St. Aelred: No one ever so lacked a Boswell!

Monday, cigarette #2

The spoken, not the written, word was his proper vehicle; and no one ever so lacked a Boswell. Karl E. Beckson, Oscar Wilde: The Critical Heritage

John Boswell suggests one reason why being able to talk about purity might be helpful to Christians:

Though shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. [18:22]

If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them. [20:13, KJV]

The Hebrew word "toevah," here translated "abomination," does not usually signify something intrinsically evil, like rape or theft (discussed elsewhere in Leviticus), but something which is ritually unclean for Jews, like eating pork or engaging in intercourse during menstruation, both of which are prohibited in these same chapters.

Understanding homosexuality this way wouldn't open the door to gay marriage, but it might help, say, AIDS ministry if the Church were able to use language other than that of moral condemnation.

He also suggests that I might be right about disliking a culture that understands all physical intimacy in a sexual context:

Even for celibates Aelred did not discourage physical expressions of affection. As abbot he allowed his monks to hold hands and otherwise express affection, unlike other abbots who, in the words of Aelred's admiring biographer, "if a monk takes a brother's hand in his own, . . . demand his cowl, strip and expel him."

Or, if not right, then at least in the same wrong camp as St. Aelred.