Catholic Commentary
The Value of Old Friendship
10Don’t forsake an old friend; for a new one is not comparable to him. A new friend is like new wine: if it becomes old, you will drink it with gladness.
Sirach 9:10 instructs readers to maintain loyalty to established friendships rather than abandoning them for newer companions, since seasoned friendships tested through shared experience cannot be equaled by untried relationships. The passage compares new friendships to new wine that requires time to mature and develop its full character and value.
An old friend, tested by time and shared sorrow, is a form of sanctifying love — and abandoning him for novelty is betrayal of your own nature as a relational being.
Catholic tradition understands friendship not merely as a social convenience but as a participation in charity itself. St. Thomas Aquinas, building on Aristotle's three categories of friendship (utility, pleasure, and virtue), identifies virtuous friendship — friendship founded on the other person's genuine good — as structurally analogous to the charity by which God loves creation (Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 23, a. 1). The "old friend" of Sirach 9:10 is, in Thomistic terms, a friend of virtue: the duration and testing of the relationship is precisely the evidence that it transcends mere utility or pleasure.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that friendship is one of the ways human persons fulfill their nature as social and relational beings made in the image of the triune God, whose own inner life is a communion of persons (CCC 1878–1879). To forsake an old friend casually is thus a minor but real violation of the social nature God has inscribed in us.
St. Aelred of Rievaulx, in his masterwork Spiritual Friendship (c. 1150), draws directly on the wisdom tradition represented by Sirach to argue that Christian friendship is a school of charity: "God is friendship," he writes (I.69), and the friend who has accompanied us through years of struggle, sin, and grace has become, in a real sense, a mediator of God's own faithful love (hesed). To abandon such a friend is to close the door on a privileged channel of grace. Aelred's framework gives this verse its fullest theological resonance: the aged wine of a mature friendship is nothing less than sanctifying love made visible in time.
Contemporary culture prizes novelty — in entertainment, in social networks, in relationships. Algorithms reward the new connection; feeds refresh the new face; the next city, job, or season of life silently pressures us to leave old friendships behind as inconvenient relics of a former self. Sirach's word is a quiet rebuke to this restlessness.
For the Catholic today, this verse invites a concrete examination of conscience: Have I allowed geographic mobility, a change in parish, career advancement, or simply the busyness of family life to slowly starve a friendship that once nourished my soul? Have I confused the excitement of new acquaintance with the depth that only time builds?
Practically, this passage calls us to intentional cultivation of long-standing friendships — the phone call that takes effort, the visit that requires sacrifice, the forgiveness of old grievances that might otherwise sever the bond. It also invites patience toward newer friendships: do not discard the young wine simply because it is not yet ready. Tend it. Both movements — loyalty to the old, patience with the new — are expressions of the same virtue: the willingness to love not for what we receive today, but for what faithful love, like good wine, becomes over time.
Commentary
Verse 10a — "Don't forsake an old friend; for a new one is not comparable to him."
The Hebrew verb underlying "forsake" (Greek: enkatalipēs) carries the weight of abandonment — the same word used elsewhere in the Septuagint for deserting someone in a moment of need. Ben Sira is not merely counseling social politeness; he is issuing a moral imperative. To forsake a proven friend is an act of injustice, because genuine friendship (Greek: philia) constitutes a moral bond, not merely a pleasant arrangement. The qualifier "old" (archaios) does not simply mean aged in years but seasoned — tried and tested through shared experience, conflict, forgiveness, and mutual fidelity.
The assertion that a new friend "is not comparable" is striking in its bluntness. Ben Sira is not dismissing new friendships as worthless; he has already praised the seeking of good companions (Sir 6:14–17). His point is comparative and evaluative: novelty cannot substitute for proven fidelity. The man who trades an old friend for a new one out of convenience, boredom, or social ambition has confused pleasure for virtue. Within the wisdom tradition of Second Temple Judaism, friendship was regarded as one of the goods most essential to a fully human life, second only to the fear of the Lord (Sir 6:14–16).
Verse 10b — "A new friend is like new wine: if it becomes old, you will drink it with gladness."
This is one of Sirach's most memorable similes. New wine (oinos neos) was typically considered raw, sharp, and unfinished in the ancient Mediterranean world — fermentation had to complete its work before the wine yielded its full character. The image thus does double duty: it gently validates the potential of new friendships while simultaneously explaining why they cannot yet equal old ones. The new friend is not condemned but is understood to be unfinished.
The conditional clause — "if it becomes old" — is important. Not all new wine is kept; not all new friendships mature. The aging process requires patience, continued investment, and the passage of real time through real circumstances. "You will drink it with gladness (euphrosunē)" evokes the festal joy of the banquet — friendship at its full vintage is a source of genuine happiness, even a gift that participates in the joy of God's own creation (Sir 31:27–28).
Typological and Spiritual Senses:
Read through the lens of Catholic typology, the figure of wine aging into joy becomes a figure of the soul's deepening relationship with God. The Psalms and Canticle of Canticles use the imagery of wine for divine love (Ps 104:15; Cant 1:2). The Fathers read in the Church's relationship to Israel, and the soul's relationship to Christ, precisely this dynamic: what was "new" in the Incarnation was, in fact, the fulfillment of something ancient — a covenant-friendship of immense antiquity. The "old friend" in a higher register is Israel's God, whose friendship with humanity predates all human memory. Forsaking that relationship for the novelty of idols or worldly allegiance is the primal sin the prophets name as — harlotry, infidelity, the abandonment of an ancient covenant bond.