Theology of the Body by Pope John Paul II
GENERAL AUDIENCE: 5 SEPTEMBER, 1979Unity and Indissolubility of marriage
At the General Audience in St. Peter's Square on 5 September, attended by more than 20,000 people, Pope John Paul II gave the following address.
1. For some time now preparations have been going on for the next ordinary assembly of the Synod of Bishops, which will take place in Rome in autumn of next year. The theme of the Synod: "De muneribus familiae christianae" (The role of the Christian family) concentrates our attention on this community of human and Christian life, which has been fundamental from the beginning. The Lord Jesus used precisely this expression "from the beginning" in the talk about marriage, reported in the Gospel of St. Matthew and that of St. Mark. We wish to raise the question what this word: "beginning" means. We also wish to clarify why Christ refers to the "beginning" precisely on that occasion and, therefore, we propose a more precise analysis of the relative text of Holy Scripture.
Clear - cut responses
2. Twice, during the talk with the Pharisees, who asked him the question about the indissolubility of marriage, Jesus Christ referred to the "beginning". The talk took place in the following way:
" . . .And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, 'Is it lawful to divorce one's wife for any cause?' He answered, 'Have you not read that he who made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'? So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder'. They said to him, 'Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce, and to put her away?' He said to them, 'For your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so'" (Mt 19:3 ff; cf. also Mk 10:2 ff;)
Christ does not accept the discussion at the level at which his interlocutors try to introduce it, in a certain sense he does not approve of the dimension that they have tried to give the problem. He avoids getting caught up in juridico - casuistical controversies, and on the contrary he refers twice to "the beginning". Acting in this way, he makes a clear reference to the relative words in the Book of Genesis, which his interlocutors too know by heart. From those words of the ancient revelation, Christ draws the conclusion and the talk ends.
From the beginning
3. "The beginning" means, therefore, that which the Book of Genesis speaks about. It is, therefore, Genesis 1:27 that Christ quotes, in summary form: "In the beginning the Creator made them male and female", while the original passage reads textually as follows: " God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them". Subsequently, the Master refers to Genesis 2:24: " Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh". Quoting these words almost "in extenso", in full, Christ gives them an even more explicit normative c meaning (since it could be supposed that in the Book of Genesis they express de facto statements: "leaves. . . cleaves. . . they become one flesh"). The normative meaning is plausible since Christ does not confine himself only to the quotation itself, but adds: "So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man put asunder". That "let not man put asunder" is decisive. In the light of these words of Christ, Genesis 2:24 sets forth the principle of the unity and indissolubility of marriage as the very content of the word of God, expressed in the most ancient revelation.
The eternal law
4. It could be maintained at this point that the problem is exhausted, that Jesus Christ's words confirm the eternal law formulated and set up by God from "the beginning" - as the creation of man. It might also seem that the Master, confirming this original law of the Creator's, does nothing but establish exclusively his own normative meaning, referring to the authority itself of the first Legislator. However, that significant expression: "from the beginning", repeated twice, clearly induces his interlocutors to reflect on the way in which man was formed in the mystery of creation, precisely, as "male and female", in order to understand correctly the normative sense of the words of Genesis. And this is no less valid for the interlocutors of today than for those of that time. Therefore, in the present study, considering all this, we must put ourselves precisely in the position of Christ's interlocutors today.
Preparation for Synod
5. During the following Wednesday reflections, at the general audiences, we will try, as Christ's interlocutors today, to dwell at greater length on St. Matthew's words (19:3-95). To respond to the indication, inserted in them by Christ, we will try to penetrate towards that "beginning", to which he referred in such a significant way. Thus we will follow from a distance the great work which participants in the forthcoming Synod of Bishops are undertaking on this subject just - now. Together with them, numerous groups of pastors and laymen are taking part in it, feeling particularly responsible with regard to the role which Christ assigned to marriage and the Christian family: the role that he has always given, and still gives in our age, in the modern world.
The cycle of reflections we are beginning today, with the intention of continuing it during the following Wednesday meetings has also, among other things, the purpose of accompanying, from afar, so to speak, the work of preparation for the Synod, not touching its subject directly, however, but turning our attention to the deep roots from which this subject springs.
GENERAL AUDIENCE: 12 SEPTEMBER, 1979
Biblical account of creation analyzed by Pope John Paul II
The usual Wednesday audience was held in St. Peter's Square on 12 September at 5:30 p.m., in the presence of a large concourse of people. The Holy Father delivered, the following address.
1. Last Wednesday we began the series of reflections on the reply given by Christ to his questioners on the subject of the unity and indissolubility of marriage. As we recall! the Pharisees who questioned him appealed to the Mosaic law. Christ, however, went back to the "beginning", quoting the words of the Book of Genesis.
The "beginning" in this case concerns what is treated of in one of the first pages of the Book of Genesis. If we wish to analyze this reality, we must undoubtedly direct our attention first of all to the text. In fact, the words spoken by Christ in his talk with the Pharisees - which are to be found in Matthew 19 and Mark 10 - constitute a passage which in its turn is set in a well-defined context, without reference to which they can neither be understood nor correctly interpreted.
This context is provided by the words: "Have you not read that the Creator from the beginning made them male and female . . .?" (Mt 19:4), and makes reference to the so-called first account of the creation of man inserted in the seven-day cycle of the creation of the world(Gen 1:1-2, 4). However, the context nearest to the other words of Christ, taken from Gen 2:24, is the so-called second account of the creation of Man (Gen 2:5-25), but indirectly it is the entire third chapter of Genesis.
The second account of the creation of man forms a conceptual and stylistic unity with the description of original innocence, man's happiness, and also his first fall. Granted the specificness of the content of Christ's words taken from Genesis 2:24, one could also include in the context at least the first phrase of the fourth chapter of Genesis, which treats of the conception and birth of man from earthly parents. And that is what we intend to do in the present analysis.
Various accounts of man's creation
2. From the point of view of biblical criticism, it is necessary to mention immediately that the first account of man's creation is chronologically later than the second. The origin of this latter is much more remote. This more ancient text is defined as "Yahwist" because the term "Yahweh" is used to denominate God. It is difficult not to be struck by the fact that the image of God presented there has quite considerable anthropomorphic traits (among others, we read in fact that ". . . the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life" (Gen 2:7).
In comparison with this description, the first account, that is, the one held to be chronologically later, is much more mature both as regards the image of God, and as regards the formulation of the essential truths about man. This account derives from the priestly and "elohist" tradition, from " Elohim", the term used in that account for God
Male and female
3. Granted that in this narration man's creation as male and female to which Jesus refers in his reply according to Mt 19 - is inserted into the seven-day cycle of the creation of the world, there could be attributed to it especially a cosmological character man is created on earth together with the visible world. But at the same time the Creator orders him to subdue and have dominion over the earth (cf. Gen 1:28): he is therefore placed over the world. Even though man is strictly bound to the visible world, nevertheless the biblical narrative does not speak of his likeness to the rest of creatures, but only to God ("God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him . . ." Gen 1:27). In the seven-day cycle of creation there is evident a precise graduated procedure (1). Man, however, is not created according to a natural succession, but the Creator seems to halt before calling him into existence, as if he were pondering within himself to make a decision: "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness . . ." (Gen 1:26).
Theological character
4. The level of that first account of man's creation, even though chronologically later, is particularly. Of a theological character. An indication of that is especially the definition of man on the basis of his relationship with God ("in the image of God he created him"), which at the same time contains the affirmation of the absolute impossibility of reducing man to the "world". Already in the light of the first phrases of the Bible, man cannot be either understood or explained completely in terms of categories taken from the "world", that is, from the visible complex of bodies. Notwithstanding this, man also is corporeal. Gen 1:27 observes that this essential truth about man refers both to the male and the female: " God created man in his image . . . male and female he created them" (2).
It must be recognized that the first account is concise, and free from any grace whatsoever of subjectivism. It contains only the objective facts and defines the objective reality, both when it speaks of man's creation, male and female, in the image of God, and when it adds a little later the words of the first blessing: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth; subdue it and have dominion over it" (Gen 1:28).
Inspiration for thinkers
5. The first account of man's creation, which, as we observed, is of a theological nature, conceals within itself a powerful metaphysical content. Let it not be forgotten that this very text of the Book of Genesis has become the source of the most profound inspirations for thinkers who have sought to understand "being" and "existence" (Perhaps only the third chapter of Exodus can bear comparison with this text) (3). Notwithstanding certain detailed and plastic expressions of the passage, man is defined there, first of all, in the dimensions of being and of existence ("esse"). He is defined in a way that is more metaphysical than physical.
To this mystery of his creation (" in the image of God he created him") there corresponds the perspective of procreation ("Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth"), of that becoming in the world and in time, of that "fieri" which is necessarily bound up with the metaphysical situation of creation: of contingent being (contingens). Precisely in this metaphysical context of the description of Gen 1, it is necessary to understand the entity of the good, namely, the aspect of value. Indeed, this aspect appears in the cycle of nearly all of the days of creation and reaches its cultimation after the creation of man: "God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good" (Gen 1:31). For this reason it can be said with certainty that the first chapter of Genesis has established an unassailable point of reference and a solid basis for a metaphysic and also for an anthropology and an ethic, according to which "ens et bonum convertuntur" (being and the good are convertible). Undoubtedly, all this has a significance also for theology, and especially for the theology of the body.
"Theology of the body"
6. At this point let us interrupt our considerations. In a week's time we shall deal with the second account of creation, that which, according to biblical scholars is chronologically more ancient. The expression "theology of the body" just now used deserves a more exact explanation, but we shall leave that for another occasion. First, we must seek to examine more closely that passage of the Book of Genesis to which Christ had recourse.
GENERAL AUDIENCE: 19 SEPTEMBER, 1979
The second account of Creation: the subjective definition of man
During the General Audience in St. Peter's Square on Wednesday evening, 19 September, Pope John Paul II gave the following address.
1. With reference to Christ's words on the subject of marriage, in which he appeals to the "beginning", we directed our attention last week to the first account of man's creation in the Book of Genesis (chap. 1). Today we shall pass to the second account which is frequently described as the "Yahwist", since God is called by the name of "Yahweh" in it.
The second account of man's creation (linked to the presentation both of original innocence and happiness and of the first fall) has by its nature a different character. While not wishing to anticipate the particulars of this narrative - because it will be better for us to recall them in later analyses - we should note that the entire text, in formulating the truth about man, amazes us with its typical profundity, different from that of the first chapter of Genesis.
