I could not decipher what was wrong with his eyes.
While he grieves, an army of pallid watchful faces throng pews
And are close, like flowers in bud or nipped. Clerics
Do not wince at blood shed by Pharisees - and why should they,
If, as Anselmaniacs say, a loving Dad crucified his Son?
But Abelard says, ‘His death was that all men should be able to say
For the first time, “I am guilty of a grave omission
That had to be atoned for”, while an empty tomb points beyond the despair
Of morbid conscience to a second chance, the seal on pardon,
Promised by the death. The pagan tradition of an avenging, sanguinary God
Never entered veins - except by default.’ Abelard was right,
Love is painful. As if in the House of the self-deceived, unloving
Living Dead no one could know what love or truth was
Until a Lover was really martyred for it and really came live again,
That martyrdom is not real for his followers, till they have felt
Their ideal’s woe, read in wounds how they were once injurious.
Identification is all the meaning left. It ends despair by pointing
The way to commensurate action, to confirm triumph of good over evil.
Could expiation be as binding or stirring as heroic martyrdom? -
But in the comfortable landscape of human conventions Anselm’s house
Is plush and has a reinforced roof, while Abelard wanders
In the wilderness, and has no balls..¹
.
Since the martyrdom idea was buried,
Blood will have steel and religion beget technology
To build hopes with. - But did I really learn the value of human life?
Without a flesh-and-blood conscience, how could I?
I acted entirely logically. By nature, machines are logical; man is ethical.
Did the boy learn the value of human life in the story?
¹ Canon Fulbert had Abelard castrated for eloping with his daughter, Hélőise. I believe that Abelard’s more subjective view of the atonement is biblical, while Penal Satisfactionism is not and has pagan overtones. Subjectivity is precisely what Christ brought to the dry legalism of the old Covenant.