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For us, the sign of good and evil is not life, but friendship or disagreement with us. What we praise today, we condemn tomorrow; what others condemn, we marvel at; We will readily indulge in all wickedness - we are so generous to vice (1)! There is nothing stronger than old age and more respected than friendship (1). Envy was far from us, but competition made us the most diligent. Both of us sought not for one of us to become the first, but in some way to give up primacy to each other, because each of us considered the glory of the other to be our own. It seemed as if one soul in both supported two bodies. And although those who claim that everything is poured out in everything are not trustworthy, we must still believe that we were one in the other and one in the other. We both had one exercise - virtue, and one effort - before leaving here, renouncing this place, living for future hopes. We directed our entire life and activity towards this goal, guided by the commandment and encouraging each other to virtue. And if it is a little to say this, we served each other as both a rule and an answer, with the help of which one can recognize what is direct and what is indirect. We also made friends with comrades, but not with the arrogant, but with the chaste, not with the perky, but with the peace-loving, with whom it was not without benefit to get along, for we knew that it was easier to borrow a vice than to pass on a virtue, since you would sooner contract a disease than pass on your health to another (2). Everyone has their own weakness, and I am weak in relation to friendship and friends (2). What is regrettable for you is, of course, regrettable for me too, because, as the rules of friendship require, we make common everything that friends have, whether it is good or bad (2). You and I have everything in common - both sorrow and joy: this is the property of friendship (2). Friendship makes even the distant close (2). We imitate painters who first sketch out outlines of what they are depicting, and then, with the second and third hand, they finally finish them and apply paint. Where is this example leading me to? Because between us there was already a pure and unfeigned friendship, which is especially rare now and not many people have, and this friendship was produced in us not so much by kinship, and a common homeland, and, as Omir says 61, “amiable companionship,” but by similarity in morals and the fact that we liked the same things. This is what strengthens friendship most of all and makes it strong 62 (2). Here we are talking about the friendship of St. Gregory the Theologian and Basil the Great. – Approx. ed. From a letter to St. Gregory to Theodosius. – Approx. ed. You might be interested in: