The Apostle Paul, under Archangelic influence and illumination, gave us the Hymn of Love. And indeed, it is a hymn because it sings and glorifies Love. Love here is not just described and recorded in a technical way but celebrated at the highest level!

We are going to examine this Archangelic Hymn from many perspectives. For this we are going to exclusively refer to the original Greek text. Regrettably, the translation into English not only contains some inconsistencies but also fails to fully convey the initial vibration of the words and meanings; and this is understandable for the two languages are different. When the English text becomes extremely erratic, we opted to place the correct and underlined translation immediately after the erratic text within brackets).

This Divine Hymn in Greek begins with a hypothesis. The English text starts with the subordinate conjunction ‘though’ instead of ‘if’ which introduces a conditional clause. “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.” From this statement, the following occur: Just like people have languages, thus also Archangels have Their own languages. Not singular for language but languages, which is plural; spot the difference!

Language now, as sound and vibration, is a characteristic of Spirits alone. No unreasoned creature can express language. Animals may have communication codes accompanied by various sounds, but some basic features are absolutely missing. Primarily they are inarticulate cries, which do not emanate from a noetical body and are not connected to a higher noetical or noetic body in order to convey concepts and meanings, in other words Truth itself. So, it is a sound code, useful for survival and coordination of the various species on the planet and nothing more. It is not a way of expressing the Spirit.

For us Speech, and therefore language as a carrier of speech-sound, is expressed even within the world of three dimensions. Behind the words are the meanings and concepts, and this is the great mystery that the mystic must learn; how to clothe sound with meaning, or how to receive meaning via sound, carried through the words of the various languages.

When we become masters of our noetical body, we will be able to tune in with our fellow men regardless of whether he speaks another language. By attuning to his noetical body, we will be able to decode the concepts he conveys even though he might use a different speech code than the one we know as a present-day personality.

We now, as researchers and mystics, can come into contact with the noetical light and noetical body of each person and receive the concepts he wants to transmit. As for the Archangels, the melodious sounds of Their languages are also composed of syllables. They use both consonants and vowels in various intensities and vibrations, conveying the meanings the Archangels want to convey or extend. Such meanings can be worship to the Absolute BE-ingness, praise or a hymn.

This Archangelic emanation also takes place through sounds! It has a sound component, in other words, but behind this something is being sent. This is the Super-Substantial transcendent meaning, concept or truth if you wish. Most of the time, these hymns are Hymns of Love and Adoration to God. So, Archangels may express Their love in Their own distinctive way. In a different way, then, each individual Archangel will praise, from Gabriels, Raphaels, Uriels, (Uphalims) and all the rest. They all have Their own different Archangelic language but with some common characteristics.

So even if we reach that level where through exercises, rigorous work and meditations we approach all the languages of men and also of the Archangels, yet we have not reached the point of purifying our heart for it to vibrate with Christ-Love, then we have succeeded nothing at all. We resemble metal tins being hit with a stick; we produce a sound and nothing more. Thus, if we do not reach the point of Love, whatever we may have achieved has no value whatsoever. The Apostle Paul or Father Hilarion is absolute on this point. And of course, the truth that he was given to pass on was also absolute.

There is yet a second condition which shows the greatness of Love and the relative smallness of these greatest, in our view, achievements, which are next in line. “And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” In other words, even if I can receive prophecies, know all the mysteries of creation, possess all knowledge, and have built up within me so much faith that I can even move mountains, if I do not have Love in my heart, I am nothing! The Apostle is so absolute in these two conditions, and in the third to follow, where the measure of Love is given.

Some may have thought that when they conquer all this, it is the end of the journey. And even if what people believe is indeed invested with the creative ether and becomes realised, even so, it is nothing. This present-day personality is nothing! There should also be the characteristic of Love within this personality and especially in its centre, which is called upon to express this Love and which is our heart.

So, he now continues with the third condition through which, as we mentioned above, the measure of Love is indirectly given. Something that resembles Love, but the Apostle Paul here wants to separate, is the following. “And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.”Even then, even if I dispose of all my possessions and dispose of my body to be burned, and I have no Love, because I may do it all out of fanaticism, out of show, or out of fear of disobeying the command, for example, or out of guilt, no benefit accrues.

