The Four Loves ('Philia' or 'Friendship') by C.S. Lewis Doodle

This is an illustration of C.S Lewis’ talk about the second of the four loves – 'Philia' or 'Friendship'. Notes below... Originally 'The Four Loves' series was recorded by Lewis in London in 1958, prepared as 10 talks to air on the ‘Protestant Hour’ on American radio. I believe 'Philia' was split into three talks. The second part begins at 7:01 & the third at 18:30 if you need smaller, bite-sized segments. You can find my transcript of this talk here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9Mm... You can purchase Lewis' original radio broadcasts here: https://www.amazon.com/The-Four-Loves... These talks were later turned into a larger book with more detail (with quite different examples), which you can find here: https://www.amazon.com/Four-Loves-C-S... (1:14) "[Ancient romantic couples such as] Tristan & Isolde, Antony & Cleopatra, Romeo & Juliet, have innumerable counterparts in modern literature: [Ancient friendships such as] David & Jonathan, Pylades & Orestes, Roland & Oliver, Amis & Amile, have not. To the Ancients, Friendship seemed the happiest and most fully human of all loves; the crown of life and the school of virtue. The modern world, in comparison, ignores it." (2:21) “Your [friendship] love was…greater than the love of women [i.e., Eros]”. Friendship love from Jonathan in David’s life had been of a better quality here than the Eros love from his wife, Michal, Jonathan's sister. (4:37) Dr Johnson was probably the most distinguished man of letters in English history and Boswell wrote his biography, which is claimed as “the greatest biography written in the English language”. Lewis described this relationship as a “pretty flagrantly heterosexual couple”. (15:45) No slight here: “I think I can understand that feeling about a housewife’s work being like that of Sisyphus (who was the stone rolling gentleman). But it is surely, in reality, the most important work in the world. What do ships, railways, mines, cars, government etc exist for except that people may be fed, warmed, & safe in their own homes? As Dr Johnson said, ‘To be happy at home is the end of all human endeavour’. (1st to be happy, to prepare for being happy in our own real Home hereafter: 2nd, in the meantime, to be happy in our houses.) We wage war in order to have peace, we work in order to have leisure, we produce food in order to eat it. So your job is the one for which all others exist.” (Lewis, 1955). (21:29) See Genesis 4.9 “Am I my brother's keeper?” But note God’s exception to this kind of help in 2 Chronicles 19.2. (22:34) “This [Friendship] love (essentially) ignores not only our physical bodies, but that whole embodiment which consists of our family, job, past and connections. At home, besides being Peter or Jane, we also bear a general character; husband or wife, brother or sister, chief, colleague or subordinate. Not among our Friends. It is an affair of disentangled, or stripped, minds. Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities." (23:56) ‘Immune from the internal corruptions of Storge’ – that is, Friendship is almost free from Affection's need to be needed. (24:20) “…We must notice that Friendship is very rarely the image under which Scripture represents the love between God and Man. It is not entirely neglected; but far more often, seeking a symbol for the highest love of all, Scripture ignores this seemingly almost angelic relation and plunges into the depth of what is most natural and instinctive…Friendship is even, if you like, angelic. But man needs to be triply protected by humility if he is to eat the bread of angels without risk. Perhaps we may now hazard a guess why Scripture uses Friendship so rarely as an image of the highest love. It is already, in actual fact, too spiritual to be a good symbol of Spiritual things." ('The Four Loves', Friendship). (29:01) From ‘Aucassin and Nicolette’ (c. 1200): “For to Hell go the fair clerks [intellectuals] and the fair knights who are slain in the [jousting] tourney and the great wars, and the stout archer and the gallant nobles. With them will I go. And there go the fair and courteous ladies, who have lovers, two or three, together with their wedded lords. And there pass the gold and the silver, the ermine [mink] and all rich furs, harpers and minstrels [poets], and the happy of the world. With these will I go, so only that I have Nicolette, my very sweet friend, by my side.” (29:05) “Now a man must be very good or…very bad, not to feel in himself a response to that gesture”; ”The real black, diabolical Pride comes when you look down on others so much that you do not care what they think of you. Of course, it is very right, and often our duty, not to care what people think of us, if we do so for the right reason; namely, because we care so incomparably more what God thinks. But the Proud man has a different reason for not caring..." (Mere Christianity, ‘The Great Sin’).