Adultery, infidelity
Template:See also
“You shall not commit adultery”[1] When a man commits adultery with his neighbor's woman, they shall be put to death, the adulterous man as well as the adulterous woman…[2]
In “The Gospel As It Was Revealed to Me”
- The rabbi said it and the scribe too: “The barren woman is a curse from God. You have the right and duty to give her a bill of divorce and not to afflict your virility by depriving yourself of children.” I do what the Law says. - Jesus: “No. Listen. The Law says not to commit adultery, and you are going to commit it. The commandment given originally is this one and no other.”[3]
- “Not to desire another's woman” is one with “not to commit adultery.” Because desire always precedes the action. Man is too weak to desire without satisfying his desire.[4]
- As his mother desperately pleads with him, Jesus speaks to the young leprous debauched man who had an adulterous relationship with the young wife of a client of his father’s. Jesus is sad: "And when you sinned, did you not think of your mother? You were foolish enough to forget that you had a mother on earth and that there was a God in Heaven. And if the leprosy had not appeared, you would never have remembered that you offended God and your neighbor? What have you done with your soul... with your youth?" - "I was tempted..." - "Are you a child to ignore that this Fruit is cursed? You deserve to die without my showing you mercy."
(He still heals him of his leprosy). "I have accomplished the miracle because of that poor mother. But lust disgusts me so much that it revolts me. You cried out in fear and disgust of leprosy. For Me, my soul cried out in disgust of lust. All miseries surround me, and for all I am the Savior. But I prefer to touch a dead man, a just man already decomposed in his flesh who was honest and is already at peace with his spirit, than to approach a lustful person. I am the Savior, but I am the Innocent.
(...) I understand that you would want something else from Me. But I am incapable of it. The ruin of a barely formed youth destroyed by passion has disturbed me more than if I had touched Death. Let us go to the sick. Unable, because of the nausea that chokes me, to be the Word, I will be the Salvation of those who hope in Me. Peace be with you." In fact, Jesus is very pale, as if he were ill. He only regains his smile when he bends over sick children and the disabled lying on their stretchers. Then, he becomes Himself again (...)[5] - (...) The husband who goes to other loves is a murderer of his wife, of his children, and of himself. The one who enters another’s dwelling to commit adultery is a thief and one of the vilest. Like the cuckoo, he takes advantage of another’s nest without a purse. He who betrays the trust of a friend is a forger, because he shows a friendship he does not really possess. He who acts thus dishonors himself and dishonors his parents. Can he then have God with him?[6]
- “And a woman who prostitutes herself, what sin does she commit?” - “If she is married, she is guilty of adultery and theft against her husband. If she is a virgin, of impurity and theft against herself.”[7]
- Incest and adultery.[8]
- Every man who looks at another's wife lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.[9]
- Those who do not love their partner with their soul, their spirit, and their flesh push him to adultery. [...] I do not even want to dwell on the all-too-frequent case of your carnal infidelities that do not make you different from prostitutes, I speak of your moral infidelity to the pact of love sworn before my altar.[10]
- (John 8:1-11): They drag a woman about thirty years old, disheveled, clothes in disarray, like a person who has been mistreated, and in tears. They throw her at the feet of Jesus like a pile of rags or a dead corpse... "Master, this woman was caught in the act of adultery..."[11]
In other works of Maria Valtorta
Notebooks of 1943
Catechesis of September 25: Condemnation of adultery.
…Adulterous and cursed is the one who, in an obscene comedy, lives two or more married lives, and returns to her husband and innocent children, the fever of sin in the blood and the odor of vice on her lying lips.[12]
Nothing makes adultery lawful. Nothing. Neither abandonment, nor the illness of the spouse, and even less so their more or less odious character. Most of the time, it is your lustful being which makes you see your partner as odious. You want to see them as such to justify to yourselves your shameful behavior that your conscience reproaches you for…[13]
In fundamental Christian texts
In the Bible
“You shall not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14 - Deuteronomy 5:18) - When a man commits adultery with his neighbor’s wife, they shall be put to death, the adulterous man as well as the adulterous woman (Leviticus 20:10) - The eye of adultery watches the twilight. “No eye will see me,” it says, and it puts on a mask (Joel 24:15) - Whoever commits adultery with a woman is insane, he ruins his life (Proverbs 6:32) - Such is the conduct of the adulterous woman: she eats, wipes her mouth, and says: “I have done no wrong!” (Proverbs 30:20)
In the Catechism of the Catholic Church
- Divorced and civilly remarried persons (CCC 1650).
- Every directly willed act is imputable to its author (CCC 1736).
- It is not permitted to do evil so that good may result from it (CCC 1756).
- The root of sin is in the heart of man, in his free will (CCC 1853).
- Master, what good must I do to have eternal life? (CCC 2052)
- Charity does no harm to the neighbor (CCC 2196).
- Well, I tell you: ‘Whoever looks at a woman to desire her has already committed adultery with her in his heart' (CCC 2336)
- Offenses against the dignity of marriage (CCC 2380).
- The purification of the heart (CCC 2517).
- If we ask with a divided heart, “adulterous,” God cannot hear us (CCC 2737).