In Defense of Purity

by Dietrich von Hildebrand

  But if virginity as a state of singleness avoids this division, is undivided in the double sense just explained, nevertheless from this standpoint also it enjoys no essential advantage over poverty and obedience. The danger of division is also incurred by the man who owns wealth, or who devotes himself to the profession or avocation of his choice. Attachment to money or possessions can also involve division in two ways, still more devoting one’s life to a profession. Moreover, the higher the rank of a secular profession the greater the danger. How easy it is for art, science, or politics to absorb the strength and thoughts of a great artist, scientist, or politician, to capture his heart and thus divide it, so that he may indeed be God’s servant or friend, possibly even His child, but His bride never—that is, when the work is not done in and for God, but dominates the worker as an end in itself.

  Virginity therefore as the state of undivided application to God has at most a superiority of degree over poverty and obedience, inasmuch as marriage, as the highest earthly good, involves the most profound danger of division, a danger, moreover, for which compensation is made by the fact that, as we shall shortly see, marriage as the highest earthly good from another point of view also unites the soul closest with God.2 But the point on which we must now insist is that undividedness in the sense just discussed cannot provide the key which unlocks the mysterious significance of virginity as the foundation of a unique relation to Christ. For since poverty and obedience—if perhaps in a lesser degree—are also indispensable conditions of undividedness, from this point of view virginity does not differ from poverty and obedience in such a way as to explain how the virgin in virtue of her virginity is wedded to Christ in a peculiar and mysterious sense.

  * * *

  1. That the value of virginity is not confined to its ascetic aspect is also the sense of St. Ambrose’s sublime panegyric: “‘The scent of thy garments,’ saith the bridegroom, ‘is more delicious than the scent of all spices,’ and again, ‘the scent of thy garments is like to the odour of frankincense.’ Lo, what a progress is here! Thy former scent exceeds, saith he, the spices which surrounded the Body of our Saviour in the tomb; it sheweth that the disordered motions of thy body have been slain, the lust of the flesh dead. But thy latter scent is likened to the odour of frankincense, it is exhaled from the purity of our Lord’s Body, from the blossom of virginal chastity.”

  2. We should remember that marriage is a sacrament—therefore not only something holy but also a means of grace, and in this fundamental and most strict sense a bond of union with God.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The Positive Mission of Natural Goods and the Condition under Which Their Renunciation is Supernaturally Fruitful

  BEFORE PROCEEDING with our analysis of the state of perfection, which we undertook in order to isolate the element in virginity on which the special connection between virginity and wedlock with Christ is based, we must touch briefly upon the positive function served by the possession of genuine natural goods, in order to complete what we have already said of the dangers to a life in and for God which the possession of these goods involves. Although this consideration of the positive function of that which consecrated virginity renounces may seem at first sight a digression from our theme, it is in reality indispensable if we would understand its secret as wedlock with Christ.

  We forget at our peril that every superior good has a specific mission to perform toward the soul, a distinctive aid to afford it on its way to God the “Father of Lights.” We do not refer to that positive ethico-religious function which belongs also to the lower goods in so far as they are genuinely good: inasmuch, that is to say, as the use of inferior goods provides man with a legitimate outlet for the primary instincts of his nature, it preserves him, as we have already seen, from the separation from God which their unlawful and inordinate indulgence would involve; and from this point of view every good of this kind can exercise explicitly a religious function, if it is used by someone who has learned to regard good things in general as expressions of God’s loving kindness, benefactions of the Father Who makes His sun shine upon the just and the unjust.

