266 The Beloved taught His Lover how to love; and Love intruded him in speech; and Patience, to bear afflictions for the love of Him to whom he had given himself to be a servant.
267 The Beloved asked men if they had seen His Lover, and they asked Him: ‘What are the qualities of Thy Lover?’ And the Beloved said: ‘My Lover is ardent yet fearful; rich and yet poor; joyful, sad and pensive; and every day he grieves because of his love.’
268 They asked the Lover: ‘Wilt thou sell thy desire?’ He answered: ‘I have sold it already to my Beloved, for such a price as would buy the whole world.’
269 ‘Preach, O Fool, speak concerning thy Beloved; weep and fast.’ So the Lover renounced the world, and went forth lovingly to seek his Beloved, and to praise Him in those places wherein He was dishonoured.
270 The Lover builded a fair city wherein his Beloved might dwell; of love, thoughts, tears, complaints and griefs he builded it; with joy, devotion and hope he adorned it; and with justice, prudence, faith, fortitude and temperance he furnished it.
271 The Lover drank of love at the fountain of the Beloved, and there the Beloved washed the Lover’s feet, though many a time he had despised and forgotten His greatness, and the world had suffered thereby.
272 ‘Say, O Fool, what is sin?’ He answered: ‘It is the turning and directing of the intention away from the final Cause and Intention for which all things have been created by my Beloved.’
273 The Lover saw that the world was created so that eternity should be more in harmony with his Beloved, who is Infinite Essence of greatness and all perfection, than with the world, which is a finite quantity; and therefore the justice of his Beloved was before time and finite quantities were.
274 The Lover defended his Beloved against those who said that the world is eternal, saying that the justice of his Beloved would not be perfect, if He restored not to every man his own body, and for this no place or material order would suffice; nor, if the world were eternal, could it be ordered for one end only; and yet, if it were not so ordered, there would be wanting in his Beloved perfection of wisdom and will.
275 ‘Say, O Fool, wherein is the beginning of wisdom?’ He answered: ‘In faith and devotion, which are a ladder whereby understanding may rise to a comprehension of the secrets of my Beloved.’