Avant-propos - Studia Moralia

70 DENNIS J. BILLY
other’s company. God created not one but many of them, thus
giving them the opportunity to live together in charity through a
union of will and desire. 20 Finally, within this hierarchical ordering
of creation, God united the animal and spiritual realms
in the figure of Adam. Because God deemed that it was not good
for man to be alone, however, a helper was made for him, one
like unto himself. In Aelred’s mind, “It was from no similar, nor
even from the same, material that divine Might formed this help
mate, but as a clearer inspiration to charity and friendship he
produced the woman from the very substance of the man.” 21
Aelred goes on with a beautiful description of the equality of the
sexes and the need for friendship as the basis of their existence
and mutual relationship: “How beautiful it is that the second human
being was taken from the side of the first, so that nature
might teach that human beings are equal and, as it were, collateral,
and that there is in human affairs neither a superior nor an
inferior, a characteristic of true friendship.” 22 Aelred’s point in all
of this is that nature was created in such a way that, from the
very beginning, the desire for friendship and charity was implanted
in the human heart.
2. The Fall. Up until this point, Aelred’s description of the
orientation towards companionship and society implanted in
creation by the divine will and the eternal reason does not take
into full account the reality of sin. When the fall of Adam occurs,
however, the original harmony within nature and in the human
heart is radically disrupted. Since Aelred is primarily interested
in spiritual friendship, he focuses on the repercussions of this
fall for humanity. The main effect, for Aelred, has to do with a
fundamental dissonance that enters into the relationship between
charity and friendship. Prior to the sin of Adam, charity
and friendship are coextensive; after it, however, they grow
apart:
…after the fall of the first man, when with the cooling of charity
concupiscence made secret inroads and caused private good to
20 DSA 1:56 [CCCM 1:298(318-24); SF 63].
21 DSA 1:57 [CCCM 1:298(327-30); SF 63].
22 DSA 1:57 [CCCM 1:298-99(330-33); SF 63].