Ancient description
It can be said that it is a profundity that is of a nature particularly subjective, and therefore, in a certain sense, psychological. The second chapter of Genesis constitutes, in a certain manner, the most ancient description and record of man's self-knowledge, and together with the third chapter it is the first testimony of human conscience. A reflection in depth on this text - through the whole archaic form of the narrative, which manifests its primitive mythical character
(1)- provides us "in nucleo" with nearly all the elements of the analysis of man, to which modern, and especially contemporary, philosophical anthropology is sensitive. It could be said that Gen 2 presents the creation of man especially in its subjective aspect. Comparing both accounts, we arrive at the conclusion that this subjectivity corresponds to the objective reality of man created "in the image of God". This fact, also, is - in another way - important for the theology of the body, as we shall see in subsequent analyses.
First human being
2. It is significant that Christ, in his reply to the Pharisees, in which he appealed to the "beginning", indicates first of all the creation of man by referring to Gen 1:27: "The Creator from the beginning created them male and female"; only afterwards does he quote the text of Gen 2:24. The words which directly describe the unity and indissolubility of marriage are found in the immediate context of the second account of creation, whose characteristic feature is the separate creation of woman (cf. Gen 2:18-23), while the account of the creation of the first man is found in Gen 2:5-7.
The first human being the Bible calls "Man" (adam), but from the moment of the creation of the first woman, it begins to call him "man", (ish), in relation to ishshah ("woman", because she was taken from the man = ish) (2).
It is also significant that Christ, in referring to Gen 2:24, not only links the "beginning" with the mystery of creation, but also leads us, one might say, to the limit of man's primitive innocence and of original sin. The second description of man's creation is placed by the Book of Genesis precisely in this context. There we read first of all: "And the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man; then the man said: 'this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man"' (Gen 2:22-23). "Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they become one flesh" (Gen 2:24). "And the man and his wife were both naked, and they were not ashamed" (Gen 2:25).
Tree of knowledge
3. Immediately after these verses. Chapter 3 begins with its account of the first fall of the man and the woman, linked with the mysterious tree already called the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" (Gen 2:17). Thus there emerges an entirely new situation, essentially different from the preceding. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil is the line of demarcation between the two original situations of which the Book of Genesis speaks.
The first situation was that of original innocence, in which man (male and female) is, as it were, outside the sphere of the knowledge of good and evil, until the moment when he transgresses the Creator's prohibition and eats the fruit of the tree of knowledge. The second situation, however, is that in which man, after having disobeyed the Creator's command at the prompting of the evil spirit, symbolized by the serpent, finds himself, in a certain way, within the sphere of the knowledge of good and evil. This second situation determines the state of human sinfulness, in contrast to the state of primitive innocence.
Even though the "Yahwist" text is, all in all. very concise, nevertheless it suffices to differentiate and to set against each other with clarity Close two original situations. We speak here of situations, having before our eyes the account which is a description of events. Nonetheless, by means of this description and all its particulars, there emerges the essential difference between the state of man's sinfulness and that of his original innocence (3).
Systematic theology will discern in these two antithetical situations two different states of human nature: the state of integral nature and the state of fallen nature. All this emerges from that "Yahwist" text of Gen 2 and 3, which contains in itself the most ancient word of revelation, and evidently has a fundamental significance for the theology of man and for the theology of the body.
The "Yahwist" text
4. When Christ, referring to the "beginning", directs his questioners to the words written in Gen 2:24, he orders them, in a certain sense, to go beyond the boundary which, in the "yahwist" text of Genesis, runs between the first and second situation of man. He does not approve what Moses had permitted "for their hardness of heart", and he appeals to the words of the first divine regulation, which in this text is expressly linked to man's state of original innocence. This means that this regulation has not lost its force, even though man has lost his primitive innocence.
Christ's reply is decisive and unequivocal. Therefore we must draw from it the normative conclusions which have an essential significance not only for ethics, but especially for the theology of man and for the theology of the body, which as a particular element of theological anthropology is constituted on the basis of the word of God which is revealed. During the next meeting we shall seek to draw these conclusions.
GENERAL AUDIENCE: 26 SEPTEMBER, 1979
Boundary between original innocence and redemption
Despite the bad weather and a slight drizzle of rain more than 20,000 people attended the General Audience in St. Peter's Square on 26 September. The following is the text of the Pope's address.
1. Christ, answering the question on the unity and indissolubility of marriage, referred to what was written on the subject of marriage in the Book of Genesis. In our two preceding reflections we analyzed both the so - called "Elohist" text (Gen 1) and the "Yahwist" one(Gen 2). Today we wish to draw some conclusions from these analyses.
When Christ refers to the "beginning", he asks his questioners to go beyond, in a certain sense, the boundary which, in the Book of Genesis, passes between the state of original innocence and that of sinfulness, which started with the original fall.
Symbolically this boundary can be linked with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which in the Yahwist text delimits two diametrically opposed situations: the situation of original innocence and that of original sin. These situations have a specific dimension in man, in his inner self, in his knowledge, conscience, choice and decision, and all that in relation to God the Creator who, in the Yahwist text (Gen 2 and 3) is, at the same time, the God of the Covenant, of the most ancient covenant of the Creator with his creature, that is, with man.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil, as expression and symbol of the covenant with God broken in man's heart, delimits and contrasts two diametrically opposed situations and states: that of original innocence and that of original sin, and at the same time of man's hereditary sinfulness which is derived from it. However Christ's words, which refer to the "beginning", enable us to find in man an essential continuity, and a link between these two different states or dimensions of the human being.
The state of sin is part of "historical man", both of the one of whom we read in Matthew 19, that is Christ's questioner at that time, and also of any other potential or actual questioner of all times of history, and therefore, naturally, also of modern man. That state, however - the "historical" state - plunges its roots, in every man, without any exception, in his own theological "prehistory", which is the state of original innocence.
Fundamental innocence
2. It is not a question here of mere dialectic. The laws of knowing correspond to those of being. It is impossible to understand the state of "historical" sinfulness, without referring or appealing (and Christ, in fact, appeals to it) to the state of original (in a certain sense "prehistoric") and fundamental innocence. Therefore the arising of sinfulness as a state, a dimension, of human existence is. right from the beginning, in relation to this real innocence of man as his original and fundamental state, as a dimension of the being created "in the image of God".
It happens in this way not only for the first man, male and female, as dramatic personae and leading characters of the events described in the Yahwist text of chapters 2 and 3 of Genesis, but also for the whole historical course of human existence. Historical man is therefore, so to speak, rooted in his revealed theological prehistory; and so every point of his historical sinfulness is explained (both for the soul and for the body) with reference to original innocence. It can be said that this reference is a "co-inheritance" of sin, and precisely of original sin. If this sin signifies, in every historical man, a state of lost grace, then it also contains a reference to that grace, which was precisely the grace of original innocence.
St. Paul' reference
3. When Christ, according to chapter 19 of Matthew, makes reference to the ''beginning", by this expression he does not indicate merely the state of original innocence as the lost horizon of human existence in history. To the words, which he utters with his own lips. we have the right to attribute at the same time the whole eloquence of the mystery of redemption. In fact, already in the Yahwist texts of Gen 2 and 3, we are witnesses of when man, male and female, after breaking the original covenant with his Creator, receives the first promise of redemption in the words of the so-called Protogospel in Gen 3:15 (1), and begins to live in the theological perspective of the redemption.
In the same way, therefore, "historical" man - both Christ's questioner, at that time, of whom Mt 19 speaks, and modern man - participates in this perspective. He participates not only in the history of human sinfulness, as a hereditary and at the same time personal and unique subject of this history, but he also participates in the history of salvation, here, too, as its subject and co-creator. He is, therefore, not only closed, because of his sinfulness, with regard to original innocence - but is at the same time open to the mystery of redemption, which was accomplished in Christ and through Christ.
Theological perspective
Paul, the author of the Letter to the Romans, expresses this perspective of redemption in which "historical" man lives, when he writes: ". . . we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for . . . the redemption of our bodies" (Rom 8:23). We cannot lose sight of this perspective as we follow the words of Christ who, in his talk on the indissolubility of marriage, appeals to the "beginning".
If that "beginning" indicated only the creation of man as "male and female", if - as we have already mentioned - it brought the questioners only over the boundary of man's state of sin to original innocence, and did not open at the same time the perspective of a "redemption of the body" - Christ's answer would not at all be understood adequately. It is precisely this perspective of the redemption of the body that guarantees the continuity and unity between the hereditary state of man's sin and his original innocence, although this innocence was, historically, lost by him irremediably. It is clear, too, that Christ has every right to answer the question posed by the doctors of the Law and of the Covenant (as we read in Mt 19 and in Mk 10), in the perspective of the redemption on which the Covenant itself rests.
Method of analyses
4. If, in the context of the theology of corporeal man, substantially outlined in this way, we think of the method of further analyses about the revelation of the "beginning", in which reference to the first chapters of the Book of Genesis is essential, we must at once turn our attention to a factor which is particularly important for the theological interpretation: important because it consists in the relationship between revelation and experience.
In the interpretation of the revelation about man, and especially bout the body, we must, for understandable reasons, refer to experience, since corporeal man is perceived by us mainly by experience. In the light of the above-mentioned fundamental considerations, we have every right to the conviction that this "historical" experience of ours must, in a certain way, stop at the threshold of man's original innocence, since it is inadequate in relation to it. However in the light of the same introductory considerations, we must arrive at the conviction that our human experience is, in this case, to some extent a legitimate means for the theological interpretation, and is, in a certain sense, an indispensable point of reference, which we must keep in mind in the interpretation of the "beginning". A more detailed analysis of the text will enable us to have a clearer view of it.
Subsequent analyses
5. It seems that the words of the Letter to the Romans 8:23, just quoted, render in the best way the direction of our researches centered on the revelation of that "beginning", to which Christ referred in lids talk on the indissolubility of marriage (Mt 19 and Mk 10). All the subsequent analyses that will be made on the basis of the first chapters of Genesis, will almost necessarily reflect the truth of Paul's words: "We who have the first fruit of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait for. . . the redemption of our bodies". If we put ourselves in this position - so deeply in agreement with experience (2) - the "beginning" must speak to us with the great richness of light that comes from revelation, to which above all theology wishes to be accountable. The continuation of the analyses will explain to us why and in what sense this must be a theology of the body.
