The Pious Knight
13th Century
Image from the Westminster Psalter
A reproduction of this by David Clayton is
in the Franciscan University of Steubenville's
Tony and Nina Gentile Gallery.
David Clayton writes about The Pious Knight:
This is a modern illumination based upon an image by the 13th century English monk, Matthew Parris. He is the leading figure of the School of St Albans style of English medieval artClayton writes more here about The Pious Knight:
The Westminster Psalter, which was produced in the 13th century, has a picture of a pious knight kneeling before his king.More about David Clayton, and his painting style here and here.
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As we were painting the picture of the knight, it occurred to me that to the 13th century reader of the psalter, this would have a picture of a contemporary figure. We must aim to make this style of its time in the same way. It is only when we can look at a similar contemporary figure painted in such holy styles and it seems natural that we will have truly established a Christian culture.
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I logged into a live presentation by the Hildebrand Legacy Project on Wednesday December 3, the theme of which was "Hildebrand and Hitler."
It was a two-hour panel discussion in the Tony and Nina Gentile Gallery, J.C. Williams Center. This room, surrounded by the painting collection of Steubenville University, was also the room where I gave my presentation Reclaiming Beauty: Saving Our Western Civilization on October 24.
Here is a synopsis of the program:
Hitler's invasion of Poland in September 1939 rocked the civilized world and triggered World War II. A story not as widely known during the run-up to WWII concerns the Catholic philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand — who valiantly stood up to Hitler's war machine, starting in the 1920s. Hildebrand became one of Hitler’s biggest challengers and fought a different kind of war — one of argument, faith, and conscience. A panel discussion "Hildebrand Versus Hitler" will be held at Franciscan University of Steubenville on Wednesday, December 3. The event will take place in the Tony and Nina Gentile Gallery, J.C. Williams Center, at 6:00 p.m. Much of the discussion will center around the new book, My Battle Against Hitler: Faith, Truth, and Defiance in the Shadow of the Third Reich, which details Dietrich von Hildebrand’s journey, memoirs, and writings during his battle against the Nazis. Three Franciscan University professors will take part in the discussion: Dr. John F. Crosby, director of the MA Philosophy Program, and translator/editor of the book; Dr. Kimberly Georgedes, chair of the History Department; and Dr. Jonathan Sanford, assistant vice president of Academic Affairs. John Henry Crosby, director of the Dietrich von Hildebrand Project, who was the principal editor and translator of the volume, will deliver opening remarks.The full video is now online here.
I have transcribed Jonathan Sanford's presentation (Sanford is part of the panel) because I will be "deconstructing" it over the next few days, and it is easier to read it (and copy from it) rather than to do so while listening to it.
Sandford is professor of philosophy at Steubenville University.
In the video, Sanford's presentation starts around the one-hour point and ends about fifteen minutes later.
I found Sanford's presentation significant because he focuses on the warrior nature of Hildebrand, who was faced with the upcoming rule of the Nazis and whose methods he had seen first hand as Hitler began to grab power.
Hildebrand knew the dangers of acquiescence, compromise, and even a rationalization for the thugs that took over Germany. Although he was a philosopher by profession, he didn't think philosophy was relegated to mere thought. In fact, philosophy can establish arguments and actions for fighting wrongs and evils, and fighting for truth, since it can develop sound arguments for just battle.
The parallels with our current society are palpable. We have our own Antichrist (as Hildebrand describes Hitler) in the guise of "The Religion of Peace" which we need to call by its real name, not "Radicalism," Terrorism," "Radical Islam," but simply Islam.
This is the calling of our era, and we would be wise to read, understand, and follow the directives for the warrior and activist Hildebrand has laid out for us.
In fact, Sanford ends his presentation with:
And so, I would invite you as you read this text, to reflect as well on this paradox between the particularities of von Hildebrand's life and also the universal, timeless example that he presents to us, because I think there is so much to learn about how we approach those challenges in our own day and age.We would do well to heed Sanford's counsel to extend of Hildebrand's "universal, timeless example" into our own era.
Below are the sections where Sanford discusses the warrior calling of Hildebrand, and how we too can take example from Hildebrand's actions and act likewise.
What I find inspiring...is the moral example that von Hildebrand supplies. I think of that moral example in term of its exempalariness. It comes through with this word example, but an exemplar, a moral exemplar, has this particular role to play in moral reflection, and so when I look at von Hildebrand, the way he lived his life, and the way he reflects upon the way that he lives his life, I'm struck by the paradoxical relationship of the uniqueness and individuality of this remarkable man, who has this very particular history, very remarkable family, who went to school in the places he went to school, and so on and so forth. He has all of these particular circumstances that are unique, and individuality comes through in a number of those truly intriguing stories - about the five-year-old von Hildebrand professing his belief in the divinity of Christ, for instances.-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But, he presents to us values that are universal in scope. So we find in him something that's imitatable, something that can be taken out of the particular circumstances of this man's autobiography and applied to our own life.
And so I wanted to reflect for a few moments on how that works. So thinking on the particulars of the challenges faced by von Hildebrand, and challenges that we too face in response to moral evil, there are it seems to me four general classifications of responses to moral evil. So we have, as the story emerges here, we have those Nazis who fully promoted the evil of National Socialism, embraced it, engaged in propagandic activities in order to perpetuate it. Some of them were murderers. And so on and so forth. We don't hesitate to recognize the grave evil of those promoters of moral evil.
