Welcome back to another episode of five minutes in church history. On this episode we're going to be looking at our good old friend Augustine, but this time we're going to be considering Augustine and his friends and Augustine on friendship. Friendship was very meaningful to Augusta. In fact, one writer said that

Augustine is the first person to think of

and to give us a theology of friendship.

Friendship was very important to him. He often liked to quote the famous line about

friendship from Cicero. The Greeks often thought about friendship. They thought

what is the nature of friendship, what brings friends together.

And all this sort of culminates in a thought that was presented by the great Roman thinker

Cicero when he says that friendship is agreement with kindliness and affection about things

human and divine.

Augustine believed this and throughout most of his life he would quote this when he was writing

to good friends of his. But later in his life. He would quote this when he was writing to good friends of his. But later

in his life he adds a little bit of a twist to this definition of friendship. But before we get to

his definition, let's talk about some of the friends that are in Augustine's life.

One of his friends is Olympus.

They grew up not too far from each other, although Augustine is a little bit older than

Olympus.

And Olympus was one of Augustine's early students.

Olympus followed Augustine as he made his journey from North Africa, first to Rome, and

Olympus was there.

Then Augustine went on to Milan, and Olympus followed him there. Then Agustin went on to Milan and

Alipius followed him there too and it was at Milan

that Augustine was converted.

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