GENERAL AUDIENCE: 10 OCTOBER, 1979
Meaning of man's original solitude
On 10 October at the General Audience in St. Peter's Square, the Pope continued his series of talks on the: creation of Nan.
1. In the last reflection of the present cycle we reached an introductory conclusion, taken from the words of the Book of Genesis on the creation of man as male and female. We reached these words, that is, the "beginning", to which the Lord Jesus referred in his talk on the indissolubility of marriage (cf. Mt 19:3-9; Mk 10:1-12). But the conclusion at which we arrived does not yet end the series of our analyses. We must, in fact, reread the narration's of the first and second chapter of the Book of Genesis in a wider context, which will allow us to establish a series of meanings of the ancient text, to which Christ referred. Today, therefore, we will reflect on the meaning of man's original solitude.
Solitude of "man" as such
2. The starting - point of this reflection is provided for us directly; by the following words of the Book of Genesis: "It is not good that man (male) should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him " (Gen 2:18). It is God - Yahweh who speaks these words. They belong to the second account of the creation of man, and so they come from the Yahwist tradition. As we already recalled be fore, it is significant that, as regards the Yahwist text, the account of the creation of man (male) is a separate passage (Gen 2:7), which precedes the account of the creation of the first woman (Gen 2:21-22). It is also significant that the first man (Adam), created from "dust from the ground" is defined as a "male" (is) only after the creation of the first woman. And so when God - Yahweh speaks the words about solitude, it is in reference to the solitude of "man" as such, and not just to that of the male (1).
It is difficult, however, merely on the basis of this fact, to go very far in drawing conclusions. Nevertheless the complete context of that solitude of which Genesis 2:18 speaks, can convince us that it is a question here of the solitude of "man" (male and female) and not just of the solitude of man the male, caused by the lack of woman. It seems, therefore, on the basis of the whole context, that this solitude has two meanings: one derived from man's very nature, that is, from his humanity (and that is evident in the account of Gen 2), and the other derived from the male - female relationship, and that is evident, in a certain way on the basis of the first meaning. A detailed analysis of the description seems to confirm this.
3. The problem of solitude is manifested only in the context of the second account of the creation of man. The first account ignores this problem. There man is created in one act as "male and female" ("God created man in his own image. . . male and female he created them" Gen 1:27). The second account which, as we have already mentioned, speaks first of the creation of the man and only afterwards of the creation of the woman from the "rib" of the male, concentrates our attention on the fact that "man is alone", and that appears a fundamental anthropo logical problem, prior, in a certain sense, to the one raised by the fact that this man is male and female. This problem is prior not so much in the chronological sense, as in the existential sense: it is prior "by its very nature". The problem of man's solitude from the point of view of the theology of the body will also be revealed as such, if we succeed in making a thorough analysis of the second account of creation in Genesis 2.
A specific test
4. The affirmation of God - Yahweh, "it is not good that man should be alone", appears not only in the immediate context of the decision to create woman ("I will make him a helper fit for him"), but also in the wider context of reasons and circumstances, which explain more deeply the meaning of man's original solitude. The Yahwist text connects the creation of man first and foremost with the need to "till the ground?' (Gen 2:5), and that would correspond, in the first account, with the vocation to subdue and have dominion over the earth (cf. Gen 1:28). Then, the second account of creation speaks of man being put in the "garden in Eden", and in this way introduces us to the state of his original happiness. Up to this moment man is the object of the creative action of God - Yahweh, who at the same time, as legislator, establishes the conditions of the first covenant with man.
Man's subjectivity is already emphasized through this. It finds a further expression when the Lord God "formed out of the ground every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them" (Gen 2:19). In this way, therefore, the first meaning of man's original solitude is defined on the basis of a specific test, or examination, which man undergoes before God (and in a certain way also before himself). By means of this test, man becomes aware of his own superiority, that is, that he cannot be considered on the same footing as any other species of living beings on the earth.
In fact, as the text says, "whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name" (Gen 2:19). "The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for the man (male) there was not found a helper fit for him" (Gen 2:20).
Creation of woman
5. All this part of the text is unquestionably a preparation for the account of the creation of woman. However, it possesses a deep meaning even apart from this creation. For created man finds himself, right from the first moment of his existence, before God as If in search of his own entity; it could be said: in search of the definition of himself. A contemporary would say: in search of his own "identity". The fact that man his alone" in the midst of the visible world and, in particular, among Living beings, has a negative significance in this search, since it expresses what he "is not". Nevertheless, the fact of not being able to identify himself essentially with the visible world of other living beings (animalia) has, at the same time, a positive aspect for this primary search: even if this fact is not yet a complete definition, it constitutes, however, one of its elements. If we accept the Aristotelian tradition in logic and in anthropology, it would be necessary to define this element as the "proximate genus" (genus proximum) (2).
6. The Yahwist text enables us, however, to discover also further elements in that admirable passage, in which man finds himself alone before God mainly to express, through a first self - definition, his own self - knowledge, as the original and fundamental manifestation of mankind. Self - knowledge develops at the same rate as knowledge of the world, of all the visible creatures, of all the living beings to which man has given a name to affirm his own dissimilarity with regard to them. In this way, therefore, consciousness reveals man as the one who possesses the cognitive faculty as regards the visible world. With this knowledge which, in a certain way, brings him out of his own being, man at the same time reveals himself to himself in all the peculiarity of his being. He is not only essentially and subjectively alone. Solitude, in fact, also signifies man's subjectivity, which is constituted through self - knowledge. Man is alone because he is "different" from the visible world, from the world of living beings. Analyzing the text of the Book of Genesis we are, in a way, witnesses of how man " distinguishes himself" before God - Yahweh from the whole world of living beings (animalia) with his first act of self - -consciousness, and of how, therefore, he reveals himself to himself and at the same time asserts himself as a "person" in the visible world. That process sketched so incisively in Genesis 2:19-20, a process of search for a definition of himself, leads not only to indicating - linking up with the Aristotelian tradition - the proximate genus, which in chapter 2 of Genesis is expressed with the words: "the man gave names", to which there corresponds the "specific differentia" which is, according to Aristotle's definition, nods, noûs noetikón. This process also leads to the first delineation of the human being as a human person with the specific subjectivity that characterizes him.
Let us interrupt here the analysis of the meaning of man's original solitude. We will take it up again next week.
GENERAL AUDIENCE: 24 OCTOBER, 1979
Man's awareness of being a person
In the course of the General Audience on Wednesday, 24 October, John Paul II delivered the following address.
1. At the preceding talk we began to analyze the meaning of man's original solitude. The starting point was given to us by the Yahwist text, and in particular by the following words: "It is not good that the man should be alone: I will make him a helper fit for him" (Gen 2:18). The analysis of the relative passages in the Book of Genesis (chap. 2) has already brought us to surprising conclusions which concern the anthropology, that is, the fundamental science about man, contained in this Book. In fact, in relatively few sentences, the ancient text portrays man as a person with the subjectivity that characterizes him.
When God - Yahweh gives this first man, so formed, the order that concerns all the trees that grow in the "garden in Eden", particularly the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, there is added to the features of the man, described above, the moment of choice and self - determination, that is, of free will. In this way, the image of man, as a person endowed with a subjectivity of his own, appears before us, as it were, completed in his first outline.
In the concept of original solitude are included both self - conscious and self - determination. The fact that man is "alone" conceals within it this ontological structure and is at the same time an indication of true comprehension. Without that, we cannot understand correctly the subsequent words, which constitute the prelude to the creation of the first woman: "I will make a helper". But above all, without that deep significance of man's original solitude, it is not possible to understand and interpret correctly the whole situation of man, created "in the image of God", which is the situation of the first, or rather original, Covenant with God.
Partner of the Absolute
2. This man, about whom the narrative in the first chapter says that he was created "in the image of God", is manifested in the second narrative as subject of the Covenant, that is, a subject constituted as a person, constituted in the dimension of "partner of the Absolute" since he must consciously discern and choose between good and evil, between life and death. The words of the first order of God - Yahweh (Gen 2:16-17), which spear: directly of the submission and dependence of man-the creature on his Creator, indirectly reveal precisely this level of humanity, as subject of the Covenant and "partner of the Absolute". Man is "alone": that means that he, through his own humanity, through what he is, is constituted at the same time in a unique, exclusive and unrepeatable relationship with God himself. The anthropological definition contained in the Yahwist text approaches, on its part, what is expressed in the theological definition of man, which we find in the first narrative of creation ("Let us make man in our image, after our likeness": Gen 1:26).
Conscious of being "alone"
3. Man, thus formed, belongs to the visible world, he is a body among bodies. Taking up again and, in a way, reconstructing, the meaning of original solitude, we apply it to man in his totality. His body, through which man participates in the visible created world, makes him at the same time conscious of being "alone". Otherwise he would not have been able to arrive at that conviction, which, in fact, as we read, he reached (cf. Gen 2:20), f his body had not helped him to understand it, making the matter evident. Consciousness of solitude might have been shattered precisely because of his body itself. The man, 'adam' might have reached the conclusion, on the basis of the experience of his own body, that he was substantially similar to other living beings (animalia). But, on the contrary, as we read, he did not arrive at this conclusion, in fact he reached the conviction that he was "alone". The Yahwist text never speaks directly of the body; even when it says that "the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground", it speaks of man and not of his body. Nevertheless the narrative taken as a whole offers us a sufficient basis to perceive this man created in the visible world, precisely as a body among bodies.
The analysis of the Yahwist text also enables us to link man's original solitude with consciousness of the body, through which man is distinguished from all the animalia and "is separated" from them, and also through which he is a person. It can be affirmed with certainty that that man, thus formed, has at the same time consciousness and awareness of the meaning of his own body. And that on the basis of the experience of original solitude.
Meaning of his corporality
4. All that can be considered as an implication of the second narrative of the creation of man, and the analysis of the text enables us to develop it amply.
When at the beginning of the ore it speaks of the creation of man from " dust of the ground", we read that "there was no one to till the land or to make channels of water spring out of the earth to irrigate the whole land" (Gen 2:5-6), we rightly associate this passage with the one in the first narrative, in which God's command is expressed: "Fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion. . . " (Gen 1:28). The second narrative alludes specifically to the work that man carries out to till the earth. The first fundamental means to dominate the earth lies in man himself. Man can dominate the earth because he alone - and no other of the living beings - is capable of "tilling it" and transforming it according to his own needs ("he made channels of water spring out of the earth to irrigate the whole land"). And lo, this first outline of a specifically human activity seems to belong to the definition of man, as it emerges from the analysis of the Yahwist text. Consequently, it can be affirmed that this outline is intrinsic to the meaning of the original solitude and belongs to that dimension of solitude, through which man, from the beginning, is in the visible world as a body among bodies and discovers the meaning of his own corporality.
