To Him Who Has True Love of God, Whatever He Desires Is Granted
The Wise Man: O deceitful world, dust that you are! You know well that love conquers and overcomes all things [1 Cor. 13:13], that true and perfect love, entering into such a soul and possessing it, changes all the evils you have named above — however wicked, harsh, and terrible — into good, gentle, and pleasant things. Through true and perfect love, a man is fully satisfied by the plainest food and drink when hunger and thirst come upon him. Great heat that burns and withers, and the harsh cold and bitter frost, are turned into the spring breeze that blows at dawn and becomes a comfort to the weak flesh and body of man; wild beasts, serpents, and fierce creatures grow tame and gentle, kiss his feet, and even serve him; in a word, all those hostile and harmful things become obedient and good to him — because the perfect Good, that is, God, is always with him, and being present, nothing is lacking to him.
Man Is King Over All the Things of the World, but All of Them Were Given Him Only in Trust
The World: But what will you seek in me and not find, or desire and not obtain? Come, consider all my possessions: cities full of people, strong fortresses, thick-set villages, fruitful vineyards, abundant fields, gardens full of beautiful flowers, orchards with alluring trees. Consider the great palaces of lords and nobles, consider the grand and sumptuous buildings of caesars and emperors; consider the broad, stone-paved roads of cities and fortresses; take account of the wealth and precious things found in these cities. But consider, too, the other crowns I hold, to give and to adorn him who serves me without ceasing — the fish of the sea, the fish of the rivers, the beasts and all the wild creatures of the earth, the birds of the sky, and all the rest, with which the word of God has filled me, and which His holy hand has scattered through me, His shining creation — given precisely so that you, fool, might use them through me and because of me, that eating, drinking, and delighting yourself you might rejoice, and knowing my goodness, thank me with your whole soul. But, O wretched one, was not Solomon wiser than you? And he teaches us this very thing: that only this will remain to you.
The Wise Man’s words describe no poetic fancy, but a spiritual law the Holy Fathers saw fulfilled in the bodies and souls of the martyrs. Saint Ignatius the God-bearer, going toward the beasts of Rome, wrote to his brethren not to hinder his death, for he counted himself the wheat of Christ, to be ground by the teeth of wild animals so as to become pure bread. The prophet Daniel stood in the lions’ den, and the beasts’ mouths were shut — not because the lions ceased to be lions, but because the righteous man’s love and faithfulness altered the order of fallen nature. The Song of Songs says that love is strong as death [Song 8:6] — and for that very reason it can overcome everything that death brings with it: fear, hunger, cold, and the enmity of the elements.
But this love of which the Wise Man speaks is no human virtue gained by effort; it is a gift poured into the heart by the Holy Spirit: „the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us” [Rom. 5:5]. Saint Isaac the Syrian calls this love „warmer than fire” and says that whoever has tasted it can no longer be separated from it, not even by torment or death. This is why Saint John says that „perfect love casts out fear” [1 Jn. 4:18] — not because the one who loves becomes fearless by nature, but because fear loses its dominion where God Himself, the perfect Good, is present and fills every emptiness of the soul.
The World’s speech, by contrast, is an endless listing of beautiful things — cities, palaces, gardens, creatures, riches — shown to man as though they belonged to him. Yet the very Scripture the World invokes as witness to the first order shows something else: Adam was given dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every living thing [Gen. 1:28], but this dominion was never ownership — it was stewardship. Man is king over creation, but a king appointed by Another, bound to give account of all that was entrusted to him: „What do you have that you did not receive? And if you received it, why do you boast as though you had not?” [1 Cor. 4:7]. The parable of the talents [Mt. 25:14-30] and the parable of the unjust steward [Lk. 16:1-13] say the same thing differently: whatever man holds in his hand is given for safekeeping and spiritual increase, not for eternal possession.
Even the World’s own speech collapses under the weight of its own witness, when it brings forth Solomon as an example: „was not Solomon wiser than you?” But it was precisely Solomon — who gathered gardens, vineyards, houses, silver, and gold more than anyone before him — who left it written: „vanity of vanities, all is vanity” [Eccl. 1:2; 2:4-11]. The one who had everything from the World’s hand confessed that nothing he had was truly his own. Saint John Chrysostom explains it plainly: the rich man is not an owner but a temporary treasurer, and death strips him of everything he had counted as his.
Here lies the decisive difference between the Divan’s two voices: perfect love unites man with the Giver, and so nothing more is lacking to him; the World’s gifts, however many, keep man separated from the Giver, and so, however much he gathers, something will always be missing — peace, satisfaction, rest. Saint Maximus the Confessor teaches that creation was given to man as a step toward the Creator, not as an end in itself; whoever stops at the World’s gifts as though they were his own has missed the very purpose for which they were given. But whoever, instead, receives everything as a loan from God’s hand and loves the Giver more than the gift, comes, through love, to what the World can never give: the perfect Good Himself.