  This aspect, however, is not in question here. On the contrary, we are concerned with the specific mission to our soul, wholly different from the former, which is peculiar to the goods of superior rank, those goods which as sources of happiness are contrasted with those goods which provide only pleasure or satisfy bodily needs. Every good of this category—for instance, life in a beautiful, noble, and cultivated environment, a liberal profession which is a source of happiness in itself and intrinsically of high value, freedom from external obstacles to the development of a man’s intellectual powers and talents, opportunity to steep oneself in the sublime beauty of nature or art or to enjoy the intimacy of some noble character—any one of these goods represents a gift of distinctive quality to its possessor. Contact with the values objectively present in such goods—for example, the beauty of a work of art—definitely raises above it the soul that perceives and appreciates their worth, and brings it nearer to God. The instant a high value really takes hold of the soul it awakes to its proper state. Returning to itself, it is brought back from the circumference to the center, becomes recollected and is lifted, if but for a moment, above the indolence and dullness of its normal condition. As Plato put it, its “wings grow.” That self which loves in humility and reverence, to which values make appeal, becomes for the moment at least absolute master of pride and concupiscence, which, surely, dissolve within the man who has been genuinely moved to tears by some object of sublime beauty. Does he not at such a moment break through the shell which has hardened over his soul—pierce the dreary mist that covers it like a pall? Is not that soul at such a time better disposed for everything that is good? And when some high value has really taken hold of us does it not seem to us as though scales had fallen from our eyes, as though now for the first time we beheld the genuine countenance of reality, the world of things as they truly are, which hitherto had always escaped the vision of our weak eyes, darkened by the fog of everyday life? And do we not feel as though the dividing barriers of human respect and selfish isolation from our fellows had dissolved like spray, as though we remembered that, in the profoundest depth of our being, we are immediately united with all men, because we are, as it were, in the presence of God? And the higher the value, the more surely does it produce effects of this kind.

  Contact with high values leads us, therefore, to God; in the first place, inasmuch as it brings into action within us the self that humbly and reverently loves; secondly, because the value in question utters its sursum corda to the heart of man, and draws his gaze upward to God. But we are now concerned, not with the case in which values simply take hold of us, but, more than this, with the possession of the corresponding goods. Does possession of a superior good as such, that is, qua possession, lead our souls to God? It does—and also for two reasons. In the first place the close contact with the good in question, which its possession implies, involves a further contact with the values it realizes, whereby they produce the effect just described in a new and more intense fashion. Thus, for example, the man who hears the performance of some masterpiece of music is in far closer contact with the world of loveliness it contains than he who merely thinks of that work as something known to him. The former is exposed in an entirely different way to the rays of its beauty. Similarly—though in a somewhat modified sense—the man who has been permitted the intimacy of a noble character basks in the light and heat of his worth to an extent which essentially exceeds that to which they are enjoyed by the man who simply perceives and honors that worth from a distance, without the opportunity of closer contact. Thus the possession of a good at least makes it easier for the values it contains to take hold of its possessor and produce their intrinsic effect upon the soul. Indeed, in many cases possession alone makes the production of this effect possible, though this breaking-through is always an extraordinary state, which mere possession of the good in question
can never permanently guarantee.

  The specific function which the possession of the higher goods fulfills as such becomes still clearer when we consider it from the following point of view. In every man who is not wholly sunk in apathy there lives an urge after happiness and satisfaction of some kind or another. The possession of some good thing of high rank and noble quality emancipates a man from attachment to inferior goods, inasmuch as it opens to him, as we have just seen, a region of his soul far deeper and far more his own, and satisfaction at this deeper level enables him to dispense with the gratification of more superficial desires. It is a very usual experience. The part played in our lives by eating, drinking, sleep, and surface pleasures and comforts of every kind, becomes far less if our soul is powerfully and deeply moved by some higher good; for example, by meeting a dear friend after long absence. We feel ourselves freed from the petty craving for the shallow gratifications of everyday life. We can no longer even understand how some deprivation of comfort could be a matter of serious annoyance, when our heart is filled by a profound joy, for example, the recovery of someone we love from a severe illness. Contact with a good of this kind always supplies us with an intrinsic standard by which to measure the lower goods. When we are in possession of the superior good, attachment to the inferior seems ridiculous and outgrown.

