All things are nothing to me

Summary

What is not supposed to be my concern! First and foremost the good cause, then God's cause, the cause of mankind, of truth, of freedom, of humanity, of justice; further, the cause of my people, my prince, my fatherland; finally, even the cause of mind and a thousand other causes. Only my cause is never to be my concern. ‘Shame on the egoist who thinks only of himself!’

Let us look and see, then, how they manage their concerns, they for whose cause we are to labour, devote ourselves, and grow enthusiastic.

You have much profound information to give about God, and have for thousands of years ‘searched the depths of the Godhead’, and looked into its heart, so that you can doubtless tell us how God himself attends to ‘God's cause’, which we are called to serve. And you do not conceal the Lord's doings either. Now, what is his cause? Has he, as is demanded of us, made an alien cause, the cause of truth or love, his own? You are shocked by this misunderstanding, and you instruct us that God's cause is indeed the cause of truth and love, but that this cause cannot be called alien to him, because God is himself truth and love; you are shocked by the assumption that God could be like us poor worms in furthering an alien cause as his own.