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Page 1: In Defense of Purity - Hildebrand Project · In Defense of Purity Dietrich von Hildebrand c hildebrand project Foreword by Alice von Hildebrand Preface by Leo Scheffczyk An Analysis
Page 2: In Defense of Purity - Hildebrand Project · In Defense of Purity Dietrich von Hildebrand c hildebrand project Foreword by Alice von Hildebrand Preface by Leo Scheffczyk An Analysis

In Defense of Purity

Dietrich von Hildebrand

c

h i l d e b r a n d

p r o j e c t

Foreword by Alice von Hildebrand

Preface by Leo Scheffczyk

An Analysis of the Catholic Ideals of Purity and Virginity

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Foreword by Alice von Hildebrand xvii

Preface by Leo Scheffczyk xxi

Preface by Dietrich von Hildebrand xxiii

PURI T Y

chapter one

Sex Distinguished from Other Bodily Appetites 1

chapter two

The Relation of Sex to the Spiritual Life 5

chapter three

The Three Aspects of Sex 15

chapter four

Impurity 19

Contents

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chapter five

Purity and “Insensuality” 25

chapter six

Purity as a Positive Virtue(a) The attitude of the pure 39

(b) The pure man’s specific perception of value and his response to it 42

(c) The indispensable supernatural foundation of purity 47

(d) Note on the attitude of the pure to art 54

chapter seven

The Intrinsic Dangers of Sex 59

chapter eight

The Reformation of Sex Effected by Wedded Love 65

chapter nine

Recapitulation: The Ideal of Wedded Purity 73

VIRGINI T Y

Introductory 87

The Nature of Consecration 91

chapter ten

The Nuptial Relationship with Christ Common to All Souls in Grace,and the Special Marriage of the Consecrated Virgin 97

chapter eleven

The Ascetical Significance of Virginity 105

chapter twelve

Virginity as Undividedness 111

c o n t e n t svi

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chapter thirteen

The Positive Mission of Natural Goods and the Condition underWhich Their Renunciation is Supernaturally Fruitful 115

chapter fourteen

Virginity as an External Form of Life and the Outward Sign That All Things Are Forsaken for Jesus’s Sake 125

chapter fifteen

The Secret of Virginity as Wedlock with Christ 131

conclusion

Consecrated Virginity as a State of Love 139

Index 143

viic o n t e n t s

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Rarely does a book come along that takes up a perennial theme insuch a fresh and unexpected way as to transform all subsequent discus-sion of the issues. This is one of those books. A concern for purity, espe-cially purity of heart, of course, is as old as many ancient faiths, andcommon to most. But in this book, Dietrich von Hildebrand inaugu-rated a new approach to thinking about sex and how the body revealsthe human person.

Few thinkers have succeeded so well in showing that the intimatesphere is essentially deep; that it touches the very core of the human per-son in a way that other bodily desires, like hunger and thirst, do not. Thehuman person is so closely united with his body that they essentiallybelong together. This uniquely close connection between sex and the per-son sheds light on why sexual vices are a sort of desecration that befoulthe human soul in a way that gluttony and drunkenness do not.

Foreword By Alice von Hildebrand

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Written to appear in this new edition of In Defense of Purity, by Dietrich von Hildebrand(Steubenville: Hildebrand Press, 2017).

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From a young age, and continuing through his formative philosoph-ical studies, Hildebrand was convinced that sex was different from otherbodily instincts. He had an innately strong sense for the mysteriousdomain of sex, and was an attentive student especially of the affectiveaspects of the human person (see, for example, his other books The Heartand The Nature of Love).

Hildebrand’s intuitions of the depth and mystery of sexuality fullyblossomed in him when he entered the Catholic Church in 1914 at theage of twenty-four. He now saw more clearly that the intimate spherewas linked to God, and that in marriage man and woman collaboratewith God in the bringing forth of a new human person. But he also sawthat purity was opposed, so to speak, from two sides. On the one hand,there was the perennial allure of the flesh and the destruction left in itswake. On the other hand, in reading contemporary Catholic works fol-lowing his conversion, he was struck by their emphasis on the dangers ofimpurity and that they seemed to forget that the ugliness and gravity ofthis sin could only be perceived in the light of the shining virtue ofpurity.

