SAUL THE PHARISEE
You think not of Adam and his lamentations?
ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
What lamentations?
SAUL THE PHARISEE
Adam was divorced from the love of God.
ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
Yes, dearest Saul, if you see it so.
SAUL THE PHARISEE
And, henceforth, was the widow of God. He lamented in the deserts thereafter with a loud moan, not for the beauty of paradise, nor for the comforts of paradise, but he pined on the earths for his beloved God.
ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
Ah, I understand. Indeed he did.
SAUL THE PHARISEE
You say God sinned against Job, unconsciously aware, yet still actively did so. Did God not sin against Adam, too? (beat) He saw his beautiful first-born and perfectly crafted vestal wife succumb to the innocent curiosities intrinsic within their own determinate natures, and yet he threw him out to the hot earths, watched them, entirely not pleasing to small Adam, degrade him into a husk. Is this not also a betrayal of the greatest sin of Love? Perhaps, and arguably, the only inseparable and certain characteristic of God we are sure of?
In Eden, Adam tamed the wild animals, granted them names. The animals curled against him; as the sun shifted underneath the horizon, and the beautiful moon rose against rose-dropped skies, Adam sighed, Eve languidly stretched, and they embraced one another as the crickets chirped in assent.
ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
Oh, lovely Saul, again you misunderstand me in your, ah, brash nature… I say, of course, God’s sin against Job may perhaps be reflected in his actions of Adam; yet they are not the same. And further, I say, God’s sin–do not mistake it to be it as ours. God cannot be flawed, and cannot do evil. An antinomous nature, as we possess, is unpossessable for God. Do not mistake me for saying otherwise, lest ye invoke my wrath! Haha, I jest… But with Adam, well. I say what Adam felt crushed by in his pining, and as he lamented, was truly the weight of God’s Love. Not the weight of God’s supposed sin. A love so overwhelming and fierce that it demands from even the fieriest and darkest pits of humanity a truth from the beloved, even when the beloved cannot bear to hear it; it is a truth that, indeed, hurts, hurts more than anything imaginable, but with it, the beloved will feel a great sigh of repentance, and love ‘unconditional.’ It did not please God to watch Adam fall, I shall say, truly, it broke him to see his Creation, cradled in his hands as babe, engulfed in the powers of his Soul before his eternal idealization was realized, that is to say, before there was even anything at all. Irreplaceable and utterly remarkable is the Lamb–and God did not intend Adam to be another–but Adam was held close to his heart, just as the Lamb, which we hold close to ours, too. He loved him deeply. But love is not indulgence; it is not without consequence, and price. It did not please God to watch Adam wander the dust, moaning, yet his love would not truly be Love if to keep him in gilded paradise, satiated, fat, and happy, full and warm, unknowing, and unaware… Even if Adam’s choice led to his exile, it was his choice that is love. And so, yes, God gave Adam a grave gift. A perilous gift. A gift of choice. Yet no truer gift could have been bestowed upon him, and God does not lie. Yet Adam was never divorced from God’s love–he was only blind to it. Adam’s own self-punishment from his walk out of Eden and the arms of God was his bridal veil replaced with that of a funeral; dark, unseeing, obtuse. Adam was blind to God, yet God never left him. God was in every step that Adam took. Why else would Adam’s lament rise so loudly, so painfully, and so passionately? Why else? Adam cried, he moaned, because he knew of God’s love and felt it there, still, and yearned for it, yet felt it to be unreachable out of his own selfish guilt. His exile was no divorce, but a longing. God loved Adam recklessly, just as he loves you now. And you see, then, that God never stopped walking the deserts with you, even as you place his Son’s head on a pike, and his Son’s mother’s womb in an ostensibly perverted display. He only says to you, have mercy upon yourself, and have mercy upon poor Mary, and her only child, young and hopeless.
SAUL THE PHARISEE
AH, GABRIEL! Ahh, how you frustrate me so!
ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
What, what is it, dearest Saul?
SAUL THE PHARISEE
THAT! It’s–ahh–your words, you weave them, so neatly, so finely, they are golden threads too, but still, you sever my trust so, and your pretty words can do naught to mend my wounds!
Álvaro could not see beyond Tagus’ edge. The waters would lick ancient stone (“Isn’t it so sad? Soon enough, I fear all of it will be eroded!”) Gabriel was there, somewhere… Ships would lay, moored in silence. Their masts were bare. Lisbon was quiet, yet the city was its own kind of affliction; always. The laundry hanging in Bairro Alto looked like bodies in the dark of night.
ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
Please Saul, we do this every time!
SAUL THE PHARISEE
SUCH IS OUR NATURE!
ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
THEN CONTINUE!
SAUL THE PHARISEE
THEN, FINE! GABRIEL! Love never DEMANDED of suffering to prove itself true! When did love require exile to show its depth? Is the father that casts the son into the depths of the forests doing so out of love? Is his–gah–is his abandonment sanctified and salvific because his father walks behind him, YET UNSEEN?! No! No, no! No! What difference does it make to his son the feeling of eyes upon his back, and the ghost of his father’s warm and beatific touches, if not true? If mere “elucidations” of his own mind–they are, certainly, not made more real by his father’s true presence walking behind him, lest I have fallen out with epistemological paradigms! My love–
ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
Ah!
SAUL THE PHARISEE
–I fear for you, and thine relationships, if this is how you fucking see love. This is merely cruelty masked as virtue. You question doubt for its impish nature, in its disguisement as both sin and virtue, yet not so for love, which is arguably MORE impish? GABRIEL! This is not love! You say it broke God’s heart–though he must have one, I find it hard to marry with this–and that it hurt God, and he partook in Adam’s suffering as he bemoaned his crestfallen natures. Spare me! SPARE ME! What kind of GOD creates a creature so fragile, so bound to failure, then grieves the failure HE ORDAINED? If God’s love is too so reckless, so fierce, then it shalt be called, too, careless! Recklessness is no virtue, Gabriel, it is thoughtlessness! Adam’s lament was not that of a longing for love, but that of a cry of a man betrayed, reaching out for a father’s hand he felt in the wisps of air, yet fell through! IT IS ABSENCE DISGUISING AS NEARNESS! GOD IS NOT HERE! HE DOES NOT WALK WITH ME! IF THIS DISPLEASES YOUR GOD–
ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
Saul, please!
SAUL THE PHARISEE
–LET HIM STRIKE ME DOWN!–
ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
SAUL!
SAUL THE PHARISEE
–IF HE DARES SO!–
ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
STOP! There is no need to shout, you pain me!
SAUL THE PHARISEE
–I–AH, O Gabriel, I am sorry–
ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
Please, Saul. Let us convene in manners of peace! For mine own sake, my heart grows weary…
SAUL THE PHARISEE
Please, I am so sorry, I know not what overcame me–
ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
It is alright. Of course I will never truly be angry with you, dearest Saul.
SAUL THE PHARISEE
Oh, Gabriel–
There is a unification, now, between the edges of the tramlines and the starry-lined sky. Steel wires become constellations, as Álvaro’s desire peaks. (“What do you want for dinner?”) A light spirit emerges over head. (“It’s called ex opere operato; your terminology is a bit off. It’s a good paper, though.”) The spirit is light… Where is Carias tonight?
EROS THE INCOMPLETE
How you both thrash about so, it stirs me…
ANTIGONE & APOSTOLIC CHOIR
(In harmony)
Emergence, Álvaro Coelho!
SAUL THE PHARISEE
Who are you?
EROS THE INCOMPLETE
Eros the Incomplete, from your bitterness, and The Confessor’s unyielding care, I am borne. From your speaking of love, as though bound by sinew and skin, as though it holds edges traceable by a soft hand, I am borne; I am, indeed, truest Desire, purest Desire–not Eleutherios, whom now wanders away, of sexual desire, and the stroke of orgasm. But of puritan Desire, that cosmic force that compels; that cosmic force defined by the tension between the yearned and the denied. That force of consummation in every sense. I drive both your faith and your heresy–purest Desire for God, purest Desire for… truth, Saul the Pharisee? Or perhaps, love acceptable? Or, alleviation of guilt… Still, I am not yet sure. I am young, just nourished. I was conceived between you. I am the void between divine Love and the Cynical. For a while, I have been fed. In the smallest canyons of Álvaro Coelho, I grow, as moss and as vine-as something invasive, the weed to be extracted, never the welcome rose. Only now have I been realized, my intensity too great, and realized I am, as Eros. Prithee, do not fear. You have spoken, felt of me, for some time, yet no name to put. Just as the birth of Antigone, a sudden onset with the becomings of adolescence, am I matured in the slightly later ages of our Psyche.
