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GENERAL AUDIENCE OF WEDNESDAY, 15 APRIL
To the thousands of faithful gathered in St Peter's Square for the
Wednesday General Audience of 15 April, Pope John Paul delivered the
following discourse.
Control of the body "in holiness and honour"
1. In our preceding reflections—both
in the analysis of Christ's words, in which he refers to the
"beginning", and during the Sermon on the Mount, that is, when he refers
to the human "heart"—we
have tried systematically to show how the dimension of man's personal
subjectivity is an indispensable element present in theological
hermeneutics, which we must discover and presuppose at the basis of the
problem of the human body. Therefore, not only the objective reality of
the body, but far more, as it seems, subjective consciousness and also the
subjective experience of the body, enter at every step into the structure
of the biblical texts, and therefore require to be taken into
consideration and find their reflection in theology. Consequently
theological hermeneutics must always take these two aspects into account.
We cannot consider the body an objective reality outside the personal
subjectivity of man, of human beings, male and female. Nearly all the
problems of the ethos of the body are bound up at the same time with its
ontological identification as the body of the person. They are also bound
up with the content and quality of the subjective experience, that is, of
the "life" both of one's own body and in its interpersonal relations,
especially in the perennial man-woman relationship. Without any doubt, the
words of the First Letter to the Thessalonians, in which the author
exhorts us to "control our own body in holiness and honor" (that is, the
whole problem of "purity of heart") indicate these two dimensions.
Dimensions concerning attitudes of persons
2. They are dimensions which directly concern concrete, living men,
their attitudes and behavior. Works of culture, especially of art, enable
those dimensions of "being a body" and "experiencing the body" to extend,
in a way, outside these living men. Man meets the "reality of the body"
and "experiences the body" even when it becomes a subject of creative
activity, a work of art, a content of culture. Although generally
speaking, it must be recognized that this contact takes place on the plane
of aesthetic experience, in which it is a question of viewing the work of
art (in Greek aisthá nomai: I look, I observe)—and
therefore that, in the given case, it is a question of the
objectivized body, outside its ontological identity, in a different way
and according to the criteria characteristic of artistic activity—yet
the man who is admitted to viewing in this way is a priori too
deeply bound up with the meaning of the prototype, or model, which in this
case is himself:—the
living man and the living human body—to
be able to detach and separate completely that act, substantially an
aesthetic one, of the work in itself and of its contemplation from those
dynamisms or reactions of behavior and from the evaluations which direct
that first experience and that first way of living. By its very nature,
this looking is aesthetic. It cannot be completely isolated, in man's
subjective conscience, from that looking of which Christ speaks in the
Sermon on the Mount: warning against lust.
Creating climate favourable to purity
3. Therefore, in this way the whole sphere of aesthetic experiences is,
at the same time, in the area of the ethos of the body. Rightly we must
think here too of the necessity of creating a climate favorable to purity.
This climate can be threatened not only in the way in which the relations
and society of living men take place, but also in the area of the
objectivizations characteristic of works of culture; in the area of social
communications, when it is a question of the spoken or written word; in
the area of the image, that is, of representation and vision, both in the
traditional meaning of this term and in the modern one. In this way we
reach the various fields and products of artistic, plastic and dramatic
culture, as also that based on modern audio-visual techniques. In this
field, a vast and very differentiated one, we must ask ourselves a
question in the light of the ethos of the body, outlined in the analyses
made so far on the human body as an object of culture.
Living human body creates object of art
4. First of all it must be noted that the human body is a perennial
object of culture, in the widest meaning of the term. This is for the
simple reason that man himself is a subject of culture, and in his
cultural and creative activity he involves his humanity, including his
body. In these reflections, however, we must restrict the concept of
object of culture, limiting ourselves to the concept understood as the
subject of works of culture and in particular of works of art. It is a
question, in a word, of the thematic nature, that is, of the "objectivation"
[sic]
of the body in these works. However, some distinctions must be made here
at once, even if by way of example. One thing is the living human body, of
man and of woman, which creates in itself the object of art and the work
of art (for example, in the theater, in the ballet and, to a certain
point, also in the course of a concert). Another thing is the body as the
model of the work of art, as in the plastic arts, sculpture or painting.
Is it possible to also put films or the photographic art in a wide sense
on the same level? It seems so, although from the point of view of the
body as object-theme, a quite essential difference takes place in this
case. In painting or sculpture the human body always remains a model,
undergoing specific elaboration on the part of the artist. In the film,
and even more in the photographic art, it is not the model that is
transfigured, but the living man is reproduced. In this case man, the
human body, is not a model for the work of art, but the object of a
reproduction obtained by means of suitable techniques.
Important distinction
5. It should be pointed out right away that the above-mentioned
distinction is important from the point of view of the ethos of the body
in works of culture. It should be added at once that when artistic
reproduction becomes the content of representation and transmission (on
television or in films), it loses, in a way, its fundamental contact with
the human body, of which it is a reproduction. It often becomes an
anonymous object, just like an anonymous photographic document published
in illustrated magazines, or an image diffused on the screens of the whole
world. This anonymity is the effect of the "propagation" of the
image-reproduction of the human body, objectivized first with the help of
the techniques of reproduction, which—as
has been recalled above—seems
to be essentially differentiated from the transfiguration of the model
typical of the work of art, especially in the plastic arts. This anonymity
(which, moreover, is a way of veiling or hiding the identity of the person
reproduced) also constitutes a specific problem from the point of view of
the ethos of the human body in works of culture, especially in the modern
works of mass culture, as it is called.
Let us confine ourselves today to these preliminary considerations,
which have a fundamental meaning for the ethos of the human body in works
of artistic culture. Subsequently these considerations will make us aware
of how closely bound they are to the words which Christ spoke in the
Sermon on the Mount, comparing "looking lustfully" with "adultery
committed in the heart." The extension of these words to the area of
artistic culture is especially important, insofar as it is a question of
"creating an atmosphere favorable to chastity," which Paul VI spoke of in
Humanae Vitae. Let us try to understand this subject in a deep and
fundamental way.
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