St. Teresa of Avila said of the devil: "Poor man, he does not love!" The devil is the one who does not love. He loves neither God, nor man, nor things. And in this property lies the greatest negation of God. St. John, in his Gospel and in his epistles, tirelessly repeats that God is love and that likeness to God and participation in His being stem only from love. "He who does not love has not known God" (1 John 4:8). And on the contrary, "he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him" (4:16). The loss of love is the loss of God, the possession of love is a sign of God living in man.

Therefore, a non-loving being is excluded from the divine life: God does not live in him, and he does not live in God. It can believe in God and even tremble before His power, but without love in itself, it has no existential connection with God. For him, God is only the cause of his being, only the absolute force by the action of which it arose and by the decision of which it is maintained. However, God for him is no longer the person who would make him speak and to whom he would respond. The loss of love is the loss of the personality of God. It is a loss of connection with God. And this is the loss of religion in the deepest sense of the word, for religion is a relationship between two persons. An unloving creature does not interact with God. It only "happens" with God, just as the creature "is" with its cause. And if the devil does not love, then by this he is the greatest denial of God, even if in his mind he believes in God and trembles. But why doesn't the devil love? How did this dislike arise in demonic existence?

The devil does not love because he loves only himself. Love and self-love exclude each other. These are two forces going in opposite directions. Love is always an eruption from oneself. Whoever loves puts himself next to another, transfers himself into another, lays down his life for another. Love, in essence, is a force directed towards being. This is a look directed far from oneself. It is a sound that seeks an echo. The basis of love is the image of God in us. Being created in the image and likeness of the Lord, we ourselves incline to the other, reach out to our Original. God draws our being. By the very essence of our structure, we are turned to Him and turned away from ourselves. Our being is always looking forward. He is destined not to remain in himself, but to step over himself, to enter into the other and to be in the other, for in this deepest Other lies its source, its origin, its model. His life is won by the one who loses it, that is, gives it to the Other, because in this Other he realizes it. Our being is realized only when we "are" together; we "be" not in ourselves, but in the other, and we absorb this other into ourselves. Socialized being is the basis of creative existence and at the same time its fullness.

However, let us imagine that a free creature of its own free will closes itself in on itself, turns away from the other, and turns its gaze to itself. The force that led her to being, she turns to herself. Love turns into self-love. What happens then? Nothing but the negation of everything. Such a creature denies first of all what is near it. Self-love turns into absolute deafness in relation to the environment. A self-lover does not call anyone and does not expect a response from others. His existence becomes closed. He does not "be" together. He "is" alone in his loneliness. Everything that is next to him loses its deep meaning for him. Self-love is the force that draws back from being. This power is in itself. But since the image of the Lord guides us from itself, self-love is directly transformed into a force that destroys our likeness to God. Turning our gaze to ourselves, we encounter the opposite direction of the image of the Lord and must make a choice: either to return back to existence, or to destroy in ourselves the likeness of God. A being driven by self-cherishing chooses the second path. It leaves the image of God, leaves being, and goes into itself. It destroys the likeness of the Lord and thus becomes the opposite of God and a profound negation of Him. A person can be a real and profound atheist only when he is selfish, for self-love is the strictest negation of God, not intellectual, not theoretical, but by the very direction of his being. Self-love is complete atheism.

In the case of the devil, such a serious turn took place. By refusing to serve the Lord, desiring to rise above the stars and there raise his throne and be like the Supreme, he thereby rejected love as a force directed towards existence, and chose self-love as a force directed towards himself. He turned away from God and all other creatures created by God. Self-love cut him off from existence with others and in others and closed him in himself. The devil became the loneliest creature of all God's creatures. His own existence became a prison for him. His existence became a complete silence in relation to the Creator and to creation. The devil does not invite anyone to talk by his existence. His existence is not a dialogue, but a deep, impenetrable monologue; This is a conversation only with yourself. Self-love closed the mouth of his being to every sound outside of him. This is the reason why the devil does not love. He does not love because he has chosen a different direction of his being, opposite to God's, has destroyed the image of God in himself, has separated himself from others and has withdrawn into himself. His dislike is the natural result of his selfishness. He believes in God, for he is God's creature. And he knows this well. For him, the existence of God in itself is not in doubt. But by the direction of his being, he refutes God in such a way that any atheist could hardly refute. The devil is a complete atheist precisely because he is a complete selfish. He also knows that there are creatures of God that he hates and fights against. But by his turn from being, he also denies them, which is beyond the power of every idealist. The devil is a complete solipsist because he is a complete selfish. Self-love makes him both an atheist and a solipsist. It destroys his relationship with God and with the world, locking him in his own lonely being.

