The Second Word, Part 3

Analyzing four meanings of the word adultery

05/10/2024

We take up now section 3, in a sense, the very heart of chapter two of the theology of the body, and take another bite of this elephant. Do you know what a philologist is? It is someone who loves and studies words, especially as they appear in literature and shape cultures. C. S. Lewis was a self-proclaimed philologist, and so it comes as no surprise that one of his last books was a study of the word “love” called The Four Loves. It was published in 1960 and Lewis died on November 22, 1963, incidentally the same day that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. In his analysis of arguably the most charged and potent word in the English language, Lewis examined four Greek words often translated into English as “love.” First, he looked at storge, which is affection or family love, like a mother loves her children. Second, he identified philia or friendship love, like between King David and Jonathan in the Old Testament, or more recently, between Batman and Robin. Third, he explored eros which he described as the powerful feeling of being in love, like falling head-over-heels in love like Romeo and Juliet. And finally and supremely, he considered agape or God’s own love, which is entirely selfless and seeks only the good of the other. Lewis puts it forcefully: “We begin at the real beginning, with love as the Divine energy. This primal love is Gift-love. In God there is no hunger that needs to be filled, only plenteousness that desires to give.” Lewis’ reputation as a philologist and theologian had also reached the ears of John Paul II, who quotes Lewis’ The Four Loves in the third section of chapter two, which we will now turn to consider.

In this third section the pope also styles himself as a philologist, not studying the word “love" like Lewis, but rather its contrary, “adultery." Love and adultery are polar opposites. John Paul narrows his examination of adultery mainly to the Old and New Testaments, especially what Jesus means by “adultery in the heart” in Mt 5: 27-28. But the Holy Father does not ignore the communal human heritage of this word, which is why he quotes C. S. Lewis. Similar, also to how Lewis distinguished among four meanings of the word “love,” so John Paul II will explain there are four unique senses or meanings of the word “adultery” in the Scriptures. Also, ,just like the three preliminary meanings of love sort of crescendo in agape, so too, the initial three senses of adultery build up and prepare the reader for the astounding sense of adultery in the heart that Jesus means.

The pope-saint first points out two different ways adultery was understood in the Old Testament; first in the law, and second in the prophets. In the legal texts of the Old Testament, like Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers, God specifically forbids adultery. But adultery was given a meaning that sounds almost contradictory, or self-defeating. For example, in Gn 16:2, Abraham’s wife, Sarah, encourages him to have sexual relations with a maidservant (Hagar) in order to have children. And later, Kings David and Solomon not only have several wives but also numerous concubines. According the 1 Kgs 11:3, Solomon had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. The meaning of adultery, therefore, was circumscribed, limited, only to situations of sexual relations with another man’s wife, but it did not preclude polygamy or sexual relations with someone who was not married. The pope sums up this first rather narrow view of adultery: “By adultery one understood only the possession of another’s wife, but not the possession of other women as wives next to the first one…Adultery is thus combated only within definite limits and within the circumference of definite premises that make up the essential form of the Old Testament ethos.” Put differently, even though the Decalogue (Ten Commandments) expressly prohibited adultery in the sixth and ninth commandments, the additional legislation of the Old Testament still found loopholes for polygamy and promiscuity. The first meaning of adultery in the Bible, we could say, was very restricted and minimalistic.

In the prophetic books, the pope finds a second, more spiritual, interpretation of the word “adultery.” Focusing especially on texts drawn from Isaiah, Hosea, and Ezekiel, John Paul describes the defection from true faith in God as “adultery.” The pope writes: “Because of its idolatry and desertion of God, the Bridegroom, Israel commits a betrayal before him that can be compared to that of a woman in relation to her husband: it commits, in fact, “adultery.” In this second sense of adultery, we are not dealing with individuals so much as with the corporate body of the Chosen People. Nonetheless, it helped the Jewish people to begin to see that the only way to live their monotheistic religion was in a monogamous way with their Creator. The Holy Father notes: “In many texts, monogamy seems to be the only right analogy of monotheism understood in the categories of covenant, that is, of faithfulness and trust in the only true God-Yahweh, Israel’s Bridegroom.” It would, of course, take time for the people to put this connection between monogamy-monotheism into practice in their personal lives. But the prophets were adamant that monotheism and monogamy go hand-in-hand, as the pope observed: “Adultery is the antithesis of this spousal relation.”

The pope then moves his reflections on adultery into the New Testament to address Christ’s words specifically, in particular the notion of “looking lustfully.” John Paul believes a person’s look reveals their heart’s depths, like the saying, “The eyes are the windows of the soul.” John Paul elaborates: “Through the look, man shows himself on the outside and to others; above all he shows what he perceives in his ‘interior’.” Leadership guru John Maxwell related this story about President Abraham Lincoln: “An advisor to President Lincoln suggested a certain candidate for the Lincoln cabinet. But Lincoln refused, saying, ‘I don’t like the man’s face.’ ‘But sir, he can’t be responsible for his face,’ insisted the advisor. ‘Every man over forty is responsible for his face,’ replied Lincoln.” Jesus would agree with Lincoln about the importance of the look on one’s face: it reveals the depths of one’s heart and therefore one’s moral character.

The way this look becomes a third form of adultery is through the intention of the person who looks lustfully. In his mind, in his intention, in his desire, the beautiful woman a man beholds is reduced to an object rather than revered as a person. The pope recognizes this new form of “being intentionally,” writing: “It is enough to point out that the woman…is deprived of the meaning of her attraction as a person so that this attraction…has become a mere object for the man: that is, she begins to exist intentionally as an object for the possible satisfaction of the man’s sexual urge that lies in his masculinity.” Forgive me if this parallel is too crude, but sometimes my dog Apollo tries to have sex with my leg. My leg, to him, has been reduced to an object for the possible satisfaction of Apollo’s sexual urge. I assure him, “I love you, too, buddy, but not like that.” The third form of adultery lies in the eyes, in the look on the face, in “the intentionality of the man’s very existence in relation to another.”

The fourth and final meaning of adultery shocked and scandalized everyone who first heard it. It may surprise you as well. John Paul has already come a long way from the casuistry and loopholes of the Old Testament by insisting that adultery can happen in the heart without even requiring physical contact, namely, by the lustful look. But the pope takes another shocking step by saying that a man could commit adultery in his heart with his own wife. See if you can follow the inner logic of this stunning conclusion of the theology of the body. The Holy Father explains: "The man who “looks” in the way described in Mt 5:27-28 “makes use” of the woman, of her femininity, to satisfy his own “drive”…A man can commit such adultery “in the heart” even with his own wife, if he treats her only as an object for the satisfaction of drives.” Put bluntly, adultery happens if a husband treats his wife like Apollo treats my leg, reducing his wife to an object. Sometimes people think marriage is an excuse for doing whatever you want in the bedroom, but that is not what Jesus or John Paul teach. Such misguided belief is only an excuse for the caner of concupiscence to metastasize. The fourth meaning of the word “adultery” is selfish, lustful sexual relations with one’s own wife.

In these four versions of adultery we have traveled from a minimal meaning in the Old Testament – adultery only if it is with another man’s wife, while still tolerating polygamy and concubinage – to a maximal meaning of adultery in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount – where a man can commit adultery with his own wife if he uses her as an object to satisfy his passions. Just like Lewis articulated agape as the maximal meaning of love, so John Paul II might agree that lustful relations with one’s own wife is the maximal meaning of adultery.

Praised be Jesus Christ!