Lecture 8 — Against lust

^5:27^ You have heard that it was said to them of old: do not commit adultery. [n. 504]

^5:28^ But I say to you, that whoever will look on a woman to lust after her, has already committed adultery with her in his heart. [n. 506]

^5:29^ And if your right eye scandalize you, pluck it out and cast it from you. For it is expedient for you that one of your members would perish, rather than that your whole body would be cast into hell. [n. 508]

^5:30^ And if your right hand scandalize you, cut it off, and cast it from you: for it is expedient for you that one of your members would perish, rather than that your whole body would be cast into hell. [n. 508]

504. You have heard that it was said: ‘do not commit adultery.’ Above the Lord fulfilled the law as to the precept prohibiting homicide; now he fulfills it as to the precept prohibiting adultery. And concerning this he does three things: first, he lays down the precept; second, the fulfillment; third, he teaches how it could be observed. The second is at but I say to you, the third at if your right eye. And fittingly after the precept prohibiting homicide, the precept prohibiting adultery is discussed, because adultery holds second place after homicide. For homicide is against the life of man already existing; but adultery is against the life of a man to be generated: for it destroys certainty about children and as a result, their education.

‘Do not commit adultery.’ ‘Moechia’ is properly adultery. This precept is from Exodus and Deuteronomy (Exod 22; Deut 5).

505. And it should be known that since simple fornication is not prohibited in the precepts of the decalogue, but only adultery, some people believed that simple fornication was not a mortal sin, since it was not against the law if it was not in the precepts of the decalogue. First, it is said in Leviticus: if a man carnally lie with a woman (Lev 19:20). Therefore simple fornication is a venial sin; further, all iniquity is sin (1 John 5:17). But whoever commits simple fornication does iniquity to no one: not himself, for he fulfills his own will; not another; not God, for it is not directly against him like blasphemy and idolatry and that kind of thing. Therefore, it is not mortal.

506. It should be said that it must be absolutely certain among the faithful that every act of simple fornication is a mortal sin, as is basically any use of the genital organs outside of the marital use, for fornicators and adulterers God will judge (Heb 13:4); and he gave it separately because he will judge fornicators just as adulterers: take heed to keep yourself . . . from all fornication (Tob 4:13), and, *there will be no prostitute among the daughters of Israel (*Deut 22:17). Therefore it is clear by the authorities of the Old and New Testaments that it is a mortal sin. And the reason for this is that marriage is a natural thing, not only according to our faith, but even according to the gentiles, for it is natural that a man should be matrimonially joined not to any women indiscriminately, but to one particular woman. Nor does it matter what may be done by any multitude, as far as the intention of nature goes, but what is of natural law is perverted among those who lack reason. For the union of male and female is ordered to generation and education. In other animals the female alone suffices for education, and among such animals the father never involves himself in the education of the children; and thus there is no certainty about the children, and afterward he mingles indiscriminately with any female, as is seen among dogs. But among others we see that wherever the female does not suffice for the education of the children, the male and female remain together throughout the education of the children. Therefore it is clear that since the union is for the sake of the education, every union from which the due education does not follow is against nature. Therefore, since the child born needs much care from the father, it is necessary that a man have a particular woman: and this is marriage. But whether he may have several wives is another question. Fornication therefore will be against that education in the same way: therefore it is against nature and a mortal sin. But Moses spoke the most obvious notions to the Jews as a teacher to a primitive audience: the decalogue is the beginning of a law, and thus it only expresses those things that are most obvious. Hence some say that God himself spoke the decalogue, but he reserved all other things to be explained by others. Hence in this ‘do not commit adultery’ is understood every sin that there is by the use of those organs outside marriage. Likewise he sins against himself: whoever fornicates sins against his own body (1 Cor 6:18), because such an act should not be except for the generation of another. Likewise, in the law sins such as theft and many others were not punished by death: therefore this objection about Exodus does not hold. Therefore it is clear that fornication is mortal.

I say to you. Here the Lord brings the law to fulfillment. For the Pharisees and scribes understood ‘do not commit adultery’ only as to the act. But the Lord prohibits also the desire. But Augustine objects here that a precept of the decalogue is you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his house, nor his field, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant. Therefore the Lord did not fulfill it. And he answers that he understands you shall not covet to the point of carrying off; hence he mentions at the same time you shall not covet the wife or the slave-girl.

507. And note that he does not say whoever sees and covets, but whoever will look on a woman to lust after her. And it is explained in two ways. The first thus: whoever will look on a woman to lust after her, that is, so that he may covet her, as may be considered concomitance. And there are two kinds of concupiscence: one which is a propassion and the other which is a passion. A propassion is called an incomplete passion, as it were, when the movement remains in the sensible appetite alone, without the reason consenting. A passion is when reason consents, and then it is a mortal sin. And thus he says he has already committed adultery with her in his heart, for God is the searcher of hearts, and such a person does not refrain from the act except because of some obstacle to it.

