The term "Adultery" and understanding Matthew 5:28

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Inity said:
I’m a topic starter, and my original question was related to Matthew 5:28. My friend tried to prove me that because “adultery” only applies to married persons, Matthew 5:28 doesn’t apply to unmarried man lusting for unmarried woman. His logic was weird for me, and I asked for clearance.

El Raton joined the topic later and added his (her?) own question about general understanding of “adultery”.
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Thanks. 🙂

Firstly, if one wants literal meanings, one should look at the original text. This is to say, I don’t know what word the original text uses, I would have to check it, and my Greek wouldn’t offer any help with contexts and historical developments, so it would be best to consult a good commentary.

One clue could be “except in case of adultery” when Our Lord speaks about committing adultery by sending away a spouse. The original word used there was “porneia” and it translated as some form of sexual misconduct and may have referred to marriages not considered valid in Mosaic law - a different explanation offered is that Our Lord didn’t want to say that sending away a cheating spouse pushes him/her into adultery, and there are still other explanations offered. I don’t know of any of them being considered official by the Magisterium. However, fact stands the word used wasn’t the exact equivalent of “adultery” in Greek, i.e. it wasn’t a word describing exclusively the intercourse between a married person and someone to whom he or she isn’t married.

Secondly, your friend’s argument could easily be beaten in so far as unmarried people commit adultery, not fornication, when having sex with a married person. Therefore unmarried people are not unable to commit it.

Thirdly, I’ve heard the term “adultery” used to denote unlawful intercourse in general.

Further, if adultery can be committed in heart by looking at a married person lustfully, then why not fornication by looking at an umarried one? I can’t see Matt 5:28 as saying that an unmarried person looking at an unmarried person lustfully commits marital betrayal.

Also, even if it were said specifically about married people, the similarity of the situation of an unmarried person looking at an unmarried person would be obvious. Umarried people are not free to have sex with each other, therefore they are not free to look lustfully, either.
 
If memory serves the term used by Mathew is linked entymologically to a word used to mean ‘a third voice’.

So that entymology includes todays usage in the meat packing industry when they speak of meats adulterated by other meat on equipment not cleaned of other meat cut by it.

Jesus used the term to include the desire for other sex that adulterates the desire for sex in marriage. It adulterates appropriate desire with inappropriate desires. Innappropriate desires give birth to innappropriate acts. If one entertains the desires the acts that they manifest are entertained as well.

obviously innapropriate desires can’t adulterate passions that are inapropriate to begin with.
 
El Raton, adultery only includes the sexual part (i.e. feelings, thoughts, images, physical contact…). About bowling or hunting, that’s something a little different. This link will explain everything you want to know.

chastitysf.com/q_duty.htm
 
Talk about word games.

Whether adultery or fornication, they are sins against the 6th Commandment. Yes, Jesus was specifically referring to adultery, but more generally, he was also referring to lust as the sinful component, whether physically acted upon or not.
 
One may also add:

The prohibitions specifically refer to men lusting after women or men desiring other men’s wives.

So women are free to sin?

/sarcasm

:rolleyes:
 
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