Love and fear

Reading Seneca, I am once again reminded how love cannot bear to have fear for her company. Before "τελεία ἀγάπη ἔξω βάλλει τὸν φόβον" (perfect love drives out fear, 1John 4:18) there was "non potest amor cum timore misceri" (love and fear cannot be mingled, Seneca Ep. 48:18, composed c. 65 AD).

This flies against those ideas which claim that by force on…