Page 129 - Gnosis volume 2

121

CHAPTER VI

If we still have reason to hope, how may we determine the conditions for the

realization of this hope?

In his first epistle to the Corinthians, St. Paul indicates the excellent Way and the best
1
gifts: Faith, Hope and Love .
*
* *

The road that human beings and, finally, the whole of adamic humanity have to cover
on this Earth, is that which leads from the Love of the Absolute III, that debris of

3
2
heavenly Love , to the Love of the Absolute II . This is the general condition for
Salvation.
4
This thought evokes the Way that leads to the Resurrection or the second Birth.
Now, in order to be reborn, the last trial through which man must emerge triumphant is

5
that of true Love . Only he who burns with this Love and who has subjugated his
Personality, may cross the second Threshold. However, before arriving at this point, the

faithful (fidel), sustained by the ardent desire for Salvation, must cover the intermediary
stages. He must prove his Faith and his Strength, a strength nourished by Hope. And

before acceding to Love, the neophyte must acquire Discernment. He cannot do this

before reaching the stage of Knowledge and St. Paul refers to this gnosis when he
describes the process in which each stage envelops and absorbs the stage or the stages

which precede it, and when he specifies that the passage from Hope to Love is marked

by the renewing

1 I Corinthians, XII, 31 and XIII, 13.
2
Expression appearing in the Philokalia.
3 Supra, p. 51.
4
Supra, p. 70.
5
Ref., t. I, p. 264, French original version; p. 289-290, English manuscript.