And the Rest Is History (2 page)

Laban pointed out that in Haran it was protocol for the older sister to marry first. Rather than bemoan love's labors lost, Jacob again sued for the hand of his beloved. Laban agreed, with the provision that he had to agree to another seven-year tour of duty—though, in compassion, he conceded that the marriage could take place after the ceremonial week of the first wedding. Jacob, understanding that great love was synonymous with great sacrifice, consented. Hence Rachel became Jacob's second wife, though she was always first in his heart.

After the nuptials, the feelings between the two sisters were akin to the ones between the two brothers. Rachel did not forgive her sister for her part in the deception, and Jacob referred to Leah as the “unloved” one. However, despite her unloved status, Leah bore several children; after each one she prayed for her husband's affections, which were never forthcoming. On the other hand, Rachel, the wife of Jacob's heart, remained barren.

One day, Leah's son Reuben brought home mandrake roots as a present for his mother. His aunt desperately desired them, as they were a popular aphrodisiac in the ancient world. Leah agreed that her sister could have them in exchange for promising that Rachel would command Jacob to have intercourse with Leah that night. The result was that Leah again conceived while Rachel did not.

Trying another tactic, Rachel arranged for her maidservant Bilhah to serve as her surrogate, and through this means she became the mother of two. In retaliation, Leah gave her maidservant Zilpah to Jacob, which resulted in another two sons.

Jacob and Rachel's greatest joy was when she finally conceived and gave birth to Joseph, who would become his father's favorite. Jacob would one day show his preference by distinguishing Joseph with the special gift of a multicolored coat.

Wanting his mother, Rebekah, to meet her new grandson, Joseph, Jacob decided it was time to depart Haran and return to Canaan, in the hope that with time Esau's hatred had abated. Jacob gathered his four wives, dozens of children, and flocks of sheep and set his eyes toward home. Before they left, Rachel stole her father's idols, which represented the protective deities of his home and served as a property deed. Her plan was to secure the property for her husband. She figured that years ago, on what should have been her wedding night, Laban had stolen her happiness; it was time to return the transgression.

The clan had crossed the Euphrates when Laban arrived and accused Jacob of theft. His innocent son-in-law denied knowledge of wrongdoing with the curse, “With whoever you find your gods, he will not live” (Genesis). Not convinced, Laban searched every inch of all the tents; however, he neglected to look under the camel seat cushion where Rachel was sitting—the spot where the idols were hidden. She explained, “Let not my lord be angered that I cannot rise up before you, for the way of women is upon me” (Genesis). This was a lie; she was not menstruating and was actually pregnant with her second son. Laban departed, but Jacob's curse remained.

During the odyssey, Jacob, despite his four wives and innumerable children, found time for solitude, wherein he had his second out-of-body experience. In it he encountered an angel who wrestled with him throughout the night. In the course of the struggle the angel informed him that he was no longer Jacob, the supplanter; henceforth he would be known as Israel, meaning “ruling with God.” He was told that a great nation would be named after him, and his twelve sons would give rise to twelve tribes.

When Canaan was in sight, ever protective of his first love, Jacob placed her at the rear of his family (the place of the greatest safety) in the contingency of an attack by Esau, who he still feared. Jacob was overjoyed when his brother not only forgave him but welcomed him; however, his elation was short-lived. At this juncture Rachel went into an excruciating labor, and after giving Jacob his twelfth son, Benjamin, she passed away: “And Rachel died, and was buried on the way to Ephrath, which is Bethlehem. And Jacob set a pillar upon her grave: that is the pillar of Rachel's grave unto this day” (Genesis).

Her husband was devastated at the loss of the woman he had adored since he had laid eyes on her, the one who was to be revered as the biblical matriarch. Jacob continued on his journey, his heart left behind.

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T
he relationship scandal of the twelfth century is the tale of Abelard and Héloise, star-crossed lovers whose passion survived calamity and continues to echo throughout the millennia.

Medieval depictions of women are stylized: they wear chastity belts, weave tapestries, and watch their knights jousting. However, Héloise d'Argenteuil was not cut from the cloth of her time; she was an accomplished linguist, versed in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Her uncle and guardian, Fulbert, served as the canon of Notre Dame University, a position of respect; however, his greatest source of pride was his beautiful and accomplished niece. Because Héloise's greatest pursuit was knowledge, the canon decided to procure the most revered teacher in France.

Héloise's destiny, Peter Abelard, was the most renowned thinker of his age, the son of a noble family from a village in Brittany. Although he had been destined for knighthood, he forfeited that path for academia, and thousands of students converged on Notre Dame University (which later became the University of Paris) to hear the high priest of philosophy. He became so venerated that he prided himself on being the most eminent living theologian.

In the twelfth century, the position of teacher was similar to one of cleric in that both had to take vows of chastity, as those professions demanded single-minded devotion. This caveat did not bother Abelard, because he had dedicated his life to learning—that is, until temptation made its appearance.

