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.
Taken from: L'Osservatore Romano Weekly Edition in English 6
October 1980, page 11
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