Tractatus duo

we love all people: but we cherish only a few, or perhaps only one, or maybe even none. For to cherish is more than to love, as M. Cicero also notes in his familiar letters to Paetus. From this it follows that the force of friendship cannot be a conciliator, nor can fear, but rather the choice and will of the mind inclined toward one person, God so disposing our heart. And a friend loves so much and in such a way that he recognizes his friend as his other self, and wishes nothing more for himself than he does for him. But if the slightest thing could come between them, the name of friendship would have died, says Cicero—and truly so—in book 1 of De Legibus On Laws. For such is the power of friendship that as soon as one prefers something for himself rather than for the other, there is no friendship. Moreover, this love causes a friend both to rejoice in his friend's prosperous affairs and to grieve and be troubled by his adversities; just as Jonathan grieves at the calamity and affliction that was befalling David 1 Samuel 20:41 and 34. And so great is the power of this love and joining of souls that they weep together, rejoice together, and delight together. Finally, he prefers this one to any other, and holds him in higher regard than all other men: so that Jonathan seems to have preferred his friend David even to his own father, insofar as the will of God remained unharmed. For he reveals his father's secret to David, and explores what the father is about to decide or say against David: nor does Jonathan fear to reveal his father's baseness 1 Samuel 20:34 and 9.

Indeed, that vehement mutual love also generates a mutual consensus of souls among friends, and a holy one at that: but also