So this is what he set out to do in In Defense of Purity: to explorepurity as a positive reality and only in light of its beauty to describe itscontrary. (This is the same approach that Karol Wojtyla would later taketo purity in his Love and Responsibility, which was the philosophicalground of his famous Theology of the Body talks). The book explores purityin connection both to married love and to consecrated virginity. To con-temporary eyes and ears, this pairing will seem contradictory; in Hilde-brand’s treatment, however, we see how purity lies at the root both of aself-giving sexual love and also of the self-gift, soul and body, made bythe consecrated virgin.

From its first appearance in 1927, In Defense of Purity was widely rec-ognized as groundbreaking. This was not because its author proposedabandoning perennial Christian teaching on love and sexuality. On thecontrary, he contributed by deepening the Christian understanding. Hewas the first Catholic thinker to distinguish the “procreative” meaning ofthe conjugal act, which had long been recognized, from the “unitive”

f o r e w o r dxviii

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meaning of it. This distinction has been crucial for all Christian reflectionon marriage since. And, indeed, the Church has incorporated the “pro-creative” and “unitive” meanings of marriage into her teaching at the Sec-ond Vatican Council.…

The book is full of other rich insights, many of which my husbandwould go on to develop in later writings. Particularly significant is hisidea that only love = and love as a movement of the heart and not just ofthe will = has the power to transform sexual passion into an unparalleledexpression of love.

Another major contribution is his critique of the idea that purity isjust a lack of bodily vitality or the absence of sexual desire. He opens oureyes to the fact that “insensuality” (his term for a weak sensibility for thevital sphere), far from being a virtue (even if, inevitably, it may preventsome people from committing sins of impurity) is in fact something mostregrettable: for it cripples those affected by it from a full understanding ofthe nobility of a total self-donation. It is in giving oneself that one is fullyoneself. This also sheds light on virginity, which, likewise, is not a hold-ing back of oneself but a total, complete, heroic giving of oneself to God.

For nearly a century, In Defense of Purity has been pivotal in the livesof countless readers, some discovering the gift and meaning of their sex-uality and others finding and feeling confirmed in a religious vocation.One such reader was Dorothy Day, who counted In Defense of Purityamong the best books she had read on the Christian life. Its influence isclear in her own reflections on purity:

Some choose evil because they have not seen the good...Those whosuppress sex wrongfully, who hate the flesh, either become neuroticprudes or fall into the opposite extreme of excess. Those unwilling orunable to accept the attitudes of the conventional and puritanicalbourgeoisie are easily betrayed by that “poisonous fascination” ofwhich Dr. Von Hildebrand writes. 

xixf o r e w o r d

1. See Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World = Gaudium et Spes, 1965, par. 50.2. Dorothy Day, On Pilgrimage (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1999), 63.

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No work that I am aware of offers a more fundamental and penetrat-ing treatment of the great and beautiful and neglected virtue of purity.May it once again find a receptive audience.

Alice von HildebrandWidow of Dietrich von HildebrandCo-Founder, Hildebrand Project

f o r e w o r dxx

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In Defense of Purity is one of Dietrich von Hildebrand’s smaller works,yet for this very reason it became a jewel in the hands of this master ofthought and word. He has very nearly perfected the intellectual penetra-tion and illuminating interpretation of an object made possible by theimmediate philosophical intuition of essences. So vividly are the valuesof purity and virginity made to emerge from the heart of the Christianethos, and to stand forth in their individual character, that they begin toshine on their own.

The inner tension and stirring quality of these subtle reflections derivesneither from the moral requirements of purity and virginity nor from anypedagogical guidance for their realization. These would be derivative, sec-ondary expressions of a more extrinsic approach to the topic.

What Hildebrand offers is this: by looking at these Christian atti-tudes through the lens of love, he achieves an intuition of their value andradiance that appeals immediately to the mind. But this does not come atthe expense of the sphere of sensuality and the body. On the contrary:

PrefaceBy Leo Scheffczyk

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This preface originally appeared in the German edition, St. Ottilien: EOS Verlag, 1981.

