A True Friend

A  TRUE FRIEND

(From the Gospel of Barnabas)

“Of a thousand whom you know, one be your friend.”

                                                                -----  (Prophet Solomon)

Physician of Soul:

‘The friend is a singular thing that is not easily found, but is easily lost. For the friend will not suffer contradiction against him whom he supremely loves. Beware, be you cautious, and choose not for friend one who loves not him whom you love. Know you what friend means? Friend means nothing but physician of the soul.’

‘And so, just as one rarely finds a good physician who knows the sicknesses and understands to apply the medicines thereto, so also are friends rare who know the faults and understand how to guide to good.’

Slayers of Soul:

‘But herein is an evil, that there are many who have friends that feign not to see the faults of their friends; others excuse them; others defend them under earthly pretext; and, what is worse, there are friends who invite and aid their friend to err, whose end shall be like to their villainy. Beware that you receive not such men for friends, for that in truth they are enemies and slayers of the soul.’

Love of God:

‘Let your friend be such that, even as he wills to correct you, so he may receive correction; and even as he wills that you should leave all things for love of God, even so again it may content him that you forsake him for the service of God.’

‘Therefore when you choose you one for friend (for truly he is supremely poor who has no friend at all), see that you consider first, not his fine lineage, not his fine family, not his fine house, not his fine clothing, not his fine person, nor yet his fine words, for you shall be easily deceived.’

‘But look how he fears God; how he despises earthly things; how he loves good works; and above all how he hates his own flesh, and so shall you easily find the true friend.’

Key of Paradise:

‘But love him as a gift that God has given you, for so shall God adorn (him) with greater favour. Truly I say to you, that he who has found a true friend has found one of the delights of paradise; no, such is the key of paradise.’

                                                                          ----- (Jesus Christ)

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“Everything that may hinder you from serving God, cast it from you as man casts away everything that hinders his sight.”

                                                                          ----- (Jesus Christ)

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