II. La loi — Le 29e dimanche
The Sixth Commandment: Love for the Neighbor
The sixth commandment forbids not only physical murder but also the inward hatred and malice that deny the love we owe our neighbor.
The sixth commandment 196. Minister: Recite the sixth commandment. Student: "You shall not kill." 197. Minister: Does it only forbid being a murderer?✦ E: Yes, far more than that.1 Since it is God who is speaking, He doesn't just give us a law regarding our outward actions, but primarily regarding the affections of our heart. 198. M: So you understand that God forbids a kind of inward murder here. E: Indeed: specifically hatred, rancor, and the desire to harm our neighbor.2 199. M: Is it enough not to hate and not to harbor ill will? Student: No. By condemning hatred, God means that He requires us to love our neighbors and seek their good, and to do so with true affection and without pretense.3
The Seventh Commandment: Purity of Heart
The seventh commandment calls for total purity of body and soul, recognizing that we are temples of the Holy Spirit.
The Seventh Commandment 200. Teacher: State the seventh commandment. Student: "You shall not commit adultery."4 " All fornication is cursed.5 M: What is the sum of it? Student: That all fornication is cursed by God, and we must therefore abstain from it if we don't want to provoke His wrath against us.6 The nature of the Lawgiver Minister: Does He require anything else? Student: We must always keep in view the nature of the Lawgiver, who doesn't stop at the outward deed alone, but requires the affection of the heart.7 203. M: So what does that amount to, then? E: Since our bodies and our souls are temples of the Holy Spirit, we must keep them in total purity.8 We are to be chaste not only in our actions, but also in our desires, words, and gestures, so that no part of us is stained by unchastity.
Read the original Latin
Le sixième commandement 196. M : Dis le sixième commandement. E : « Tu ne tueras point ».
197. M : Ne défend-il, sinon d'être meurtrier? E : Si fait bien. Car puisque c'est Dieu qui parle, non seulement il nous impose loi sur les oeuvres extérieures, mais principalement sur les affections de notre coeur.
198. M : Tu entends donc qu'il y a une espèce de meurtre intérieur que Dieu nous défend ici. E : Voire : qui est haine et rancune, et cupidité de mal faire à notre prochain.
199. M : Suffit-il de ne point haïr et ne point porter mauvaise affection? E : Non. Car Dieu, en condamnant la haine, signifie qu'il requiert que nous aimions nos prochains et procurions leur salut, et le tout de vraie affection et sans feintise.
Le septième commandement 200. M : Dis le septième commandement. E : « Tu ne paillarderas point. »
Toute paillardise est maudite 201. M : Quelle est la somme? E : Que toute paillardise est maudite de Dieu, et pourtant qu'il nous en faut abstenir si nous ne voulons provoquer son ire contre nous.
Nature du législateur 202. M : Ne requiert-il autre chose? E : II nous faut toujours regarder la nature du législateur, lequel ne s'arrête pas seulement à l'oeuvre extérieure, mais demande l'affection du coeur.
203. M : Qu'est-ce que donc qu'il emporte? E : Puisque nos corps et nos âmes sont temples du Saint-Esprit (1 Corinthiens 3:16 ; 6:15 ; 2 Corinthiens 6:16), que nous les conservions en toute honnêteté. Et ainsi que nous soyons chastes non seulement de fait, mais aussi de désirs, de paroles et de gestes, tellement qu'il n'y ait nulle partie de nous souillée d'impudicité.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Exod.20.13;Deut.5.17 — You shall not murder. Deut.5.17 — You shall not murder.
Notes
- 1 ↩Sixteenth-century French « Si fait bien » is a strong affirmative after a restrictive/negative question: not mere assent to a murder-only reading, but affirmation that the commandment reaches further, as the next sentence explains.
- 2 ↩cupidité de mal faire: rendered as desire to do harm; cupidité here means craving/eager desire, not economic greed.
- 3 ↩«salut» can mean salvation or broader welfare/safety; rendered as «good» to capture the sixth-commandment duty of seeking the neighbor’s well-being without forcing a narrower soteriological sense.
- 4 ↩French paillarderas (from paillardise) is broader than adultery alone: it covers fornication, unchastity, and sexual immorality. Rendered here in the familiar Decalogue form; the next section expands the scope under paillardise.
- 5 ↩French paillardise covers sexual impurity broadly (fornication, adultery, and related unchastity), not only the narrower modern English sense of premarital sex. Rendered as 'fornication' for catechetical gravity and continuity with the seventh commandment in this chapter.
- 6 ↩Sixteenth-century pourtant here has consequential force ('for that reason / therefore'), not modern concessive 'nevertheless,' which would invert the logic of the sentence.
- 7 ↩Source reads «II nous faut»; translated as the obvious intended «Il nous faut» (We must).
- 8 ↩honnêteté here is moral purity/decency (chaste honor), not mere honesty.
Catechism of the Church of Geneva (Le catéchisme de l'Église de Genève) companion
Rule yourself daily, not just on retreat
Chosen Portion turns the mirror into a daily practice — a short reading and examining question each morning before you lead anyone.
Chosen Portion makes the mirror daily: the ruler-formation questions this collection preserves become a two-minute morning examination in the app.
- A daily formation reading drawn from centuries of counsel to those in authority
- One pointed examination question a day — two minutes, before the meetings start
- Track your practice over weeks and watch the examined life become a habit