In Defense of Purity

by Dietrich von Hildebrand

  10. We can also, as we mentioned at the outset, understand purity in a quite general sense. Discussion of the relationship between the general virtue of purity in its diverse forms to purity in the stricter and strictest sense must be reserved for later publications.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Purity as a Positive Virtue

  ( a) The attitude of the pure

  The pure man perceives the mystery of sex. He perceives its depth, its seriousness, its intimacy—whether because, temperamentally awake to these qualities, he apprehends intuitively the character of sex, or because, temperamentally unaware of them, he knows it rather from the outside. He understands implicitly the sublime purpose and fundamental significance of sex, and perceives the fearful profanation which every abuse of sex represents, the deadly poison, defiling the soul and separating it from God, which sexual pleasure generates when treated as its own end. He is marked by a profound shrinking from any contact with sex as soon as it is thus isolated and rendered poisonous. He possesses a deep reverence for the mystery of which he is here in the presence. Sex as such in no aspect seems to him contemptible or base. Bearing no repugnance to the fact of sex, free from all prudish and hysterical disgust, whether of sex as such or of the act of marriage, he remains at a respectful distance from it so long as he is not called by the disposition of God to enter its domain. Reverence is a fundamental component of purity. The pure man always lives in an attitude of reverence for God and His creation, and therefore reveres sex, its profundity, and its sublime and divinely ordained meaning. Indeed, and we have now reached the factor which is decisive both for purity and for the character of sex, the pure man understands that sex belongs in a special manner to God, and that he may only make such use of it as is explicitly sanctioned by Him. Only with God’s express permission may he eat of the fruit of this tree. Nothing reveals more plainly the presence of a mystery than this need of a special sanction from God to enter the sexual domain. In contrast to the innocuous sphere of eating and drinking, or that of intellectual activity, the domain of sex belongs in a unique fashion to God. To be sure, in his employment of all earthly goods man must regard himself as God’s steward, not as his own master. Here, however, an entirely new factor comes into play. This sphere, in virtue of its depth and mystery, is reserved in an altogether special fashion to God, and man, even within the permitted bounds, is not simply free, as in other spheres, to do whatever seems good to him. Moreover, this mystery which attaches to sex, even as an objective reality, results from its quality as revealed in experience, even if we leave out of account the fact that it is the mysterious seat of propagation, though the latter sets the mystery of sex in a particularly vivid light, and stands in a profound intrinsic connection with it. Man must feel for sex an awe which no other sphere demands—an awe which permits his access only if God in a special fashion should give him leave, as He gives it in the sacrament of matrimony. For the truly pure man the bond with wedded love and the intention of a common life to last till death are not sufficient; he requires further the specific consciousness of God’s express sanction, the knowledge that it is only by divine permission that he lifts the veil from this mystery, an attitude which can be paralleled elsewhere in the religious sphere. And even when he may lift the veil, he will never abandon himself without restraint to the pleasure of sex. To be sure he may—indeed, he should—surrender himself without reserve to the beloved, but not to the specific quality of sex. The latter always demands, even when it is entirely positive, a reverent awe; and demands it to be “formed” by being brought into explicit relation to God.1 The pure man guards his secret, never lifts the veil unbidden. He is always modest. But his modesty has nothing that savors of self-importance, whether of conduct or feeling. He does not guard the secret by simply concealing it from others while he revels in it himself and in so doing feels himself somehow important. That is the attitude of the prude. With the pure you never breathe this oppressive atmosphere. Simple and open, he is distinguished by a limpid radiance of soul. He remains at a distance from his secret so long as God does not call upon him to unveil it. With spirit serene and bright and in an attitude of humility he leaves it in God’s hand. We are here brought face to face with an absolutely essential element of purity. In a special sense the pure man walks with God. He never departs from the Divine Presence. He does not hide himself from God, like Adam after the Fall. He will never consent to anything incompatible in its quality with the light of holiness which shines upon us from the countenance of Jesus. Within his soul an indefinable “something” always abides in unclouded light; his spirit is neither corroded by the intoxicating poison of sex as its own end, nor infected by the oppressive sultriness which distinguishes the zone of evil lust. His soul is steeped in a peculiar light, radiant and clear; there is in him no twilight or dusk; he is surrounded by no atmosphere heavy with poisonous perfume and in which it is impossible to breathe freely. No cloud darkens his spirit as it “shines” before God. As we have already seen, the pure is distinguished by the rich plenty of his spiritual endowment. The specific beauty attaching to the unclouded luster of a soul which has come from God’s hand, has been redeemed by Christ, and is the likeness of God—the beauty, that is, of the spiritual person—shines out upon us from the pure. The pure man remains a vessel in which the light which flows forth from God can unfold without obscuration; his soul shines before God, because it reflects His glory. Moreover, a peculiar peace has possession of his entire being; not inwardly alone, but outwardly to the world his soul reflects something of His peace who is called “our peace and our reconciliation.” But only the soul that is filled with love can be pure in this positive sense; the cold and proud spirit can never possess this unclouded light.2

