"Neither did the poet of the play demand an answer," I said and smiled. "He let Prometheus supply the answer. Prometheus wouldn't surrender. He just laughed again at the vertical gods and told them that he could endure the pain forever in the brightness of his love for mankind. It proved that they had no real power over him. That's what caused their demise and he became free. I think that's how the story goes. But let me ask another question. Was Prometheus a god of passion or of love?"

      "I think he was both," Anton replied. "He couldn't be one or the other if love protects the fire of passion. And he was god of science, too. He knew what the vertical gods could never imagine."

      "The human quality of grace needs to be recaptured, Anton, and be elevated to love," I said to her.

      "I wonder if we ever had it fully, or just sang songs about it," said Anton.

      I told her about the nature of the Decalogue that says that one mustn't kill, or break what is honorable, or steal, or lie, or covet property. "But what do you think guarantees us that the directives are fulfilled?"

       "Nothing does, Peter. Nothing provides such a guarantee."

       "That's not quite true, Anton," I countered her. "The Decalogue defines all the essentials for civilization. It defines where we should be as a civilization. But what impetus exists that gets us to move in the direction indicated?"

      Anton shrugged her shoulders. "The Decalogue is made up of passive demands," she said. "One mustn't do this and one mustn't do that. Sex falls into this category. One mustn't have sex with someone that one doesn't own. Still people do it. People steal, kill, dishonor, and make a mess with sex that wrecks their relationships. Didn't they kill people in ancient times when they had unauthorized sex? The ancients forced the compliance to their passive demands with the whip of terror and fear of damnation, didn't they? But even that didn't provide any guarantees."

      I suggested to Anton that an active principle stands quietly behind every one of the passive requirements. "The Decalogue implies that these underlying active principles need to be developed for their own value," I said to her. I suggested that when this is done the stated goals are invariably attained. It is ultimately not a passive demand, not to kill. It's an active demand, a demand to value life, to value the principle of life, and more so human life for its profundity. There is nothing passive about it. I told her that whoever values the principle of life in which we find our humanity, will never dream of killing a human being, but will protect human life in every regard." I suggested that in this manner the passive requirement, "thou shalt not kill," is fulfilled by the power of the active, living imperative of the higher principle. "In the same context the Principle of Universal Love, which includes the highest form of self-love, will never allow one to violate was is honorable, such as the bonds that love has forged. Prometheus understood this, as the poet assures us, because to break this principle would become a violation against himself. That applies to us too. The violation that dishonors love won't happen if the Principle of Universal Love is alive in us and actively guides our motives and actions, which then reflect love in all its dimensions."

      "So you are telling me that all rape, no mater what kind it is, can be prevented only by an active renaissance that is unfolding the Principle of Universal Love in our lives, the one principle that stood behind every bright period of renaissance in history, which the poet of Prometheus Bound also profoundly understood," said Anton and nodded as if no answer was needed. "I think most women would agree with you on that," she added quietly.

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Stories about War from novels by Rolf A. F. Witzsche