So, the first three stanzas determine the magnitude of Love through human achievements, of the present-day personality in other words, which although they may seem great, in reality if they do not have the investment of Love and are not driven by it, they have absolutely no value. And now, defining this Divine Love, the Apostle continues: “Love suffers long and is kind (righteous); love does not envy; love does not parade itself, it is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, it is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” He continues with a relentless and precise definition of what Love is. And it is merciless because it demolishes illusions of the present-day personality, which when it says and refers to Love means something finite, within human conditions, determinations and specifications, mainly based on self-interest and pleasure.

Here we have Love that is long-suffering and patient; Love suffers long and is patient, a situation that also exists within the Seven Promises “To endure patiently, without complaining, all forms of trials and tribulations …” This is an excellent example of long-suffering.

Then Love is righteous. It is thus useful; it has usefulness in it. It is good, it does not ask for evil because it is pure Love. It, therefore, is not jealous. And here, the Apostle poses the question of jealousy separately, in a whole different sentence. Of all human passions, he places it alone because the eye of Man eventually decodes everything through the Super-Noetic Light as we have said, but he falsifies this very decoding.

Man converts, cuts and stitches this decoding to his own measurements. Consequently, he will receive the facts of the truth, but jealousy is something that blinds and shifts Man from his path, making him follow the path of someone else, even asking for the evil of his fellow man. This is how jealousy mixed with envy arise or how gloating or rather “Schadenfreude”, a word borrowed from German into English that describes the particular emotion of pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others, emerges. And these misfortunes oftentimes occur to our fellow human beings due to our own malice.

“Love does not parade itself.” No true Love is advertised under any circumstances, neither to ourselves nor to third parties for display! Love is expressed in silence or through actions. Even silent Love has hidden actions in it. A blessing or even an angelic elemental is work of Love that may not have been expressed in words. Sometimes, however, words of Love are needed to support a fellow human being.

The following statement, “it is not puffed”, carries a double meaning in Greek. The first one is similar to “Love does not parade itself” and means that Love does not ‘inflate’ or show off. The second meaning, as Daskalos has explained, is for it to receive physical state and substance. To descend in a manner that is choice or earthly. Here, we do not refer to a caress, a tender stroke or service provided, but to acts that descend to a state of lower vibrations, even if they enter a process of decay and death, since they are concepts in the three-dimensional world.

We continue with “does not behave rudely”, which means that Love’s actions and course are not diverted. Because I love somebody does not mean that I have demands and rights over them.

There are people who, because they love or because they are loved, consider they have established rights. When we love, we ask nothing from no one; not even to be loved back. It is up to everyone’s free will to decide what to do. Additionally, when someone has given, us love and suddenly decided to change course – maybe because he got tired, maybe he was not demonstrating real Love after all and what we had was a mutual illusion that satisfied the selfishness of both personalities – anger and the feeling of loss arise. A reaction occurs because we have lost our ‘rights’ and we behave rudely, that is, we deviate, we attack.

This needs special attention! Because this is not Love, and if such behaviour occurs, it is there to remind us that this is not Love. So, I recognise and de-characterise as Love if I have such feelings and quickly transform them to express the pure Love of the Beloved Joshua Immanuel the Christ-Logos.

“Does not seek its own”, translates that Love does not ask, it does not demand its rights, since as we said before, pure and true Love has no rights at all. Love only carries the joy of loving someone, and nothing else. And, thus, it is not provoked; it does not get aggravated, have anger or tantrums.

Someone who loves will never consider ill because Love “thinks no evil”. If our mind should go to evil, a bell must immediately ring; “This is not Love. beware!” What is more, Love is not exhilarated in injustice but instead it is happy when there is truth. Love recognises the truth and rejoices in it; it “does not rejoice in inequity but rejoices in the truth”.

“Love bears all things”, that is, it always endures, which is so very difficult, and it is followed by a sequence of dynamic situations. Let us remember the Seven Promises. “And Love believes all things”! Through this promise “To endure patiently without complaining, all forms of trials …”, there is hope and faith but also strength! So, love not only endures but believes as well! In doing so, the creative ether is at its disposal; the Holy Spirit gladly collaborates.

