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GENERAL AUDIENCE OF 27 AUGUST
Continuing the catechetical cycle on the subject of adultery, the
Holy Father gave the following address to over thirty thousand people
assembled for the weekly audience.
1. In the Sermon on the Mount Christ said: "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 order to understand clearly what such a
fulfillment consists of, he then passes on to each single commandment. He
also refers to the one which says: "You shall not commit adultery." Our
previous meditation aimed at showing in what way the correct content of
this commandment, desired by God, was obscured by the numerous compromises
in the particular legislation of Israel. The prophets point out such
content in a very true way. In their teachings they often denounce the
abandonment of the true God-Yahweh by the people, comparing it to
adultery.
Hosea, not only with words, but (as it seems) also in his behavior, is
anxious to reveal to us(1), that the people's betrayal is similar to that
in marriage, or rather, even more, to adultery practiced as prostitution:
"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). The
prophet heeds this command within himself and accepts it as coming from
God-Yahweh: "The Lord said to me, 'Go again, love a woman who is beloved
of a paramour and is an adulteress'" (Hos 3:1). Although Israel may be so
unfaithful with regard to its God, like the wife who "went after her
lovers and forgot me" (Hos 2:13), Yahweh never ceases to search for his
spouse. He does not tire of waiting for her conversion and her return,
confirming this attitude with the words and actions of the prophet: "In
that day, says the Lord, you will call me, 'My Husband,' and no longer
will you call me, 'My Ba'al.... I will betroth you to me forever; I will
betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and
mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness, and you shall know the
Lord" (Hos 2:16, 19-20). This fervent call to conversion of the unfaithful
wife-consort goes hand in hand with the following threat: "That she put
away harlotry from her face, and her adultery from between her breasts,
lest I strip her naked and make her as in the day she was born" (Hos
2:4-5).
2. The unfaithful Israel-spouse was reminded of this image of the
humiliating nudity of birth, by the prophet Ezekiel, and even within a
wider sphere.(2) "...but you were cast out on the open field, for you were
abhorred, on the day that you were born. And when I passed by you, and saw
you weltering in your blood, I said to you in your blood, "Live, and grow
like a plant in the field." And you grew and became tall and arrived at
full maidenhood. Your breasts were formed, and your hair had grown, yet
you were naked and bare. When I passed by you again and looked upon you,
behold, you were at the age for love, and I spread my skirt over you, and
covered your nakedness. I plighted my troth to you and entered into a
covenant with you, says the Lord God, and you became mine.... And I put a
ring on your nose, and earrings in your ears, and a beautiful crown upon
your head. Thus you were decked with gold and silver, and your raiment was
of fine linen, and silk and embroidered cloth.... And your renown went
forth among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through
the splendor which I had bestowed upon you.... But you trusted in your
beauty, and played the harlot because of your renown, and lavished your
harlotries on any passerby.... How lovesick is your heart, says the Lord
God, seeing you did all these things, the deeds of a brazen harlot, making
your lofty place in every square. Yet you were not like a harlot, because
you scorned hire. Adulterous wife, who receives strangers instead of her
husband" (Ez 16:5-8, 12-15, 30-32).
3. The quotation is rather long. However, the text is so important that
it was necessary to bring it up again. It expresses the analogy between
adultery and idolatry in an especially strong and exhaustive way. The
similarity between the two parts of the analogy consists in the covenant
accompanied by love. Out of love, God-Yahweh settles the covenant with
Israel—which
is not worthy of it—and
for him Israel becomes as a most affectionate, attentive, and generous
spouse-consort is towards his own wife. In exchange for this love, which
ever since the dawning of history accompanies the chosen people,
Yahweh-Spouse receives numerous betrayals: "haughtiness"—here
we have the cult of idols, in which "adultery" is committed by
Israel-spouse. In the analysis we are carrying out here, the essential
thing is the concept of adultery, as put forth by Ezekiel. However, it can
be said that the situation as a whole, in which this concept is included
(in the analogical sphere), is not typical. Here it is not so much a
question of the mutual choice made by the husband and wife, which is born
from mutual love, but of the choice of the wife (which was already made at
the moment of her birth). This choice derives from the love of the
husband, a love which on the part of the husband himself is an act of pure
mercy. This choice is outlined in the following way. It corresponds to
that part of the analogy which defines the covenant of Yahweh with Israel.
