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Home , Ave Maria (Bach/Gounod), Barbara Newman, Eucharius, Hildegard of Bingen, Johannes Tauler, Lingua Ignota

, o auctrix vite: Mary in the Visions of (1 098--1179)

By Gregory E. Roth

A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

Licentiate in Sacred

at the International Marian Research Institute University ofDayton

1998 Abbreviations

Works ofHildegard ofBingen

Anderson Strehlow Hildegard of Bingen 's [Handbuch der Hildegard-Medizin} Folk Wisdom Series. English. Ed. Gail Vivino. Trans. Karin Anderson Strehlow.

Briefwechsel Briejwechsel. Trans. Adelgundis Fuhrkotter, O.S.B. Salzburg. 1965

C&C Hildegardis Causae et Curae Ed. Paul Kaiser. Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana. Lipsiae: B.G. Teubner, 1868. 254.

Cunningham Hildegard of Bingen's Book of Divine Works with Letters and Songs. Ed. Matthew Fox. Trans. Robert Cunningham. Santa Fe, New Mexico Bear & Company, 1987.

Dybdal Hildegard ofBingen's Book of Divine Works with Letters and Songs. Ed. Matthew Fox. Trans. Jerry Dybdal and Matthew Fox. Santa Fe, New Mexico: Bear & Company, 1987.

Ep Hildegardis Bingensis -- Epistolarium. Tumhout, : Brepols, 1991. Vol. 91 of Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Mediaevales (CCCM). Ed. L. van Acker.

Ep2 Hildegardis Bingensis -- Epistolarium. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, 1991/1993 . Vol. 91A of Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Mediaevales (CCCM). Ed. L. van Acker.

Handbuch Handbuch der Hildegard-Medizin . Trans. Wighard Strehlow, Dr. and Gottfried Hertzka, M.D. : Verlag Hermann Bauer, 1987.

Hart & Hildegard~~ Bingen's SCIHAS. The Classics of Western Spirituality. Trans. C Hart and T Bishop.

Holistic Healing Holistic Healing. Trans. Manfred Pawlik, Patrick Madigan, S.J., and John Kulas. Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1994.

· Hozeski Hildegard of Bingen: The Book of the Rewards of Ltfe [Liber Vitae Meritorum}. Ed. James J. Wilhelm and Lowry Nelson, Jr.

11 Trans. Bruce W. Hozeski. The Garland Library ofMedieval 89 Series B. New York & London: Garland Publishing, Inc, 1994. 290.

LDO Hildegardis -- Liber Divinorum Operum. Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Mediaevales(CCCM) . Ed. Albert Derolez, Peter Dronke

LVM Hildegardis -- Liber Vitae Meritorum. Turnhout Belgium: Brepols, 1995. Vol. 90 of Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Mediaevales (CCCM). Ed. Angela Carlevaris.

Miller Hildegard of Bingen 's Book of Divine Works with Letters and Songs. Ed. Matthew Fox. Trans. Ronald Miller. Santa Fe, New Mexico: Bear & Company, 1987.

Physica Hildegardis -- Physica. Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Mediaevales (CCCM) . Ed. Irmgard Muller.

PL197 Sanctae Hildegardis Abbatissae Omnia. Vol. 197 of Patrc:logiae Curus Completus. Ed. J.P. Migne. Series latina 197.

SCIVIAS Hildegardis . Turnhout Belgium: Brepols, 1978. Vol. 43/43A of Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Mediaevales(CCCM) . Ed. Adelgundis Fuhrkotter, Angela Carlevaris.

Symphonia Hildegard ofBingen's Symphonia: A Critical Edition of the Symphonia Armonie Celestium Revelationum (Symphony of the ·Harmony of Celestial ) Trans. . Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988 .

Writings Secrets of God: Writings of Hildegard qf Bingen. Trans. Susan Flanagan. Boston: Shambhala, 1996

Wisse Wisse die Wege--Scivias. 8th. Trans. M. Bockeler. Berlin: St. Augustinus Verlag/Otto Muller Verlag, 1928/1954,1957.

lll Works about Hildegard ofBingen

Kraft Kraft, Kent. "The Eye Sees More Than the Heart Knows: The Visionary Cosmology of Hildegard of Bingen." Diss. Wisconsin, 1977.

Life Gottfried and Theoderic, The Life of the Holy Hildegard, edited by M. Palmquist and J. Kulas, O.S.B. (Collegeville, Minnesota, The Litrugical Press, 1995), p. 134, translated by A. Fiihrkotter, O.S.B and J. McGrath. materia Aurea Schmidt, Margot. "Maria - •>materia Aurea« in der Kirche nach Hildegard von Bingen." Munchener Theologische Zeitschrift 32.1 (1981)

Marienlexikon Schmidt, Margot. "Hildegard v. Bingen." Marienlexikon. Ed. Remigius Baumer, Prof. Dr. and Leo Scheffczyk. Erzabtei St Ottilien: Eos Verlag.

Newman, 0 feminea forma Newman, Barbara. "0 Feminea Forma: God and Woman in the Works of Hildegard (1098-1179)." Diss. New Haven, CT: , 1981.

