He who wants to be stamped with the virtues should pursue before everything else and at all times fear of God and holy love, the first and greatest of the commandments

 

11. He who wants to be stamped with the virtues should pursue before everything else and at all times fear of God and holy love, the first and greatest of the commandments (cf. Matt. 22:38). Let him continually beseech the Lord to send this love into his heart, and thus let him advance and grow, augmenting it by grace day by day through the ceaseless and unbroken remembrance of God. Through diligence and effort, concern and struggle he becomes capable of acquiring love for God, given form within him by the grace and bounty of Christ. Through such love the second commandment, love for one's neighbor (cf Matt. 22:39), can easily be attained. Let these two primary commandments take precedence over the others and let him pursue them more than the others. In this way the secondary commandments will follow naturally on the primary. But should he neglect this first and great commandment, the love for God that is formed with divine help from our inner disposition, our clear conscience and our life-giving remembrance of God, then in consequence of this neglect he cannot soundly and purely accomplish the second commandment, that requires simply the outward diligence of service. For the guile of evil, finding the intellect void of the remembrance of God, and of love and longing for Him, will make the divine commandments appear harsh and laborious, kindling in his soul grumbling, resentment and complaints about having to serve the brethren; or else it will deceive him with the presumption of self -righteousness, filling him with arrogance and making him think that he is of great importance and worthy of esteem, and that he has entirely fulfilled the commandments.

St Symeon Metaphrastis: Paraphrase of the Homilies of St Makarios of Egypt: I: Spiritual Perfection