But on the other hand, it corresponds to a lesser degree to the second
part of it, which defines the nature of marriage. Certainly, the mentality
of that time was not very sensitive to this reality—according
to the Israelites, marriage was rather the result of a unilateral choice,
often made by the parents—nevertheless,
such a situation seldom forms part of our mentality.
4. Apart from this detail, we can note that the texts of the prophets
have a different meaning of adultery from that given by the legislative
tradition. Adultery is a sin because it constitutes the breakdown of the
personal covenant between the man and the woman. In the legislative texts,
the violation of and the right of ownership is pointed out, primarily the
right of ownership of the man in regard to that woman who was his legal
wife, one of many. In the text of the prophets, the background of real and
legalized polygamy does not alter the ethical meaning of adultery. In many
texts monogamy appears as the only correct analogy of monotheism as
understood in the categories of the covenant, that is, of faithfulness and
confidence toward the one true God-Yahweh, the Spouse of Israel. Adultery
is the antithesis of that nuptial relationship. It is the antinomy of
marriage (even as an institution) inasmuch as the monogamous marriage
accomplishes within itself the interpersonal alliance of the man and the
woman. It achieves the alliance born from love and received by both
parties, precisely as marriage (and, as such, is recognized by society).
This type of covenant between two people constitutes the foundation of
that union when "man...cleaves to his wife and they become one flesh" (Gn
2:24). In the above-mentioned context, one can say that such bodily union
is their "right" (bilateral). But above all, it is the regular sign of the
communion of the two people, a union formed between the man and the woman
in the capacity of husband and wife. Adultery committed by either one of
them is not only the violation of this right, which is exclusive to the
other marriage partner, but at the same time it is a radical falsification
of this sign. It seems that in the pronouncements of the prophets, this
aspect of adultery is expressed in a sufficiently clear manner.
5. Adultery is a falsification of that sign which does not have its
"legality" so much as its simple interior truth in marriage—that
is, in the cohabitation of the man and the woman who have become a married
couple—then,
in a certain sense, we refer again to the basic statements made
previously, considering them essential and important for the theology of
the body, from both an ethical and anthropological point of view. Adultery
is a "sin of the body." The whole tradition of the Old Testament bears
witness to it, and Christ confirms it. The comparative analysis of his
words in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:27-28), like the several relevant
enunciations contained in the Gospels and in other parts of the New
Testament, allows us to establish the exact reason for the sinfulness of
adultery. It is obvious that we determine the reason for sinfulness, or
rather for moral evil, basing ourselves on the principle of
contraposition, in regard to that moral goodness which is faithfulness in
marriage. That goodness can be adequately achieved only in the exclusive
relationship of both parties (that is, in the marriage relationship
between a man and a woman). Such a relationship needs precisely nuptial
love. As we have already pointed out, the interpersonal structure of this
love is governed by the interior "normativity" of the communion of the two
people concerned. Precisely this gives a fundamental significance to the
covenant (either in the relationship of man-woman, or, analogously, in the
relationship of Yahweh-Israel). One can judge on the basis of the
contraposition of the marriage pact as it is understood, with adultery,
its sinfulness, and the moral evil contained in it.
6. All this must be kept in mind when we say that adultery is a sin of
the body. The body is considered here in the conceptual bond with the
words of Genesis 2:24. This speaks of the man and the woman, who, as
husband and wife, unite so closely as to form "one body only." Adultery
indicates an act through which a man and a woman, who are not husband and
wife, unite as "one body only" (that is, those who are not husband and
wife in a monogamous sense, as was originally established, rather than in
the legal casuistic sense of the Old Testament). The sin of the body can
be identified only in regard to the relationship between the people
concerned. One can speak of moral good and evil according to whether in
this relationship there is a true "union of the body" and whether or not
it has the character of the truthful sign. In this case, we can therefore
judge adultery as a sin, according to the objective content of the act.
This is the content which Christ had in mind when, in the Sermon on the
Mount, he reminded us: "You have understood that it was said: 'You shall
not commit adultery.'" However Christ did not dwell on such an aspect of
the problem.
NOTES
1) Cf. Hos 1-3
2) Cf. Ez 16:5-8, 12-15, 30-32
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