Solovyov's remark that the Antichrist "loved only himself" has an extraordinarily deep meaning. He explains why this man, who believes in goodness, God, and even in the Messiah, nevertheless became the devil's helper. His selfish choice turned him away from the Lord and directed him to someone who had also turned away from God. Between the Antichrist and the devil, selfishness created a common space in which they both met. Solovyov tells us that, although his Antichrist believed in good, "the all-seeing eye of Eternity knew that this man would bow down before the evil force." To believe in goodness means nothing else than to be open with one's mind to activity. But to bow down before the good means to become good yourself. And to become good oneself is to give oneself to another, for good is diffusivum sui: it spreads, goes out of itself, and gives itself to another. Good in man is love. To bow down before the good in the deepest sense means to love. This can be done by someone who is turned to being. But this cannot be done by a self-lover who turns to himself. That is why Solovyov's Antichrist, although he believed in good, bowed down before evil in the depths of his being, for in it he saw his own image, in it he felt the growing power of self-love, directed into himself. The worship of the Antichrist before the evil force was not a sign of his weakness, not of his passion, but a sign of the anti-divine direction of his existence. Thus he approached the devil's existence; therefore the devil chose him as his assistant in the struggle with God. Self-love became the gateway to human existence.

This is not only the case with Solovyov's Antichrist, who is only a symbol of the entire Antichrist force active in history. Every antichrist grows out of selfishness, and every selfishness is the devil's path into history. Every self-love is a turn away from Bot, a destruction of His image, a denial of His creativity, and thus a godless act. It strengthens the activity of God's opponents in the world. It leads man into the company of the beast and makes him his own there. Therefore, the struggle with self-love is not only an ascetic task, but also a deeply ontological task. The struggle with self-love is a real struggle with the Antichrist within us. It is a struggle for the image of God, for the divine direction of our existence, manifested by love, which leads us to being.

It is here that we will understand why self-denial was the first requirement that Christ proclaimed to the world. The entire Sermon on the Mount is based on the idea of renunciation. To turn one's gaze to another, to God or to one's neighbor, to forget oneself, not to show oneself, to hide oneself, not to care about one's affairs, to give oneself to others – the main motive of Christ's preaching. What is this demand to turn the other cheek when you have already been hit on one, if not an order not to let the anger that flares out, to step over yourself. What is this commandment to love our enemies and do good to those who hate us, if not an indication that such giving to another makes us children of "our Father in heaven" (Matt. 5:45, that is, it deifies our being? fasting, not to be despondent, what is this, if not a commandment to hide oneself from the eyes of people and open oneself only to God? What else is the requirement not to lay up for oneself treasures on earth, not to worry about food and clothing, if not by trying to turn one's gaze away from oneself and direct it to God? Self-love is the greatest temptation of man. And overcoming it should be the main concern of a person.

That is why Christ directs man's attention to this overcoming, sharpening the gaze of his spirit, so that man would closely observe the manifestations of self-love and not succumb to its temptation. Self-love is often like love, just as the beast is like the Lamb. It is hidden under justice, under good deeds, behind fasting, behind care, behind almsgiving, behind prayer. It justifies itself by the need to act, create, educate, and take care of. It is dressed in the garb of religion so that it will be easier for it to bury the religion itself. After all, Solovyov's Antichrist was blameless, restrained, virtuous, zealous in his desire to serve and help others. He was a man of "unblemished morality." Most likely, he did not violate any of the Ten Commandments of God. But he loved neither God nor his neighbor, and thus violated the greatest commandment, on which "all the law and the prophets are established" (Matt. 22:40). With the Sermon on the Mount, Christ wanted to reveal the deceptiveness of self-love. He wanted to warn man against all those external forms in which love has died and which therefore become traps on the path of human existence. Christian self-denial is the overcoming of self-love and at the same time the strengthening of love. This is the strengthening of the divine in man and thus the main means of combating the designs of the Antichrist. Self-denial is the power that leads a person to God and makes him a member of the society of the Lamb. It is essentially a religious force. Its basis lies in the very existence of man. To deny oneself means to be for another and in another, to be together, that is, as God has ordained for man.

