Love seeketh not its own.—I CORINTHIANS 13:5
NO, love does not seek its own; for seeking its own is precisely selfishness, egotism, self-seeking, or whatever names the uncharitable mind may use to describe it. And yet, is not God love? But He who created man in His image, so that he might resemble Him, might become perfect even as He is perfect, hence, might approach the perfection which is God Himself, might resemble the image which is the image of God: does He not seek His own? Yes, He seeks His own, which is love. He seeks it by giving everything, for God is good, and there is only One who is good, God who gives everything. Or was not Christ love? But He came into the world in order to become a pattern, in order to draw men unto Himself so that they might resemble Him, might in truth become His own: did He then not seek His own? Yes, He sought His own by sacrificing Himself for everyone, so that they might resemble Him in His very likeness, in sacrificial devotion. Still, in that sense the seeking His own is something quite different, and by no means what we think of when we speak about seeking one’s own or about not seeking one’s own. Love is precisely sacrifice; that it seeks love is again the supreme love. That is to say, it is so in the relation between God and man. For when a man seeks another man’s love and seeks himself to be loved, then that is not sacrifice, for sacrifice would precisely consist in helping the other man to seek God. Only God is unreservedly able to seek love, and to be Himself the object of that love, yet without seeking His own. But no man is love. Therefore if a man seeks to become the object of another man’s love, he is seeking his own deliberately and fraudulently; for the only true object of a man’s love is “the love” which is God, which therefore in a still more profound sense is not any object, since He Himself is the love.
So let us then, with the act of sacrificial devotion in our thoughts (and it is then really not an act, not doing this or that), speak about:
Love Seeketh Not its Own
Love seeketh not tts own; for in love there is no mine and thine. But “mine” and “thine” are only a determination of the relationship of “own”; if, consequently, there is no “mine” and “thine,” then there is no “own”; but if there is no “own” at all, it is impossible to seek one’s eo oun.’
Justice is recognizable by the fact that it gives to everyone his own, just as in turn it demands its own; that is to say, justice goes to law about the “own,” weighs and divides; decides what each one has a right to call his own, judges and punishes, if anyone refuses to make the distinction between “mine” and “thine.” In this self-willed yet legally justified “mine,” the individual has the right to do what he will; and if he does not seek his own in some way other than as justice prescribes, then justice has nothing to reproach him about, and no right to reproach him for anything. So each one is entitled to his own. As soon as he is deprived of his own, or as soon as he deprives another of what belongs to him, then justice steps in, for its duty is to secure the common safety in which everyone is protected in his own rights.
But sometimes something happens, a revolution, a war, an earthquake, or some such terrible catastrophe, and everything is thrown into confusion. Justice tries in vain to secure everyone his own, to maintain the difference between “mine” and “thine”; it cannot do it; in the confusion it cannot hold the balance even, it throws the balance away: it despairs!
Terrible spectacle! And yet, does not love in a certain sense, although in the most blessed way, occasion the same confusion? But love, it too is an event, the greatest of all, the most joyful of all; love is a change, the most remarkable of all, but the most desirable—we are not now speaking in a preferential sense about the fact that one who is affected by love is changed or becomes changed; love is a revolution, the most profound of all, but the most blessed! So then in love there is confusion; in this blessed confusion there is for the lovers no difference between “mine” and “thine.” Wonderful! There is a “you” and an “I,” and there is no “mine” and “thine”! For without “you” and “I” there is no love, and with “mine” and “thine” there is no love; but “mine” and “thine” (these pronouns of possession) come from “thou” and “I,” and hence it seems as if they must be wherever there is “thou” and “1.” This is also the case everywhere except in the love which is a fundamental revolution. The more profound the revolution is, the more completely the difference of “mine” and “thine” disappears, the more perfect is the love. Its perfection depends essentially upon its not appearing that concealed at bottom there has lain and lies a difference between “mine” and “thine”; hence it depends essentially upon the completeness of the revolution. The more profound the revolution is, the more justice trembles; the more profound the revolution is, the more perfect is the love.