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GENERAL AUDIENCE OF WEDNESDAY, 1 OCTOBER
In his weekly Audience on Wednesday, 1 October, the Holy Father
continued his analysis of Christ's statement in the Sermon on the Mount
concerning "adultery in the heart" (Mt 5 27-28).
1. We arrive in our analysis at the third part of Christ's enunciation
in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 5:27-28). The first part was: "You have
heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.'" The second: "But
I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman lustfully....", is
grammatically connected with the third part: "...has already committed
adultery with her in his heart."
The method applied here, which is that of dividing or splitting
Christ's enunciation into three parts which follow one another may seem
artificial. However, when we seek the ethical meaning of the enunciation
in its totality, the division of the text used by us may be useful. This
is provided that it is applied not only in a disjunctive, but in a
conjunctive way. This is what we intend to do. Each of the distinct parts
has its own specific content and connotations, and we wish to stress this
by dividing the text. But it must be pointed out at the same time that
each of the parts is explained in direct relationship with the others.
That referred in the first place to the principal semantic elements by
which the enunciation constitutes a whole. These elements are: to commit
adultery, to desire to commit adultery in the body, to commit adultery in
the heart. It would be especially difficult to establish the ethical sense
of desiring without the element indicated here last, that is adultery in
the heart. The preceding analysis has already considered this element to a
certain extent. However, a fuller understanding of "to commit adultery in
the heart" is possible only after a special analysis.
Rediscovering values
2. As we have already mentioned, it is a question here of establishing
the ethical sense. Christ's enunciation in Matthew 5:27-28 starts from the
commandment: "Do not commit adultery", in order to show how it must be
understood and put into practice, so that the justice that God-Yahweh
wished as legislator may abound in it. It is in order that it may abound
to a greater extent than appeared from the interpretation and casuistry of
the Old Testament doctors. If Christ's words in this sense aim at
constructing the new ethos (and on the basis of the same commandment), the
way to that passes through the rediscovery of the values which—in
the general Old Testament understanding and in the application of this
commandment—have
been lost.
That justice may abound
3. From this point of view also the formulation of the text of Matthew
5:27-28 is significant. The commandment "Do not commit adultery" is
formulated as a prohibition which categorically excludes a given moral
evil. It is well known that the same law (the Ten Commandments), as well
as the prohibition "do not commit adultery," also include the prohibition,
"Do not covet your neighbor's wife" (Ex 20:14, 17; Dt 5:18, 21). Christ
did not nullify one prohibition with regard to the other. Although he
spoke of desire, he aimed at a deeper clarification of adultery. It is
significant that after mentioning the prohibition, "Do not commit
adultery," as well known to his listeners, in the course of his
enunciation he changed his style and the logical structure from the
normative to the narrative-affirmative. When he said: "'Everyone who looks
at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his
heart," he described an interior fact, whose reality can easily be
understood by his listeners. At the same time, through the fact thus
described and qualified, he indicated how the commandment, "Do not commit
adultery" must be understood and put into practice, so that it will lead
to the justice willed by the legislator.
Establishing the sense
4. In this way we have reached the expression "has committed adultery
in his heart." This is the key-expression, as it seems, for understanding
its correct ethical meaning. This expression is at the same time the
principal source for revealing the essential values of the new ethos, the
ethos of the Sermon on the Mount. As often happens in the Gospel, here,
too, we come up against a certain paradox. How can adultery take place
without committing adultery, that is, without the exterior act which makes
it possible to identify the act forbidden by the law? We have seen how
much the casuistry of the doctors of the law devoted itself to defining
this problem. But even apart from casuistry, it seems clear that adultery
can be identified only in the flesh, that is, when the two, the man and
the woman who unite with each other in such a way as to become one flesh
(cf. Gn 2:24), are not legal spouses, husband and wife. What meaning,
then, can adultery committed in the heart have? Is it not perhaps just a
metaphorical expression the Master used to highlight the sinfulness of
lust?