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Hildebrand sees “purity” as the spiritual and personal transformation ofsensuality, which ultimately contains a reflection of the divine. “Virgin-ity” entails a further intensification of this value through a belonging toGod in the totality of one’s humanity and directly to Christ for the sakeof the kingdom of God. If ever the dualism opposed to the Christianconception of the body has been rebutted and completely dispelled, thenit is in this work in which Hildebrand bears eloquent witness to the spir-itual character of the body in both marriage and virginity.

When this book first appeared in 1927, many people were brought toa new depth of understanding and some even to conversion. Times havechanged so much that the entire realm of values has been reduced to thebiological, and the Christian ethos to a form of moral self-improvement.All this only increases the significance of this work, which cuts throughthe fog of the zeitgeist and raises our eyes to the full mystery of creation,which is uniquely revealed in an appreciation of the bodily sphere.

Leo Scheffczyk†

Professor of Theology, University of Munich

p r e fa c exxii

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The following study is the result of lectures delivered at a session ofthe Federation of Catholic Students’ Unions held at Innsbruck in 1925.Its purpose is an analysis of the nature of purity and virginity, not a studyof sex education nor the formulation of practical rules of conduct, noteven a defense of purity and virginity against their detractors. For this rea-son the question of which I shall primarily treat is not how much is law-ful in this field, but what constitutes the complete virtue of purity andwherein the ideal of purity consists. It is my intention to undertake adetailed study of ethics in which the principles and facts on which mytreatment of these particular problems is based will be fully explained.The reason for uniting in one study purity and virginity is of a practicalnature. Although virginity represents in its significance and value some-thing completely new and autonomous with respect to purity, its inmostnature is intelligible only when we have understood that of the person,which is also the decisive factor for purity.

I must express the deepest gratitude to my friend and loyal colleagueS. J. Hamburger, for the liberal and most valuable help in the prepara-tion of this book.

PrefaceBy Dietrich von Hildebrand

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May this book assist many readers to attain a deeper understandingof the radiant virtue of purity and the mysterious beauty of virginity andinspire them with a new love for both so that more and more “they maybe able to comprehend with all the saints, what is the breadth and lengthand height and depth” (of the Divine Love) “and to know the love ofChrist which surpasses all knowledge.”

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Purity

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It is impossible to understand the virtue of human purity withoutfirst considering briefly the distinctive character and unique position ofsex in human nature. Among the activities and appetites of the humanbody, sex occupies a unique position. When we consider eating, drink-ing, and sleep = indeed, bodily pleasure as a whole = we find this entireprovince of human experience characterized by a lack of depth. Delightin a good dinner, for example, or annoyance at a bad one, belongs of itsnature to the superficial zone of human experience. The enjoyment ofsleep, or the pleasure we take in being comfortable or in a glass of wine,is also essentially on the surface, and men who give experiences of thiskind an important place in their lives we consider superficial.

Moreover, immoderate desire of such things is relatively superficial inits negative value. Excess in eating and drinking is no doubt a sin. Nev-ertheless, a Sancho Panza who gives free rein to his desire for food, drink,and sleep may be regarded as innocent by comparison with an avaricious,hard-hearted, or revengeful character. The satisfaction of these physicalappetites acquires a somewhat deeper significance only when it is not the

Sex Distinguished from Other Bodily Appetites

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fulfillment of greedy desire, but a necessity of life in the most literal sense.The glass of water drained by the thirsty, the meal that restores strengthto the hungry, the bed that welcomes the man exhausted by fatigue, areno longer the objects of innocent pleasure or of greed. They belong, onthe contrary, to moments when man becomes conscious of his profounddependence and weakness, in which, beaten back to the frontier of bod-ily existence, he experiences these goods as his redemption from utter-most need. Then well-nigh inevitably he perceives them in their truecharacter as gifts from God’s hand. And the intensity of his need meas-ures his experience of deliverance. We have but to think of the Lamen-tations of Jeremiah… to see displayed in a particularly clear and expressiveform the depth of which even this sphere of bodily experience can becapable. And to the sphere of these profound bodily experiences alsobelong illness, acute physical suffering, and the release from these, forexample, in convalescence.