“Love hopes for all things”, having its horizons open with dynamic faith, and that is why it always “endures all things” with dignity. The Apostle Paul emphasizes it, and so Father Yiohannan made it one of the Seven Promises. To endure means that I am under a situation that I may not like. I bow, however, to the Divine Will and move forward in my life.

There are times we may grumble a bit, we are indeed human, but immediately we ought to remember the Hymn of Love and our Seven Promises. Of course, even though Love tolerates and endures everything, there is a limit to tolerance.

Daskalos explained that we have absolute tolerance which of course does not run out, but when it comes to harming our fellow man because he takes advantage of my Love and this tolerance that I show, then I must modify my attitude and set limits either verbally or even hit my hand on the table sternly. “No more, enough is enough!” I might need to utter, yet my Love towards this person will not change; it will remain unaltered!

It may also be necessary to draw away from people. But one can love from a distance, remember that! Love must not be degraded by allowing itself to be trampled upon and exploited. Love is sacred, and the situations we analysed above should not be confused!

The Apostle goes on to describe other qualities of Love. “Love never fails”, he states, which is a great truth! He explains this by saying that “whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away”, that is to say, even if all the above happens, Love, still never fails.

So, you must remember this in your relationships with people. For example, you love but you see that suddenly the other person has changed, moves away, attacks. A plethora of incidents may take place in the multi-faceted life of Man! Do not lose faith. Even if as present-day personalities you may drift away and part, you must remember that the Love you shared will never perish, even in the ages of ages, even after the dissolution of the gross material bodies; I repeat it will never perish. Instead, it will come to find you in other incarnations to continue as pure Love where you both left off.

I repeat emphatically, Love never fails! And this is a very strong statement, the greatest of truths. Precisely because it is not puffed up, Love is not of this world, it cannot wear out! It is not subject to the ruler of these worlds of separateness. It is beyond the worlds of separateness, it is Truth, Light, it is Life. It is the Absolute BE-ingness, Christ the Logos. It is everything! And even if it is expressed by Man, in whichever way petty or not, it never fails!

This you will discover when under the prism of Love, you study the lives of people; have the patience to see and not lose your faith in expressing Love to those who hate or attack you. And in the end, Love, not only never fails but also carries others along to shift their attitude and express Love when they used to express hate or selfish and foolish, petty love. Now they express pure Love. This can take place over a period of many, many years or even in incarnations to come. This does not matter. Love never fails!

Love relations of people correlated with Love are unbreakable forever and forever! A most standing and durable karmic relationship is that of Love, which is rewarded, invigorated and ever preserved! Even if prophecies are abolished, which may happen, there are many such examples, simply because people changed and consequently their karma changed, Love is not abolished. Even if human languages cease or change, if knowledge alters, is forgotten or transformed, Love will not fail.

Love is a quality of the Spirit, while knowledge is a quality of the noetical body and therefore it is transformed or even discredited. The Law of Karma as we know very well is not one-sided but dynamic, and here the Apostle Paul indirectly describes this Divine Law.

In the next verse, the Apostle begins to make some explanations that seem difficult to comprehend. “For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.”

Here the Apostle enters into the core of the present-day personality’s life. He lived as a Man and experienced the heavenly and the earthly. He also acknowledges that each present-day personality understands things in life by using what it already knows. It decodes the world and the truth using that part of knowledge, and also to get to know what follows in an attempt to recognise the whole.

Yet Man does not know everything, only bits and pieces! This applies to both knowledge and futurology, such as prophecies. All this is a journey as the Godman stated, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” The way is described here, in other words.

Now, in the expression “when that which is perfect has come”, what does perfect actually mean here? The illumination that is brought through the Infinite Light, which is handled not only by our Spirit-Ego-Self but also by the Logos, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Archangels, our Holy Guardian Archangel and the Absolute BE-ingness Itself of course. Then we enter a state called perfect!

This implies that Man perceives the Totality, the Multiplicity as well as the Unity of everything: “That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me” (John 17:21-23).

This is the essence of the Most Beloved Joshua Immanuel the Christ sayings during His last Archieratic (Highest Priestly) Prayer. This is a key element! And this perfection arises with all that we have said, thus Love is connected with the perfect.

