Hildegard of Bingen is increasingly recognized as one of the most remarkable women of the Middle Ages. She possessed a prodigious talent and has attracted the attention of musicians, historians, literary critics, scientists, and theologians. Her music has undergone a recent revival, as has interest in her writings and pictures. Born in 1098, Hildegard became a Benedictine nun at the age of 15, an abbess at 38, and in 1150 founded a new community near Bingen, in Germany’s wooded Rhine valley. During her life, her reputation as visionary and healer grew, and she corresponded with kings and queens, monks and nuns, and laypeople. She died in 1179. This issue’s Reflections page is devoted to some of her work to mark the 900th anniversary of her birth.
Praise to the TrinityPraise to the Trinity Who is sound and life. Creator and sustainer Of all beings. The angels praise You, Who in the splendour Of your hidden mysteries Pour out life abundant.
—Symphonia Armonie Celestium Revelationum
God’s Word in Creation No creature has meaning without the Word of God. God’s Word is in all creation, visible and invisible. The Word is living, being, spirit, all verdant greening, all creativity. This Word flashes out in every creature. This is how the spirit is in the flesh—the Word is indivisible from God.
—Taken from Teachings of the Christian Mystics
Overcoming Evil Man … does not rule over evil except when he refuses to do it. When he has truly done evil, he is its servant.
—Taken from The Book of the Rewards of Life,tr. Bruce W. Hozeski
The Soul As a Tree The soul is in the body as the sap is in the tree; and the powers of the soul are like the figure of the tree. How is this so? Understanding in the soul is like the green vigour of the branches and the leaves of the tree. Will is like the flowers on the tree; mind like the first fruit bursting forth. But reason is like the fruit in the fullness of maturity; while sense is like the height and spread of the tree. And in the same way, the human body is strengthened and supported by the soul.
—Scivias (SC 14, 26), in Hildegard of Bingen, ed. Fiona Bowie and Oliver Davies
A Call for Renewal Those who willingly endure poverty in my name are truly worthy of my love; while those who through their greed would gladly have worldly riches, but are not able to have them, lose the profit of their labour. Yet he who seeks riches to satisfy in them my will and not his greed, will have in my house the reward of glory for his good will.
So too, he who seeks the power of glory because of his bragging arrogance and not for the glory of my name—seems to me like a stinking corpse. But he who seeks glory for the sake not of his own arrogance but of my renown, will appear full of glory in my Kingdom.
—Scivias (SC II 6, 92) in Hildegard of Bingen, ed. Fiona Bowie and Oliver Davies
The Will The will is like a fire, baking each deed as if in a furnace. Bread is baked so that people may be nourished by it and be able to live. So too the will is the strength of the whole work, for it starts by kneading it and when it is firm adds the yeast and pounds it severely; and, thus preparing the work in contemplation as if it were bread, it bakes it to perfection by the full action of its ardour, and so makes a greater food for humans in the work they do than in the bread they eat. A person stops eating from time to time, but the work of the will goes on until the soul leaves the body.
—Scivias, Book One, taken from The Wisdom of Hildegard of Bingen,comp. by Fiona Bowie
God’s Work Everything that God has effected has been perfected in Love, Humility and Peace. Human beings, therefore, should esteem Love, embrace Humility and grasp Peace.
—De Operatione Dei, taken from The Wisdom of Hildegard of Bingen,comp. by Fiona Bowie
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