The difference of quality within the bodily sphere between these lat-ter experiences and the manifestations of desire, of which we first spoke,is obvious at first sight. The craving of the thirsty man for a drink ofwater has nothing of greed in it, nor yet of an innocent, good-naturedanimality; it is thoroughly noble and arouses nothing but pity and com-passion, whereas greed in this department reveals at best a certain inno-cence and childish good nature, which evoke a smile.

Sex, on the other hand, as contrasted with the other departments ofbodily experience, is essentially deep. Every manifestation of sex producesan effect which transcends the physical sphere and, in a fashion quiteunlike the other bodily desires, involves the soul deeply in its passion. Inits purely physiological aspect sexual experience possesses a distinctivequality totally unlike any other bodily pleasure, and the attraction exertedby the other appetites cannot be compared to the physiological attrac-tion of sex. The positive and negative values attaching to sex belong to alevel far deeper than those which attach to the other bodily appetites.Indeed, these sexual experiences are characterized by a specific character

i n d e f e n s e o f p u r i t y2

1. “To their mothers they say: Where is corn and wine? When they swoon as the wounded inthe streets of the city, when their soul is passed out into their mothers’ bosom” (Lam. 2:12).

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of mystery which, like the other essential elements of sexuality on whichat present we can but briefly touch, must be reserved for fuller treatmentlater. In their distinctive quality there is something which penetrates tothe very root of man’s physical being, and which the other bodily experi-ences attain only when life itself is at stake. They have in them somethingextraordinary which exceeds the bounds of everyday life. They display adepth and a gravity which removes them altogether from the province ofall other bodily experiences.

And, as a result, it is characteristic of sex that in virtue of its very sig-nificance and nature it tends to become incorporated with experiences ofa higher order, purely psychological and spiritual. Nothing in the domainof sex is so self-contained as the other bodily experiences, for example,eating and drinking. The unique profundity of sex in the physical sphereis suYciently shown by the simple fact that a man’s attitude toward it isof incomparably greater moral significance than his attitude to the otherbodily appetites. Surrender to sexual desire for its own sake defiles a manin a way that gluttony, for example, can never do. It wounds him to thecore of his being, and he becomes in an absolutely different and novelfashion guilty of sin. And even as compared with many other domains ofexperience which are not physical, sex occupies a central position in thepersonality. It represents a factor in human nature which essentially seeksto play a decisive part in man’s life. Sex can indeed keep silence, but whenit speaks it is no mere obiter dictum, but a voice from the depths, the utter-ance of something central and of the utmost significance. In and withsex, man, in a special sense, gives himself.

This central position is determined by two factors. The first is thathere body and soul meet in a unique fashion, a point to which we mustreturn later. The second is the peculiar intimacy of sex. In a certain sensesex is the secret of the individual, which he instinctively hides from oth-ers. It is something which the person concerned feels to be altogetherprivate, something which belongs to his inmost being. Every disclosureof sex is the revelation of something intimate and personal. It is the ini-tiation of another into our secret. It is for this reason that the domain ofsex is also the sphere of shame in its most characteristic sense. We are

3s e x a n d o t h e r b o d i l y a p p e t i t e s

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preeminently ashamed to unveil this secret to others. Whether a man ismodest or immodest depends first and foremost on his attitude to sex. 

This intimate character is a further proof of the special depth of sexas contrasted with the other bodily functions. But before everything elseit reveals the central position of sex. And because sex is the secret of theindividual, to disclose and surrender it is in a unique sense to surrenderoneself.