Newman, Sister of Wisdom Newman, Barbara. Sister of Wisdom: St. Hildegard's Theology of the Feminine. Berkeley: Scholars Press, 1987.

Spiegel der Schonheit Schmidt, Margot. "Maria, Spiegel der Schonheit." Maria for aile Frauen oder iiber allen Frauen? Ed. Elisabeth Gossmann and Dieter R. Gauen. Freiburg: Hinder Verlag, 1989.

Vita Vita Sanctae Hildegardis. Turnhout Belgium: Brepols, 1993. Vol. 126 of Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Mediaevales (CCCM). Ed. Monika Klaes.

Weeks Weeks, Andrew. German from Hildegard of Bingen to Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Literary and Intellectual Histmy. SUNY Series in Western Esoteric Traditions. Albany: University of New York Press, 1993.

Weibliche Gestalt Schmidt, Margot. "Maria - Die 'Weibliche Gestalt der Schonheit des Allerhochsten'." Mariologisches 21.8.

IV Table of Contents

Abbreviations ...... n Works ...... n Works about Hildegard ofBingen ...... iv

Introduction ...... 1 Mary in Hildegard in German ...... 3 Mary in Hildegard in English ...... 9 The Contribution of this Thesis ...... 10

Hildegard' s Life and Times ...... 12 Hildegard 's Life After 113 6 ...... 15 Hildegard's Public Ministry ...... 20 A Synopsis ofHildegard's Writings ...... 28 The Visionary Works ...... 28 Hildegard' s Scientific Works ...... 30 Hildegard' s Other Works ...... 3 1

Mysticism ...... 33 The Character ofMysticism ...... 33 The Character ofMysticism in the Twelfth Century ...... 36 A German-The Character of the German Mystical Tradition ...... 3 7 Hildegard the Benedictine ...... 45 Hildegard a Woman-The Character ofFemale Mysticism ...... 47 Conclusions ...... 56

Twelfth-Century Cosmology ...... 58 Hildegard's Cosmology ...... 62 Mary and Wisdom ...... 67 Conclusion ...... 68

Hildegard' s Anthropology: An Incarnational ...... 70 Genesis 2-3 ...... 70 Man and Woman ...... 76 Woman and Women in Hildegard ...... 82 Virginity ...... 83 Woman's Generative Role ...... 85 and Eve and Ordinary Women and Men ...... 86 Conclusion ...... 90

Hildegard' s Ecclesiological Vision ...... 91 The as and Bride . 92

v Synagoga and Ecclesia ...... 96 The Church -- and ...... 100 Conclusion ...... 103

Pre-Scholastic Medieval Mario logy in the West ...... 105 ...... 107 ...... 109 Eadmer ...... 109 Abelard and Heloise ...... 11 0 Alan ofLille ...... 112 The Debate ...... 114 Conclusion ...... 116

Mary in Hildegard's Thought ...... 11 7 Marian Cosmology ...... ·...... 11 7 The Two Virgin Mothers ...... 119 Virginity and Mary's Virginity ...... 120 Virgin and Mother ...... 122 The Immaculate Conception ...... 127 The Assumption ...... 129 Mary/Eve ...... 130 The Annunciation and the Incarnation ...... 133 Conclusion ...... 137

Appendix ...... 139

List ofthe sources ofthe most important Marian texts in Hildegard ...... 139

Works Cited ...... 141

VI Introduction

The twelfth-century Benedictine and visionary Hildegard of Bingen is not widely recognized for her Mariological contributions. In English two of the major resource books for

Mariological research, and Hilda GraefsMary, do not include her. This is not the case in where there have been a few articles written on Mary's role in Hildegard's works.

But it perhaps illustrates how difficult it is to glean Hildegard's Mariology. When faced with

Hildegard we encounter several difficulties which hinder the appreciation of her Mariological thought.

Difficulties in Hildegard

The first difficulty we encounter is that we are tempted to take her words anachronistically and believe that they confirm our contemporary ideas. is not involved with the debates about the Immaculate Conception nor the Assumption. Hildegard is primarily concerned with a cosmological, incarnational vision of the Creator and His creation. She considers the natural environment as an illustration, an image ofthe Creator's plan. We may draw our own conclusion from that, but she was interested in the heuristic value of creation as an icon of God's plan.

The second difficulty is that she has given us no separate treatise on Mary. Hildegard does not deal with the personality, psychology, or affective elements ofMary. She develops her

Mariology contextually within her visions. Mary is implicit in Hildegard's visions Her role in creation is that of : Mary is addressed with Maria rationalitas, Soror sapientiae, Virgo sapientissima, Virgo prudentissima, Mater sapientiae, and Mater bonae scientiae. Hildegard gives her Mariology poetic expression in her songs, but nowhere gives it discursive form as many of her contemporaries do . She uses feminine imagery while accepting her society's values and evaluation of women. She was, first and foremost, an ; and the religious life was her first

priority. Hildegard, the woman, writes for women, her religious charges. When she did speak to

other audiences, it was because her reputation brought her invitations to preach. Frequently she

speaks to correct a misdirected situation, as in her letters to Frederick Barbarossa, or to give

spiritual advice to someone who has asked for it. But when one reads her correspondence, one is

struck by the very volume of monastically related concerns.

