GENERAL AUDIENCE OF 16 APRILDuring the General Audience in
St. Peter's Square on 16 April, the Holy Father gave the following
address, which is the first of a series of talks on the analysis of the
text of Mt. 5:27-28.
1. As the subject of our future reflections—at
the Wednesday meetings—I
wish to develop the following statement of Christ, which is part of the
Sermon on the Mount: "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not
commit adultery.' But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman
lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Mt
5:27-28).
This passage seems to have a key meaning for the theology of the body,
like the one in which Christ referred to the "beginning," which served as
the basis of the preceding analyses. We then realized how wide was the
context of a sentence, or rather of a word, uttered by Christ. It was a
question not only of the immediate context, which emerged in the course of
the conversation with the Pharisees, but of the global context. We could
not penetrate that without going back to the first chapters of Genesis
(omitting what refers there to the other books of the Old Testament). The
preceding analyses have shown what an extensive content Christ's reference
to the "beginning" involves.
Need of fulfilment of the Law
The statement to which we are now referring, Matthew 5:27-28, will
certainly introduce us not only to the immediate context in which it
appears. It will also introduce us to its wider context, the global
context, through which the key meaning of the theology of the body will be
revealed to us. This statement is one of the passages of the Sermon on the
Mount in which Jesus Christ fundamentally revises the way of understanding
and carrying out the moral law of the old covenant. It refers, in order,
to the following commandments of the Decalogue: the fifth, "You shall not
kill" (cf. Mt 5:21-26); the sixth, "You shall not commit adultery" (cf. Mt
5:27-32)—it
is significant that at the end of this passage there also appears the
question of the "certificate of divorce" (cf. Mt 5:31-32), already
mentioned in the preceding chapter—and
the eighth commandment, according to the text of Exodus (cf. Ex 20:7):
"You shall not swear falsely, but shall perform to the Lord what you have
sworn" (cf. Mt 5:33-37).
Significant, above all, are he words that precede these articles—
and the following ones—of
the Sermon on the Mount, the words in which Jesus declares: "Think not
that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets; I have come not to
abolish them but to fulfill them" (Mt 5:17). In the sentences that follow,
Jesus explains the meaning of this opposition and the necessity of the
fulfillment of the law in order to realize the kingdom of God:
"Whoever...does them [these commandments] and teaches them shall be called
great in the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 5:19). "The kingdom of heaven" means
the kingdom of God in the eschatological dimension.
The fulfillment of the law fundamentally conditions this kingdom in the
temporal dimension of human existence. However, it is a question of a
fulfillment that fully corresponds to the meaning of the law, of the
Decalogue, of the individual commandments. Only this fulfillment
constructs that justice which God the legislator willed. Christ the
Teacher urges us not to give such a human interpretation to the whole law
and the individual commandments contained in it that it does not foster
the justice willed by God the legislator: "Unless your righteousness
exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the
kingdom of heaven" (Mt 5:20).
Aspects of fulfilment
2. In this context there appears Christ's statement according to
Matthew 5:27-28, which we intend to take as the basis for the present
analyses, considering it together with the other statement in Matthew
19:3-9 (and Mark 10) as the key to the theology of the body. Like the
other one, this one has an explicitly normative character. It confirms the
principle of human morality contained in the commandment, "You shall not
commit adultery." At the same time, it determines an appropriate and full
understanding of this principle, that is, an understanding of the
foundation and at the same time of the condition for its adequate
fulfillment. The latter is to be considered precisely in the light of the
words of Matthew 5:17-20, already quoted, which we have just drawn
attention to.
On the one hand, it is a question here of adhering to the meaning that
God the legislator enclosed in the commandment, "You shall not commit
adultery." On the other hand, it is a question of carrying out that
"justice" on the part of man. This justice must superabound in man
himself, that is, it must reach its specific fullness in him. These are
the two aspects of fulfillment in the evangelical sense.