The expression "renunciation of oneself" is love. It is, as it has been said, a force directed towards being: a force from oneself into another. Therefore, a person who renounces himself, who directs his gaze to another, leans towards this other, takes care of him, takes care of him and helps him. This is Christian caritas. However, it is not only external behavior, not only external help, but also a deep experience of the other as the realization of oneself. After all, it is possible to help another not only out of love, but also out of self-love. Solovyov's Antichrist is just such a selfish friend and benefactor of people. He saves people not because he considers them to be his brothers in the Lord and experiences them as a space in which he realizes his existence, manifesting the image of God in himself, but because people for him are only a means of satisfying his own self-love, he wants people who have been saved by him and who have accepted his help to revere him, thank him and recognize him as their guide and master. Doing good deeds, the Antichrist feels that he has risen above people, that he dominates them, he sees them bowing down before him. The Antichrist's caritas not only does not overcome self-love, but elevates it to the highest degree, for it turns one's neighbor into the slave of the benefactor. Only when our neighbor is experienced as standing above us, as our inner calling, as the bearer of the same image of God, only then does our external help to him become an expression of Christian caritas and marks us with the sign of God. Only then is our renunciation of ourselves realized, as Christ demands.

This inner attitude, this experience of the divinity of man, is precisely what distinguishes Christian caritas from the help of the Antichrist. Helping a person has now become almost fashionable. All kinds of international and national societies compete with each other in providing such assistance. The beast adorns his horns to resemble the Lamb as much as possible. And many are seduced by this similarity. Many believe that some part of these societies really works in the name of love for one's neighbor. And yet, in its essence, their activity belongs to the sphere of antichrist help, for they lack the experience of the divinity of man. They look at their wards as prisoners, as if they were bought for a piece of bread. Superficially, these blessings are similar to Christian caritas, and those who do them sometimes materially do much more than Christians.

However, the spirit that sustains and compels the performance of these good deeds is essentially different. Christ commands us to do good so that man may go out of himself, so that he may support himself in the direction of being, so that, by existing in another, he may gain himself. Meanwhile, the Antichrist does good in order to bring man to his knees before him, in order to see him humiliated, despised, and enslaved. Christian caritas is service to one's neighbor, antichrist's beneficence is power over one's neighbor. That is why today it is so widely used, so widespread in the society of the beast. St. John's advice not to believe in every spirit, but first of all to understand them, is especially important and necessary in love for one's neighbor, for here self-love is most easily concealed under the cover of good works. That is why Christianity demands that these deeds be carried out in the name of Christ; so that a person does not boast about them and is not proud; so that he does not demand gratitude for them, as the benefactors of the Antichrist do. The discovery of oneself is an indication that the help given to one's neighbor is really Christian caritas, and not the help of the Antichrist.

However, the consequences of self-love are not limited to this. Self-love not only distances man from the Creator and His creation, but it causes man to hate God and the world, followed by destruction and annihilation. St. John in his first epistle says that "he who does not love his brother abides in death" (1 John 3:14). The statement has a deep meaning. Lovelessness and death are essentially interconnected. Whoever does not love bears death and dies together. Turning away from being and closing himself in on himself, man denies love only psychologically, because he is not able to ontologically refute the forces hidden in him directed towards being. Love as a divine likeness remains in him even in the times of the highest selfishness. It resounds in him as the voice of conscience, it compels him to return to being and begin to exist anew with others and in others. Every encounter with people and things, every relationship with the world and with the representatives of God, reminds the self-lover of the higher direction of existence that he has rejected and does not allow him to be completely satisfied in his choice. The self-lover lives in constant tension between the appeal of love and the rejection of his self-love.

This tension, this constant reminder and appeal, causes a person to hate everything that does not allow him to calm down in his prison. Self-love is transformed into hatred of being. And the more a person loves himself, the more he hates others. This consistently follows from the aversion to being and the turn into oneself. Self-love as a force directed into itself wants to remain the only one. It wants to concentrate a person around it in such a way that everything else disappears. The solipsism of self-love tries to burn with the fire of hatred all the bridges connecting it with the world and man. But such an abrupt break in all ties is achieved only when being is destroyed. When things and people disappear, then the self-lover is really alone, and then no one prevents him from focusing only on himself and taking care only of himself. Destruction becomes a consistent expression of self-love in life. As much as love builds, so much does hatred caused by self-love destroy. It destroys everything: objects, people, and their relationships; it encroaches even on God Himself and His order. That is why St. John says that "everyone who hates his brother is a murderer" (1 John 3:15). In the physical sense, he may not kill him, as Cain killed Abel, but in his soul he longs for his non-existence. He longs for his neighbor to disappear! Therefore, the thought of murder takes deep roots in every selfish person. From this spiritual murder follows physical destruction. "He who does not love his brother abides in death" (1 John 3:14), and not only in the sense that he himself "has no eternal life in him" (1 John 3:15), but also in the fact that he brings death to another, destruction becomes the mode of his action. The self-lover carries good things with one hand in order to be honored, and death with the other, destroying those who do not bow down before him and do not recognize him as ruler.