John
Paul II - Theology of the Body |
Eros and Ethos Meet and Bear
Fruit in the Human Heart
General Audience, November 5, 1980
1. In the course of our weekly reflections on Christ's
enunciation in the Sermon on the Mount, in which, in reference to
the commandment, "You shall not commit adultery," he compared lust
(looking lustfully) with adultery committed in the heart, we are
trying to answer the question: do these words only accuse the human
heart, or are they first and foremost an appeal addressed to it? Of
course, this concerns an appeal of ethical character, an important
and essential appeal for the ethos of the Gospel. We answer that the
above-mentioned words are above all an appeal.
At the same time, we are trying to bring our reflections nearer
to the routes taken, in its sphere, by the conscience of
contemporary men. In the preceding cycle of our considerations we
mentioned "eros." This Greek term, which passed from mythology to
philosophy, then to the literary language and finally to the spoken
language, unlike the word "ethos," is alien and unknown to biblical
language. If, in the present analyses of biblical texts, we use the
term "ethos," known to the Septuagint and to the New Testament, we
do so because of the general meaning it has acquired in philosophy
and theology, embracing in its content the complex spheres of good
and evil, depending on human will and subject to the laws of
conscience and the sensitivity of the human heart. Besides being the
proper name of the mythological character, the term eros has a
philosophical meaning in the writings of Plato,(1) which seems to be
different from the common meaning and also from what is usually
attributed to it in literature. Obviously, we must consider here the
vast range of meanings. They differ from one another in their finer
shades, as regards both the mythological character and the
philosophical content, and above all the somatic or sexual point of
view. Taking into account such a vast range of meanings, it is
opportune to evaluate, in an equally differentiated way, what is
related to eros(2) and is defined as erotic.
Connotation of the term "eros"
2. According to Plato, eros represents the interior force that
drags man toward everything good, true and beautiful. This
attraction indicates, in this case, the intensity of a subjective
act of the human spirit. In the common meaning, on the contrary—as
also in literature—this attraction seems to be first and foremost of
a sensual nature. It arouses the mutual tendency of both the man and
the woman to draw closer to each other, to the union of bodies, to
that union of which Genesis 2:24 spoke. It is a question here of
answering the question whether eros connotes the same meaning in the
biblical narrative (especially in Gn 2:23-25). This narrative
certainly bears witness to the mutual attraction and the perennial
call of the human person—through masculinity and femininity—to that
unity in the flesh which, at the same time, must realize the
communion-union of persons. Precisely because of this interpretation
of eros (as well as of its relationship with ethos), the way in
which we understand the lust spoken about in the Sermon on the Mount
takes on fundamental importance.
Danger of reductivism and exclusivism
3. As it seems, common language considers above all that meaning
of lust which we previously defined as psychological and which could
also be called sexological. This is done on the basis of premises
which are limited mainly to the naturalistic, somatic and
sensualistic interpretation of human eroticism. (It is not a
question here, in any way, of reducing the value of scientific
researches in this field, but we wish to call attention to the
danger of reductivism and exclusivism.) Well, in the psychological
and sexological sense, lust indicates the subjective intensity of
straining toward the object because of its sexual character (sexual
value). That straining has its subjective intensity due to the
specific attraction which extends its dominion over man's emotional
sphere and involves his corporeity (his somatic masculinity or
femininity). In the Sermon on the Mount we hear of the concupiscence
of the man who "looks at a woman lustfully." These words—understood
in the psychological (sexological) sense—refer to the sphere of
phenomena which in common language are, precisely, described as
erotic. Within the limits of Matthew 5:27-28, it is a question only
of the interior act. It is mainly those ways of acting and of mutual
behavior of the man and the woman, which are the external
manifestation of these interior acts, that are defined "erotic."
Nevertheless, there seems to be no doubt that—reasoning in this way—
it is almost necessary to put the sign of equality between erotic
and what derives from desire (and serves to satisfy the lust of the
flesh). If this were so, then the words of Christ according to
Matthew 5:27-28 would express a negative judgment about what is
erotic and, addressed to the human heart, would constitute at the
same time a severe warning against eros.
Many shades of meaning of "eros"
4. However, we have already mentioned that the term eros has
many semantic shades of meaning. Therefore, wishing to define the
relationship of the enunciation of the Sermon on the Mount (Mt
5:27-28) with the wide sphere of erotic phenomena, that is, those
mutual actions and ways of behaving through which man and woman
approach each other and unite so as to be one flesh (cf. Gn 2:24),
it is necessary to take into account the multiplicity of the
semantic shades of meaning of eros. It seems possible, in fact, that
in the sphere of the concept of eros—taking into account its
Platonic meaning—there is room for that ethos, for those ethical and
indirectly even theological contents which, in the course of our
analyses, have been seen from Christ's appeal to the human heart in
the Sermon on the Mount. Also knowledge of the multiple semantic
nuances of eros and of what, in the differentiated experience and
description of man, at various periods and various points of
geographical and cultural longitude and latitude, is defined as
erotic, can help in understanding the specific and complex riches of
the heart, to which Christ appealed in Matthew 5:27-28.