At the heart of "ethos"
3. We find ourselves in this way at the heart of ethos, that is,
in what can be defined as the interior form, almost the soul, of human
morality. Contemporary thinkers (e.g., Scheler) see in the Sermon on the
Mount a great turning point in the field of ethos.(1) A living
morality in the existential sense is not formed only by the norms that
invest the form of the commandments, precepts and prohibitions, as in the
case of "You shall not commit adultery." The morality in which there is
realized the meaning of being a man—which
is, at the same time, the fulfillment of the law by means of the "superabounding"
of justice through subjective vitality—is
formed in the interior perception of values, from which there springs duty
as the expression of conscience, as the response of one's own personal
"ego." At the same time ethos makes us enter the depth of the norm
itself and descend within the human subject of morality. Moral value is
connected with the dynamic process of man's intimacy. To reach it, it is
not enough to stop at the surface of human actions. It is necessary to
penetrate inside.
Interior justice
4. In addition to the commandment, "You shall not commit adultery," the
Decalogue has also, "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife."(2) In the
Sermon on the Mount, Christ connects them with each other, in a way:
"Everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery
with her in his heart." However, it is not so much a question of
distinguishing the scope of those two commandments of the Decalogue as of
pointing out the dimension of the interior action, referred to also in the
words: "You shall not commit adultery."
This action finds its visible expression in the "act of the body," an
act in which the man and the woman participate against the law of
matrimonial exclusiveness. The casuistry of the books of the Old Testament
aimed at investigating what constituted this "act of the body" according
to exterior criteria. At the same time, it was directed at combating
adultery, and opened to the latter various legal "loopholes."(3) In this
way, on the basis of the multiple compromises "for hardness of heart" (Mt
19:8), the meaning of the commandment as willed by the legislator
underwent a distortion. People kept to legalistic observance of the
formula, which did not superabound in the interior justice of hearts.
Christ shifts the essence of the problem to another dimension when he
says: "Everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed
adultery with her in his heart." (According to ancient translations, the
text is: "...has already made her an adulteress in his heart," a formula
which seems to be more exact).(4)
In this way, therefore, Christ appeals to the interior man. He does so
several times and under different circumstances. In this case it seems
especially explicit and eloquent, not only with regard to the
configuration of evangelical ethos, but also with regard to
the way of viewing man. Not only the ethical reason, but also the
anthropological one makes it advisable to dwell at greater length on the
text of Matthew 5:27-28, which contains the words Christ spoke in the
Sermon on the Mount.
NOTES
1) Ich kenne kein grandioseres Zeugnis für
eine solche Neuerschliessung eines ganzen Werbereiches, die das
ältere
Ethos relativiert, als die Bergpredigt, die auch in ihrer Form als Zeugnis
solcher Neuerschliessung und Relativierung der
älteren
"Gesetzes"-werte sich
überall
kundgibt: "Ich aber sage euch" (Max Scheler, Der Formalismus in der
Ethik und die materiale Wertethik [Halle a.d.s., Verlag M.
Niemeyer, 1921], p. 316, no. 1).
2) Cf. Ex 20:17; Dt. 5:21.
3) On this point, see the continuation of the present meditations.
4) The text of the Vulgate offers a faithful translation of the
original: iam moechatus est eam in corde suo. In fact, the Greek verb
moicheúo is transitive. In modern European languages, on the other hand,
"to commit adultery" is an intransitive verb; so we get the translation:
"...has committed adultery with her." And thus,
—in Italian: "...ha già commesso adulterio con lei nel suo cuore"
(Version of the Italian Episcopal Conference, 1971; similarly the version
of the Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1961, and the one prepared by S.
Garofalo, 1966).
—in French: "...a déjà commis, dans son coeur, l'adultère avec elle"
(Bible de Jérusalem [Paris: 1973];
Traduction Oecuménique [Paris: 1972];
Crampon); only Fillion translates: "A déjà commis l'adultère dans son
coeur."
—in English: "...has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Douay
Version, 1582, similarly Revised Standard Version, from 1611 to 1966; R.
Knox, New English Bible, Jerusalem Bible, 1966).
—in German: "...hat in seinem Herzen schon Ehebruch mit ihr begangen" (Einheitsübersetzung
der Heiligen Schrift, im Auftrag der Bischöfe des deutschen
Sprachbereiches, 1979).
—in Spanish: "...ya cometió adulterio con ella en su corazón" (Bibl. Societ., 1966).
—in Portuguese: "...já cometeu adulterio com ela no seu coraçaõ" (M.
Soares, Sao Paolo, 1933).
—in Polish: ancient translations: "...juz ja scudzolozyl w sercu swoim";
last translation: "...juz sie w swoim ser cu dopuscil z nia cudzolostwa" (Biblia
Tysiaclecia).
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