  Moreover, the attachment to a good and the desire to possess it is the more unselfish, in proportion to the depth and nobility of that good, in other words to its degree of value. Devotion to the goods which produce happiness, such as art, or deep-rooted ties with others, is essentially less egoistic than devotion to goods which give pleasure, such as palatable dishes, good wine, bodily comfort, and so on. For as contrasted with the latter, the former is necessarily founded upon a genuine response to value. The man who cannot rejoice at the existence of beauty in art or nature or of noble characters, who cares nothing for such values in themselves, can receive no happiness from the possession of that to which they are attached. From this standpoint also it is easy to see that the possession of the higher goods, when they are fully understood and appreciated, brings us nearer to God. For to outgrow attachment to the inferior goods which give pleasure is to become deeper, relatively to overcome egoism, and to penetrate further into the world of values.

  Lastly, it is in its possession as such that the good in question is recognized as a gift, and the soul thus lifted in solemn thankfulness out of its everyday routine. When, that is to say, the values attached to goods take a profound hold of us, the possession of such goods is experienced as a special effect of God’s goodness toward us; we feel ourselves surrounded by His loving providence, are forced to our knees and our glance drawn upward to Him in heartfelt gratitude—“for His mercy endureth forever.” And this element of heartfelt thanksgiving is also a powerful solvent of pride and concupiscence and introduces us, as it were, directly into the presence of God. The mission of the higher goods of this world to bring us nearer and yet nearer to God, inasmuch as in proportion to their rank they free us from pride and concupiscence and lift the soul above its lamentable attachment to lower goods, is seen most clearly in the case of the highest earthly good—namely, marriage; principally, of course, Christian marriage. Over and above the profound efficacy of every real love between human beings—whether it be the love of parents, children, brothers and sisters, or friends—in freeing and uplifting the soul and leading it to God, the complete community of love and life peculiar to marriage possesses, when understood and experienced in the right way, a specific power to shatter pride. Profound love for the partner with whom life is henceforward to be spent in common frees the soul from attachment to superficial goods such as property, power, external honor, worldly success. Who does not know that when perfect communion with another soul fills the heart to the brim with unspeakable happiness, to renounce all other good things is an easy matter?

  Yet not wedded love only, but the self-surrender of marriage also, is distinguished by its power to emancipate, to cleanse the heart of pride and concupiscence. The unreserved surrender of the spouses, the union of two human beings in mutual love—sealed for life by God’s sanction solemnly imparted, and secured by its objective validity against the caprices and vagaries of fallen man—the plighted obligation of fidelity till death, signify an entrance into the profoundest natural depth of the soul. Moreover, the specific fulfillment of mutual wedded love, the craving to become completely one, which the union of wedlock involves, has from this standpoint an extremely important function to fulfill. We have already seen, when we were treating of purity, the profound significance of the marriage act as emancipating the very center of the personality. Because it represents a unique self-surrender, it destroys, when experienced and accomplished in its highest form, a stiff self-containedness which tends to harden the heart, blunt the susceptibilities and produce a self-important prig.

  This forsaking of self, this deep and noble happiness of wedlock which draws the glance upward to God in heartfelt gratitude, frees a man alike from proud self-adherence and from petty attachment to comfort, to the pleasures of the table, and to frivolous amusement. The man who has been vouchsafed the supreme earthly happiness of a perfect marriage and who, with unremitting appreciation values the gift at its full worth, must become increasingly emancipated from those other earthly goods of inferior value. What sacrifice of earthly goods would a St. Elizabeth or a St. Jane Frances de Chantal have deemed too high a price for the happiness of their marriage in the hour when they were faced with the loss of their husbands?