  Purity is further characterized by a humble sincerity. The pure man feels himself a sinner capable, but for the help of God’s grace, of being submerged at any moment by the flesh. With the heathen poet he confesses, “Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto” (I am human, and nothing human I consider foreign to me). He does not shrink from looking the dangers which surround him full in the face. He never forgets that “the devil goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.” He does not imagine himself made of other material than flesh and blood and inaccessible to the weakness of the flesh. Remote from him, too, is the false modesty of the prude, who refuses to admit the existence of these dangers for himself or others. And his attitude continues the same even if he has never experienced sexual temptations. For simplicity, sincerity, and humility are almost as essential to true purity as is reverence.

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

  As we have already seen, every virtue involves a perception of value and a response to it. Which, then, are the values in whose contemplation the pure man lives and to which purity implies assent?

  In the first place every complete virtue which is the product of the spirit involves a perception and understanding of the positive value of the virtue itself and the negative value of the opposite vice. The pure man perceives and understands the value of purity. Whenever he meets a pure man his purity is perceived by him as a positive value, its fragrance delights him, and its beauty is understood. Whenever he meets an impure man he perceives the negative value of his impurity, and the disfigured and disease-pocked countenance of that man’s soul pierces his heart with anguish. Obviously, there is no question of a reflex perception of his own purity. As with every other virtue, so here, a reflex glance at the possessor’s own worth is sufficient to endanger the attitude which is the foundation of all virtue—namely, humility—and directly contradicts it if that glance involves in any way a consciousness that he possesses the virtue in question. But the humble man nevertheless recognizes the intrinsic beauty and incomparable value of humility, and not only in other men individually, as a particular value in them, but universally as the virtue humility. It is the same with the pure. Nevertheless, not only a recognition by the understanding of t
he virtue of purity is characteristic of the pure man, but also an attitude of assent to that value, both an actual response to it in each individual case of contact with purity, and a habitual response to purity. The pure man lives, so to speak, in the sight (in conspectu) of God’s purity, the fountainhead of all purity, and responds to it with the permanent and habitual assent of his will. It sets his heart on fire; he loves it.

  The pure man—we are speaking of the complete virtue which is a product of the spirit—always recognizes and loves purity, just as he understands impurity in its negative value and abhors it. But this understanding of purity itself and assent to it, which is inherent in the virtue of purity, is not the sole perception of value and response to it that purity involves. The perception of value and the response which we have just described is rather one which accompanies purity than that which itself constitutes the virtue. The just man, for example, will always understand the value of justice and will justice, but the value to which he responds when he behaves justly, the value the response to which formally constitutes justice, is not the value of justice itself. Otherwise we should be involved in an infinite regress. When anyone behaves justly he envisages the real obligations bound up with the sphere of objective rights; he has in view the value which consists in the fulfillment of these real obligations, and he wills it.

