I have told you what to fear, I have told you what to desire. Seek charity, let charity enter; admit it by fearing to sin, admit love not sinning, admit love living well. That, as I began to say, entering, fear begins to exit. The more it enters, the less fear there will be. When it has fully entered, there will be no fear; because perfect love casts out fear. Therefore, charity enters, expels fear. However, it does not enter alone. It has its own fear with it, which it introduces itself; but it is chaste, enduring forever. There is the servile fear, by which you fear to burn with the devil; chaste fear is, by which you fear to displease God. Consider, dearest ones, and inquire the very human affections. A servant fears to offend his master, lest he commands him to be beaten, to be chained, to be imprisoned, to be ground in the mill. Fearing these, the servant does not sin; but when he perceives the eyes of his master absent and has no witness who can convict him, he acts. Why does he act? Because he feared punishment, he did not love justice. But a good man, a just man, a free man (for only the just is free; for everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin), delights in justice itself; and if he could sin without a witness, he dreads the witness even if God; and if he could hear God saying to him: I see you when you sin, I will not condemn you, but you displease me; unwilling to displease the eyes of the Father, not of a terrifying judge, he fears, not lest he be condemned, not lest he be punished, not lest he be tortured; but lest he offend the father's joy, lest he displease the eyes of the loving one. For if he loves himself, and feels his Lord loving him, he does not do what displeases the one loving him.
The force of impure love.
Beware of wanton and dishonorable lovers; if anyone, driven by lascivious and depraved love for a woman, dresses himself differently than she likes, or adorns himself differently than she likes, she will say: "I do not want you to have such a cloak"; he does not have it; if during winter she says to him: "I love you in a cape"; he chooses to shiver rather than to displease her. Will she who is displeased condemn him? Will she send him to prison? Will she employ torturers? The only thing feared there is: "I will not see you"; the only thing trembled at there is: "You will not see my face." If an impudent woman says this and terrifies him, God says it and does not terrify? Surely very much; but if we love. But if we do not love, we are not terrified by that; but we are terrified as slaves, by fire, by Gehenna, by the most atrocious threats of Tartarus, by the most grievous torments of the devil and his angels and his punishments? We should be terrified from that. If we love less, we should at least fear those things.
Love makes sacred virgins.
Therefore, let there be no fornication. You are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells in you. If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy them. Marriages are lawful; seek nothing more. For no great burden is imposed. A greater love imposed a greater burden on virgins. Virgins did not want what was permitted, so that they could more please Him to whom they devoted themselves. They desired that greater beauty of their heart. What do you command? As if they said: What do you command? Not to be adulteresses—this you command? Loving you, we do more than you command. Concerning virgins, the Apostle says, I have no commandment from the Lord. So why do they do this? But I give my advice. But those loving ones, to whom earthly marriages seemed worthless, who did not desire earthly embraces, so much accepted the command that they did not refuse the advice; in order to please more, they adorned themselves more. For the ornaments of this body, that is, of the outward man, the more they are desired, the greater the detriments to the inner man; but the less the ornaments of the outward man are desired, the more the inner man is adorned with beautiful morals. Hence Peter also says: Adorning themselves not in braided hair. For when he said: Adorning themselves, what else would be thought by carnal people than these visible ornaments? He promptly removed from thought what desire sought. Not, he says, in braided hair, nor in gold, or pearls, or costly clothing; but the hidden man of the heart, who is rich before God. For God would not give riches to the outward man and leave the inward one impoverished; He gave invisible riches to the invisible, and adorned the invisible invisibly.
The love of sacred virgins.
Desiring these ornaments, the girls of God, holy virgins, neither sought what was permitted, nor consented to what they were compelled. For many also overcame the contrary efforts of their parents with the fire of heavenly love. The father was angry, the mother wept; she did not care, for before her eyes was the beautiful one surpassing the sons of men. Indeed, she desired to be adorned for him, so that she might entirely take care of him. For she who is married thinks on the things of the world, how she may please her husband; but she who is unmarried thinks on the things of God, how she may please God. See what it means to love. He did not say: She thinks how not to be condemned by God. For this fear is still that servile fear, a guardian indeed of the wicked, that they might abstain from evil, and by abstaining be worthy to admit love to themselves. But those women do not think about how not to be punished by God, but how to please God, with interior beauty, with the beauty of the hidden man, with the beauty of the heart, where they are naked to his eyes; naked within, not without; whole both within and without. Let virgins teach the married men and married women, not to go into adultery. They do more than is permitted; let them not do what is not permitted.