In Defense of Purity

by Dietrich von Hildebrand

  We must begin by making it clear that the peculiar meaning and worth of Christian virginity does not lie in its being an extension of the purity proper to the pure wife or husband, an extension which consists simply in the fact that the virgin has never had sex experience. Such a view would imply that purity and sex were somehow essentially opposed, an implication which, as we have seen, a closer analysis of the essence of purity proves to be untenable. Not the exercise of sex as such, but the manner in which it is exercised is decisive for purity or impurity.2 Mere celibacy, the non-exercise of sex simply as such, is no advantage. The man, for example, who remains a virgin because he fails to find a wife is not, for that reason alone, in any respect purer than a pure husband. On the contrary, as compared with marriage, his state is of lower worth, not only, as is often maintained, because of its infertility, but also because it lacks the value inherent in marriage as such, as a mystery of created love. The absence of a high value cannot be in itself an advantage. There must therefore be attached to consecrated virginity some positive quality which is completely new, which invests it with such incomparable fragrance and luster and confers upon it a value not only analogous to that of a holy marriage, but far exceeding it. That is to say, consecrated virginity represents a particular form of appurtenance to God, a union with Jesus even more intimate than that possessed by every member of His mystical body, as such.

  Its peculiar significance and sublime value is unintelligible from the purely natural point of view,3 for it consists simply in this new form of union with Jesus. The consecrated virgin is always at the same time a bride, just as the virginity of the Church is also wifehood. The consecrated virgin is, like the Church, a bride of Christ, the eternal Word made flesh.4 When we have once recognized in consecrated Christian virginity a nuptial relationship to Christ, its ineffably tender yet radiant light shines upon our vision, and our spirit is filled with the perfume of this mysterious state, because its positive meaning and value have been revealed to us. And it is evident without further proof that the distinctive value of virginity as a nuptial relationship to Christ, in fact, as wedlock with Him, belongs exclusively to consecrated Christian virginity, in other words, that the fact of consecration to God is a factor of decisive importance, which profoundly alters the nature of the virginity, bestows upon it its “form” (forma), and thus makes it the bearer of a value so wholly novel.5

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

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  1. In the natural order woman represents, in contrast to man, the receptive principle. This finds its clearest expression in the biological sphere, where man may be considered as the giving, fertilizing factor, woman as the recipient, though strictly speaking this is certainly true only of the external aspect of their relationship. But on the spiritual plane, even in the order of nature, woman is predominantly the receptive principle in relation to man, though here the complementary opposites are not presented so exclusively. Man is also a recipient in his relation to the world of values, and woman a giver and a creator in many departments of human life. Nevertheless, here too the receptive principle is a formal constituent of woman and belongs, as an element essential to its perfection, to the nature of “femininity,” a category which cannot be confined to the biological sphere. In relation to God, however, this characteristic of predominant receptivity is not confined to the female sex. Here, where infinite and finite being, Creator and creature, God and man, meet, the man as an individual soul is as purely receptive as the woman. Here God alone is the giver, the creative and fertilizing principle, and the human being, as a creature, the recipient, therefore, if you like, “feminine.” And this is preeminently true in the supernatural order of the soul as the bride of Christ the God-man. Since woman in her receptive relation 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 status of the soul as Christ’s bride. Father A. Wintersig in his fine book, Liturgie und Frauenseele, draws out the profound implications of the femininity of the Church. But this metaphysical femininity belongs also to mankind as a whole in relation to God. Since within the natural order the male is in the spiritual sphere, that is, in his relation to the world and human life, predominantly the creative and generative principle, he is better fitted to fulfill in the supernatural order also the giving function of the priest as the representative of Christ. Nevertheless, in this supernatural order his masculine role is confined entirely to his office—as an individual soul he must be just as receptive in relation to God as the woman, for in this order in which the Divine and the human meet, the male, inasmuch as he is a human individual, is purely receptive, that is to say, metaphysically feminine.

  2. “Beware, too, when thou art zealous for continence, that thou be not puffed up against those who 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 the laws of nature? Or who can find language adequate to express what exceeds the life of nature? It has come 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, our Lord and Redeemer, has given us in virginity a pattern of angelic holiness, wherefore the Church has always called maidens adorned with this virtue brides of Christ.”

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

  The Nature of Consecration

  CONSECRATED VIRGINITY IS, in the first place, freely chosen. A merely external virginity, which has not been deliberately adopted, or even is felt as an unwelcome and painful trial, has as little to do with consecrated virginity as outward poverty forcibly imposed has to do with poverty freely chosen. No doubt, a person who is a virgin against his or her will can also be pure, but that purity has, as we have already pointed out, no advantage whatsoever over wedded purity, for it brings with it no new value.