Love is connected to the One, it is an embrace that unites everything and rejects nothing! It is the Hymn of Unity, the Hymn of the Monad to Wholeness and the resonance of Wholeness to Unity back as the Hymn of Love. Wholeness, Monad! Everything is One, and he who loves is given the perfect! In other words, he experiences Totality, he experiences his Self as Unity and as Totality, and he can also see it around him and within the creation since the creation is not outside of the whole, outside of the Divine Absolute Monad, outside of the Oneness.

When this station is realised and we enter into the process of Divinity, into the Baptism of Spirit, (since of course the Baptism of Fire has preceded it, which essentially is to purify our self and learn to tune in and Love; it is the Christo-Eno-aesthesia in other words) we begin with the part, and then this blessed day arrives when I love all.

Everything is an embrace and now all begins. Heaven and Earth have joined, and the Baptism of Spirit commences. And we say it commences because it has so many stations that words cannot describe. However, the perfect has come and consequently that which is in part will be done away with.

Man can no longer operate fragmentedly. The part was abolished in favour of the whole, the fragment in favour of the whole. The present-day personality functions as One with the Soul and the “That they all may be one” does not work as a wish but now indeed and in reality, everything is One!

And the Apostle goes on: “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” So, in continuation of what he has said and referring to the spiritual life of the present-day personality he adds that when I was a spiritual infant, I spoke and understood like a toddler. All my thoughts and calculations were in their infancy.

A respectable situation of course and necessary, I must say; we should not underestimate it! However, spiritual infant life is not the end of our journey, only a mere preliminary station.

There is continuity in both childhood and adolescence in order for us to mature and hence become an adult. And even though inside me I have memories of when I was a toddler, since it always abides within me, my thoughts have eventually matured and I express myself as an adult, that is, spiritually mature.

What takes place in the third dimension with my material body as I grow up, this also corresponds to my spiritual life with my other bodies. All this is included in the Hymn of Love and demonstrates our maturation in terms of Love, that is, how we will mature as a Logoical Being who can express its, Self as Logos-Love.

If we cannot express Love, then what Logoically Beings are we? The Seven Promises along with our life in Christ, which is Logoical in its nature, if not completed and certified by Love, then it is nothing and we are nothing.

The Apostle Paul now goes on more difficult paths, with coded messages. “For now, we see in a mirror (internal mirror), dimly (enigmatically), but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.”

So now we see, the Apostle tells us, in an internal mirror, which is different from a speculum or reflector. In the mirror I stand in front of it; it is a shiny surface outside me which reflects the light, and so I perceive through the mirror who I am; I observe my physical appearance.

However, now things have changed, and we enter into an enigmatic situation that is not in front of me but inside me that I define my Self, and I realise that until now I knew things fragmentarily. I understood my Self by the partly things I perceived and thus defined my Self. Nevertheless, I can now see within my Self based on everything we have said.

So, I see who I really am inside, and who I really am in terms of Love. I am Love and at the same time I am the one who loves, who expresses Love in the worlds of existence. I perceive this internally and not in a mirror, which was once the case. Things used to be fuzzy, garbled and fragmentary. Conditions within the worlds of separateness were also altered through mirrors that distorted reality.

In the all-holy mirror of Truth, of my Self that I have within me, there I see reflected the whole Hymn of Love together with the Truth that it encompasses. A whole road is opened before me to walk on.

I must remember that the Hymn of Love is dynamic. It does not describe something that was done in the past or something that must be done now, but something that must continue to be done throughout the ages both microcosmically and macrocosmically.

I should express, in other words, my Self Logoically under the prism of Truth; and this should also be checked in perpetuity. So, I will know with certainty that I am expressing this quality of the Beloved Christ-Logos as well as a quality of my own Self.

The final account follows: “And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love” from our course through soil. And what ultimately remains are the Divine Qualities of Faith, Hope and Love. Of these three, the greatest state is Love that includes all three. Naturally the other two qualities also include Love, but emphatically we say that Love is the first of all.

Now, Man’s journey does not stop with reading this Divine Hymn. It is something that we must apply in our daily challenges and in our contacts with our fellow human beings. It is a divine imitation!

Today’s lesson is about Self-aware introspection and thus the control of the elementals is done from the highest levels, from the Realms of Love. They are automatically controlled and thrown in fire! The words of our Christ, the Seven Promises and the Hymn of Love are a code of Life for us Christian Researchers after the Truth. They are complimentary to each other and lead to Theosis!