What Porneia in the Gospel of Matthew Really Means - by Biblical scholar Fr Paul Sciberras

I am reproducing an article written by Biblical Scholar, Fr Paul Sciberras (see detailed bio below article). Whereas the text is his intellectual property, I have added the emphasis in bold.

Following the permission that Moses granted to the Jews that a husband can leave his wife on condition that he writes the bill of divorce (Dt 24,1), two schools of thought emerged: that of Shammai admitted divorce only in the case of adultery, while Hillel’s liberal school admitted divorce even when the wife no longer pleased her husband, whatever the reason may be. In Mark 10,1-12 and Mt 19,1-9, the Pharisees challenged Jesus to choose between one school over the other. Jesus replied that he did not accept divorce and was only permitted to the Jews “because of the hardness of their hearts (sklērokardía)” (Mt 19,8), i.e. the human being’s refusal of the plan of God (Dt 10,16). Moreover, Jesus stated that the search for God’s project for marriage cannot be found in Deuteronomy (i.e. the Second Law of Moses) but in “the Beginning” (Hebrew bereshit), in Genesis, the First Law of God himself: “Male and female he created them (Gen 1,27). Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh (Gen 2,24). Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate” (Mt 19,6).

The verb used by Jesus “must not separate” (mē khōrizetō) is present imperative: meaning “never ……” In Deuteronomy, only the husband could send away his wife. In Mark, Jesus vehemently opposes divorce to both men and women: they would both be committing adultery if they separate and remarry (Mk 10,11-12). In Matthew 19, 3-12, the Pharisees ask Jesus: “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any and every reason?” After rejecting divorce outrightly Jesus’ reply contains a phrase that has created so much debate: “I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for porneía(rabta ħażina [Saydon 1954], żwieġ ħażin [Għaqda Biblika 1984, 1996, 2004],żena [Karm Zammit], fornicatio [Vulgate], unchastity [NRSV], prostitution [BJ], union illegale [TOB], impudicitia [EP]) “and marries another woman commits adultery (mochátai)” (19,9).

One of the interpretations that was bestowed on porneía, is “adultery”. According to this interpretation, Jesus says that divorce is only permitted in the case of adultery. If such is the case, Jesus’ reaction to the Law of Moses: “because of the hardness (sclērokardía) of your hearts”, and the disciples’ astonishment: “If this is the situation between a husband and wife, it is better not to marry” (19,10) will no longer be understood.

If porneía meant “adultery”, Jesus would be unintelligble when in the same verse 19 he says that when a man sends his wife away, except for adultery, he would be committing adultery! Moreover, Matthew himself, in 15,19 writes: “For out of the heart come evil thoughts—murder, adultery (moicheía), sexual immorality (porneía), theft …” If porneía was only meant as “adultery”, Matthew would not have used another wordmoicheía that also means “adultery” immediately before porneía! Hardly. Matthew seems to have taken this verse from Mark, who, in the same list presented in Matthew the words moicheia and porneía are not presented contiguously. Matthew presents them side-by-side.

In the Commandments, the verb in the Greek Septuagint translation for “do not commit adultery” is always the verb that is derived from moikheía (see Ex 20,14; Lev 20,10; Dt 5,18). We find the exception clause only in Matthew, written for Jewish-Christians who still cleaved to the Jewish Laws prohibiting zenût(porneía), a technical term that means “all types of incestuous unions between relatives” prohibited by Leviticus 18,5-20. For this reason the Council of Jerusalem (Acts 15,20.29) established abstinence from porneía: marriages considered valid in the eyes of Roman Law, but null and prohibited by Jewish Law.Christians had to be pressed upon not to enter illicit and incestuous marriages. They could not only disband such illicit unions, but they were duty-bound to cut off anyone from the community who were in such an arrangement and persisted in remaining (1Cor 5,1-5). This sense ofzenut/porneía as an incestuous marriage between relatives is highlighted by Paul in 1Cor 5,1. Paul would not have said: “It is actually reported that there is immorality (porneía) among you, and of a kind that is not found even among pagans”, if porneía did not refer to marriage between relatives (“a man living with his father's wife”).

Therefore the word porneía in Mt 19,9 must be translated not as “adultery” but as “illicit union”.

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Fr Paul Sciberras

Fr Sciberras graduated S.S.L. from the Pontifical Biblical Institute, Rome with a dissertation entitled Exetítheto autois kathexēs. A Study of the Repeated Visions in Acts 10,1-11,18 in 1992. In 1994 he was declared Candidatus ad Doctoratum, after completing the preparatory year for the Doctorate in Scripture Sciences (S.S.D.).

Fr Sciberras has been lecturing at the University of Malta since 1995. He is Member of the Society for Biblical Literature, the Associazione Biblica Italiana, and the Associazione Ex-Alunni Pontificio Istituto Biblico (Rome). Moreover he is an Academic Member of the Malta Bible Society, Member of the Theological Commission of the Archdiocese of Malta, Member of the Commission for the Revision of the Bible in Maltese, Co-editor of the Maltese Bible in Braille, as well as consultant for the project of the Bible in Sign Language. For more info. regarding other articles he has written please visit http://www.um.edu.mt/theology/scripture/staff/psciberras)