  On the contrary, the attitude of such a person to sex continues the same as that of a virgin, male or female, before marriage, until all intention of marriage is finally renounced. But this renunciation does not in itself imply a positive choice of virginity, that is, a determination to belong to God in a special fashion. Even when the circumstances of her life have brought a woman to the conclusion that she is called by God to celibacy and this conviction leads her to renounce matrimony, this is not necessarily an explicit choice of virginity in the positive sense. The renunciation, indeed, alters her attitude to sex as compared with that of a virgin before marriage, inasmuch as it signifies its interior exclusion. It is, however, not a solemn profession of virginity, but a simple acceptance of it, as a man might accept poverty he had not freely chosen, but which God had imposed upon Him. Even though—as would be the case if the renunciation were felt as painful—the resignation to God’s will possesses a special value, that value in no way differs from that involved in every submissive acceptance of a cross which God lays upon us. In such a case, therefore, no new and distinctive value attaches to the fact of virginity as compared with wedded purity; there is simply the value which submission to God’s will, here as in all other circumstances, brings with it. The same value, for example, is present when an unhappy marriage is borne submissively as the dispensation of God’s Providence.

  Or, again, we may consider a different case. Virginity is here regarded by the subject as her normal condition, because she has no thought of marriage. In this case, no doubt, the virginity is in a certain sense d
eliberately chosen, as it was not in the previous instance; but with consecrated virginity it has nothing whatever to do. There can be no question of a special value attaching to such virginity. Whether it is deliberately adopted or practiced as the obvious course—in any case it is not chosen for the sake of its sublimity and profound significance. It is simply the effect of a purely natural inclination, and as such represents an absence of value as compared with marriage. It is the mere consequence of a defect, inasmuch as the subject is, at least so far as she is personally concerned, incapable of the high value which marriage represents. No greater good occupies her heart in its place: there is nothing but a personal insusceptibility. No doubt such a person may be pure, in which case all the loveliness of purity which we have depicted ennobles her being, but the purity is based, not upon the virginity, but on a general attitude which can equally exist in the married. It is therefore evident that the mere fact of physical virginity as such confers no sort of advantage over marriage, but rather involves a certain lack of value.

  But even when virginity is freely chosen for the sake of some noble object it is still divided by an entire world from consecrated virginity. If, for example, a woman renounces marriage in order to remain with her parents or chooses a profession whose external conditions exclude marriage, as that of a school teacher in many countries—virginity is indeed freely chosen, but since its distinctive and profound religious significance is not among the factors which determine the choice, it does not necessarily effect a close relation to God. Nor is it even sufficient that virginity be freely chosen because for one reason or another it is believed to be the will of God that the subject should remain in that state, as a man might be convinced that it was God’s will that he should adopt some particular secular profession. If, for example, I become convinced that my parents’ illness and need of help is a message from God, bidding me renounce marriage, that does not make my virginity in any way consecrated to Him.

  The virginity must be directly chosen for God’s sake, and for no other reason; and, moreover, in order thereby to belong to Him in a special fashion. It is not sufficient that it be chosen as willed by God; it must be referred to Him far more directly; it must be actually consecrated to God. It is so consecrated when, in accordance with the words of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, it is freely chosen “for the kingdom of heaven’s sake” (propter regnum caelorum). Jesus said to his disciples: “All cannot receive this saying, but they alone to whom it is given. For there are eunuchs which were so born from their mother’s womb; and there are eunuchs which were made eunuchs by men; and there are eunuchs which made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven’s sake. Whosoever is able to receive it, let him receive it” (Matt 19:11–12). The words which state the motive for which consecrated virginity is to be chosen, propter regnum caelorum, have been differently explained. They are frequently understood of the heavenly reward which awaits the continent. But on this interpretation that which confers upon virginity a peculiar character and a unique value is simply passed over. And, which is the most weighty consideration, this interpretation leaves the specially close relationship to Jesus which this virginity constitutes wholly unexplained. Nor yet, if the words are to be taken as a statement of the motive for which consecrated virginity is chosen, am I able to accept Fr. Wintersig’s interpretation, that by regnum caelorum we are to understand the Church. Our Lord’s words are clearly intended to state, not the objective raison d’etre of virginity, the reason why there should be virgins, but the motive for which the state of virginity should be chosen. The expression “kingdom of heaven” possesses so general and inclusive a meaning in the Gospels, in which “for the kingdom of heaven’s sake” so often means the same as “for God’s sake” or “for His glory,” that it may also be understood as a general statement of the only motive which suits the context. We may again recall the words ascribed to St. Agnes: “The kingdom of this world and every ornament thereof have I scorned for the love of Jesus Christ my Lord, whom I have seen and have loved, in whom I have believed, who is my love’s choice.” Only when virginity is chosen for the love of Jesus, to belong to Him in a particular and closer fashion, and thus to give a special glory to God, does it possess the character which makes it consecrated virginity. Only the will of the individual, who out of love will give herself more closely to Christ, is able—so far as the motive is concerned—to transmute a merely physical into a consecrated virginity. A purely external consecration to God made by the Church over the head of the individual—a contradiction in terms, since it is incompatible with the nature of the Church—could never constitute consecrated Christian virginity.

  This can be seen most clearly by comparing with the Christian virgin the consecrated heathen virgin, the Vestal. Not only does the virginity of the Vestal lack the lifelong obligation, whereas Christian virginity, as we shall see later, must of its very nature be perpetual, but, what is most important, the virgin’s free choice is wanting. The Vestal virgins were selected and appointed without their consent being asked. And this of itself excludes the motive for which Christian virginity is freely chosen, the love of God, which alone can bring it into a real relation with Him. The heathen virgin was treated as a mere thing and handed over to the god or goddess as a piece of property.1 This fact altered the entire complexion of this pseudo-religious virginity.2 Virginity is here regarded from a purely natural standpoint and represents something purely vital. It does not transcend the domain of physical sex. Whereas Christian virginity with its supernatural radiance destroys every hankering after the charm of sex, with this natural virginity this is by no means the case. On the contrary it is, so to speak, from the sexual point of view that this virginity is valued. We need only contemplate the impassable gulf which divides the natural vital ideal of virginity as exemplified in Artemis from the hallowed chastity of the most blessed and ever Virgin Mary.

  The most radical distinction, however, between heathen and Christian virginity, that which determines this absolute difference of quality between them, does not consist simply in the fact that the former lacks the free choice indispensable for a genuine self-dedication to God and the love which is its motive, but primarily in this: the deity to whom the pagan virgin was consecrated was a false god, not the true God, One in Three, who reveals Himself to us in Jesus. Moreover, heathen virginity does not owe its form to the operation of the supernatural union of human nature with God effected by the Incarnation of the eternal Word and the consequent nuptial relationship of the Church and Jesus. But it remains true that the kind of consecration also determines the difference of quality between the two. The love of God, here the indispensable motive, which is essentially grounded in God’s infinite love for man, whom He so loved that He gave His only begotten Son, and which is actually a participation of this Divine Love, is thinkable only within the mystical body of Christ.

  Consecrated virginity, therefore, can exist only when a member of Christ’s mystical body freely chooses perpetual virginity, out of love for Him, and, moreover, in order by that virginity to belong more closely to Him. But even this is not enough. Yet another factor is essential—the explicit vow of virginity. It is by the social act3 of vowing that the virgin first places her virginity in the hands of God and solemnly binds herself to it.

  The distinctive nature of consecrated virginity as compared with every other is now clear. Only when the virginity is freely chosen out of love for Jesus in order to belong more closely to Him and to give glory to God, and, moreover, vowed in perpetuity, does it become consecrated virginity.4

  But the question now arises, why it is precisely virginity which, when consecrated to God, establishes a bridal relationship to Jesus? I can solemnly vow other things out of love to Christ—poverty, for example, or fasting or other forms of mortification—and although such vows do no doubt unite me closer to God, they do not establish a specific bridal relationship essentially transcending the bridal relationship which belongs to every member of Christ’s mystical bo
dy. There must be a special and mysterious reason for the fact that it is virginity alone which, when consecrated to God, produces this unique union with Jesus.

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  1. Cf. also the description of ritual purity above: chap. 6, sec. c.

  2. An opponent may possibly bring forward the Vestal virgins and the priests of Pallas. What sort of a chastity is it which is based, not upon the free practice of virtue, but only on the purely exterior circumstance of age, which demands no perpetual renunciation, but on the conclusion of a specified time is required no longer.” St. Ambrose, De Virginibus, Bk I, chap. 4.

  3. The vow obviously represents something entirely new, over and above the determination of the will. In a work which deserves to be called a classic. Das Apriori im burgerlichen Recht (Ges. Schriften, Halle, 1921), Adolf Reinach distinguishes a special type of acts which he calls by the general name of “social acts.” The imparting of information, the promise, the question, the command, the request, the expression of thanks, and so on, constitute this group of acts distinguished by the common feature that they cannot be really performed unless another party takes cognizance of them. They are acts of whose essence it is to be recognized. They necessarily include an external expression, cannot in fact be fully performed mentally, for example, like acts of love, admiration, and determination. To this group belong also those creative acts whose performance creates specific external obligations; for example, the obligation toward another which results from a promise, the contractual relationship arising from a contract, or the obligation established by the command of a lawful authority. The vow also belongs to this special type of social act. As contrasted with the mere will to do some particular thing or even the mere announcement of that intention, which create no external obligations, the vow, which is closely related to the promise, constitutes such an external bond. In the case of virginity it is the vow which alone can effect that outward bond, just as it is the matrimonial vow and ceremonial act as opposed to the mere will to belong to another in love which constitute the external tie of wedlock.