We will return to this subject in the next meditation.
GENERAL AUDIENCE: 31 OCTOBER, 1979
The Alternative between Death and Immortality Enters the Definition of Man
In the course of the General Audience on Wednesday 31 October, held in St Peter's Square, the Holy Father delivered the following address.
Man a Living Being
1. Today it is opportune to return once more to the meaning of man's original solitude, which emerges above all from the analysis of the so-called Yahwist text of Genesis 2. The biblical text enables us, as we have already seen in preceding reflections, to stress not only consciousness of the human body (man is created in the visible world as a "body among bodies"), but also that of its meaning.
In view of the great conciseness of the biblical text, it is admittedly not possible to amplify this implication too much. It is certain, however, that here we touch upon the central problem of anthropology. Consciousness of the body seems to be identified in this case with the discovery of the complexity of one's own structure which, on the basis of philosophical anthropology, consists, in short, in the relationship between soul and body. The Yahwist narrative with its own language(that is, with its own terminology), expresses it by saying: "The Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being" (Gen 2:7)(1). And precisely this man, "a living being", distinguishes himself continually from all other living beings in the visible world.
The premise of man's distinguishing himself in this way is precisely the fact that only he is capable of "tilling the earth" (cf. Gen 2:5) and "subduing it" (cf. Gen 1:28). It can be said that the consciousness of "superiority", contained in the definition of humanity, is born right from the beginning on the basis of a typically human praxis or behavior. This consciousness brings with it a particular perception of the meaning of one's own body, emerging precisely from the fact that it falls to man to "till the earth" and "subdue it". All that would be impossible without a typically human intuition of the meaning of one's own body.
Expresses the Person
2. It seems necessary, then, to speak in the first place of this aspect, rather than of the problem of anthropological complexity in the metaphysical sense. If the original description of human consciousness, given by the Yahwist text, comprises, in the narrative as a whole, also the body, if it contains, as it were, the first testimony of the discovery of one's corporality (and even, as has been said, the perception of the meaning of one's own body), all that is revealed not on the basis of any primordial metaphysical analysis, but on the basis of a concrete subjectivity of man that is quite clear.
Man is a subject not only because of his self-awareness and self-determination, but also on the basis of his own body. The structure of this body is such as to permit him to be the author of a truly human activity. In this activity the body expresses the person. It is, therefore, in all its materiality ("God formed man of dust from the ground"), almost penetrable and transparent, in such a way as to make it clear who man is (and who he should be) thanks to the structure of his consciousness and of his self-determination. On this there rests the fundamental perception of the meaning of one's own body, which cannot but be discovered when analyzing man's original solitude.
Experience of Existing
3. And here, with this fundamental understanding of the meaning of his own body, man, as subject of the ancient Covenant with the Creator, is placed before the mystery of the tree of knowledge. "You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for. in the day that you eat of it you shall die" (Gen 2:16-17). The original meaning of man's solitude is based on experience of the existence obtained from the Creator. This human existence is characterized precisely by subjectivity, which includes also the meaning of the body.
But could man, who, in his original consciousness, knows exclusively the experience of existing and therefore of life, could man have understood the meaning of the words "you shall die"? Would he have been able to arrive at understanding the meaning of these words through the complex structure of life, given to him when "the Lord God. . . breathed "into his nostrils the breath of life. . ."? It must be admitted that the word "die", a completely new one, appeared on the horizon of man's consciousness without his having ever experienced its reality, and that at the same time this word appeared before him as a radical antithesis of all that man had been endowed with.
Man heard for the first time the words "you shall die", without having any familiarity with them in his experience up to then. But on the other hand he could not but associate the meaning of death with that dimension of life which he had enjoyed up to then. The words of God-Yahweh addressed to man confirmed a dependence in existing, such as to make man a limited being and, by his very nature, liable to nonexistence.
These words raised the problem of death in a conditional way: "in the day that you eat of it you shall die". Man, who had heard these words, had to find their truth in the very interior structure of his own solitude. And, in short, it depended on him, on his decision and free choice, if, with solitude, he was to enter also the circle of the antithesis revealed to him by the Creator, together with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and thereby to make his own the experience of dying and death.
Listening to the words of God-Yahweh, man should have understood that the tree of knowledge had roots not only in the "garden in Eden", but also in his humanity. He should have understood, furthermore, that that mysterious tree concealed within it a dimension of loneliness, hitherto unknown, with which the Creator had endowed him in the midst of the world of living beings, to which he, man - in the presence of the Creator himself - had "given names", in order to arrive at the understanding that none of them was similar to him.
Created from Dust
4. When, therefore, the fundamental meaning of his body had already been established through the distinction from all other creatures, when it had thereby become clear that the "invisible" determines man more than the "visible", then there was presented to him the alternative closely and directly connected by God with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The alternative between death and immortality, which emerges from Genesis 2:17, goes beyond the essential meaning of man's body, since it grasps the eschatological meaning not only of the body, but of humanity itself, distinguished from all living beings, from "bodies". This alternative concerns, however, in a quite particular way, the body created from "dust from the ground".
In order not to prolong this analysis any longer, we will merely note that the alternative between death and immortality enters, right from the outset, the definition of man and belongs "from the beginning" to the meaning of his solitude before God himself. This original meaning of solitude, permeated by the alternative between death and immortality, has also a fundamental meaning for the whole theology of the body.
With this observation we conclude for the present our reflections on the meaning of man's original solitude. This observation, which emerges in a clear and penetrating way from the texts of the Book of Genesis, induces reflection both on the texts and on man, who is, perhaps, too little conscious of the truth that concerns him, and which is already contained in the first chapters of the Bible.
GENERAL AUDIENCE: 7 NOVEMBER, 1979
Original unity of man and woman
At the General Audience in St. Peters Square on 7 November John Paul II continued his cycle of catechesis on marriage.
1. The words of the book of Genesis, "It is not good that the man should be alone" (2:18), are, as it were, a prelude to the narrative of the creation of woman. Together with this narrative, the sense of original solitude becomes part of the meaning of original unity, the key point of which seems to be precisely the words of Genesis 2:24, to which Christ refers in his talk with the Pharisees: "A man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh" (Mt 19:5). If Christ, referring to the "beginning", quotes these words, it is opportune for us to clarify the meaning of that original unity, which has its roots in the fact of the creation of man as male and female.
The narrative of the first chapter of Genesis does not know the problem of man's original solitude: man, in fact, is "male and female" right from the beginning. The Yahwist text of the second chapter, on the contrary, authorizes us, in a way, to think first only of the man since, by means of the body, he belongs to the visible world, but goes beyond it; then, it makes us think of the same man, but through the dualism of sex.
Corporality and sexuality are not completely identified. Although the human body, in its normal constitution, bears within it the signs of sex and is, by its nature, male or female, the fact, however, that man is a "body" belongs to the structure of the personal subject more deeply than the fact that he is in his somatic constitution also male or female. Therefore the meaning of original solitude, which can be referred simply to "man", is substantially prior to the meaning of original unity. The latter, in fact, is based on masculinity and femininity, as if on two different "incarnations", that is, on two ways of "being a body" of the same human being, created "in the image of God" (Gen 1:27).
Dialogue between man and God Creator
2. Following the Yahwist text, in which the creation of woman was described separately (Gen 2:21-22), we must have before our eyes, at the same time, that "image of God" of the first narrative of creation. The second narrative keeps, in language and in style, all the characteristics of the Yahwist text. The way of narrating agrees with the way of thinking and expressing oneself of the period to which the text belongs.
It can be said, following the contemporary philosophy of religion and that of language, that the language in question is a mythical one. In this case, in fact, the term "myth" does not designate a fabulous content, but merely an archaic way of expressing a deeper content. Without any difficulty, we discover, under the layer of the ancient narrative, that content, which is really marvellous as regards the qualities and the condensation of the truths contained in it.
Let us acid that the second narrative of the creation of man keeps, up to a certain point, the form of a dialogue between man and God Creator, and that is manifested above all in that stage in which man ('adam) is definitively created as male and female ('is-'issah) (1). The creation takes place almost simultaneously in two dimensions; the action of God - Yahweh who creates occurs in correlation with the process of human consciousness.
Analogy of sleep
3. So, therefore, God - Yahweh says: "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him" (Gen 2:18). At the same time the man confirms his own solitude (Gen 2:20). Next we read: "So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; and the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman" (Gen 2:21-22). Taking into consideration the specificity of the language, it must be recognized in the first place that that sleep in the Genesis account in which the man is immersed, thanks to God - Yahweh, in preparation for the new creative act, gives us food for thought.
Against the background of contemporary mentality, accustomed - through analysis of the subconscious - to connecting sexual contents with the world of dreams, that sleep may bring forth a particular association (2). However, the Bible narrative seems to go beyond the dimension of man's subconscious. If we admit, moreover, a significant difference of vocabulary, we can conclude that the man ('adam) falls into that "sleep" in order to wake up "male" and "female". In fact, for the first time in Gen 2:23 we come across the distinction 'is issah. Perhaps therefore, the analogy of sleep indicates here not so much a passing from consciousness to subconsciousness, as a specific return to non being (sleep contains an element of annihilation of man's conscious existence), that is, to the moment preceding the creation, in order that, through God's creative initiative, solitary "man" may emerge from it again in his double unity as male and female (3).
In any case, in the light of the context of Gen 2:18-20, there is no doubt that man falls into that " sleep" with the desire of finding a being like himself. If, by analogy with sleep, we can speak here also of a dream, we must say that that biblical archetype allows us to admit as the content of that dream a "second self", which is also personal and equally referred to the situation of original solitude, that is, to the whole of that process of the stabilization of human identity in relation to living beings (animalia) as a whole, since it is the process of man's " differentiation" from this environment. In this way, the circle of the solitude of the man - person is broken, because the first "man" awakens from his sleep as "male and female".
