To the thousands of faithful present at the 20 August General Audience in St Peter's Square, the Holy Father delivered the following address.

1. In the Sermon on the Mount, when Christ says: "You have heard that it was said: You shall not commit adultery" (Mt 5:27), he refers to what each person present knew perfectly well, and by which everyone felt himself bound by virtue of the commandment of God-Yahweh. However, the history of the Old Testament shows us that both the life of the people bound to God-Yahweh by a special covenant, and the life of each single man, often wanders away from this commandment. A brief look at the legislation, of which there is a comprehensive documentation in the Books of the Old Testament, also shows this.

The precepts of the Law of the Old Testament were very severe. They were also very detailed and entered into the smallest details of the daily life of the people (1). One can presume that the more the legalizing of actual polygamy became evident in this law, even more the necessity increased to uphold its juridical dimension, and protect its legal limits. Hence we find the "great number of precepts, and also the severity of the punishments provided for by the legislator for the violation of such norms. On the basis of the analysis which we have previously carried out regarding Christ's reference to the "beginning", in his discourse on the dissolubility of marriage and on the "act of repudiation", it is evident that he clearly sees the basic contradiction that the matrimonial law of the Old Testament had hidden within itself by accepting actual polygamy, namely the institution of the concubine, together with legal wives, or else the right of cohabitation with the slave (2). It can be said that such a right, while it combatted sin, at the same time contained within itself, or rather protected, the "social dimension of sin", which it actually legalized. In these circumstances it became necessary for the fundamental ethical sense of the commandment "you shall not commit adultery" to also undergo a basic reassessment. In the Sermon on the Mount, Christ reveals that sense again, namely by going beyond its traditional and legal restrictions.

Old Testament's matrimonial law

2. Maybe it is worth adding that in the interpretation of the Old Testament, to the extent that the prohibition of adultery is balanced— you could say—by the compromise with bodily concupiscence, the more the position regarding sexual deviations is clearly determined. This is confirmed by the relevant precepts which provide for the death penalty for homosexuality and bestiality. Regarding onanism, it had already been condemned in the tradition of the Patriarchs (cf. Gen 38:8-10). The behaviour of Onan, son of Judah (from where we have the origin of
word "onanism") "...was displeasing in the sight of the Lord, and he slew him also" (Gen 38:10). 

The matrimonial law of the Old Testament, in its widest and fullest meaning, puts in the foreground the procreative end of marriage and in certain cases tries to be juridically equitable in the treatment of the woman and the man—for example it says explicitly, regarding the punishment for adultery: "If a man commits adultery with his neighbour's wife, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death" (Lev 20:10)—but on the whole it judges the woman with greater severity.

Judgment marked by an objectivism

3. Maybe the terminology of this legislation should be emphasized. As always in such cases, the terminology tends to make objective the sexuality of that time. And this terminology is important for the completeness of reflections on the theology of the body. We find the specific confirmation of the characteristic of shame which surrounds what pertains to sex in man. And more than that, what is sexual is in a certain way considered as "impure", especially when it regards physiological manifestations of human sexuality. The "discovery of nudity" (Lev 20:11; 17:21) is branded as being the equivalent of an illicit and completed sexual act; the expression itself seems already eloquent enough here. There is no doubt that the legislator has tried to make use of the terminology relating to the conscience and customs of contemporary society. Therefore the terminology of the legislation of the Old Testament confirms our conviction that, not only are the physiology of sex and the bodily manifestations of sexual life known to the legislator, but also that these things are evaluated in a specific way. It is difficult to avoid the impression that such an evaluation was of a negative character. Certainly this in no way nullifies the truths which we know from the Book of Genesis, nor does it lay the blame on the Old Testament—and, among others, also on the Books of Laws—as forerunners of a type of manicheism. The judgment expressed therein, regarding the body and sex, isn't so much "negative" or severe, but rather marked by an objectivism, motivated by a desire to put in order this area of human life. This isn't concerned directly with putting some order in the "heart" of man, but with putting order in the entire social life, at the base of which stands, as always, marriage and the family.