SAUL THE PHARISEE
I am unsure of how to receive you.
ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
Bah, Saul is simply unfriendly to change! Yes Eros, I have felt you shift through us times-a-many, I began to anticipate your birth often as of recent times… It is not unfamiliar to have you here. After all, we all–in some way–know of all that has and is yet to come.
SAUL THE PHARISEE
Yes…
The oldest quarter now, Alfama, is riddled with labyrinths and yellow-tight corners (“No, I have a lecture tonight, Álvaro.”) There is a sacredness in the ordinary iron balconies unforgotten… (“You’re beautiful.”) There are whispered prayers as the inklings of night make themselves known (“Well–this isn’t logically sound. The premises do not follow from the first; and, here, your argument turns almost-ontological, yet, you claim to do otherwise, ah, right there–see?”) Patiently, Coelho goes slowly. (“It’s a lotus flower!”) Racehorses wreck through the streets, Go! Go! (“Get married!”) The horses are let go!
EROS THE INCOMPLETE
You do not need to “receive” me as you do Saint Gabriel of Georgia–
DIONYSUS ELEUTHERIOS
Hah!
EROS THE INCOMPLETE
–and I do not take offense to your non-acceptance, Pharisee.
SAUL THE PHARISEE
Uh-huh.
EROS THE INCOMPLETE
I am but mist; though I linger now between you both, seeing as your argumentation has caused the immanence of Desire–please, verily, I grant you that you may ignore me.
SAUL THE PHARISEE
Eros, you don’t need to give me permission to ignore you. ‘Tis my natural disposition.
ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
Do not be so rude, dearest Saul! And I am hesitant to support you so, for I understand Eros here–are you not forever a man of longing? Even in your endless rage, which, I know, is inseparable from you, is it not Desire that holds you close?
SAUL THE PHARISEE
O Gabriel! Do not make a fool of me in my own mind!–
ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
Coelho’s mind, though I suppose it is ours too–
SAUL THE PHARISEE
–I know what I have been! Even if I grant you this, and I have been a man of longing, for answers, that is, then what does Desire serve me if naught but to hurt and maim? I still long now, no?
EROS THE INCOMPLETE
Yet you still drink of me, nourish my sweet and honey-thick blood, as you curse me.
SAUL THE PHARISEE
What are you, Dionysus? How charming you are, young Eros, and if such is so, I do not lounge and drink your blood, it is forced down my throat! What a monstrous arrangement, and I should be grateful! You must joke! Mmf–if God loved me, then he would not have made me, and he would have unmade Adam too!
ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
Here is the heart of your pain, my love; you feel that the caring hand should sting your cheek, and that love should have left you alone, remained silent. Never have called you into being. Out of your own selfishly imposed punishment. I know you say God holds the key to your cell, yet ’tis in ye own hands.
SAUL THE PHARISEE
I cannot deal with you.
ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
Oh Saul!
SAUL THE PHARISEE
Should it have, truly? Truly Gabriel? Was it not a cruel thing for God to drag me from nothing–ex nihilo–and then leave me to wander in the dark?! When I cry out, when I curse him, and when I blaspheme, I feel not even the licks of hell’s flames, I feel not even the intense burn of flagellation, or a good stoning, I simply feel nothing! When I tear at my robes, he sees me and declares this is the result of his love? It is a poor love. Again I fear for you, pure Saint. What love doth you face, that such is your idea? I beseech you!
ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
All love I feel is gentle, Saul–
EROS THE INCOMPLETE
–Pharisee, it is a love that waits. I feel the lingering desire of God in you, and in God himself; and in Job’s heart, as his family perishes, and his friends turn a cold hand. Desire always lingers, Incomplete.
SAUL THE PHARISEE
Waits?
EROS THE INCOMPLETE
(a misty breath)
Love is no tyrant. It cannot drag or force. It beckons and it aches, and as it does my bones crumble and I feel frail, and it longs to be received, but it will not seize you by the throat. If you do not desire it, then it will not have you, nor will you have it. It will simply wait.
ST. GABRIEL CONFESSOR
See, my Saul, if God had left you in nothingness, there would be nothing to rage; for all your wickedly smart words, and snide comments, he allowed you to do so. And allowed you to love as you please. I love you, Saul–you love me, as heresy loves faith, the inverse is true.
CONT. […]