From what we have said it is easy to deduce the essential characteristics of true friendship. They are: (1) benevolence; (2) love consciously entertained by both parties; (3) a mutual exchange of goods or community of life; (4) equality of rank or station. The first condition is based on the fact that a true friend will not seek his own interest, but that of his friend. It is to be noted, however, that one’s joy at the presence or prosperity of a friend must not be inspired by selfishness or sensual desire, for in that case there would be no true friendship.(1076) The second condition is based on the necessity of friendship being mutual love, for friendship is not a one-sided affection, nor does it spend itself in mutual admiration. The third condition is necessary for the reason that love, if it is to be more than “Platonic,” must result in acts of benevolence and good will.(1077) Of the fourth condition St. Jerome says: “Friendship finds men equal or makes them equal.”(1078) b) All these conditions are found in the friendship with which Almighty God deigns to honor those who are in the state of sanctifying grace. (1) That God loves the just man with a love of pure benevolence and eagerly seeks his companionship, is proved by the mysteries of the Incarnation and the Holy Eucharist. Cfr. Prov. VIII, 31: “And my delight [is] to be with the children of men.”(1079) (2) The just man is enabled to return God’s love by the habit of theological charity, which is inseparably bound up with and spontaneously flows from sanctifying grace.(1080) God’s consciousness of this mutual love is, of course, based on certain knowledge, whereas man can have merely a probable conjecture. This, however, suffices to establish a true friendship, as the example of human friends shows.(1081) (3) There is also community of life and property between God and man when the latter is in the state of sanctifying grace; for not only is he indebted to God for his very nature and all natural favors which he enjoys, but likewise and especially for the supernatural blessings bestowed upon him.(1082) On his own part, it is true, he cannot give his Benefactor anything in return which that Benefactor does not already possess; but the just man is ever eager to further God’s external glorification, agreeable to the first petition of the Our Father: “Hallowed by Thy name.”(1083) God has furthermore given him a kind of substitute for operative charity in the love of his neighbor, which has precisely the same formal object as the love of God. Cfr. 1 John III, 17: “He that hath the substance of this world, and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut up his bowels from him: how doth the charity of God abide in him?”(1084)