Or the to lust after her, according to Augustine, conveys purpose, i.e., whoever will look on a woman to lust, i.e., for the purpose of lusting after her. But the rule is that whatever a man does for the purpose of mortal sin, is completely mortal, and whatever he does for a meritorious purpose is completely meritorious; as is clear in the case of someone who goes to the church, or who goes to steal: regardless of what is done at the same time, the whole is either meritorious or a sin. But there are two kinds of consent: one consents to the act, as when reason goes first, insomuch that one wills to commit adultery; the other consent is to the pleasure, as when someone excites in himself base sensual pleasures so that he might enjoy them, although he does not consent to the act.

The first way is mortal, when someone looks on a woman for the purpose of sensual pleasure, and thus he consents. He has already committed adultery in his heart, before God: I made a covenant with my eyes that I would not . . . think on a virgin (Job 31:1); gaze not upon a maiden, lest her beauty be a stumbling block to you (Sir 9:5). Chrysostom says also that women who adorn themselves in order to be lusted after sin mortally: if someone opens a pit or digs a pit and does not cover it, and an ox or ass should fall in, the owner of the pit shall pay the price (Exod 21:33). And if no one lusts after her, it must be said that she sins mortally, like a person who prepares poison, even if it were not consumed by the one it was intended for, still, the person preparing it sins mortally because he did what he could to kill him.

508. And if your right eye. Here the Lord shows how this precept can be more easily observed, namely by avoiding the occasions of sin. But four things are represented by the eyes and by the hands. The first is the physical eye and hand, and it may be understood thus: **cut it off **physically. According to Chrysostom, this reading cannot stand, for there is no member that does not scandalize: for I know that there does not dwell in me, that is, in my flesh, that which is good (Rom 7:18). Hence all members would have to be cut off: and therefore this is not the meaning of the verse. Or another reading. For the body is said to be killed in two ways: as to the life of nature and as to the life of guilt: that the body of sin may be destroyed, to the end that we may serve sin no longer (Rom 6:6), and so cut away sin. But then the left eye would not be innocent: therefore this is not the meaning.

509. Therefore it should be said that by the eye is sometimes meant a neighbor who has come to help: for the role of the eye is to direct your path. Hence your counselor in ordinary things is your left eye, and in divine things it is your right eye. The role of the hand is to help you. Hence the neighbor who manages temporal affairs is your left hand; the one who manages spiritual matters is your right: I was an eye to the blind, and a foot to the lame (Job 29:15). Therefore according to this reading, the eye and hand scandalizing can be understood in two ways, as when a certain counselor in everyday or divine matters scandalizes you. He makes no mention of the left eye because if the right eye must be cut off, the left eye must be even more. Or another way. The Lord wills that not only in you but also in your family you preserve purity. Hence if someone unclean lives with you, cut him off: he who works pride will not dwell in the midst of my house (Ps 101:7).

Or we can understand the eye or the hand of man’s inner self: for which cause we do not faint, but though our outward man is corrupted, yet the inward man is renewed day by day (2 Cor 4:16), for as the exterior is, so is the interior: that the eyes of your heart enlightened (Eph 1:18). But it is said there that a hand is a power of moving, an eye is an intellective power. And according to this it can be explained in two ways. The first like this: by the fact that the eye which is in the intellective part, which has free will, is also in the right, the exterior is in the left, the Lord does not say that you should cut off the left because it is not in the power of free will that the external members do not move themselves, but that the internal members do not move themselves badly and look about wickedly. Therefore he says if your right eye scandalizes you by wicked thinking, remove this understanding; likewise, if there is a bad will, remove it.

510. Or another way, the eye represents good intentions, the hand a good will. If scandal or an occasion of lust results from these things, remove them; just as if someone has a good will when visiting poor women, if the occasion of lust follows from it, pluck it out.

Fourth, by the eye can be signified the contemplative life, and by the hand, the active life. Sometimes these things scandalize because sometimes error is met with in extreme contemplation. Likewise, someone, because he is not an apostle, may not fill the work of contemplation, but degenerate into laziness: the enemies have seen her and have mocked at her sabbaths (Lam 1:7). Therefore, pluck it out, and go to the practice of work. Or sometimes in the active life someone becomes restless and falls into occasions of sin: wherefore, he should cross over into the other state.

511. Therefore the first way is to be excluded; the second, about one’s neighbor, the third, about the interior man, and the fourth, about the active and contemplative life, make an explanation of for it is expedient for you that one of your members would perish; and the fifth concerns good consideration and good action.