Practical precepts

4. If we take into consideration the "sexual" problem as a whole, perhaps we should briefly turn our attention again to another aspect, and that is to the existing bond between morality, law, and medicine, emphasized in their respective Books of the Old Testament. These contain many practical precepts regarding hygiene, or medicine, drawn rather from experience than from science, according to the level reached at that time (3). And besides, the link between experience and science is distinctly still valid today. In this vast sphere of problems, medicine is always very closely accompanied by ethics; and ethics, as does theology, seeks ways of collaborating with it.

Prophets present analogy

5. In the Sermon on the Mount when Christ spoke the words: "You have heard that it was said: You shall not commit adultery", and he immediately adds: "But I say to you ...", it is clear that he wants to restore in the conscience of his audience the ethical significance of this very commandment, disassociating himself from the interpretation of the "doctors of the law", official experts in it. But other than the interpretation derived from tradition, the Old Testament offers us still another tradition to understand the commandment "do not commit adultery". And it is the tradition of the Prophets. In reference to adultery, they wanted to remind "Israel and Judah" that their greatest sin was in abandoning the one true God in favour of the cult of various idols, which the Chosen People, in contact with other peoples, had easily and thoughtlessly adopted. Therefore, a precise characteristic of the language of the Prophets, is the analogy with adultery, rather than adultery itself; and nevertheless, such analogy also helps to understand the commandment "do not commit adultery" and the relevant interpretation, the absence of which is noted in the legislative documents. In the pronouncements of the Prophets, and particularly of Isaiah, Hosea, and Ezekiel, the God of the Covenant-Yahweh is often represented as a spouse, and the love which united him to Israel can and must be identified with the nuptial love of a married couple. And so Israel, because of its idolatry and abandonment of God-the-Spouse, commits, in regard to him, a betrayal, which can be compared to that of a woman in regard to her husband: Israel commits, precisely, "adultery".

Love and betrayal

6. The Prophets, using eloquent words, and often by means of images and extraordinarily flexible metaphors, show both the love of Yahweh-Spouse and the betrayal of Israel-Spouse who gives itself over to adultery. This is a theme which must be taken up again in our meditations, that is, when we will analyze the question of the "Sacrament"; however, we must already touch on the subject, inasmuch as it is necessary to understand the words of Christ, according to Matthew 5:27-28, to appreciate that renewal of the ethos, implied in these words: "But I say unto you...". If on the one hand, Isaiah (4) in his texts lays emphasis, above all, on the love of Yahweh-Spouse who always takes the first step towards his spouse, passing over all her infidelities, on the other hand, Hosea and Ezekiel abound in comparisons, which clarify primarily the ugliness and moral evil of the adultery by Israel-the-Spouse.

In the next meditation we will try to penetrate still more profoundly the texts of the Prophets, to further clarify the content which, in the conscience of those present during the Sermon on the Mount, corresponded to the "commandment"; "you shall not commit adultery".

Notes

1) Cf. for example Dt 21:10-13; Nm 30:7-16; Dt 24:1-4; Dt 22:13-21; Lv 20:10-21 and others.

2) Although the Book of Genesis may present the monogamous marriage of Adam, of Seth and Noah, as models to be imitated, and seems to condemn bigamy which only appears among Cain's descendants, (cf. Gen 4:19), nevertheless the lives of the Patriarchs provide other examples to the contrary. Abraham observes the precepts of the Law of Hammurabi, which allowed the taking of a second wife in marriage if the first wife was sterile; and Jacob had two wives and two concubines (Cf. Gen 30:1-19).

The Book of Deuteronomy admits the legal existence of bigamy (Cf. Dt 21:15-17) and even of polygamy, warning the king not to have too many wives (Cf. Dt 17:17); it also confirms the institution of concubines—prisoners of war (Cf. Dt 21:10-14) or even slaves (Cf. Es 21:7-11). (Cf. R. DE VAUX, Ancient Israel, Its Life and Institutions, London 1976, Darton, Longman, Todd; pp. 24-25, 83). In the Old Testament there is no explicit mention of the obligation of monogamy, although the picture given in the following books shows that it prevailed in the social practice (Cf. for example the Books of Wisdom, except Sirach 37:11; Tb). 

3) Cf. for example Lv 12:1-6; 15:1-28; Dt 21:12-13.

4) Cf. for example Isaiah 54:62:1-5.