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GENERAL AUDIENCE OF 14 JANUARY
Continuing his weekly catechesis, the Holy Father addressed the
following message to the numerous pilgrims gathered in the Paul VI Hall.
1. St. Paul writes in the Letter to the Galatians: "For you were called
to freedom, brethren; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for
the flesh, but through love be servants of one another. For the whole law
is fulfilled in one word, 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself'" (Gal
5:13-14). We have already dwelled on this enunciation. However, we are
taking it up again today, in connection with the main argument of our
reflections.
Although the passage quoted refers above all to the subject of
justification, here, however, the Apostle aims explicitly at driving home
the ethical dimension of the "body-Spirit" opposition, that is, the
opposition between life according to the flesh and life according to the
Spirit. Here he touches the essential point, revealing the anthropological
roots of the Gospel ethos. If the whole law (the moral law of the Old
Testament) is fulfilled in the commandment of charity, the dimension of
the new Gospel ethos is nothing but an appeal to human freedom. It is an
appeal to its fuller implementation and, in a way, to fuller "utilization"
of the potential of the human spirit.
Freedom linked with command to love
2. It might seem that Paul was only contrasting freedom with the law
and the law with freedom. However, a deeper analysis of the text shows
that in Galatians St. Paul emphasizes above all the ethical subordination
of freedom to that element in which the whole law is fulfilled, that is,
to love, which is the content of the greatest commandment of the Gospel.
"Christ set us free in order that we might remain free," precisely in the
sense that he manifested to us the ethical (and theological) subordination
of freedom to charity, and that he linked freedom with the commandment of
love. To understand the vocation to freedom in this way ("You were called
to freedom, brethren": Gal 5:13), means giving a form to the ethos in
which life "according to the Spirit" is realized. The danger of wrongly
understanding freedom also exists. Paul clearly points this out, writing
in the same context: "Only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for
the flesh, but through love be servants of one another" (ibid.).
Bad use of freedom
3. In other words: Paul warns us of the possibility of making a bad use
of freedom. Such a use is in opposition to the liberation of the human
spirit carried out by Christ and contradicts that freedom with which
"Christ set us free." Christ realized and manifested the freedom that
finds its fullness in charity, the freedom thanks to which we are servants
of one another. In other words, that freedom becomes a source of new works
and life according to the Spirit. The antithesis and, in a way, the
negation of this use of freedom takes place when it becomes a pretext to
live according to the flesh. Freedom then becomes a source of works and of
life according to the flesh. It stops being the true freedom for which
"Christ set us free," and becomes "an opportunity for the flesh," a source
(or instrument) of a specific yoke on the part of pride of life, the lust
of the eyes, and the lust of the flesh. Anyone who lives in this way
according to the flesh, that is, submits—although
in a way that is not quite conscious, but nevertheless actual—to
the three forms of lust, especially to the lust of the flesh, ceases to be
capable of that freedom for which "Christ set us free." He also ceases to
be suitable for the real gift of himself, which is the fruit and
expression of this freedom. Moreover, he ceases to be capable of that gift
which is organically connected with the nuptial meaning of the human body,
with which we dealt in the preceding analyses of Genesis (cf. Gn 2:23-25).
The law fulfilled
4. In this way, the Pauline doctrine on purity, a doctrine in which we
find the faithful and true echo of the Sermon on the Mount, permits us to
see evangelical and Christian purity of heart in a wider perspective, and
above all permits us to link it with the charity in which the law is
fulfilled. Paul, in a way similar to Christ, knows a double meaning of
purity (and of impurity): a generic meaning and a specific meaning. In the
first case, everything that is morally good is pure, and on the contrary,
everything that is morally bad is impure. Christ's words according to
Matthew 15:18-20, quoted previously, clearly affirm this. In Paul's
enunciations about the works of the flesh, which he contrasts with the
fruit of the Spirit, we find the basis for a similar way of understanding
this problem. Among the works of the flesh Paul puts what is morally bad,
while every moral good is linked with life according to the Spirit. In
this way, one of the manifestations of life according to the Spirit is
behavior in conformity with that virtue which Paul in the Letter to the
Galatians seems to define rather indirectly, but which he speaks directly
of in the First Letter to the Thessalonians.
Virtue of self-control
5. In the passages of the Letter to the Galatians, which we have
previously already submitted to detailed analysis, the Apostle lists in
the first place among the works of the flesh: fornication, impurity and
licentiousness. Subsequently, however, when he contrasts these works with
the fruit of the Spirit, he does not speak directly of purity, but names
only self-control, enkrateia. This control can be recognized as a
virtue which concerns continence in the area of all the desires of the
senses, especially in the sexual sphere. It is in opposition to
fornication, impurity and licentiousness, and also to drunkenness and
carousing. It could be admitted that Pauline self-control contains what is
expressed in the term "continence" or "temperance," which corresponds to
the Latin term temperantia. In this case, we would find ourselves
in the presence of the well-known system of virtues which later theology,
especially Scholasticism, will borrow from the ethics of Aristotle.
However, Paul certainly does not use this system in his text. Since purity
must be understood as the correct way of treating the sexual sphere
according to one's personal state (and not necessarily absolute abstention
from sexual life), then undoubtedly this purity is included in the Pauline
concept of self-control or enkrateia. Therefore, within the Pauline
text we find only a generic and indirect mention of purity. Now and again
the author contrasts these works of the flesh, such as fornication,
impurity and licentiousness, with the fruit of the Spirit—that
is, new works, in which life according to the Spirit is manifested. It can
be deduced that one of these new works is precisely purity, that is the
one that is opposed to impurity and also to fornication and
licentiousness.
Called to holiness
6. But already in First Thessalonians, Paul writes on this subject in
an explicit and unambiguous way. We read: "For this is the will of God,
your sanctification: that you abstain from unchastity; that each one of
you know how to control his own body(1) in holiness and honor, not in the
passion of lust like heathens who do not know God" (1 Th 4:3-5). Then:
"God has not called us for uncleanness, but in holiness. Therefore whoever
disregards this, disregards not man but God, who gives his Holy Spirit to
you" (1 Th 4:7-8). In this text we also have before us the generic meaning
of purity, identified in this case with holiness (since uncleanness is
named as the antithesis of holiness). Nevertheless, the whole context
indicates clearly what purity or impurity it is a question of, that is,
the content of what Paul calls here uncleanness, and in what way purity
contributes to the holiness of man.
And therefore, in the following reflections, it will be useful to take
up again the text of the First Letter to the Thessalonians, which has just
been quoted.
NOTE
1) Without going into the detailed discussions of the exegetes, it
should, however, be pointed out that the Greek expression to heautou
skeuos can refer also to the wife (cf. 1 Pt 3:7).
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