Stewart 1

Maggie Stewart
Dr. Hughes
1 March 2015
Aristotle and Augustine on Friendship
Friendship is an essential part of human life; while many people aspire to gain popularity
and a wide assortment of friends, boundaries between the natures of different friendships are
important so that each person can invest in and develop the few friendships that will truly help
him or her to grow in virtue. Despite their different purposes for writing, Aristotle and Augustine
address several of the same topics in their works; friendship is an important subject in Aristotles
Nicomachean Ethics as he discusses virtue, excellence, and happiness.1 It is also an important
subject in Saint Augustines Confessions, as different relationships he has along his journey to
conversion have different meanings in his life.2 By exploring Confessions through the lens of
Aristotles Nicomachean Ethics, one can find similarities in their respective Christian and
Classical Greek ideas on true friendship, the different types and levels of friendships, and why it
is important to maintain those boundaries.
It is first important to understand the basics of how these two thinkers understood
friendship and its purpose in human life. In his Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle examines such
main topics as happiness, virtue, and excellence in order to ascertain what makes life good and
how to live well in society. An overarching theme is that the good of the self is realized when one
works for the good of others. In Book VIII, Aristotle introduces the topic of friendship, saying
1 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. Martin Oswald (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, Inc.,
1999).
2 Saint Augustine, Confessions, trans. Henry Chadwick (New York: Oxford University Press Inc., 2008).

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that it is a necessary topic in exploring how to live well; friendship serves a purpose both for
pleasure, as he comments that No one would choose to live without friends, even if he had all
other goods,3 and for virtue, as it allows each an opportunity to practice virtue.4
He goes on to explain that there are three types of friendship: those for utility, those for
pleasure, and those for virtue.5 The first type of friendship, which is only for the benefit of both
parties and the usefulness of each to the other, only lasts as long as the use does.6 Although in the
second type of friendship there is typically more of an appreciation for the other, these
relationships are still about benefit for the self, and the friendship ends when one ceases to please
the other.7 Thus, Aristotle says, there is only one type of perfect friendship: one between people
who are alike in virtue and have a genuine concern for each other.8 These friendships are rare,
but they are the best opportunity for personal growth in virtue.9
As a Christian writer and doctor of the Church, Augustine seems to understand friendship
somewhat differently than Aristotle, who, as we have seen, is concerned with friendship as a
means for building virtuous people and thus a virtuous society. Although these things do concern
3 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 214.
4 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 214.
5 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 218.
6 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 219.
7 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 219.
8 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 219.
9 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 220.

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Augustine, he sees friendship more as a gift from God, an ability that humans have because of
the Holy Spirit.10 Throughout his life and long journey to conversion chronicled in the
Confessions, he has many different relationships, and they tend to either lead him to or away
from God. We will examine these specific friendships from different parts of Augustines life
more closely, but it can be inferred that he sees friendship as a necessary part of life that can be
used for both good and bad. In this way, the two thinkers views are similar because both see true
and good friendship as being difficult and rare but able to make one a better (virtuous) person
when put into practice.
With that basic knowledge of both Aristotle and Augustines understandings of
friendship, it is now time to examine different types of friendships and relationships more closely
and compare them to both Augustines relationships in the Confessions and to Aristotelian ideals
of friendship. Augustine begins his long search for God through sin and failed relationships in his
adolescence. He comments toward the beginning of the narrative on this part of his life, The
single desire that dominated my heart and mind was simply to love and to be loved.11 This
desire is fully human and common but, as he goes on to explain, sinful human nature can cloud
judgment and intentions when pursuing love and relationships.12 Thus begins Augustines long
struggle with lust that started out with good intentions, at least in his heart. Using Aristotles
three types of friendship, these lustful relationships beginning in Augustines adolescence were
only ordered toward pleasure, and thus only lasted as long as the pleasure did. Augustine also
tells of friendships he had in this part of his life that led him to gain pleasure from sinning for the
10 Saint Augustine, Confessions, 54.
11 Saint Augustine, Confessions, 24.
12 Saint Augustine, Confessions, 24.