The same humanity
4. The woman is made "with the rib" that God - Yahweh had taken from the man. Considering the archaic, metaphorical and figurative way of expressing the thought, we can establish that it is a question here of homogeneity of the whole being of both. This homogeneity concerns above all the body, the somatic structure, and is confirmed also by the man's first words to the woman who has been created: "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh" (Gen 2:23) (4). And yet the words quoted refer also to the humanity of the male - man. They must be read in the context of the affirmations made before the creation of the woman, in which, although the "incarnation" of the man does not yet exist, she is defined as "a helper fit for him" (cf. Gen 2:18 and 2:20) (5). In this way, therefore, the woman is created, in a sense, on the basis of the same humanity'.
Somatic homogeneity, in spite of the difference in constitution bound up with the sexual difference, is so evident that the man (male), on waking up from the genetic sleep, expresses it at once, when he says: "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man" (Gen 2:23). In this way the man (male) manifests for the first time joy and even exaltation, for which he had no reason before, owing to the lack of a being like himself. Joy in the other human being, in the second "self", dominates in the words spoken by the man (male) on seeing the woman (female). All that helps to establish the full meaning of original unity. The words here are few, but each one is of great weight. We must therefore take into account-and we will do so also later - the fact that that first woman, "made with the rib. . . taken from the man (male) ", is at once accepted as a fit helper for him.
We shall return to this same subject, that is, the meaning of the original unity of man and of woman in humanity, in the next meditation.
GENERAL AUDIENCE: 14 NOVEMBER, 1979
By the Communion of Persons man becomes the image of God
Because of bad weather the General Audience was held indoors, both in St. Peter's Basilica and in the Paul VI Audience Hull. The following address was delivered to the Italian - speaking visitors in St. Peter's, and was later summarized in various languages for the other language groups in the Audience Hall.
1. Following the narrative of the Book of Genesis, we have seen that the "definitive" creation of man consists in the creation of the unity of two beings. Their unify denotes above all the identity of human nature; the duality, on the other hand, manifests what, on the basis of this identity, constitutes the masculinity and femininity of created man. This ontological dimension of unity and duality has, at the same time, an axiological meaning. From the text of Genesis 2:23 and from the whole context it is clearly seen that man was created as a particular value before God ("God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good": Gen 1:31), but also as a particular value for the man himself: first, because he is "man"; second, because the " woman " is for the man, and vice versa the "man" is for the woman.
While the first chapter of Genesis expresses this value in a purely theological form (and indirectly a metaphysical one), the second chapter, on the other hand, reveals, so to speak, the first circle of the experience lived by man as value. This experience is already inscribed in the meaning of original solitude, and then in the whole narrative of the creation of man as male and female. The concise text of Gen 2:23, which contains the words of the first man at the sight of the woman created, " taken out of him ", can be considered the biblical prototype of the Canticle of Canticles. And if it is possible to read impressions and emotions through words so remote, one might also venture to say that the depth and force of this first and "original" emotion of the male man in the presence of the humanity of the woman, and at the same time in the presence of the femininity of the other human being, seems something unique and unrepeatable.
Unity in "communion of persons"
2. In this way the meaning of man's original unity, through masculinity and femininity, is expressed as an overcoming of the frontier of solitude, and at the same time as an affirmation - with regard to both human beings - of everything that constitutes "man" in solitude. In the Bible narrative, solitude is the way that leads to that unity which, following Vatican II, we can define as communio personarum (1).
As we have already seen before, man, in his original solitude, acquires a personal consciousness in the process of "distinction" from all living beings (animalia) and at the same time, in this solitude, opens up to a being akin to himself, defined in Genesis (2:18 and 20) as "a helper fit for him". This opening is no less decisive for the person of man, in fact, it is perhaps even more decisive than the "distinction" itself. Man's solitude, in the Yahwist narrative, is presented to us not only as the first discovery of the characteristic transcendence peculiar to the person, but also as the discovery of an adequate relationship "to" the person, and therefore as an opening and expectation of a "communion of persons".
The term "community" could also be used here, if it were not generic and did not have so many meanings. " Communio " expresses more and with greater precision, since it indicates precisely that "help " which is derived, in a sense, from the very fact of existing as a person "beside" a person. In the Bible narrative this fact becomes eo ipso - in itself - the existence of the person "for" the person, since man in his original solitude was, in a way, already in this relationship. That is confirmed, in a negative sense, precisely by his solitude.
Furthermore, the communion of persons could be formed only on the basis of a "double solitude" of man and of woman, that is, as their meeting in their " distinction " from the world of living beings (animalia), which gave them both the possibility of being and existing in a special reciprocity. The concept of "help" also expresses this reciprocity in existence' which no other living being could have ensured. Indispensable for this reciprocity was all that constituted the foundation of the solitude of each of them, and therefore also self - knowledge and self - determination, that is, subjectivity and consciousness of the meaning of one's own body.
Image of inscrutable divine communion
3. The narrative of the creation of man, in the first chapter, affirms right from the beginning and directly that man was created in the image of God as male and female. The narrative of the second chapter, on the other hand, does not speak of the "image of God"; but it reveals, in its own way, that the complete and definitive creation of "man" (subjected first to the experience of original solitude) is expressed in giving life to that "communio personarum" that man and woman form. In this way, the Yahwist narrative agrees with the content of the first narrative.
If, vice versa, we wish to draw also from the narrative of the Yahwist text the concept of "image of God", we can then deduce that man became the "image and likeness" of God not only through his own humanity, hut also through the communion of persons, which man and woman form right from the beginning. The function of the image is to reflect the one who is the model, to reproduce its own prototype. Man becomes the image of God not so much in the moment of solitude as in the moment of communion. He is, in fact, right "from the beginning" not only an image in which there is reflected the solitude of a Person who rules the world, but also, and essentially, an image of an inscrutable divine communion of Persons.
In this way, the second narrative could also be a preparation for the understanding of the Trinitarian concept of the "image of God", even if the latter appears only in the first narrative. Obviously, that is not without significance also for the theology of the body; in fact, it even constitutes, perhaps, the deepest theological aspect of all that can be said about man. In the mystery of creation - on the basis of the original and constituent "solitude" of his being - man was endowed with a deep unity between what is, humanly and through the body, male in him and what is, equally humanly and through the body, female in him. On all this, right from the beginning, there descended the blessing of fertility, linked with human procreation (cf. Gen 1:28).
The body reveals man
4. In this way, we find ourselves almost at the very heart of the anthropological reality that has the name "body". The words of Genesis 2:23 speak of it directly and for the first time in the following terms: "flesh of my flesh and bone of my bones". The male - man utters these words, as if it were only at the sight of the woman that he was able to identify and call by name what makes them visibly similar to each other, and at the same time what manifests humanity.
In the light of the preceding analysis of all the "bodies", with which man has come into contact, and which he has defined conceptually giving them their name ("animalia"), the expression "flesh of my flesh" takes on precisely this meaning: the body reveals man. This concise formula already contains everything that human science could ever say about the structure of the body as organism, about its vitality, and its particular sexual physiology, etc. In this first expression of the male - man, "flesh of my flesh", there is also contained a reference to what makes that body truly human, and therefore to what determines man as a person, that is, as a being who, even in all his corporality, is "similar" to God (2).
Meaning of unity
5. We find ourselves, therefore, almost at the very core of the anthropological reality, the name of which is "body", the human body. However, as can easily be seen, this core is not only anthropological, but also essentially theological. The theology of the body, which, right from the beginning, is bound up with the creation of man in the image of God, becomes, in a way, also the theology of sex, or rather the theology of masculinity and femininity, which has its starting point here, in the Book of Genesis.
The original meaning of unity, to which the words of Genesis 2:24 bear witness, will have in the revelation of God an ample and distant perspective. This unity through the body (" and the two will be one flesh") possesses a multiform dimension: an ethical dimension, as is confirmed by Christ's answer to the Pharisees in Mt 19 (Mk 10), and also a sacramental dimension, a strictly theological one, as is proved by St. Paul's words to the Ephesians (3), which refer also to the tradition of the prophets (Hosea, Isaiah, Ezekiel). And this is so because that unity which is realized through the body indicates, right from the beginning, not only the "body", but also the "incarnate" communion of persons - communio personarum - and calls for this communion right from the beginning.
Masculinity and femininity express the dual aspect of man's somatic constitution ("This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh"), and indicate' furthermore, through the same words of Gen 2:23, the new consciousness of the sense of one's own body: a sense which, it can be said, consists in a mutual enrichment. Precisely this consciousness, through which humanity is formed again as the communion of persons, seems to be the layer which in the narrative of the creation of man (and in the revelation of the body contained in it) is deeper than his very somatic structure as male and female. In any case, this structure is presented right from the beginning with a deep consciousness of human corporality and sexuality, and that establishes an inalienable norm for the understanding of man on the theological plane.
), are, as it were, a prelude to the narrative of the creation of woman. Together with this narrative, the sense of original solitude becomes part of the meaning of original unity, the key point of which seems to be precisely the words of Genesis 2:24, to which Christ refers in his talk with the Pharisees: "A man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh" (Mt 19:5). If Christ, referring to the "beginning", quotes these words, it is opportune for us to clarify the meaning of that original unity, which has its roots in the fact of the creation of man as male and female.
The narrative of the first chapter of Genesis does not know the problem of man's original solitude: man, in fact, is "male and female" right from the beginning. The Yahwist text of the second chapter, on the contrary, authorizes us, in a way, to think first only of the man since, by means of the body, he belongs to the visible world, but goes beyond it; then, it makes us think of the same man, but through the dualism of sex.
Corporality and sexuality are not completely identified. Although the human body, in its normal constitution, bears within it the signs of sex and is, by its nature, male or female, the fact, however, that man is a "body" belongs to the structure of the personal subject more deeply than the fact that he is in his somatic constitution also male or female. Therefore the meaning of original solitude, which can be referred simply to "man", is substantially prior to the meaning of original unity. The latter, in fact, is based on masculinity and femininity, as if on two different "incarnations", that is, on two ways of "being a body" of the same human being, created "in the image of God" (Gen 1:27).
Dialogue between man and God Creator
2. Following the Yahwist text, in which the creation of woman was described separately (Gen 2:21-22), we must have before our eyes, at the same time, that "image of God" of the first narrative of creation. The second narrative keeps, in language and in style, all the characteristics of the Yahwist text. The way of narrating agrees with the way of thinking and expressing oneself of the period to which the text belongs.
