Overview

Theological reflection on friendship, as a particular form of Christian love, emerges in Holy Scripture and continues to be elaborated in the Christian tradition. However, ""love of friendship"" was at times absorbed into the other traditional understanding of love--""love of God and of neighbor."" After a philosophical-historical study of the Greco-Roman roots of friendship in moral reflection, and how (and to what extent) this was appropriated in the Christian tradition, this book illustrates the transcendental character and the novelty of the Christian understanding of friendship found in Holy Scripture, focusing particularly on the most relevant texts in the Fourth Gospel where ""love"" and ""friendship"" stand to be important themes. It also shows how Saint Thomas Aquinas, through his exegesis of the Fourth Gospel, his synthesis of the Christian tradition, and his ability to rearticulate Christian theology through Aristotelian philosophy, inimitably defines the theological virtue of caritas as ""friendship with God."" In so doing he depicts friendship as the finality, the telos, of the Christian life. Finally, the book aims to show how the retrieval of a proper theology of friendship, rooted in Holy Scripture and Christian tradition, can enrich the life of an authentic Christian and contribute to the ongoing process of renewing moral theology.

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9781532673252

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Reviews

Jonathan Sammut has not only written a book about friendship, but also a 'friendly' book. It seems to breathe forth the happy spirit of friendship, inviting the reader to join in as a foretaste of the ultimate friendship of charity, which is friendship with God. This book deserves a wide readership. --John C. Cavadini, Professor of Theology, University of Notre Dame In a world increasingly dominated by loneliness, a fear of communion, and often hyper-sexualized relationships, Sammut's book provides an icon of friendship as a medicine for restoring us to communion in Jesus Christ and thus each other. --Timothy P. O'Malley, Associate Professor of Practice, University of Notre Dame In place of the forbidding legalistic frameworks that have bound many approaches to Christian living for centuries, Jonathan Sammut retrieves friendship as a--perhaps the--foundation of the Christian life. By opening ourselves to God and others in that particular kind of Christian love which Sammut calls 'love of friendship, ' we discover who we are called to be and become. --Michael Downey, Professor of Theology, Catholic Institute of Vietnam, Saigon Christian tradition has extolled the blessings of friendship as a 'consortium, ' a sharing of destiny. Heaven is our common and shared destiny. The love of friendship, which the Bible rightly praises as a 'treasure, ' is a blessing from the Lord and a calling to rejoice in the communion of saints. --Charles J. Scicluna, Archbishop of Malta

"""Jonathan Sammut has not only written a book about friendship, but also a 'friendly' book. It seems to breathe forth the happy spirit of friendship, inviting the reader to join in as a foretaste of the ultimate friendship of charity, which is friendship with God. This book deserves a wide readership."" --John C. Cavadini, Professor of Theology, University of Notre Dame ""In a world increasingly dominated by loneliness, a fear of communion, and often hyper-sexualized relationships, Sammut's book provides an icon of friendship as a medicine for restoring us to communion in Jesus Christ and thus each other."" --Timothy P. O'Malley, Associate Professor of Practice, University of Notre Dame ""In place of the forbidding legalistic frameworks that have bound many approaches to Christian living for centuries, Jonathan Sammut retrieves friendship as a--perhaps the--foundation of the Christian life. By opening ourselves to God and others in that particular kind of Christian love which Sammut calls 'love of friendship, ' we discover who we are called to be and become."" --Michael Downey, Professor of Theology, Catholic Institute of Vietnam, Saigon ""Christian tradition has extolled the blessings of friendship as a 'consortium, ' a sharing of destiny. Heaven is our common and shared destiny. The love of friendship, which the Bible rightly praises as a 'treasure, ' is a blessing from the Lord and a calling to rejoice in the communion of saints."" --Charles J. Scicluna, Archbishop of Malta"

Jonathan Sammut has not only written a book about friendship, but also a 'friendly' book. It seems to breathe forth the happy spirit of friendship, inviting the reader to join in as a foretaste of the ultimate friendship of charity, which is friendship with God. This book deserves a wide readership. --John C. Cavadini, Professor of Theology, University of Notre Dame In a world increasingly dominated by loneliness, a fear of communion, and often hyper-sexualized relationships, Sammut's book provides an icon of friendship as a medicine for restoring us to communion in Jesus Christ and thus each other. --Timothy P. O'Malley, Associate Professor of Practice, University of Notre Dame In place of the forbidding legalistic frameworks that have bound many approaches to Christian living for centuries, Jonathan Sammut retrieves friendship as a--perhaps the--foundation of the Christian life. By opening ourselves to God and others in that particular kind of Christian love which Sammut calls 'love of friendship, ' we discover who we are called to be and become. --Michael Downey, Professor of Theology, Catholic Institute of Vietnam, Saigon Christian tradition has extolled the blessings of friendship as a 'consortium, ' a sharing of destiny. Heaven is our common and shared destiny. The love of friendship, which the Bible rightly praises as a 'treasure, ' is a blessing from the Lord and a calling to rejoice in the communion of saints. --Charles J. Scicluna, Archbishop of Malta

Author Information

Jonathan Sammut is a member of the Society of Christian Doctrine, founded in 1907 by Saint George Preca in Malta as a lifestyle for laity. He has been awarded a master's in theology from the University of Malta in 2016 and continued his theological studies at the University of Notre Dame. He published three articles on the subject of Christian friendship in The Church Life Journal, a journal of the McGrath Institute for Church Life.

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