ABSTRACT
Ancient Greek philosophical writings on friendship cast a long shadow in Western culture. The year 1508 saw the publication of Erasmus’ distillation of the wisdom of the ancient Greeks and Romans in his Adages.1 The very first adage Erasmus provides is a philosophical pronouncement on friendship: “friends hold all things in common” – a saying attributed to Pythagoras. Erasmus notes:
In a further expansion of this circle of like-minded friends, Erasmus goes on to suggest that the Pythagorean communitarianism is nothing less than a foreshadowing of the community of life and property that Christ taught.
