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GENERAL AUDIENCE OF WEDNESDAY, 12 JANUARY [1983]
At the general audience of Wednesday, 12 January, in the Paul VI
Hall, the Holy Father delivered the following address.
1. We now analyze the sacramentality of marriage under the aspect of
sign.
When we say that the language of the body also enters essentially
into the structure of marriage as a sacramental sign, we refer to a long
biblical tradition. This has its origin in Genesis (especially 2:23-25)
and it finds its definitive culmination in the Letter to the Ephesians
(cf. Eph 5:21-33). The prophets of the Old Testament had an essential
role in forming this tradition. Analyzing the texts of Hosea, Ezekiel,
Deutero-Isaiah, and of the other prophets, we find ourselves face to
face with the great analogy whose final expression is the proclamation
of the new covenant under the form of a marriage between Christ and the
Church (cf. Eph 5:21-33). On the basis of this long tradition it is
possible to speak of a specific "prophetism of the body," both because
of the fact that we find this analogy especially in the prophets, and
also in regard to its content. Here, the "prophetism of the body"
signifies precisely the language of the body.
2. The analogy seems to have two levels. On the first and fundamental
level the prophets present the covenant between God and Israel as a
marriage. This also permits us to understand marriage itself as a
covenant between husband and wife.1 In this case the covenant
derives from the initiative of God, the Lord of Israel. The fact that
he, as Creator and Lord, makes a covenant first of all with Abraham and
then with Moses, already bears witness to a special choice. Therefore
the prophets, presupposing the entire juridical-moral content of the
covenant, go much deeper and reveal a dimension incomparably more
profound than that of a mere "pact." In choosing Israel, God is united
with his people through love and grace. He is bound with a special bond,
profoundly personal. Therefore Israel, even though a people, is
presented in this prophetic vision of the covenant as a spouse or wife,
and therefore, in a certain sense, as a person:
"For your Maker is your husband,
the Lord of Hosts is his name;
and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer,
the God of the whole earth he is called....
But my steadfast love shall not depart from you
and my covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the Lord" (Is 54:5,
10).
3. Yahweh is the Lord of Israel, but he also becomes her Spouse. The
books of the Old Testament bear witness to the absolute original
character of the dominion of Yahweh over his people. To the other
aspects of the dominion of Yahweh, Lord of the covenant and Father of
Israel, a new aspect revealed by the prophets is added, that is to say,
the stupendous dimension of this dominion, which is the spousal
dimension. In this way, the absolute of dominion is the absolute of
love. In regard to this absolute, the breach of the covenant signifies
not only an infraction of the "pact" linked with the authority of the
supreme Legislator, but also infidelity and betrayal. It is a blow which
even pierces his heart as Father, as Spouse and as Lord.
4. If, in the analogy employed by the prophets, one can speak of levels,
this is in a certain sense the first and fundamental level. Given that
the covenant of Yahweh with Israel has the character of a spousal bond
like to the conjugal pact, that first level of the analogy reveals a
second which is precisely the language of the body. Here we have in
mind, in the first place, the language in an objective sense. The
prophets compare the covenant to marriage. They refer to the primordial
sacrament spoken of in Genesis 2:24, in which the man and the woman, by
free choice, become "one flesh." However, it is characteristic of the
prophets' manner of expressing themselves that, presupposing the
language of the body in the objective sense, they pass at the same time
to its subjective meaning. That is to say, after a manner of speaking,
they allow the body itself to speak. In the prophetic texts of the
covenant, on the basis of the analogy of the spousal union of the
married couple, the body itself "speaks." It speaks by means of its
masculinity and femininity. It speaks in the mysterious language of the
personal gift. It speaks ultimatelyand
this happens more frequentlyboth
in the language of fidelity, that is, of love, and also in the language
of conjugal infidelity, that is, of adultery.
5. It is well known that the different sins of the Chosen Peopleand
especially their frequent infidelities in regard to the worship of the
one God, that is, various forms of idolatryoffered
the prophets the occasion to denounce the aforesaid sins. In a special
way, Hosea was the prophet of the "adultery" of Israel. He condemned it
not only in words, but also, in a certain sense, in actions of a
symbolic significance: "Go, take to yourself a wife of harlotry and have
children of harlotry, for the land commits great harlotry by forsaking
the Lord" (Hos 1:2). Hosea sets out in relief all the splendor of the
covenantof
that marriage in which Yahweh manifests himself as a sensitive,
affectionate Spouse disposed to forgiveness, and at the same time,
exigent and severe. The adultery and the harlotry of Israel evidently
contrast with the marriage bond, on which the covenant is based, as
likewise, analogically, the marriage of man and woman.
6. In a similar way, Ezekiel condemned idolatry. He used the symbol of
the adultery of Jerusalem (cf. Ez 16) and, in another passage, of
Jerusalem and of Samaria (cf. Ez 23). "When I passed by you again and
looked upon you, behold, you were at the age for love.... I plighted my
troth to you and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord God,
and you became mine" (Ez 16:8). "But you trusted in your beauty and
played the harlot because of your renown, and lavished your harlotry on
any passerby" (Ez 16:15).
7. In the texts of the prophets the human body speaks a "language" which
it is not the author of. Its author is man as male or female, as husband
or wifeman
with his everlasting vocation to the communion of persons. However, man
cannot, in a certain sense, express this singular language of his
personal existence and of his vocation without the body. He has already
been constituted in such a way from the beginning, in such wise that the
most profound words of the spiritwords
of love, of giving, of fidelitydemand
an adequate language of the body. Without that they cannot be fully
expressed. We know from the Gospel that this refers both to marriage and
also to celibacy for the sake of the kingdom.
8. The prophets, as the inspired mouthpiece of the covenant of Yahweh
with Israel, seek precisely through this language of the body to express
both the spousal profundity of the aforesaid covenant and all that is
opposed to it. They praise fidelity and they condemn infidelity as
adulterythey
speak therefore according to ethical categories, setting moral good and
evil in mutual opposition. The opposition between good and evil is
essential for morality. The texts of the prophets have an essential
significance in this sphere, as we have shown in our previous
reflections. However, it seems that the language of the body according
to the prophets is not merely a language of morality, a praise of
fidelity and of purity, and a condemnation of adultery and of harlotry.
In fact, for every language as an expression of knowledge, the
categories of truth and of non-truth (that is, of falsity) are
essential. In the writings of the prophets, who catch a fleeting glimpse
of the analogy of the covenant of Yahweh with Israel in marriage, the
body speaks the truth through fidelity and conjugal love. When it
commits adultery it speaks lies; it is guilty of falsity.
9. It is not a case of substituting ethical with logical
differentiations. If the texts of the prophets indicate conjugal
fidelity and chastity as "truth," and adultery or harlotry, on the other
hand, as "non-truth," as a falsity of the language of the body, this
happens because in the first case the subject (that is, Israel as a
spouse) is in accord with the spousal significance which corresponds to
the human body (because of its masculinity or femininity) in the
integral structure of the person. In the second case, however, the same
subject contradicts and opposes this significance.
We can then say that the essential element for marriage as a sacrament
is the language of the body in its aspects of truth. Precisely by means
of that, the sacramental sign is constituted.
NOTE
1. Cf. Prv 2:17; Mal 2:14
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