  What, then, is the specific value, or valuable quality, which the pure man, as such, envisages and wills? It is the splendor which attaches to everything united indissolubly with God the Holy of Holies, and preeminently to that which reflects the light of holiness, which the pure man beholds, on which his gaze is fixed unswervingly. The brightness of His countenance to Whom the angels chant their Trisagion, which is, indeed, incompatible with any negative value, that is, with anything evil, but stands in special opposition to particular evils, is apprehended by the pure in its clear, resplendent, and immaculate beauty, and willed by an unreserved surrender. It is the surrender to this splendor which formally constitutes purity. We are now better able to understand why the pure lives more than others in God’s presence. His countenance is turned to God, and he rejects everything which would compel him to fly from His face, everything whose nature is in any way incompatible with this splendor and cannot endure the divine gaze. We can point to no specific value, or valuable quality, the assent to which makes a man pure. It is rather a quality which belongs to all genuine values, and that moreover in proportion to their rank in the scale of values, and particularly to the immediacy with which they are related to God and the sphere of holiness. But to constitute the real virtue of purity, positive, complete, the product of the spirit, a perception of the luster common to all genuine values is insufficient; a perception of the splendor of holiness in particular, of the light peculiar to the supernatural alone, and a surrender to this value precisely as such, are also essential. We shall shortly discuss this point in greater detail.

  The negative value whose rejection is among the factors which constitute purity is of a far more special nature. Here it is not simply a question of the darkness which attaches to every negative value, nor even of the defilement common to every moral evil, but of a specific category of negative values which are distinctively and diametrically opposed to this light, and which in a special manner defile the man who yields himself to them and banish him from God’s countenance. The virtue of purity, as we have already seen, involves on the part of its possessor a distinctive attitude to sex. The abiding interior rejection of the negative values which attach to sex as soon as it becomes its own end and makes its appeal to us as the seat of a bemusing charm, diabolic evil lust, or a coarse pleasure of the flesh, is specifically characteristic of the pure. Moreover, this rejection must proceed from an understanding of the special nature of these qualities, as a canker eating into the soul and excluding the fragrant breath of the Spirit, and of the abyss which opens, and the banishment from God’s face which necessarily ensues, when man surrenders himself to them. The pure man is aware of the negative value attaching to sex as its own end, whether or not he has an ear for its seductive language. He grasps the mystery of the poison here concealed—its potency in effecting a unique separation from God—and with his whole soul rejects, indeed, flies from it.

  We might be tempted to suppose that as purity is born of rejecting the negative values of sex as its own end, it is specifically constituted by surrender to the positive values of sex when, according to the Divine Ordinance, it expresses the union of wedded love—by the correct response to sex in its double aspect as the subject of positive and negative values—and hence that the values attaching to sex are the specific objective correlate of purity. This would, however, be a mistake. The value which attaches to sex when it fulfills its divinely ordained function, as mysteriously tender, affecting, liberating, and creating a bond of a specific kind, is the objective correlate of other virtues, for example, depth, tenderness, and a particular kind of self-devoting love. Purity, no doubt, involves an understanding of these values and of the principles on which they are based, and demands that the employment of sex should be a surrender to these values alone. Indeed, such an employment of sex is specifically pure; but it presupposes purity as already in existence. It is, indeed, a realization of purity; but it is not the realization, and the response to these values does not determine the content of purity. Here, too, purity consists primarily in this, that the person who possesses it never cuts himself off from the splendor which shines upon him from the countenance of Jesus, but, on the contrary, wills in the domain of sex only that which has no need to hide from His light and in no respect opposes it. No doubt, a particular attitude to the distinctive positive values of sex is also always inherent in specifically human purity, and sex is in a peculiar fashion coordinated with purity; but how little purity consists in explicit surrender to these values in intention, still less in act, is evident from this fact alone, that virginity, when chosen in obedience to the Divine Will, is the ideal form of purity.