i n d e f e n s e o f p u r i t y4

2. Our limits do not allow us to discuss the nature of modesty. We can touch only in passingon a problem whose profundity is for the most part inadequately recognized, and remark upon thegreat variety of forms into which shame can be divided. There is the shame which makes a man seekto hide any personal ugliness or deformity; for example, a hunchback. There is the shame which triesto conceal a fault, and so on. From shame of this more generic kind, whose characteristic expressionis the fear of appearing ludicrous, we must distinguish the incomparably deeper and thoroughly nobleshame which conceals something because it is particularly intimate; for example, when a man isashamed to show his most delicate and deepest feelings to outsiders. The modesty which belongs tothe domain of sex is therefore the most perfect example of shame, because in it privacy is the primaryconsideration. There could be no greater mistake than to explain the tendency to conceal sex as exclu-sively, or even primarily, an endeavor to hide something disgraceful and ugly. As compared withshame as the attitude of being ashamed with reference to others, modesty represents a novel factor.It is even more exclusively confined to the domain of sex. But it is grounded not only in the inti-macy of sex, but in the intrinsic awe it inspires, awe of its extraordinary and mysterious quality, andmore particularly an instinctive dislike of the impudent, the irreverent, the defiling, and the sinisteras they are specifically bound up with its misuse. See further the discussion of purity in chapter 6.

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Virginity

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“The kingdom of this world and every ornament thereof have Iscorned for the love of Jesus Christ, my Lord, whom I have seen, andhave loved, in whom I have believed, who is my love’s choice.” Thesewords which, according to tradition, St. Agnes prayed at her martyrdomand which virgins consecrated to God sing at their profession, the day oftheir wedding with Jesus, declare the ultimate and sublime significanceof consecrated virginity as the mystery of supernatural love. Moreover,the essential nature and the incomparable magnificence of Christian vir-ginity can be rendered intelligible by love alone, and specifically by thathighest among all created loves = love of Jesus, “in whom dwells theentire fullness of the Godhead.”

When in the following pages we attempt to penetrate deeper theessence and sublime beauty of consecrated virginity, and in doing so takeas our starting point the consecrated maiden, we do not in any way implythat in its ultimate significance and nature consecrated virginity is differ-ent in man and in woman. There is no essential difference between thepurity of a man and the purity of a woman= for the same interior attitude

Introductory

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before God is demanded in both cases. It is the same with virginity. Theessence of consecrated virginity, its specific meaning and value, which rep-resents something entirely new as compared with purity, is the same formonk and nun; indeed, for the priest also, though in a modified form,inasmuch as the priest primarily represents Christ, not the Bride who con-ceives by His gift, the Church. Since, however, Scripture, to depict thenuptial relation of the soul to Christ, prefers the image of a maiden, andsince it is preeminently in the oYce for virgins and in the rite of their pro-fession that the liturgy speaks of consecrated virginity, the dedicatedmaiden will in the following dissertation serve as the typical virgin.… Wespoke just now of Christian virginity as a mystery of supernatural love,and by so doing ascribed to it a significance analogous, though on anincomparably higher level, to that of marriage. This in turn implies thatconsecrated virginity possesses a wholly positive and, moreover, specifi-cally religious value and meaning, which in no way belong to mere celibacyand which in relation to purity represent something altogether new.

i n d e f e n s e o f p u r i t y88

1. In the natural order woman represents, in contrast to man, the receptive principle. This findsits clearest expression in the biological sphere, where man may be considered as the giving, fertilizingfactor, woman as the recipient, though strictly speaking this is certainly true only of the external aspectof their relationship. But on the spiritual plane, even in the order of nature, woman is predominantlythe receptive principle in relation to man, though here the complementary opposites are not presentedso exclusively. Man is also a recipient in his relation to the world of values, and woman a giver and acreator in many departments of human life. Nevertheless, here too the receptive principle is a formalconstituent of woman and belongs, as an element essential to its perfection, to the nature of “femi-ninity,” a category which cannot be confined to the biological sphere. In relation to God, however, thischaracteristic of predominant receptivity is not confined to the female sex. Here, where infinite andfinite being, Creator and creature, God and man, meet, the man as an individual soul is as purely recep-tive as the woman. Here God alone is the giver, the creative and fertilizing principle, and the humanbeing, as a creature, the recipient, therefore, if you like, “feminine.” And this is preeminently true in thesupernatural order of the soul as the bride of Christ the God-man. Since woman in her receptive rela-tion to man is the obvious natural image of the soul as receptive or conceiving from and by Christ,and since we speak of the soul as the bride and Christ as the bridegroom, not vice versa, it is woman,not man, that is the natural type of that consecrated virginity, which represents precisely the nuptial sta-tus of the soul as Christ’s bride. Father A. Wintersig in his fine book, Liturgie und Frauenseele, drawsout the profound implications of the femininity of the Church. But this metaphysical femininitybelongs also to mankind as a whole in relation to God. Since within the natural order the male is inthe spiritual sphere, that is, in his relation to the world and human life, predominantly the creativeand generative principle, he is better fitted to fulfill in the supernatural order also the giving functionof the priest as the representative of Christ. Nevertheless, in this supernatural order his masculine roleis confined entirely to his oYce= as an individual soul he must be just as receptive in relation to Godas the woman, for in this order in which the Divine and the human meet, the male, inasmuch as he isa human individual, is purely receptive, that is to say, metaphysically feminine.

