Aelred of Rievaulx Quotes on Love
Aelred of Rievaulx (1110–1167), the English Cistercian abbot whose Spiritual Friendship (De Spiritali Amicitia) and The Mirror of Charity (Speculum Caritatis) gave twelfth-century Latin spirituality two of its most accomplished treatises on Christian love, defended a Christianized recovery of the Ciceronian theory of friendship in De Amicitia and integrated it into an Augustinian ordo amoris — the hierarchical ordering of love directed first toward God, then toward neighbor for God's sake. The framework treats the spiritual friendship of the monastic life as a participation in the divine love through which creation is sustained, and the dialogues of Spiritual Friendship between Aelred and his fellow monks supply one of the most personal voices in the Cistercian corpus.
Quotes
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Attributed to Aelred of Rievaulx:
“He who has friends is rich.”
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Attributed to Aelred of Rievaulx:
“True friendship is grounded in Christ; without him it cannot endure.”
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Attributed to Aelred of Rievaulx:
“Friendship is wisdom, and wisdom is friendship.”
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Attributed to Aelred of Rievaulx:
“Love is the foundation of every virtue.”
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Attributed to Aelred of Rievaulx:
“Where charity is, there is light; where light is, there is life.”