But there are also are a lot of tag-alongs, who in many respects just wanted to be on the winning side. They are along for the ride. The Nazis are rising to power and they're there for the journey. They're hoping to be on the winning side and to come out on top. So they're just tagging along.
And then there's a rather large group of those who recoil in the face of moral evil, and yet remain silent. They keep a low profile. They do what they can to avoid engaging in any kind of open combat. And I would find it to be the case that many of us in this room might find ourselves in that category, were we similarly faced with moral evil.
Then finally we have those few warriors. And indeed von Hildebrand was a warrior. But as a warrior, one of the things he sought to do was to move people from these categories to those that are more appropriate. So the tag-alongs he tried to convict with at least the beginnings of a moral conscience. So they might movie into that territory of being recoilers. And he tried to make of those recoilers in the face of moral evil true warriors. And that's what he did in many respects with his philosophical works at the time and his work with the newspapers.
So what is it that fed this exemplarism of von Hildebrand such that he becomes a warrior in the face of moral evil? Well my colleagues have already remarked on several of those features. So we have his unique personality, the strong individuality of spirit. He's as non-conformist as a human being can be without becoming Diogenes, for instance. He still of course was a civilized human being. He didn't engage in the sort of dramatic anti-conformist activities that we sometimes associate with Diogenes, of you don't know about Diogenes the Cynic, I wont regale you with any stories right now. But look him up, OK!
So even though he conformed to many of the conventionalities of how to conduct oneself in a civilized fashion, he never gave his heart over to the evils of his age, or positions that he didn't fully embrace. So even as a child he was somehow resistant to the infection of ideas that he was not convinced ought to be his own. And it would be tempting for us to say well he's just sort of a one-of-a-kind sort of person, sui generis, who was able to be a moral warrior because of his unique gift. But, I think that gets us off the hook. And it also points to a kind of psychological reductionism here in the way that we're thinking about him. As though all that makes a person tick is the set of individual talents that they have. And I don't think we should get off the hook here.
So the end of my story here is that we all ought to be warriors like von Hildebrand.
The other feature that's been remarked upon a little bit here is the way in which the moral witness plays a major role in the way that he thinks. And here, I think he's guided by his approach to philosophy in many significant ways. And it's not just a phenomenological approach to philosophy that makes the critical difference here. But in fact, an approach to philosophy that puts moral experience front and center. And this is something that he shares with Max Scheler as well.
But one can think of other phenomenologists who did not put moral experience front and center. In many respects Husserl did not have that kind of engagement with making sense of the world of value. Certainly Heidegger does not. So I spent a good bit of time in my youth working through the pages of Heidegger, and it was in that critical period that I'd mentioned before when I encountered von Hildebrand, and I found myself disaffected by my reflections about Heidegger. As excited as I was about many of his approaches to metaphysical questions, one could not find room for making sense of the human being as a fundamentally moral being. One who's engaged in the world of good and evil, who is faced with fundamental choices between good and evil. And in Heidegger, the closest you get, at least in his early period, are notions of authenticity, which need to be worked up into the beginnings of a moral theory. But you don't have a fundamental engagement with the human being as a moral being. "Dasein" doesn't have that facet of his nature plumed in the metaphysical reflections of Heidegger. Whereas for von Hildebrand, it's there, it's front and center, and I think it needs to be front and center because that is what we fundamentally are. We are beings in possession of free will who from the outset of our existence are confronted with choices of profound moral import.
And finally, this has been remarked upon at more length so I wont dwell too long, we have the religious experience of von Hildebrand, and particularly as John Henry was saying, the role of his conversion to Catholicism as the fundamental life-changing moment of his life. And I would agree with that assessment based upon the comments we find here in this book. And for von Hildebrand, the fact of being a Catholic is not a confessional matter. It's profoundly and totally transforming. So to be a Catholic is to be transformed in Christ, is to be Christophied, is to live every facet of your life as a follower of the way, the truth and the life of Jesus Christ. So this resonates in significant ways with the way he approaches philosophy as a way of life, but supersedes it in other significant ways and his philosophical approaches are taken up into his Christianity in ways that are remarkable in so far as they direct him in the kind of choices that he makes, and allow him, enable him, enable him, to be the warrior, that he was.
So we have then these three components, that I think are all imitatable in our own unique ways. We all have our own distinctive set of talents, we all can embrace a philosophical approach that puts the moral experience of the human being front and center, and we can all live our faith in a way that goes far beyond a mere confession of beliefs but is striving to be fully transformed in Christ.
And so we find in von Hildebrand both the moral courage to make the sort of choices that he makes (and you can learn about those when you read his book) as well as to wrestle with a significant, profound, deep sense of responsibility. It was not enough for him to think rightly, it wasn't enough for him just to act rightly in his profession, he needed to commit himself totally to bearing the burden of responsibility to bring as many people into the proper recognition of the moral evil that faced them at this time, and to convert them into warriors like himself.
And so, I would invite you as you read this text, to reflect as well on this paradox between the particularities of von Hildebrand's life and also the universal, timeless example that he presents to us, because I think there is so much to learn about how we approach those challenges in our own day and age.
Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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