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sake of sinning.13 He recalls being appalled at himself and scared of how he could enjoy doing
these things for no reason.14 Thus, Augustine communicates to the reader the power that
friendship can have; he gained no virtue from these friendships but grew to love both these
friends and the sins they committed together merely for diversion.
Aristotle would most likely deem adolescent Augustine and this group of friends as bad men
lacking in virtue. When explaining how virtuous friendships come about, he comments, bad
men will be friends on the basis of pleasure or usefulness, since these are the respects in which
they are like each other.15 While good friends lead each other to virtue and good works, these
friends found pleasure in non-virtuous activities, and were only friends with each other for that
pleasure. Thus, he would agree with Augustine that these friendships were not beneficial for
growing in virtue, and Augustine would only be able to become more virtuous if he separated
himself from this lifestyle of meaningless friendships and sinful pleasures.
As Augustine grew up, his adolescent concupiscence turned into a full struggle between truth and
falsehoods. During his search for true happiness, before finding God, he had many different
wrong ideas about love and friendship. One example of this is his time spent with the
Manicheans. While he convinces himself at the time that this was virtuous, he realizes later that
his time with them consisted of being seduced and seducing, being deceived and deceiving.16
While these relationships were obviously imperfect friendships, based on lies rather than on
13 Saint Augustine, Confessions, 29.
14 Saint Augustine, Confessions, 29.
15 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 222.
16 Saint Augustine, Confessions, 52.

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virtue, it could be argued that they were for either utility or pleasure. Augustine also writes of
having a false sense of love for others during this time.17 He tried not to admire and praise others
as one does a celebrity, teaching himself to genuinely admire people for good qualities and to
love them the way he would want to be loved.18 Augustine says of this time in his life, I used to
love people on the basis of human judgment, not your judgment, my God, in whom no one is
deceived.19 Thus, he realizes that while he was on the track to loving people as he shouldfor
who they werehe did not yet love people through God, and thus had not yet reached the level
of what he would call perfect friendship.
One of the strongest examples of this misconception of love, and one of the most significant and
confusing friendships that Augustine had at this time in his life, is that with a good friend he
grew up with. Amicuss death sends Augustine into a dark period of grieving. As he writes
Confessions recalling this time of his life, he describes his feeling of being tired of living and
scared of dying.20 His grief was so dark and hopeless that it led him further away from God. Yet
since his love for Amicus seemed to be genuine, it is complicated how this friendship turned into
such a dark and, in Augustines eyes, unholy time in his life. For Augustine, the answer is similar
to the problem with the way he had learned to love people as I discussed in the previous
paragraphearlier: while his friendship with Amicus was that of a genuine love for the other, it
was not through God. Thus, when Amicus died, Augustine felt he had lost an important part of
17 Saint Augustine, Confessions, 65-66.
18 Saint Augustine, Confessions, 65-66.
19 Saint Augustine, Confessions, 65.
20 Saint Augustine, Confessions, 59.

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himself, and since he had not come to love God through this human friendship, he felt vastly
lonely, empty, and afraid of death.21
When considering how Aristotle might view these friendships and types of love, it is first
important to categorize them into his types. However, these relationships are more complicated
than those of Augustines youth, and his views on them after having converted to Christianity
likely differ more from Aristotles because on these subjects there is more discrepancy between
virtue and Godliness. As discussed before, Augustines friendship with the Manicheans was
based on falsehoods rather than virtue, and instead of being men of equal virtue, they were equal
in deceit. Therefore, despite the long amount of time Augustine spent with the Manicheans, this
relationship does not seem to fit the category of virtuous friendships. It could, however, possibly
be considered as being a friendship for either utility or pleasure, depending on how one views
Augustines feeling toward the Manicheans and their beliefs. Augustine could have been merely
utilizing the Manicheans to try to find meaning in his life; it is unclear whether or not he derived
pleasure from being a part of this group, even though he remained part of it for many years.
Either way, just like both of these types of friendship, the friendship dissolved when the use or
pleasure did, when Augustine realized the Manicheans were not supplying what he was searching
for.
His friendship with Amicus is even more complicated. Since the element of loving God
by loving people is not present in Aristotles philosophy on friendship, this relationship could
have been considered virtuous. Augustine and Amicus seem to be equal in virtue, which is one of
Aristotles stipulations for a virtuous friendship, as Augustine describes him as his other self.22
While Augustine says he led Amicus away from faith in God during their youth, he also said that
21 Saint Augustine, Confessions, 59.

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his friendship was beyond all the sweetness of life that I had experienced.23 If the idea of
Godliness is removed from basic human virtue, then it is possible that Augustines friendship
with Amicus would have been considered one of virtue, a genuine friendship that took time to
form and in which the two helped each other to become better people.24
Now, we will look at what Augustine would call true Christian friendship. As his
understanding of God and himself changes throughout the Confessions, his relationships which
we have examined change as well. While he spends years in concupiscence and with false ideas
of love, it is relationships that eventually lead him truly to God. The most notable of these are the
relationship with his mother, Monica, and his friendships with Ambrose, Victorinus and
Pontificianus.
Augustines mother, Monica, was one of the most influential people in his life and
journey to conversion. During the years that he lived in sin, Monica not only worried for her son
but prayed that God change Augustines lost and sinful heart. She was overjoyed when he finally
converted;25 when Monica dies following his conversion, Augustine feels grief because he had
finally come to appreciate his mothers deep Christian love, but his faith helps him to grieve in
the right way, knowing that Monica had gone to Heaven and that her death was part of Gods
plan.26
22 Saint Augustine, Confessions, 59.
23 Saint Augustine, Confessions, 56-57.
24 Saint Augustine, Confessions, 56-57.
25 Saint Augustine, Confessions, 153.
26 Saint Augustine, Confessions, 173.

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Within his section on friendship, Aristotle speaks especially to friendships between
several kinds of people, including those between family members. He says of friendships
between parents and children, parents love their children as soon as they are born, but children
their parents only as, with the passage of time, they acquire understanding or perception.27 This
can apply to Augustine and Monicas relationship. Monica never stopped praying for her son,28
and eventually her prayers were answered more beautifully than she could have asked for;
Augustine did not truly understand or appreciate her great love for him until he had matured, but
she loved him and took responsibility for his soul and spiritual well-being his whole life.
However, it is not entirely clear whether or not this is what Aristotle would have classified as a
virtuous friendship, as he comments further about parent and child relationships.
They are responsible for their being and their nurture, and for their education once
they have been born. But this kind of friendship also has a higher degree of what is
pleasant and useful than does friendship with persons outside the family, inasmuch as
the partners have more of their life in common.29
Therefore, Augustines appreciation of all that Monica did for him could be considered as based
in her usefulness to him and the pleasure she brought him. This is another case in which
Augustines Christian beliefs present a stark contrast to Aristotles secular views; since Monica
helped to foster Augustines faith and virtue, and this is what helped him to appreciate her, his
view would be that their mother/ son relationship was based in virtue.
Augustine also had several friends who were extremely significant in leading him finally to faith
in God. The first of these is with the Bishop of Milan, Ambrose. Augustine is intrigued by
27 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 237.
28 Saint Augustine, Confessions, 90.
29 Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, 238.

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Ambroses joy and his godly way of living, and spends time with him in order to figure out what
he does that causes this.30 He found that Ambrose was constantly reading to himself, and while
Augustine did not yet understand how this brought him closer to God, he understood that it
somehow did;31 later, it is through reading that Augustine finally discovers God and decides to
devote his life to God.32 Several others serve this same purpose in leading Augustine toward God,
especially Victorinus and Ponticianus.33 Augustine also had two very good friends who searched
for truth in philosophy with him and eventually converted with him, Alypius and Nebridius.
Their concern for and faithfulness to each other, as well as their development of faith and virtue
together, showed that all three were practicing virtue within their friendship.
In examining these relationships through the lens of Aristotles types, the line is blurred
between virtuous friendship and friendship for utility. While, in Augustines eyes, Ambrose,
Victorinus, Ponticianus, and others in this role led him to God and thus to stronger virtue, they
could be seen as friendships for utility. Since one of Aristotles stipulations on virtuous
friendships is that the two parties be of equal virtue and help each other to become more
virtuous, the men who took on an inspirational or mentor role in Augustines life may not really
be considered virtuous friendships. However, his friendships with Alypius and Nebridius seem to
be the most clear-cut examples of Aristotles idea of virtuous friendships in his life. The three
were equal in virtue in the beginning of their friendship, but helped each other to eventually find
30 Saint Augustine, Confessions, 92-93.
31 Saint Augustine, Confessions, 92-93
32 Saint Augustine, Confessions, 152-153.
33 Saint Augustine, Confessions, 134-145.

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the Church, where they felt a fulfillment of meaning in their lives and were able to live out their
lives well in that way. Thus, they truly were able to practice virtue within their friendship that led
to their betterment as people.
Throughout ones life, he or she will have many different relationships serving many different
purposes. These relationships, and especially close friendships, are a necessary and beneficial
part of the human experience; Aristotle and Saint Augustine are only a few of the many thinkers
and writers who have recognized this importance of relationships. Their differing views on what
constitutes virtue and what kind of friendship leads a person to be virtuous lie in their differences
as a Classic Greek philosopher and a Christian and Doctor of the Church. However, several main
similarities can be observed thematically in their comments on friendship. True friendship
involves caring for the other above ones self, and through this rather than a desire to do what is
good for ones self, a person can become virtuous. This virtue fostered through friendship is what
makes better people and societies. Thus, the boundaries between different friendships allow one
to recognize which friendships are negative or harmful, which are important only for utility, and
which deserve more time and effort; these few close friendships inspire and strengthen one to
live a more virtuous life in all his or her interactions.