  This is not the place to study in full the sublimity of marriage and show in detail how this supreme fellowship of love and life between human beings leads us to God. We must be satisfied with the indication just given.1

  We now come to an important point. If a genuine earthly good is renounced for the religious motives already mentioned, that renunciation can possess the value there ascribed to it only if the mission normally fulfilled by the good in question of freeing us from inferior goods is really transferred—that is to say, if the void left in the soul by the absence of that good is filled by God and the realm of supernatural values. It is the nature of fallen man to seek compensation for every cross which God lays upon him in something which gives pleasure—usually in some lower pleasure. We need only reflect how seldom a great and deep sorrow—the loss, for example, of someone dear to us—is really endured and experienced to the full, how seldom the soul abides in her depth, and lifts her gaze to the sovereign Good that her sorrow may be transfigured by a glory from above, her void filled, and with Him whom sin alone can lose. How readily, after a great sorrow, we abandon ourselves to a listless apathy,2 how readily seek compensation for ourselves in shallow gratifications, among which may be work for its own sake; how often we attempt by distractions or routine, or by a lazy drifting on the stream of superficial experiences, to shirk the cross which God has sent us.

  If to receive a cross laid upon us by God in the right way, to understand His divine purpose in sending it, to allow it to bring us nearer to Him and to avoid all compensations of a lower order, presents our religion with a task of no small magnitude, the problem is doubled whenever any earthly good is freely renounced. Our responsibility now is obviously of a wholly different kind, since it is our free choice which has renounced this particular good. However heroic and noble it may be at the moment, the renunciation can be finally acceptable to God only if He and love for Him fill the void that has been left and compensations of a lower kind do not creep in unnoticed. This is preeminently true of virginity. The danger of compensation from below is greater here than in the renunciation of any other earthly good. We saw above the peculiar mission to free the center of the soul which belongs to the supreme earthly partnership of love and life, its uncompromising summons to conquer pride and concupiscence and the natural aids it brings to that conquest. The dangers which the absence of so valuable a good may involve are obvious. How easy it is for the man who has renounced the deliciou
s, gently liberating happiness of the highest earthly partnership to fall into pettinesses and attachment to lower goods; above all, how easily may the heart become hardened, and love, because that person remains in a very literal sense unemancipated, turn wholly to bitterness. That particularly close appurtenance to God, as bride of Christ in the sense of our allegory, which consecrated virginity is intended to create, can only be effected if there is no attempt at compensation from below.3 The soul must by this renunciation really secure in another way everything which in marriage specifically unites her with God. Every other earthly good, especially all attachment to inferior goods, such as the desire for honor or power, natural delight in success, curiosity, the craving for excitement, exaggerated sensibility, not to mention such purely negative things as envy, malicious pleasure in the hurt of others, cruelty, and so on, must give place, and one thing alone occupy the soul: the supernatural love of Jesus, “in whose heart dwells the entire fullness of the Godhead.”4

  Who, then, will presume to make free choice of permanent virginity and forever renounce so lofty a good as marriage, if virginity fulfills its purpose and possesses its value, if it signifies a close appurtenance to God, only when the void it creates is not compensated from below? Who dare claim that he can dispense with the power of married love to free the heart and raise it above the rest of the world? He alone who invokes and invites Jesus, “the desire of the everlasting hills.”5 God’s call to the soul is a thing wholly supernatural, with which no message indirectly transmitted by other goods can be compared. “Follow me,” Jesus spoke to Matthew, and “he arose and followed Him.” That call leaves no room for further question. He who invites the soul to the state of perfection will fill her with Himself if she obeys His invitation. The religious or nun, however, is not therefore dispensed from the necessity of keeping special watch, lest resentment in one form or another intrude, or compensation be sought in some inferior good for the higher goods which have been sacrificed. On the contrary, religious must be constantly on their guard: on the one hand never to console themselves for what has been abandoned by some lower indulgence, on the other to keep themselves effectively at a distance from the good which they have heroically renounced. But that which without God’s call would be presumption, with it becomes an act of heroism. For the call justifies them in expecting that the renunciation of natural aid will be supplied by supernatural aid. To such St. Ambrose’s words are applicable: “But you, holy virgins, enjoy a special protection, because in your inviolate virginity you keep troth to your Lord. And indeed it is no cause for wonder, if the angels fight for you” (De Virginibus, Bk. I, chap. 9).