{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/211/2110837.htm","path":"chr/ecf/211/2110837.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/211/2110837.htm","text":"Of the fear which is the outcome of the greatest love.\nWhoever then has been established in this perfect love is sure to mount by a higher stage to that still more sublime fear belonging to love, which is the outcome of no dread of punishment or greed of reward, but of the greatest love; whereby a son fears with earnest affection a most indulgent father, or a brother fears his brother, a friend his friend, or a wife her husband, while there is no dread of his blows or reproaches, but only of a slight injury to his love, and while in every word as well as act there is ever care taken by anxious affection lest the warmth of his love should cool in the very slightest degree towards the object of it. And one of the prophets has finely described the grandeur of this fear, saying: \u201cWisdom and knowledge are the riches of salvation: the fear of the Lord is his treasure.\u201d 1730 He could not describe with greater clearness the worth and value of that fear than by saying that the riches of our salvation, which consist in true wisdom and knowledge of God, can only be preserved by the fear of the Lord. To this fear then not sinners but saints are invited by the prophetic word where the Psalmist says: \u201cO fear the Lord, all ye His Saints: for they that fear Him lack nothing.\u201d 1731 For where a man fears the Lord with this fear it is certain that nothing is lacking to his perfection. For it was clearly of that other penal fear that the Apostle John said that \u201cHe who feareth is not made perfect in love, for fear hath punishment.\u201d 1732 There is then a great difference between this fear, to which nothing is lacking, which is the treasure of wisdom and knowledge, and that imperfect fear which is called \u201cthe beginning of wisdom,\u201d 1733 and which has in it punishment and so is expelled from the hearts of those who are perfect by the incoming of the fulness of love. For \u201cthere is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth out fear.\u201d 1734 And in truth if the beginning of wisdom consists in fear, what will its perfection be except in the love of Christ which, as it contains in it the fear which belongs to perfect love, is called not the beginning but the treasure of wisdom and knowledge? And therefore there is a twofold stage of fear. The one for beginners, i.e., for those who are still subject to the yoke and to servile terror; of which we read: \u201cAnd the servant shall fear his Lord;\u201d 1735 and in the gospel: \u201cI no longer call you servants, for the servant knoweth not what his Lord doeth;\u201d and therefore \u201cthe servant,\u201d He tells us, \u201cabideth not in the house for ever, but the Son abideth for ever.\u201d 1736 For He is instructing us to pass on from that penal fear to the fullest freedom of love, and the confidence of the friends and sons of God. Finally the blessed Apostle, who had by the power of the Lord\u2019s love already passed through the servile stage of fear, scorns lower things and declares that he has been enriched with good things by the Lord, \u201cfor God hath not given us\u201d he says \u201ca spirit of fear but of power and of love and of a sound mind.\u201d 1737 Those also who are inflamed with a perfect love of their heavenly Father, and whom the Divine adoption has already made sons instead of servants, he addresses in these words: \u201cFor ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.\u201d 1738 It is of this fear too, that the prophet spoke when he would describe that sevenfold spirit, which according to the mystery of the Incarnation, full surely descended on the God man: 1739 \u201cAnd there shall rest upon Him the Spirit of the Lord: the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of knowledge and of true godliness,\u201d and in the last place he adds as something special these words: \u201cAnd the Spirit of the fear of the Lord shall fill Him.\u201d 1740 Where we must in the first place notice carefully that he does not say \u201cand there shall rest upon Him the Spirit of fear,\u201d as he said in the earlier cases, but he says \u201cthere shall fill Him the Spirit of the fear of the Lord.\u201d For such is the greatness of its richness that when once it has seized on a man by its power, it takes possession not of a portion but of his whole mind. And not without good reason. For as it is closely joined to that love which \u201cnever faileth,\u201d it not only fills the man, but takes a lasting and inseparable p. 422 and continual possession of him in whom it has begun, and is not lessened by any allurements of temporal joy or delights, as is sometimes the case with that fear which is cast out. This then is the fear belonging to perfection, with which we are told that the God-man, 1741 who came not only to redeem mankind, but also to give us a pattern of perfection and example of goodness, was filled. For the true Son of God \u201cwho did no sin neither was guile found in His mouth,\u201d 1742 could not feel that servile fear of punishment.\nMal. i. 6 (LXX.).\n421:1736\nS. John 15:15, John 8:35.\n421:1737 421:1738 421:1739\nHomo Dominicus. See the note on Against Nestorius, V. v.\n421:1740 422:1741 422:1742","title":"Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Ser. II, Vol. XI: The Wor...","type":"page"}