Ethical consequences
5. If we admitted this semantic reading of Christ's enunciation (Mt
5:27-28), it would be necessary to reflect deeply on the ethical
consequences that would be derived from it, that is, on the conclusions
about the ethical regularity of the behavior. Adultery takes place when
the man and the woman who unite with each other so as to become one flesh
(cf. Gn 2:24), that is, in the way characteristic of spouses, are not
legal spouses. The detecting of adultery as a sin committed in the body is
closely and exclusively united with the exterior act, with living together
in a conjugal way. This referred also to the status of the acting persons,
recognized by society. In the case in question, this status is improper
and does not authorize such an act (hence the term "adultery").
The affirmative answer
6. Going on to the second part of Christ's enunciation (that is, the
one in which the new ethos begins to take shape), it would be necessary to
understand the expression, "Everyone who looks at a woman lustfully," in
exclusive reference to persons according to their civil status. This is
their status recognized by society, whether or not they are husband and
wife. Here the questions begin to multiply. There can be no doubt about
the fact that Christ indicated the sinfulness of the interior act of lust
expressed through a way of looking at every woman who is not the wife of
the one who so looks at her. Therefore we can and even must ask ourselves
if, with the same expression, Christ admitted and approved such a look,
such an interior act of lust, directed toward the woman who is the wife of
the man who so looks at her.
The following logical premise seems to favor the affirmative answer to
such a question. In the case in question, only the man who is the
potential subject of adultery in the flesh can commit adultery in the
heart. Since this subject cannot be the husband with regard to his own
legitimate wife, therefore adultery in the heart cannot refer to him, but
any other man can be considered guilty of it. If he is the husband, he
cannot commit it with regard to his own wife. He alone has the exclusive
right to desire, to look lustfully at the woman who is his wife. It can
never be said that due to such an interior act he deserves to be accused
of adultery committed in the heart. If by virtue of marriage he has the
right to unite with his wife, so that the two become one flesh, this act
can never be called adultery. Similarly the interior act of desire, dealt
with in the Sermon on the Mount, cannot be defined as adultery committed
in the heart.
Considering the results
7. This interpretation of Christ's words in Mt 5:27-28 seems to
correspond to the logic of the Ten Commandments. In addition to the
commandment, "Do not commit adultery" they also contain the commandment,
"Do not covet your neighbor's wife." Furthermore, the reasoning in support
of this interpretation has all the characteristics of objective
correctness and accuracy. Nevertheless, good grounds for doubt remain as
to whether this reasoning takes into account all the aspects of
revelation, as well as of the theology of the body. This must be
considered, especially when we wish to understand Christ's words. We have
already seen what the "specific weight" of this expression is, how rich
the anthropological and theological implications are of the one sentence
in which Christ referred "to the beginning" (cf. Mt 19:8). These
implications of the enunciation in the Sermon on the Mount in which Christ
referred to the human heart confer on the enunciation itself also a
"specific weight" of its own. At the same time they determine its
consistency with evangelical teaching as a whole. Therefore we must admit
that the interpretation presented above, with all its objective
correctness and logical precision, requires a certain amplification and,
above all, a deepening. We must remember that the reference to the human
heart, expressed perhaps in a paradoxical way (cf. Mt 5:27-28), comes from
him who "knew what was in man" (Jn 2:25). If his words confirm the
Decalogue (not only the sixth, but also the ninth commandment), at the
same time they express that knowledge of man, which—as
we have pointed out elsewhere—enables
us to unite awareness of human sinfulness with the perspective of the
redemption of the body (cf. Rom 8:23). This knowledge lies at the basis of
the new ethos which emerges from the words of the Sermon on the Mount.
Taking all that into consideration, we conclude that, as in
understanding adultery in the flesh, Christ criticized the erroneous and
one-sided interpretation of adultery that is derived from the failure to
observe monogamy (that is, marriage understood as the indefectible
covenant of persons), so also in understanding adultery in the heart,
Christ takes into consideration not only the real juridical status of the
man and woman in question. Christ also makes the moral evaluation of the
desire depend above all on the personal dignity itself of the man and the
woman; and this has its importance both when it is a question of persons
who are not married, and—perhaps
even more—when
they are spouses, wife and husband. From this point of view it will be
useful for us to complete the analysis of the words of the Sermon on the
Mount, and we will do so the next time.
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