It can be said, following the contemporary philosophy of religion and that of language, that the language in question is a mythical one. In this case, in fact, the term "myth" does not designate a fabulous content, but merely an archaic way of expressing a deeper content. Without any difficulty, we discover, under the layer of the ancient narrative, that content, which is really marvellous as regards the qualities and the condensation of the truths contained in it.
Let us acid that the second narrative of the creation of man keeps, up to a certain point, the form of a dialogue between man and God Creator, and that is manifested above all in that stage in which man ('adam) is definitively created as male and female ('is-'issah) (1). The creation takes place almost simultaneously in two dimensions; the action of God - Yahweh who creates occurs in correlation with the process of human consciousness.
Analogy of sleep
3. So, therefore, God - Yahweh says: "It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him" (Gen 2:18). At the same time the man confirms his own solitude (Gen 2:20). Next we read: "So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh; and the rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman" (Gen 2:21-22). Taking into consideration the specificity of the language, it must be recognized in the first place that that sleep in the Genesis account in which the man is immersed, thanks to God - Yahweh, in preparation for the new creative act, gives us food for thought.
Against the background of contemporary mentality, accustomed - through analysis of the subconscious - to connecting sexual contents with the world of dreams, that sleep may bring forth a particular association (2). However, the Bible narrative seems to go beyond the dimension of man's subconscious. If we admit, moreover, a significant difference of vocabulary, we can conclude that the man ('adam) falls into that "sleep" in order to wake up "male" and "female". In fact, for the first time in Gen 2:23 we come across the distinction 'is issah. Perhaps therefore, the analogy of sleep indicates here not so much a passing from consciousness to subconsciousness, as a specific return to non being (sleep contains an element of annihilation of man's conscious existence), that is, to the moment preceding the creation, in order that, through God's creative initiative, solitary "man" may emerge from it again in his double unity as male and female (3).
In any case, in the light of the context of Gen 2:18-20, there is no doubt that man falls into that " sleep" with the desire of finding a being like himself. If, by analogy with sleep, we can speak here also of a dream, we must say that that biblical archetype allows us to admit as the content of that dream a "second self", which is also personal and equally referred to the situation of original solitude, that is, to the whole of that process of the stabilization of human identity in relation to living beings (animalia) as a whole, since it is the process of man's " differentiation" from this environment. In this way, the circle of the solitude of the man - person is broken, because the first "man" awakens from his sleep as "male and female".
The same humanity
4. The woman is made "with the rib" that God - Yahweh had taken from the man. Considering the archaic, metaphorical and figurative way of expressing the thought, we can establish that it is a question here of homogeneity of the whole being of both. This homogeneity concerns above all the body, the somatic structure, and is confirmed also by the man's first words to the woman who has been created: "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh" (Gen 2:23) (4). And yet the words quoted refer also to the humanity of the male - man. They must be read in the context of the affirmations made before the creation of the woman, in which, although the "incarnation" of the man does not yet exist, she is defined as "a helper fit for him" (cf. Gen 2:18 and 2:20) (5). In this way, therefore, the woman is created, in a sense, on the basis of the same humanity'.
Somatic homogeneity, in spite of the difference in constitution bound up with the sexual difference, is so evident that the man (male), on waking up from the genetic sleep, expresses it at once, when he says: "This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man" (Gen 2:23). In this way the man (male) manifests for the first time joy and even exaltation, for which he had no reason before, owing to the lack of a being like himself. Joy in the other human being, in the second "self", dominates in the words spoken by the man (male) on seeing the woman (female). All that helps to establish the full meaning of original unity. The words here are few, but each one is of great weight. We must therefore take into account-and we will do so also later - the fact that that first woman, "made with the rib. . . taken from the man (male) ", is at once accepted as a fit helper for him.
We shall return to this same subject, that is, the meaning of the original unity of man and of woman in humanity, in the next meditation.
GENERAL AUDIENCE: 21 NOVEMBER, 1979
Marriage one and indissoluble in first chapters of Genesis
On 21 November the General Audience was held in two parts - in the Basilica and in the Paul VI Hall. To the Italian speaking pilgrims in the Basilica the Holy Father spoke as follows:
1. Let us recall that Christ, when questioned about the unity and indissolubility of marriage, referred to what was "in the beginning". He quoted the words written in the first chapters of Genesis. We are trying, therefore, in the course of these reflections, to penetrate the specific meaning of these words and these chapters.
The meaning of the original unity of man, whom God created "male and female", is obtained (particularly in the light of Genesis 2:23) by knowing man in the entire endowment of his being, that is, in all the riches of that mystery of creation' on which theological anthropology is based. This knowledge, that is, the study of the human identity of the one who, at the beginning, is "alone", must always pass through duality, " communion ".
Let us recall the passage of Genesis 2:23: "Then the man said, 'This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man"'. In the light of this text, we understand that knowledge of man passes through masculinity and femininity, which are, as it were' two "incarnations" of the same metaphysical solitude, before God and the world - two ways, as it were, of "being a body" and at the same time a man, which complete each other - two complementary dimensions, as it were, of self - consciousness and self - determination and, at the same time, two complementary ways of being conscious of the meaning, of the body.
As Genesis 2:23 already shows, femininity finds itself, in a sense, in the presence of masculinity, while masculinity is confirmed through femininity. Precisely the function of sex, which is, in a sense; "a constituent part of the person" (not just "an attribute of the person"), proves how deeply man, with all his spiritual solitude, with the uniqueness, never to be repeated, of his person, is constituted by the body as "he" or "she". The presence of the feminine element, alongside the male element and together with it, signifies an enrichment for man in the whole perspective of his history, including the history of salvation. All this teaching on unity has already been expressed originally in Genesis 2:23.
Rediscover the mystery of creation
2. The unity of which Genesis 2:24 speaks ("they become one flesh"), is undoubtedly what is expressed and realized in the conjugal act. The biblical formulation, extremely concise and simple, indicates sex, femininity and masculinity, as that characteristic of man - male and female - which permits them, when they become "one flesh", to submit at the same time their whole. humanity to the blessing of fertility. However, the whole context of the lapidary formulation does not permit us to stop at the surface of human sexuality, does not allow us to deal with the body and sex outside the full dimension of man and of the "communion of persons", but obliges us right from the beginning to see the fullness and depth characteristic of this unity, which man and woman must constitute in the light of the revelation of the body.
Therefore, first of all, the perspective expression which says: "a man cleaves to his wife" so intimately that "they become one flesh", always induces us to refer to what the biblical text expresses previously with regard to the union in humanity, which binds the woman and the man in the very mystery of creation. The words of Genesis 2:23, just analyzed, explain this concept in a particular way. Man and woman, uniting with each other (in the conjugal act) so closely as to become "one flesh", rediscover, so to speak, every time and in a special way, the mystery of creation. They return in this way to that union in humanity ("flesh of my flesh and bone of my bones"), which allows them to recognize each other and, like the first time, to call each other by name.
This means reliving, in a sense, the original virginal value of man, which emerges from the mystery of his solitude before God and in the midst of the world. The fact that they become "one flesh" is a powerful bond established by the Creator, through which they discover their own humanity, both in its original unity, and in the duality of a mysterious mutual attraction.
Sex, however, is something more than the mysterious power of human corporality, which acts almost by virtue of instinct. At the level of man and in the mutual relationship of persons, sex expresses an ever new surpassing of the limit of man's solitude that is inherent in the constitution of his body, and determines its original meaning. This surpassing always contains within it a certain assumption of the solitude of the body of the second "self" as one's own.
Choice establishes pact
3. Therefore it is bound up with choice. The very formulation of Genesis 2:24 indicates not only that human beings, created as man and woman, were created for unity, but also that precisely this unity, through which they become "one flesh", has right from the beginning a character of union derived from a choice. We read, in fact: "a man leaves his father and mother and cleaves to his wife". If the man belongs "by nature" to his father and mother by virtue of procreation, he, on the other hand, "cleaves" by choice to his wife (or she to her husband).
The text of Genesis 2:24 defines this character of the conjugal bond with reference to the first man and the first woman, but at the same time, it does so also in the perspective of the whole earthly future of man. Therefore, in his time, Christ will appeal to that text, as equally relevant in his age. Formed in the image of God, also inasmuch as they form a true communion of persons, the first man and the first woman must constitute the beginning and the model of that communion for all men and women, who, in any period, are united so intimately as to be "one flesh".
The body, which through its own masculinity or femininity, right from the beginning helps both ("a helper fit for him") to find themselves in communion of persons, becomes, in a particular way, the constituent element of their union, when they become husband and wife. This takes place, however, through a mutual choice. It is the choice that establishes the conjugal pact between persons (1), who become "one flesh" only on this basis.
Self - giving of persons
4. That corresponds to the structure of man's solitude, and in actual fact to the: "twofold solitude". Choice, as the expression of self - determination, rests on the foundation of his self - consciousness. Only on the basis of the structure peculiar to man is he "a body" and, through the body, also male and female. When they both unite so closely as to become "one flesh", their conjugal union presupposes a mature consciousness of the body. In fact, it bears within it a particular consciousness of the meaning of that body in the mutual self - giving of the persons.
In this sense, too, Genesis 2:24 is a perspective text. It proves, in fact, that in every conjugal union of man and woman there is discovered again the same original consciousness of the unifying significance of the body in its masculinity and femininity. With that the biblical text indicates, at the same time, that in each of these unions there is renewed, in a way, the mystery of creation in all its original depth and vital power. "Taken out of man" as "flesh of his flesh", woman subsequently becomes, as "wife" and through her motherhood, mother of the living (cf. Gen 3:20), since her motherhood also has its origin in him. Procreation is rooted in creation, and every time, in a sense, reproduces its mystery.
5. A special reflection: "Knowledge and procreation" will be devoted to this subject. In it, it will be necessary to refer further to other elements of the biblical text. The analysis made hitherto of the meaning of the original unity proves in what way that unity of man and woman, inherent in the mystery of creation, is "from the beginning" also given as a commitment in the perspective of all following times.
To group in Renewal Course at Nemi
I wish to extend a particular greeting to the priests and brothers participating in a renewal course at Nemi. There is an intimate relationship between the word of God and all theology, between the word of God and all missionary work. My special prayer for you today is that the Holy Spirit will give you an ever deeper love of God's word, and an ever greater openness to all its applications in your own lives. And from Nemi may you go out with renewed fervor, to proclaim the Gospel of salvation. My dear brothers: let us always remember that the word of God is a lamp to our feet and a light to our path (cf. Ps 119:105). It gives meaning to our ministry and joy to our lives.
