Scipio och Laelius går i kloster: Aelred av Rievaulx om den andliga vänskapen

Aelred of Rievaulx (1110-1167) wrote his De spiritali amicitia to provide a modern counterpart to Cicero's De amicitia which had deeply affected him as a young man. This article represents an attempt, through a comparative reading of the two dialogues, to analyse how Aelred has adapted Cicero's text to the requirements of life in a 12th century monastery. The differences in the setting of the respective dialogues and in the delineation of character of the interlocutors underline the difference in the goals set by their respective authors. While Cicero represents friendship as the ideal virtue to be imposed on an imperfect world, Aelred is in a situation where one ideal, friendship, has to be reconciled with another, ruling ideal, namely that of Cistercian monasticism. His concern is very much with the practical realities of this reconciliation process. This explains why Aelred's dialogue is set in his own time, with himself and his friends as interlocutors, and why so much of the dialogue is taken up with the personal concerns of individuals. Cicero was trying to rescue an accepted ideal from its abuses; Aelred has to justify why friendship, from a Christian perspective, is to be counted as an ideal at all