The fear of God is the beginning of virtue, and it is said to be the offspring of faith. It is sown in the heart when a man withdraws his mind from attractions of the world to collect its thoughts, wandering about from distraction, into reflection upon the restitution to come.
To lay the foundation of virtue, nothing is better than for a man to contain himself by means of flight from the affairs of life, and to persevere in the illumined word of those straight and holy paths, even that word which in the Spirit the Psalmist named a lamp.
Homily I (p. 113).
[Isaac of Nineveh, The Ascetical Homilies of St. Isaac the Syrian, Holy Transfiguration Monastery, trs. Revised 2nd edition. Holy Transfiguration Monastery (Boston: 2011).]