GENERAL AUDIENCE: 12 DECEMBER, 1979
Meaning of original human experiences
In the General Audience of 12 December, the Holy Father resumed his catechesis on the Book of Genesis in the following discourse.
1. It can be said that the analysis of the first chapters of Genesis forces us, in a way, to reconstruct the elements that constitute man's original experience. In this sense, the Yahwist text is, by its character, a special source. Speaking of original human experiences, we have in mind not so much their distance in time, as rather their basic significance. The important thing, therefore, is not that these experiences belong to man's prehistory (to his "theological prehistory"), but that they are always at the root of every human experience. That is true, even if, in the evolution of ordinary human existence, not much attention is paid to these essential experiences. They are, in fact, so intermingled with the ordinary things of life that we do not generally notice their extraordinary character.
On the basis of the analyses carried out up to now, we have already been able to realize that what we called at the beginning "revelation of the body", helps us somehow to discover the extraordinary side of what is ordinary. That is possible because the revelation (the original one, which found expression first in the Yahwist account of Genesis 2;3, then in the text of Genesis 1) takes into consideration precisely these primordial experiences in which there appears almost completely the absolute originality of what the male-female human being is: as a man, that is, also through his body. Man's experience of his body, as we discover it in the biblical text quoted, is certainly on the threshold of the whole subsequent "historical" experience. It also seems to rest, however, at such an ontological depth that man does not perceive it in his own everyday life, even if at the same time, and in a certain way, he presupposes it and postulates it as part of the process of formation of his own image.
2. Without this introductory reflection, it would be impossible to define the meaning of original nakedness and tackle the analysis of Genesis 2:25, which runs as follows: "And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed-". At first sight, the introduction of this detail, apparently a secondary one, in the Yahwist account of man's creation, may seem something inadequate or misplaced. One would think that the passage quoted cannot bear comparison with what has been dealt with in the preceding verses and that, in a way, it goes beyond the context. However, this judgment does not stand up to a deeper analysis. In fact, Genesis 2:25 presents one of the key-elements of the original revelation, as decisive as the other texts of Genesis(2:20 and 2:23), which have already enabled us to define the meaning of man's original solitude and original unity. To these is added, as the third element, the meaning of original nakedness, clearly stressed in the context; and, in the first biblical draft of anthropology, it is not something accidental. On the contrary, it is precisely the key for its full and complete understanding.
3. It is evident that precisely this element of the ancient biblical text makes a specific contribution to the theology of the body, a contribution that absolutely cannot be ignored. Further analyses will confirm this. But, before undertaking them, I take the liberty of pointing out that the very text of Genesis 2:25 expressly requires that the reflections on the theology of the body should be connected with the dimension of man's personal subjectivity; it is within the latter, in fact, that consciousness of the meaning of the body develops. Genesis 2:25 speaks about it far more directly than other parts of that Yahwist text, which we have already defined as the first recording of human consciousness.
The sentence, according to which the first human beings, man and woman, "were naked" and yet "were not ashamed", unquestionably describes their state of consciousness, in fact, their mutual experience of the body, that is, the experience on the part of the man of the femininity that is revealed in the nakedness of the body and, reciprocally, the similar experience of masculinity on the part of the woman. By saying that "they were not ashamed", the author tries to describe this mutual experience of the body with the greatest precision possible for him. It can be said that this type of precision reflects a basic experience of man in the "common" and prescientific sense, but it also corresponds to the requirements of anthropology and in particular of contemporary anthropology, which likes to refer to so - called fundamental experiences, such as the experience of shame.(1)
4. Referring here to the precision of the account, such as was possible for the author of the Yahwist text, we are led to consider the degrees of experience of "historical" man, laden with the inheritance of sin, degrees, however, which methodically start precisely from the state of original innocence. Previously we have already seen that, referring to "the beginning" (which we have subjected here to successive contextual analyses) Christ indirectly establishes the idea of continuity and connection between those two states, as if allowing us to move back from the threshold of man's "historical" sinfulness to his original innocence. Precisely Genesis 2:25 makes it particularly necessary to cross that threshold.
It is easy to point out how this passage, together with the meaning of original nakedness inherent in it, takes its place in the contextual setting of the Yahwist narrative. After some verses' in fact, the same author writes: "Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons" (Gen 3:7). The adverb "then" indicates a new moment and a new situation following upon the breaking of the first Covenant; it is a situation that follows the failure of the text connected with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which at the same time constituted the first test of "obedience", that is, listening to the Word in all its truth and accepting Love, according to the fullness of the demands of the creative Will. This new moment or new situation also implies a new content and a new quality of experience of the body, so that it' can no longer be said: "they were naked, but were not ashamed". Here, therefore, shame is an experience that is not only original, but a " boundary" one.
5. The difference of formulations, that divides Genesis 2:25 from Genesis 3:7, is, therefore, a significant one. In the first case, "they were naked, but they were not ashamed"; in the second case, "they knew that they were naked". Does that mean that, to begin with, "they did not know that they were naked"? That they did not see the nakedness of each other's body? The significant change testified by the biblical text about the experience of shame (of which Genesis speaks again, particularly in 3:10-12, takes place at a deeper level than the pure and simple use of the sense of sight. A comparative analysis between Genesis 2:25 and Genesis 3 leads necessarily to the conclusion that it is not a question here of passing from "not knowing" to "knowing", but of a radical change of the meaning of the original nakedness of the woman before the man and of the man before the woman. It emerges from their conscience, as a fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil: "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" (Gen 3: 11).
This change directly concerns the experience of the meaning of one's body before the Creator and creatures. That is confirmed subsequently by the man's words: "I heard the sound of thee in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself" (Gen 3:10). But in particular that change, which the Yahwist text portrays so concisely and dramatically, concerns directly, perhaps in the most direct way possible, the man-woman, femininity-masculinity relationship.
6. We will have to return again to the analysis of this change in other parts of our further reflections. Now, having arrived at that border which crosses the sphere of the "beginning" to which Christ referred, we should ask ourselves if it is possible to reconstruct, in some way. the original meaning of nakedness, which, in the Book of Genesis, constitutes the immediate context of the doctrine about the unity of the human being as male and female. That seems possible, if we take as reference point the experience of shame as it was clearly presented in the ancient biblical text as a liminal" experience.
We shall seek to attempt this reconstruction in our following meditations.
GENERAL AUDIENCE: 19 DECEMBER, 1979
Fullness of Interpersonal communication
During the General Audience in the Paul VI Hall on 19 December, the Holy Father gave the following address.
1. What is shame and how can we explain its absence in the state of original innocence, in the very depth of the mystery of the creation of man as male and female? From contemporary analyses of shame, and in particular sexual modesty, we can deduce the complexity of this fundamental experience, in which man expresses himself as a person according to his own specific structure. In the experience of shame, the human being experiences fear with regard to his "second self" (as, for example, woman before man), and this is substantially fear for his own "self". With shame, the human being manifests almost "instinctively" the need of affirmation and acceptance of this "self", according to its rightful value. He experiences it at the same time both within himself, and externally, before the "other". It can therefore be said that shame is a complex experience also in the sense that, almost keeping one human being away from the other (woman from man), it seeks at the same time to draw them closer personally, creating a suitable basis and level in order to do so.
For the same reason, it has a fundamental significance as regards the formation of ethos in human society, and in particular in the man woman relationship. The analysis of shame clearly indicates how deeply it is rooted precisely in mutual relations, how exactly it expresses the essential rules for the "communion of persons", and likewise how deeply it touches the dimension of man's original "solitude". The appearance of "shame" in the subsequent biblical narration of Chapter 3 of Genesis has a pluridimensional significance, and it will be opportune to resume the analysis of it in due time.
What does its original absence mean, on the other hand, in Genesis 2:25: "They were both naked and were not ashamed"?
Misleading analogies
2. It is necessary to establish, in the first place, that it is a question of a real non-presence of shame and not a lack of underdevelopment of it. We cannot in any way sustain here a "primitivization" of its meaning. Therefore the text of Genesis 2:25 does not only exclude decisively the possibility of thinking of a "lack of shame" or immodesty, but even more excludes the possibility of explaining it by means of analogy with some positive human experiences such as for example those of childhood or of the life of so-called primitive peoples. These analogies are not only insufficient, but they can even be misleading. The words of Genesis 2:25 "they were not ashamed", do not express a lack, but, on the contrary, serve to indicate a particular fullness of consciousness and experience, above all fullness of understanding of the meaning of the body, bound up with the fact that "they were naked".
That this is how the text quoted is to be understood and interpreted, is testified by the continuation of the Yahwist narrative, in which the appearance of shame, and in particular of sexual modesty, is connected with the loss of that original fullness. Taking, therefore, the experience of shame as a "borderline" experience, we must ask ourselves to what fullness of consciousness and experience, and in particular to what fullness of understanding of the meaning of the body, the meaning of original nakedness, of which Genesis 2:25 speaks, corresponds.
Fullness of consciousness
3. To answer this question, it is necessary to keep in mind the analytical process carried out so far, which has its basis in the Yahwist passage as a whole. In this context, man's original solitude is manifested as "non-identification" of his own humanity with the world of living beings (animalia) that surround him.
This "non-identification", following upon the creation of man as male and female, makes way for the happy discovery of one's own humanity "with the help" of the other human being; thus the man recognizes and finds again his own humanity "with the help" of the woman (Gen 2:25). At the same time, this act of theirs realizes a perception of the world, which is carried out directly through the body ("flesh of my flesh"). It is the direct and visible source of the experience that arrives at establishing their unity in humanity, It is not difficult to understand, therefore that nakedness corresponds to that fullness of consciousness of the meaning of the body, deriving from the typical perception of the senses.
One can think of this fullness in categories of truth of being or of reality, and it can be said that man and woman were originally given to each other precisely according to this truth, since "they were naked". In. the analysis of the meaning of original nakedness, this dimension absolutely cannot be disregarded. This participating in perception of the world in its "exterior" aspect, is a direct and almost spontaneous fact, prior to any "critical" complication of knowledge and of human experience and is seen as closely connected with the experience of the meaning of the human body. The original innocence of "knowledge" could already be perceived in this way.