  The significance for purity which, speaking generally, attaches to the positive values of sex is seen most clearly when purity is compared with chastity. Chastity, which we cannot discuss in greater detail here, on the one hand is clearly different from purity, and on the other hand is inseparably bound up with human purity. Chastity is exclusively concerned with sex. To guard the secret of sex is its life and soul. Chastity cannot be attributed to sexless beings, for example, the angels. But the angel is an exemplar of purity. We speak of the “girdle” of chastity, and the symbol expresses its character perfectly. Chastity means keeping the sexual secret hidden, as a domain the disposition of which lies in God’s hand. It is a virtue whose positive quality is created by the avoidance of something negative. In man, chastity, as we can easily understand, is at once a presupposition and a result of purity, but it covers a far more restricted ground. It is concerned exclusively with sex, and consists solely in a right attitude to sex, whereas purity consists in a more general response to value. The symbol of the latter is not the protective girdle or the fortress which secludes and guards, but unsullied whiteness, the lily, unclouded light.

  From the comparison between purity and chastity two results emerge. On the one hand it proves that purity does not, like chastity, consist primarily and necessarily in an attitude to sex, but primarily in an abiding in God’s presence and a surrender to the glory of His countenance. But it shows us on the other hand that human purity does, first and foremost, imply and demand a particular attitude to sex. Hence, although sex is not the objective correlate of purity, and purity, therefore, does not consist in the response to it as, in a certain sense, is the case with chastity, nevertheless sex does possess a peculiar significance for purity. That this is the case is sufficiently shown by the fact that, in man, purity necessarily involves chastity. Chastity is, so to speak, the perfect development of one element of human purity. It exercises a ministerial function with respect to the latter so that we may say that in order to be pure a man must be chaste. It
is purity which gives his attitude its significance, for the point of view which determines his assent to sex is—not the possible objective values it may present—but purity itself. He guards his secret in defense against everything which is opposed to purity.

  Nevertheless, its specific response to the mystery with which the domain of sex is invested confers upon chastity a relative independence and a beauty peculiar to itself.

  ( c) The indispensable supernatural foundation of purity

  To understand the nature of purity in the strict sense, the purity which is the product of the spirit, we must now show that it is among the virtues which require a supernatural foundation.

  There are, indeed, men who have about them something undefiled, which reminds us of nature in her virgin state. They avoid sex, isolated as its own end with its tainted and oppressive atmosphere; they can breathe only in the clear, open air. But they lack that spiritualization of the entire man, “the spiritual riches,” which characterizes perfect purity. Their purity seems rather the manifestation of a splendid untarnished vitality, though this natural purity is, of course, never something merely vital, but extends also to the moral sphere. Nevertheless, the atmosphere which invests it, and which we breathe in the presence of a naturally pure man in contrast to the potent spirituality of the purity which is begotten of the spirit, is the nobility of life unsullied and uncorrupted, as it were, fresh from the hand of God.

  Nature’s pure men have about them something of the purity of the mountain torrent, something of the clear, fresh air of early morning, but nothing which substantially transcends this world and moves in a higher region. Unlike those whose purity is born of the spirit, their being is not redolent of something “not of this world.” Obviously a gulf divides this natural purity from the virtue just described, a product of the spirit in the strict sense, which alone has, strictly speaking, the right to the name of purity. Nevertheless, this natural purity is something wholly positive, beautiful, and attractive. It is far more than the mere temperamental counterpart of purity. We have already pointed out that these natural virtues must not be confused with qualities of temperament. Even this merely natural purity, then, is beautiful and lovable, and it has a moral value which does not belong to the merely temperamental counterpart of purity. It is not, like a quality of temperament, material for virtue to work upon, but an actual constituent of its possessor’s distinctive character and being.