The first time Héloise met Abelard was when he became a lodger at her uncle's home in exchange for his services. On that first encounter, Abelard discovered that the life of the body was as vital as the life of the mind. Divesting himself of his religious vow of chastity as well as his moral code, Abelard was soon tutoring Héloise in more than Socrates. Abelard took a break from philosophy and penned love songs for Héloise. He later wrote of his earliest moments with her, “Her studies allowed us to withdraw in private, as love desired, and then with our books open before us, more words of love than of reading passed between us, and more kissing than teaching. My hands strayed oftener to her bosom than to the pages; love drew our eyes to look on each other more than reading kept them on our texts.” Abelard's attraction to Héloise transcended the merely physical; it was also the meeting of minds. He said of Héloise that she was
“nominatissima”
—“most renowned” for her brilliance.

The course of true love went smoothly for eighteen months, until Canon Fulbert caught the two making love on Good Friday. Fulbert was infuriated and saw the situation as a teacher taking sexual advantage of a teenager twenty years his junior. As further salt in his wound, it had been conducted covertly in his own home. A final public twist of the knife occurred when he discovered that Héloise was pregnant.

The enraged canon demanded that the couple be immediately married to prevent family shame and public scandal. Although Abelard readily agreed, Héloise was reluctant; she had her own theology of love that did not allow her to put public censure over Abelard's eminent post. Abelard wrote of Héloise's altruism, “She, however, most violently disapproved of this, and for two chief reasons: the danger thereof, and the disgrace which it would bring upon me. ... What penalties, she said, would the world rightly demand of her if she should rob it of so shining a light!” Héloise wrote of her impending nuptials, “Then there is no more left but this, that in our doom the sorrow yet to come shall be no less than the love we two have already known.”

After the clandestine wedding, the canon spread the news that his niece was married and their baby, Astrolabe (named after an astrological instrument), was therefore legitimate. However, Héloise, ever protective of her husband's career, continued to deny her marriage. The situation became so volatile that Abelard, fearing for his new wife, placed her in a convent in Argenteuil, on the outskirts of Paris. Ironically, this act of protection led to the couple's tragic destiny.

Fulbert, acting under the erroneous assumption that Abelard had put Héloise in the abbey to abandon her, decided to exact a fitting revenge. When Abelard was asleep, Fulbert, with the assistance of one of Abelard's servants who had been bought off, broke into his room. As Abelard later wrote of their violent attack, “They cut off those parts of my body with which I had done that which was the cause of their sorrow.” The castration was, so to speak, Fulbert's variation of “an eye for an eye.” To lesser loves this act would have served as the death knell, but Abelard and Héloise's devotion remained constant.

No longer able to live as Héloise's husband, Abelard took his vows in the St. Denis monastery; similarly Héloise, in her heart still married to Abelard, stayed on at her convent and eventually became a nun. She later explained that she agreed to devote her life to religion only because it was Abelard's will: “It was your command, not love of God, which made me take the veil.”

Although the violent act had forced their lives asunder, Abelard never abandoned his love. When Argenteuil was taken over by the abbey where Peter had been ordained, he arranged for Héloise and her fellow nuns to enter the Oratory of the Paraclete. Héloise, by channeling the energy she had once expended on Abelard to her religious calling, rose to the position of abbess.

For years, the couple lived their separate lives, though their thoughts were always of one another. They eventually reconnected when Peter penned a twenty-thousand-word account of his tragedy in deference to the medieval genre of the “letter of consolation,” whereby, in order to console a fellow pilgrim in pain, one wrote of his or her own sorrow, demonstrating the democracy of agony. Héloise received a copy of the confession and immediately composed a letter to her estranged husband clarifying that not even time, vows, or God had been able to extinguish the flame of her feelings. Thus began a twenty-year correspondence.

In her letters, Héloise encouraged Abelard in his quest for knowledge and exhorted him to share with her every detail of his life, making sure not to spare any unpleasant aspects. In one she wrote, “I will finish a long letter with a brief ending: Farewell, my only love.” In turn, his missives are filled with endless pages of his steadfast feelings. Between the lines one can read the message of what could have been. Their love affair became material for troubadours and medieval minstrels and remains poignant today.

Héloise's reaction to the cruelty of fate was always to bemoan her cruel loss and long for the physical intimacy which had made her feel alive. Throughout her life she questioned God for permitting the horror inflicted on Abelard and for her role as a nun. The only thing she never questioned was her unwavering feelings for her lost love. She wrote to him, “I should be groaning over the sins I have committed, but I can only sigh for what we have lost.” At the end, even when Héloise was wrapped in the robes of a nun, earthly romance was her true religion. Abelard, on the other hand, stricken in conscience, viewed his castration as divine retribution for his flouting of morality. He perceived their tragedy as one orchestrated by the Almighty, as the means for him to embrace the love of God over the love of the flesh. He explained his philosophy in a letter: “See then my beloved, see how with the dragnets of His mercy, the Lord has fished us up from the depths of the dangerous sea.”