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We must begin by making it clear that the peculiar meaning and worthof Christian virginity does not lie in its being an extension of the purityproper to the pure wife or husband, an extension which consists simply inthe fact that the virgin has never had sex experience. Such a view wouldimply that purity and sex were somehow essentially opposed, an implica-tion which, as we have seen, a closer analysis of the essence of purityproves to be untenable. Not the exercise of sex as such, but the manner inwhich it is exercised is decisive for purity or impurity.  Mere celibacy, thenon-exercise of sex simply as such, is no advantage. The man, for exam-ple, who remains a virgin because he fails to find a wife is not, for that rea-son alone, in any respect purer than a pure husband. On the contrary, ascompared with marriage, his state is of lower worth, not only, as is oftenmaintained, because of its infertility, but also because it lacks the valueinherent in marriage as such, as a mystery of created love. The absence ofa high value cannot be in itself an advantage. There must therefore beattached to consecrated virginity some positive quality which is completelynew, which invests it with such incomparable fragrance and luster andconfers upon it a value not only analogous to that of a holy marriage, butfar exceeding it. That is to say, consecrated virginity represents a particu-lar form of appurtenance to God, a union with Jesus even more intimatethan that possessed by every member of His mystical body, as such.

Its peculiar significance and sublime value is unintelligible from thepurely natural point of view,À for it consists simply in this new form ofunion with Jesus. The consecrated virgin is always at the same time abride, just as the virginity of the Church is also wifehood. The conse-crated virgin is, like the Church, a bride of Christ, the eternal Word madeflesh.Ã When we have once recognized in consecrated Christian virgin-ity a nuptial relationship to Christ, its ineffably tender yet radiant light

89i n t r o d u c t o r y

2. “Beware, too, when thou art zealous for continence, that thou be not puffed up against thosewho are married, for they too are pure.” St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. 4.

3. “What created intelligence can grasp the nature of a virtue which is not contained within thelaws of nature? Or who can find language adequate to express what exceeds the life of nature? It hascome down from heaven.” St. Ambrose, De Virginibus, I, chap. 3.

4. Cf. St. Athanasius in his Apologia ad Imp. Constantium: “Jesus Christ, the Son of God, ourLord and Redeemer, has given us in virginity a pattern of angelic holiness, wherefore the Churchhas always called maidens adorned with this virtue brides of Christ.”

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shines upon our vision, and our spirit is filled with the perfume of thismysterious state, because its positive meaning and value have beenrevealed to us. And it is evident without further proof that the distinc-tive value of virginity as a nuptial relationship to Christ, in fact, as wed-lock with Him, belongs exclusively to consecrated Christian virginity, inother words, that the fact of consecration to God is a factor of decisiveimportance, which profoundly alters the nature of the virginity, bestowsupon it its “form” (forma), and thus makes it the bearer of a value sowholly novel.Õ

Two questions therefore arise. First, in what does the consecration ofvirginity consist; secondly, what element of virginity itself enables it, ifthe factor of consecration to God supervenes, to become in this way aunique foundation for the most intimate union with Jesus?

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5. “In virgins we do not admire the fact that they are virgins, but that they are virgins conse-crated to God in holy continence.” St. Augustine, De Virginitate, chap. 2.

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