Dietrich von Hildebrand as Ambassador to the East: A Philokalic Reading of His Writings on Beauty

The famous quote by Dostoyevsky, “Beauty will save the world,”1 encapsulates the theme of the current volume, The Power of Beauty. For many of us in the West, these words inspire hope in the renewing power of beauty. The statement’s meaning, however, is opaque. Either aesthetic beauty elevates human desires, or metaphysical beauty inspires mimicry. That is to say, either an aesthetically pleasing creation ennobles those who behold it, or the beauty of moral conduct incites imitation in those who behold it. Roman Catholic intellectuals often use this phrase to promote their theology in the context of modernity.2 This phenomenon occurs despite the fact that Dostoyevsky, in the same work, The Idiot, gives his protagonist Prince Myshkin the following lines: “Roman Catholicism is, in my opinion, worse than Atheism itself.”3 Dostoyevsky himself did hold such stark views of the Roman Catholic Church. Writing for The Tablet in 1947, Christopher Hollis recognized this: