Friendship in Neoplatonic thought and Christianity
Reading a portion of Michael Schramm’s Freundschaft im Neuplatonismus: Politisches Denken und Sozialphilosophie von Plotin bis Kaiser Julian (Berlin; Boston: De Gruyter, 2013), 69-73 has reinforced my understanding of the utter importance of friendship in Christianity.
In the formative soil of the Graeco-Roman background of Christianity in late antiquity, a figure like the Neoplatonist Iamblichus regarded friendship as standing “am Ende des Tugendkatalogs” (“at the close of the catalogue of virtues”) and as the “krönende Abschluß” (“crowning culmination”) of all the virtues.
Indeed, friendship is nothing less than “alles krönende Tugend” (p.72—”the crowning virtue of all”) the culmination of piety and the cardinal virtues (wisdom, justice, prudence, and courage).
This helps to explain why the Cappadocians and Augustine, all influenced by Neoplatonism, had such a high view of friendship.