS OF FRIENDSHIP

Greco-Roman moral discourse frequently made use of rhetorical topoi when addressing a particular subject. The topos (literally, "place") is not a literary genre but a loose collection of associated thoughts clustered around a specific theme or "topic" that expressed, often in proverbs and maxims, the shared wisdom of the culture. These topoi could be gathered into anthologies to serve as repositories for the rhetorician, whether as speaker or as writer. We frequently find them woven into moral treatises. The same points are made concerning a vice like envy, for example, in moral discourses ranging from Plato through the Testament of Simeon through Plutarch to the sermons of Basil the Great. The whole point was the commonalty: they occasioned from the hearer or reader instant recognition and authority because of the shared cultural values they conveyed.

As clusters of associated thoughts, moreover, such topoi engendered associative thinking in the hearer or reader. The maxims and proverbs were so well-known that hearing half of one would trigger a memory of the remainder, just as in English, hearing "a stitch in time" immediately summons "saves nine." And likewise the reverse: reading an author's aside to "saving nine," we would catch an allusion to the proverb concerning "a stitch in time" and recognize, further, that the topic was prudence.

This associative character of Greco-Roman moral discourse through the use of topoi is critical to our ability to recognize the theme of friendship in the New Testament, for if we look only at the explicit occurrence of the term, we find little evidence of its presence. The noun philia ("friendship") occurs only in James 4:4. The verb philein ("to be friends with") tends to be used in rough equivalence with agapan. (1) Should we then conclude that friendship was not an important aspect of early Christian self-understanding, or that Christians rejected the Greco-Roman ideal in favor of a different understanding of love? Such conclusions based on the incidence of explicit terms would be premature for two reasons. The first is the intriguing evidence that at least some Christians referred to each other as "friends." (2) The second is that the presence of common conceptions about friendship shows that friendship is a pervasive theme in the New Testament even when the term itself is not used. The themes commonly associated with friendship occur so frequently that ancient readers or hearers would have understood them within that context.

It would have odd, in fact, if the language of friendship had not been part of the earliest Christian lexicon. The topos on friendship (peri philias) contained Greco-Roman culture's best thought concerning humans in intentional relationships. The ideals of friendship came into play at all societal levels: within the bond of the family in the natural kinship system, within an association of like-minded individuals, within the internal life of the polis, and within the harmonious relations between city--states. From Plato and Aristotle through Cicero and Seneca to Dio Chrysostom and Plutarch, we find the same conceptions and connections. Friends are one soul (mia psyche). The friend is another self (ho philos allos autos). Friends are in harmony (homonoia) and have the same opinion (gnome). Friendship is fellowship (philia koinonia) and "life together" (symbios). Therefore, friends are "partners" (koinonoi), hold all things in common (tois philois panta koina), and "being of one accord" (epi to auto). Like brothers in a family, friends are in a relationship of equality and reciprocity (philotes isotes); a model for friendship is therefore found in the mutuality of brothers (philadelphia). Cicero's definition is classic: "Friendship is nothing else than an accord in all things, human and divine, conjoined with mutual goodwill and affection" (de amicitia 6.20).

The ancient ideal of friendship was not simply a matter of acquaintance or even casual affection. It involved a serious and mutual commitment of mind and resources. Three aspects in particular were stressed. The first is that friendship involves unity and equality, which is often expressed in terms of reciprocity. The second is that friendship is inclusive. It is not simply a matter of sharing the same vision. It extends to the full sharing of all things, spiritual and material. Here is where body language is significant: true friendship means active participation, sharing, and help between partners. The third is that friendship involves genuine obligation. This is wonderfully expressed in Jesus' brief example:

Which of you who has a friend will go to him at midnight and say to him, 'Friend, lend me three loaves; for a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, and I have nothing to set before him'; and he will answer from within, 'Do not bother me; the door is now shut, and...