1.
Let us reflect on the following words of Jesus from the Sermon
on the Mount: "Everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has
already committed adultery with her in his heart" ("has already
made her an adulteress in his heart") (Mt 5:28). Christ said
this before listeners who, on the basis of the books of the Old
Testament, were in a certain sense prepared to understand the
significance of the look that comes from concupiscence. Last
Wednesday we referred to the texts taken from the so-called
Wisdom Books.
Here
is, for example, another passage in which the biblical author
analyzes the state of the soul of the man dominated by
concupiscence of the flesh: "The soul heated like a burning fire
/ will not be quenched until it is consumed; / a man who commits
fornication / will never cease until the fire burns him up; / to
a fornicator all bread tastes sweet; / he will never cease until
he dies. / A man who breaks his marriage vows / says to himself:
'Who sees me? / Darkness surrounds me, and the walls hide me; /
no one sees me. Why should I fear? / The Most High will not take
notice of my sins.' / His fear is confined to the eyes of men; /
he does not realize that the eyes of the Lord / are ten thousand
times brighter than the sun; / they look upon all the ways of
men, / and perceive even the hidden places. / So it is with a
woman who leaves her husband, / and provides an heir by a
stranger (Sir 23:17-22).
2.
Analogous descriptions are not lacking in world literature.(1)
Certainly, many of them are distinguished by a more penetrating
discernment of psychological analysis and a more intense
significance and expressive force. Yet, the biblical description
from Sirach (23:17-22) includes some elements maintained to be
"classic" in the analysis of carnal concupiscence. One element
of this kind, for example, is a comparison between concupiscence
of the flesh and fire. Flaring up in man, this invades his
senses, excites his body, involves his feelings and in a certain
sense takes possession of his heart. Such passion, originating
in carnal concupiscence, suffocates in his heart the most
profound voice of conscience, the sense of responsibility before
God; and in fact that is particularly placed in evidence in the
biblical text just now quoted. On the other hand, external
modesty with respect to men does persist... or rather an
appearance of decency. It shows itself as fear of the
consequences rather than of the evil in itself. In suffocating
the voice of conscience, passion carries with itself a
restlessness of the body and the senses. It is the restlessness
of the external man. When the internal man has been reduced to
silence, then passion, once it has been given freedom of action,
exhibits itself as an insistent tendency to satisfy the senses
and the body.
This
gratification, according to the criterion of the man dominated
by passion, should put out the fire; but on the contrary, it
does not reach the source of internal peace and it only touches
the outermost level of the human individual. And here the
biblical author rightly observes that man, whose will is
committed to satisfying the senses, finds neither peace nor
himself, but, on the contrary, "is consumed." Passion aims at
satisfaction; therefore it blunts reflective activity and pays
no attention to the voice of conscience. Thus, without itself
having any principle of indestructibility, it "wears out." The
dynamism of usage is natural for its continuity, but it tends to
exhaust itself. Where passion enters into the whole of the most
profound energies of the spirit, it can also become a creative
force. In this case, however, it must undergo a radical
transformation. If instead it suppresses the deepest forces of
the heart and conscience (as occurs in the text of Sirach
23:17-22), it "wears out" and indirectly, man, who is its prey,
is consumed.
3.
When Christ in the Sermon on the Mount spoke of the man who
lusts, who looks lustfully, it can be presumed that he had
before his eyes also the images known to his listeners from the
Wisdom tradition. Yet, at the same time he referred to every man
who on the basis of his own internal experience knows the
meaning of lust, looking at lustfully. The Master did not
analyze this experience nor did he describe it, as Sirach had,
for example (cf. 23:17-22). He seemed to presuppose, I would
say, an adequate knowledge of that interior fact, to which he
called the attention of his listeners, present and potential. Is
it possible that some of them do not know what it is all about?
If they really know nothing about it, the content of Christ's
words would not apply to him, nor would any analysis or
description be capable of explaining it to him. If instead he
knows—this in fact in such case deals with a knowledge
completely internal, intrinsic to the heart and the
conscience—he will immediately understand when the quoted words
refer to him.
4.
Christ, therefore, does not describe or analyze what constitutes
the experience of lust, the experience of concupiscence of the
flesh. One even has the impression that he did not penetrate
this experience in all the breadth of its interior dynamism, as
occurs, for example, in the text quoted from Sirach, but rather
he paused on its threshold. Lust has not yet been changed into
an exterior action. It has still not become the act of the body,
but is until now the interior act of the heart. It expresses
itself in a look, in the way of looking at the woman.
Nevertheless, it already lets itself be understood and reveals
its content and its essential quality. It is now necessary for
us to make this analysis. A look expresses what is in the heart.
A look expresses, I would say, the man within. If in general it
is maintained that man "acts according to his lights," (operari
sequitur esse), Christ in this case wanted to bring out that the
man looks in conformity with what he is: intueri sequitur esse.
In a certain sense, man by his look reveals himself to the
outside and to others. Above all he reveals what he perceives on
the "inside."(2)
5.
Christ, then, teaches us to consider a look almost like the
threshold of inner truth. In a look, "in the way in which one
looks," it is already possible to single out completely what
concupiscence is. Let us try to explain it. Lust, looking at
lustfully, indicates an experience of value to the body, in
which its nuptial significance ceases to be that, just because
of concupiscence. Its procreative meaning likewise ceases (we
spoke about this in our previous considerations). When it
concerns the conjugal union of man and woman, it is rooted in
the nuptial meaning of the body and almost organically emerges
from it. Now then, man, lusting, looking at lustfully (as we
read in Mt 5:27-28), attempts in a more or less explicit way the
separation of that meaning of the body. As we have already
observed in our reflections, this is at the basis of the
communion of persons, whether outside of marriage, or—in a
special way—when man and woman are called to build their union
"in the body" (as the "gospel of the beginning" proclaims in the
classic text of Gn 2:24). The experience of the nuptial meaning
of the body is subordinate in a special way to the sacramental
call, but is not limited to this. This meaning qualifies the
liberty of the gift that—as we shall see more precisely in
further analyses—can be fulfilled not only in marriage but also
in a different way.
Christ says: "Everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has
already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Mt 5:28). Did
he not perhaps mean by this that concupiscence itself—like
adultery—is an interior separation from the nuptial meaning of
the body? Did he not want to refer his listeners to their
internal experiences of such detachment? Is it not perhaps for
this reason that he defines it as "adultery committed in the
heart"?
Notes
1)
Cf. Confessions of St. Augustine, VI, 12, 21, 22; VII, 17; VIII,
11; Dante, The Divine Comedy, "Inferno" V. 37-43; C. S. Lewis,
The Four Loves (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1960), p. 28.
2) A
philological analysis confirms the significance of the
expression ho blépon ("one who looks"; Mt 5:28).
"If blépo of Mt 5:28 has the value of internal perception,
equivalent to 'I think, I pay attention to, I look'—a more
precise and more sublime evangelical teaching may result
regarding the interpersonal relationship among the disciples of
Christ.
"According to Jesus not just a lustful glance makes a person
adulterous, but a thought in the heart suffices" (M. Adinolfi,
"The Desire of a Woman in Matthew 5:28," Fondamenti biblici
della teologia morale. Proceedings of 22nd Italian Biblical
Week, Brescia 1973, Paideia, p. 279).
Taken from:
L'Osservatore Romano Weekly Edition in English 15 September
1980, page 7
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