1. After a rather long pause,
today we will resume the meditations which have been going on
for some time, which we have called reflections on the theology
of the body.
In continuing, it is opportune to go back to the words of the
Gospel in which Christ referred to the resurrection. These words
are of fundamental importance for understanding marriage in the
Christian sense and also the renunciation of conjugal life for
the kingdom of heaven.
The complex casuistry of the Old Testament in the field of
marriage not only drove the Pharisees to go to Christ to pose to
him the problem of the indissolubility of marriage (cf. Mt
19:3-9; Mk 10:2-12). Another time, it also drove the Sadducees
to question him about the so-called levirate law.(1) This
conversation is harmoniously reported by the synoptic Gospels
(cf. Mt 22:24-30; Mk 12:18-27; Lk 20:27-40). Although all three
accounts are almost identical, we note some differences, slight,
but at the same time significant. Since the conversation is
reported in three versions, those of Matthew, Mark and Luke, a
deeper analysis is necessary, since it contains elements which
have an essential significance for the theology of the body.
Alongside the other two important conversations, namely, the one
in which Christ refers to the "beginning" (cf. Mt 19:3-9; Mk
10:2-12), and the other in which an appeal was made to man's
inner self (to the heart), indicating desire and the lust of the
flesh as a source of sin (cf. Mt 5:27-32), the conversation
which we now propose to analyze constitutes, I would say, the
third element of the triptych of the enunciations of Christ
himself: a triptych of words that are essential and constitutive
for the theology of the body. In this conversation Jesus
referred to the resurrection, thus revealing a completely new
dimension of the mystery of man.
Christ refutes belief of Sadducees
2. The revelation of this dimension of the body, stupendous in
its content—and yet connected with the Gospel reread as a whole
and in depth—emerges in the conversation with the Sadducees,
"who say that there is no resurrection" (Mt 22:23).(2) They had
come to Christ to set before him an argument which in their
judgment confirmed the soundness of their position. This
argument was to contradict "the hypothesis of the resurrection."
The Sadducees' argument is the following: "Teacher, Moses wrote
for us that if a man's brother dies and leaves a wife, but
leaves no child, the man must take the wife, and raise up
children for his brother" (Mk 12:19). The Sadducees were
referring here to the so-called levirate law (cf. Dt 25:5-10).
Drawing upon the prescription of this ancient law, they
presented the following case: "There were seven brothers. The
first took a wife, and when he died, he left no children. The
second took her, and died, leaving no children, and the third
likewise, and the seven left no children. Last of all the woman
also died. In the resurrection whose wife will she be? For the
seven had her as wife" (Mk 12:20-23).(3)
Wisdom and power of God himself
3. Christ's answer is one of the answer-keys of the Gospel, in
which there is revealed—precisely starting from purely human
arguments and in contrast with them—another dimension of the
question, that is, the one that corresponds to the wisdom and
power of God himself. Similarly, the case had arisen of the tax
coin with Caesar's image and of the correct relationship between
what is divine and what is human (Caesar's) in the sphere of
authority (cf. Mt 22:15-22). This time Jesus replied as follows:
"Is not this why you are wrong, that you know neither the
Scriptures nor the power of God? For when they rise from the
dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like
angels in heaven" (Mk 12:24-25). This is the fundamental reply
to the case, that is, to the problem it contains. Knowing the
thoughts of the Sadducees, and realizing their real intentions,
Christ subsequently took up again the problem of the possibility
of resurrection, denied by the Sadducees themselves: "As for the
dead being raised, have you not read in the book of Moses, in
the passage about the bush, how God said to him, 'I am the God
of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob'? He is
not a God of the dead, but of the living" (Mk 12:26-27). As we
can see, Christ quoted the same Moses to whom the Sadducees had
referred, and ended with the affirmation: "You are quite wrong"
(Mk 12:27).
Another affirmation
4. Christ repeats this conclusive affirmation even a second
time. In fact, he said it the first time at the beginning of his
explanation. Then he said: "You are wrong, because you know
neither the Scriptures nor the power of God" (Mt 22:29). We read
in Mark: "Is not this why you are wrong, that you know neither
the Scriptures nor the power of God?" (12:24). In Luke's version
(20:27-36), on the contrary, Christ's same answer is without
polemical tones, without that, "You are quite wrong." On the
other hand, he proclaimed the same thing since in his answer he
introduced some elements which are not found either in Matthew
or in Mark. Here is the text: "Jesus said to them, 'The sons of
this age marry and are given in marriage. But those who are
accounted worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection
from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they
cannot die any more, because they are equal to angels and are
sons of God, being sons of the resurrection'" (Lk 20:34-36).
With regard to the possibility of resurrection, Luke—like the
other two synoptics—refers to Moses, that is, to the passage in
Exodus 3:2-6. This passage narrates that the great legislator of
the old covenant had heard from the bush, which "was burning,
yet not consumed," the following words: "I am the God of your
father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of
Jacob" (Ex 3:6). In the same place, when Moses had asked God's
name, he had heard the answer: "I am who am" (Ex 3:14).
In this way, therefore, speaking of the future resurrection of
the body, Christ refers to the power of the living God. We will
have to consider this subject in greater detail later.
NOTES
1. This law, contained in Dt 25:7-10, concerns brothers who
lived under the same roof. If one of them died without leaving
children, the dead man's brother had to marry his brother's
widow. The child born of this marriage was recognized as the son
of the deceased, so that his stock would not be extinguished and
the inheritance would be kept in the family (cf. 3:9-4:12).
2. In the time of Christ, the Sadducees formed, within Judaism,
a sect bound to the circle of the priestly aristocracy. In
opposition to the oral tradition and theology elaborated by the
Pharisees, they proposed the literal interpretation of the
Pentateuch, which they considered the main source of the Jahwist
religion. Since there was no mention of life after death in the
most ancient books of the Bible, the Sadducees rejected the
eschatology proclaimed by the Pharisees, affirming that "souls
die together with the body" (cf. Joseph, Antiquitates Judaicae,
XVII, 1.4, 16).
The conceptions of the Sadducees are not directly known to us,
however, since all their writings were lost after the
destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70, when the sect itself
disappeared. We get what little information there is about the
Sadducees from the writings of their ideological opponents.
3. The Sadducees, turning to Jesus for a purely theoretical
"case," at the same time attacked the primitive conception of
the Pharisees on life after the resurrection of the body. They
insinuated, in fact, that faith in the resurrection of the body
leads to admitting polyandry, which is contrary to God's law.
Taken from: L'Osservatore Romano Weekly Edition in English 16
November 1981, page 3
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