The "ethos" of redemption
5. If we admit that eros means the interior force that attracts
man toward what is true, good and beautiful, then, within the sphere
of this concept, the way toward what Christ wished to express in the
Sermon on the Mount, can also be seen to open. The words of Matthew
5:27-28, if they are an "accusation" of the human heart, are at the
same time, even more, an appeal to it. This appeal is the specific
category of the ethos of redemption. The call to what is true, good
and beautiful means at the same time, in the ethos of redemption,
the necessity of overcoming what is derived from lust in its three
forms. It also means the possibility and the necessity of
transforming what has been weighed down by the lust of the flesh.
Furthermore, if the words of Matthew 5:27-28 represent this call,
then they mean that, in the erotic sphere, eros and ethos do not
differ from each other. They are not opposed to each other, but are
called to meet in the human heart, and, in this meeting, to bear
fruit. What is worthy of the human heart is that the form of what is
erotic should be at the same time the form of ethos, that is, of
what is ethical.
Ethos and ethics
6. This affirmation is important for ethos and at the same time
for ethics. A negative meaning is often connected with the latter
concept, because ethics bears with it norms, commandments and
prohibitions. We are commonly inclined to consider the words of the
Sermon on the Mount on lust (on looking lustfully) exclusively as a
prohibition—a prohibition in the sphere of eros (that is, in the
erotic sphere). Often we are content merely with this understanding,
without trying to reveal the deep and essential values that this
prohibition covers, that is, ensures. Not only does it protect them,
but it also makes them accessible and liberates them, if we learn to
open our heart to them.
In the Sermon on the Mount Christ teaches us this and directs
man's heart toward these values.
Notes
1)
According to Plato, man, placed between the world of the senses
and the world of Ideas, has the destiny of passing from the
first to the second. The world of Ideas, however, is not able by
itself to overcome the world of the senses. Only eros,
congenital in man, can do that. When man begins to have a
presentiment of Ideas, thanks to contemplation of the objects
existing in the world of the senses, he receives the impulse
from eros, that is, from the desire for pure Ideas. Eros, in
fact, is the guiding of the "sensual" or "sensitive" man toward
what is transcendent: the force that directs the soul toward the
world of Ideas. In the Symposium, Plato describes the stages of
this influence of eros: the latter raises man's soul from the
beauty of a single body to that of all bodies, and so to the
beauty of knowledge and finally to the very idea of Beauty (cf.
Symposio 211; Repubblica 514).
Eros is
neither purely human nor divine: it is something intermediate (daimonion)
and intermediary. Its principal characteristic is permanent
aspiration and desire. Even when it seems to give freely, eros
persists as the "desire of possessing." Yet it is different from
purely sensual love, being the love that strives toward the sublime.
According to Plato, the gods do not love because they do not feel
desires, since their desires are all satisfied. Therefore, they can
only be the object, but not the subject of love (cf. Symposio
200-201). So they do not have a direct relationship with man. Only
the mediation of eros makes it possible for a relationship to be
established (cf. Symposio 203). Therefore, eros is the way that
leads man to divinity, but not vice-versa.The aspiration to
transcendence is, therefore, a constituent element of the Platonic
concept of eros, a concept that overcomes the radical dualism of the
world of Ideas and the world of the senses. Eros makes it possible
to pass from one to the other. It is therefore a form of escape
beyond the material world, which the soul must renounce, because the
beauty of the sensible subject has a value only insofar as it leads
higher.
However,
eros always remains, for Plato, egocentric love. It aims at winning
and possessing the object which, for man, represents a value. To
love good means desiring to possess it forever. Love is, therefore,
always a desire for immortality, and that, too, shows the egocentric
character of eros (cf. A. Nygren, Eros et Agapé: La notion
chrétienne de l'amour et ses transformations, I [Paris: Aubier,
1962], pp. 180-200).
For
Plato, eros is a passing from the most elementary knowledge to
deeper knowledge; at the same time it is the aspiration to pass from
"that which is not," and is evil, to what "exists in fullness," and
is good (cf. M. Scheler, "Amour et connaissance," Le sens de la
souffrance, suivi de deux autres essais [Paris: Aubier], p. 145).
2) Cf.,
e.g., C. S. Lewis, "Eros," The Four Loves (New York: Harcourt,
Brace, 1960), pp. 131-133, 152, 159-160; P. Chauchard, Vices des
vertus, vertus des vices (Paris: Mame, 1965), p. 147.
Taken
from: L'Osservatore Romano Weekly Edition in English 10 November
1980, page 3
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