Meaning of communication
4. However, it is not possible to determine the meaning of original nakedness considering only man's participation in exterior perception of the world; it is not possible to establish it without going down into the depths of man. Genesis 2:25 introduces us specifically to this level and wants us to seek there the original innocence: of knowing. In fact, it is with the dimension of human inferiority that it is necessary to explain and measure that particular fullness of interpersonal communication, thanks to which man and woman "were naked and were not ashamed".
The concept of "communication", in our conventional language, has been practically alienated from its deepest, original semantic matrix. It is connected mainly with the sphere of the media, that is, for the most part, products that serve for under standing, exchange, and bringing closer together. It can be supposed, on the other hand, that, in its original and deeper meaning, "communication" was and is directly connected with subjects, who "communicate" precisely on the basis of the "common union" that exists between them, both to reach and to express a reality that is peculiar and pertinent only to the sphere of person subjects.
In this way, the human body acquires a completely new meaning, - which cannot be placed on the plane of the remaining "external" perception of the world. It expresses, in fact, the person in his ontological and existential concreteness. Which is something more than the "individual", and therefore expresses the personal human "self", which derives its "exterior" perception from within.
Man's vision of God
5. The whole biblical narrative, and in particular the Yahwist text, shows that the body through its own visibility manifests man and, manifesting him, acts as intermediary, that is, enables man and woman, right from the beginning, "to communicate" with each other according to that communio personarum willed by the Creator precisely for them. Only this dimension, it seems, enables us to understand in the right way the meaning of original nakedness. In this connection, any "naturalistic" criterion is bound to fail, while, on the contrary, the "personalistic" criterion can be of great help. Genesis 2:25 certainly speaks of something extraordinary, which is outside the limits of the shame known through human experience and which at the same time decides the particular fullness of interpersonal communication, rooted at the very heart of that communio, which is thus revealed and developed. In this connection, the words "they were not ashamed" can mean (in sensu obliguo) only an original depth in affirming what is inherent in the person, what is "visibly" female and male, through which the "personal intimacy" of mutual communication in all its radical simplicity and purity is constituted. To this fullness of "exterior" perception expressed by means of physical nakedness, there corresponds the "interior" fullness of man's vision in God, that is, according to the measure of the "image of God" (cf. Gen1:l7. According to this measure, man "is" really naked ("they were naked": Gen 2:25) even before realizing it (cf. Gen3:7-10).
We shall still have to complete the analysis of this important text during the meditations that follow.
GENERAL AUDIENCE: 2 JANUARY, 1980
Creation as fundamental and original gift
During the general audience in the Paul IV Hall on 2 January the Holy Father gave the following address:
1. Let us return to the analysis the text of Genesis (2:25) started some weeks ago. ("And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed". Gen 2:25)
According to this passage, the and the woman see themselves as it were, through the mystery of creation; they see themselves this way before knowing "that they are naked" This seeing each other is not just a participation in "exterior perception of the world, but has also an interior dimension f participation in the vision of the Creator himself-that vision of which the Elohist text speaks several times:
"God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good" (Gen 1:31).
Seeing each other
"Nakedness" signifies the original good of God's vision. It signifies all the simplicity and fullness of the vision through which the "pure" value of humanity as male and female, the "pure" value of the body and of sex is manifested. The situation that is indicated, in such a concise and at the same time inspiring way, by the original revelation of the body as seen in particular by Genesis 2:25, does not know an interior rupture and opposition between what is spiritual and what is sensible, just as it does not know a rupture and opposition between what constitutes the person humanly and what in man is determined by sex: what is make and female.
Seeing each other, as if through the very mystery of creation, man and woman see each other even more fully and distinctly than through the sense of sight itself, that is, through the eyes of the body. They see and know each other, in fact, with all the peace of the interior gaze, which creates precisely the fullness of the intimacy of persons.
If "shame" brings with it a specific limitation in seeing by means of the eyes of the body, this takes place above all because personal intimacy as it were disturbed and almost threatened by this sight. According to Genesis 2:25, the man and the woman were "not ashamed": seeing and knowing each other in all the peace and tranquillity of the interior gaze, they communicate in the fullness of humanity, which is manifested in them as reciprocal complementariness precisely because they are "male" and "female". At the same time, they "communicate" on the basis of that communion of persons in which through femininity and masculinity they become a gift for each other. In this way they reach in reciprocity a special understanding of the meaning of their own body.
The original meaning of nakedness corresponds to that simplicity and fullness of vision, in which understanding of the meaning of the body comes about, as it were, at the very heart of their community-communion. We will call it "nuptial". The man and the woman in Gen 2:23-25 emerge, precisely at the beginning", with this consciousness of the meaning of their body. That deserves a careful analysis.
Bearing a divine image
2. If the narrative of. the creation of man in the two versions, the Elohist and the Yahwist, enables us to establish the original meaning of solitude, unity and nakedness, it thereby enables us also to find ourselves on the ground of an adequate .anthology, which tries to understand and interpret man in what is essentially human (1).
The Bible "texts contain the essential elements of this anthropology, which are manifested in the theological context of the "image of God". This concept conceals within it the very root of the truth about man, revealed through that "beginning", to which Christ refers in the talk with the Pharisees (cf. Mt 19:3-9), when he treats of the creation of human male and female. It must be recalled that all the analyses we make here are connected, at least indirectly, precisely with these words of his. Man, whom God created "male and female", bears the divine image imprinted on his body "from the beginning"; man and Woman constitute, as it were, two different ways of the human "being a body" in the unity of that image.
Now, it is opportune to turn again to those fundamental words which Christ used. that is, the word "created" and the subject "Creator" introducing in the considerations made so far a new dimension, a new criterion of understanding and interpretation which we will call "hermeneutics of the gift". The dimension of the gift decides the essential truth and depth of meaning of the original solitude-unity-nakedness. It is also at the very heart of the mystery of creation, which enables us to construct the theology of the body "from the beginning", but demands, at the same time, that we should construct it just in this way.
Calls into existence
3. The word "created, on Christ's lips," contains the same truth that we find in the book of Genesis. The first account of creation repeats this word several times, from Gen 1:1("In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth") to Gen 1:27("So God created man in his own image") (2). God reveals himself above all as Creator. Christ refers to that fundamental revelation contained in the Book of Genesis. In it, the concept of creation has all its depth, not only metaphysical, but also fully theological.
The Creator is he who "calls to existence from nothingness", and who establishes the world in existence and man in the world, because he "is love" (1 Jn 4:8). Actually, we do not find this word in the narrative of creation; however, this narrative often repeats: "God saw what he had made, and behold, it was very good". Through these words we are led to glimpse in love the divine motive of creation, the source, as it were, from which it springs: only love, in fact, gives a beginning to good and delights in good. (cf. 1 Cor 13). The creation, therefore as the action of God, signifies not only calling from nothingness to existence and establishing the existence of the world and of man in the world but it also signifies according to the first narrative, "beresit bara", giving; a fundamental and "radical" giving, that is, a giving in which the gift comes into being precisely from nothingness.
Relationship emerges
4. The reading of the first chapters of the book of Genesis introduces us to the mystery of creation, that is, the beginning of the world by the will of God, who is omnipotence and love. Consequently, every creature bears within him the sign of the original and fundamental gift.
At the same time, however, the concept of "giving" cannot refer to a nothingness. It indicates the one who gives and the one who receives the gift, and also the relationship that is established between them. Now, this relationship emerges in the account of creation at the very moment of the creation of man. This relationship is manifested above all by the expression: "God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him" (Gen 1:27).
In the narrative of the creation of the visible world, the giving has a meaning only with regard to man. In the whole work of creation, it can be said only of him that a gift was conferred on him: the visible world was created "for him": The biblical account of creation offers us sufficient reasons to understand and interpret in this way: creation is a gift, because there appears in it man who, as the "image of God", is capable of understanding the very meaning of gift in the call from nothingness to existence. And h is capable of answering the Creator with the language of this understanding. Interpreting the narrative of creation with this language, it can be deduced from it that creation constitutes the fundamental and original gift: man appears in creation as the one who received the world as a gift, and vice versa it can also be said that the world received man as a gift.
At this point, we must interrupt our analysis. What we have said so far is in very close relationship with all the anthropological problems of the "beginning". Man appears as "created", that is, as the one on who, in the midst of the "world" received the other man as a gift. And later we will have to make precisely this dimension of the gift the subject of a deep analysis in order to understand also the meaning of the human body in its rightful extent. This will be the subject of our next meditations.
GENERAL AUDIENCE: 9 JANUARY, 1980
Revelation and discovery of the nuptial meaning of the body
During the General Audience on 9 January the Holy Father delivered the following address.
1. Rereading and analyzing the second narrative of creation, that is, the Yahwist text, we must ask ourselves if the first "man" ('adam), in his original solitude, really "lived" the world as a gift, with an attitude in conformity with the actual condition of one who has received a gift, as is seen from the narrative in the first chapter. The second narrative shows us man, in fact, in the garden of Eden (cf. Gen 2:8); but we must observe that, though in this situation of original happiness, the Creator himself (God Yahweh) and then also man," instead of stressing the aspect of the world as a subjectively beatifying gift created for man (cf. the first narrative and in particular Gen 26:29), point out that man is "alone."
We have already analyzed the meaning of original solitude. Now, however, it is necessary to note that there clearly appears for the first time a certain lack of good: "It is not good that man (male) should be alone " - God Yahweh says - " I will make him a helper . . ." (Gen 2:18). The first "man" says the same thing. He, too, after having become thoroughly aware of his own solitude among all living beings on earth, waits for a "a helper fit for him" (cf. Gen 2:20). In fact, none of these beings (animalia) offers man the basic conditions, which make it possible to exist in a relationship of mutual giving.
With and for someone
2. In this way, therefore, these two expressions, namely, the adjective "alone" and the noun "helper," seem to be really the key to understand the very essence of the gift at the level of man, as existential content contained in the truth of the "image of God." In fact the gift reveals, so to speak, a particular characteristic of personal existence, or rather, of the very essence of the person. When God Yahweh says that "it is not good that man should be alone" (Gen 2:18), he affirms that "alone," man does not completely realize this essence. He realizes it only by existing "with some one" - and even more deeply and completely: by existing "for some one".
This norm of existence as a person is shown in the Book of Genesis as characteristic of creation, precisely by means of the meaning of these two words: "alone" and "helper". It is precisely these words which indicate as fundamental and constitutive for man both the relationship and the communion of persons. The communion of persons means existing in a mutual "f