A third difficulty comes from her manner of expression. Images are layered upon images,

and we are left with a collage. Although the layers do not always fit together well, they do belong

to the same work of art. Barbara Newman neatly sums this up in her doctoral dissertation:

St. Hildegard was a seer, not a philosopher. No sooner does one of her images yield its weight in concepts than the concepts dissolve into new images, enhancing or correcting the first. The final product is less a doctrine than an iconography, 1 albeit rich with doctrinal meaning .

We must approach Hildegard to discover the answers of one woman, whose vocation was religious, whose role was that of abbess, magistra of other women, and whose extended

responsibilities required her to confront the male system of her day while, nevertheless, confirming her acceptance of it. Her vocabulary, both visual and verbal, served her unique vision. Her

questions concerned human beings and their relationship to God. She was a polymath who

demonstrated singular skills in medical, theological, and poetical spheres. She will enlighten and

stimulate but she will confirm only her own unique insights2

1 Newman. 0 Feminea Forma p. 130.

2 See Hans Liebeschiitz, Die Allegorische We ltbild der Heiligen Hildegard von Bingen (, 1930) pp. 1-2. concerning the difficulties that face any one who wishes to study Hildegard. Hans Liebeschiitz has published an invaluable volume with many references to Hildegard's contemporaries and close-contemporaries. This volume along with Christel Meier, '"Die Bedeutung der Farben Im Werk Hildegards von Bingen .. , Fruhmittelalterliche Studien VI (1972): pp. 245-355 . provide resources for the study of Hildegard's imagery.

2 Mary in Hildegard in German

In English, to my knowledge, only Barbara Newman has written much on Mary in

3 Hildegard . In Hildegard's homeland much more has been written concerning her treatment of

Mary. Serious academic work on Hildegard began with the sisters of her own convent. They

established the authenticity of her works in the 1950s. 4 Interest in her theological texts was first

established by the publication of her SCIVIAS by one of the sisters in Bingen in 1928 5 But it was

her medical texts that received the first attention in this century with the editing of her Causae et

curae in 1903 6 During the 1950s and 1960s interest in her writing grew. Many articles have been

published on her in the past two decades. Among all of these publications there are only six

dealing specifically with Mary in Hildegard. In 1926 Maura Bockeler OSB published "St.

Hildegards Lied an Maria" in the Benediktinische Monatsschrift.7 In 1928 Dr. M.

3 See Barbara Newman, "Divine Power Made Perfect in Weakness: St. Hildegard on the Frail Sex," Medieval Religious Women (Kalamazoo, 1987) pp. 103-22. Maybe also in Peaceweavers, Barbara Newman, Sister of Wisdom: St. Hildegard's Theology of the Feminine (Berkeley: Scholars Press, 1987a). and Barbara Newman, "Some Mediaeval Theologians and the Sophia Tradition,"Downside Review 108.371 (1990): pp. 111-30. Modem exploration of ways of envisioning God within feminine imagery often tum out to be very old flights rediscovered. Indeed, four medieval theologians found pluralistic uses for the biblical figure of Wisdom, or Sophia - a powerful feminine image of God's activity. Bernard of Clairvaux, Hildegard of Bingen, , and all discovered experiential ways of conceptualizing the feminine divine, although they located her at different junctures in the contex1 of their diverse theological systems and contrasting spiritual journeys all of which touch upon the subject of Mary.

4 M: Ftihrkotter Schrader, A.. Quellenkritische Untersuchungen (1956)Die Echtheit Des Schrifttum der HI. Hildegard von Bingen ( and Graz.

5 Hildegard of Bingen. Wisse die Wege--Scivias. 8th. trans. M. Bockeler (Berlin St. Augustinus Verlag/Otto Muller Verlag. 1928195-+.1957) Germ;m translation of SCJ11..4S with color plates of the illustrated Rupertsberg manuscript.

6 Heinrich Schipperges. Heilkunde: Das Buch von dem Grund und Wesen und der Heilung der Krankheiten -­ Causae et Curae (Salzburg: Otto Milller Verlag. 1957).

7 Maura Bockeler. '·St. Hildegards Lied an Maria."· Benediktinische .\1onatsschrift 8 (1926): pp. 452-58. Translation and commentary on 0 virga ac diadema purpurae Regis

3 Windstosser published a short article "Sanct Hildegard von Bingen, Ihr Leben, ihr Sang an Maria,

ihre Pfingstsequenz" in An heiligen Que/len. 8 Maria Assumpta Honmann published "Das

Marienlob der heiligen Hildegard und die gegenwartige Marienverehrung" in Die christliche Frau

in 1975 9 Peter Walter wrote "Virgo Filium Dei Portasti: Maria in den Gesangen der heiligen

Hildegard von Bingen," in Archiv fur mitte/rheinische Kirchengeschichte (1977). 10 Margot

Schmidt published in Maria fur aile Frauen oder uber allen Frauen? an article "'Maria, Spiegel

der Schonheit' zum Marienbild bei Hildegard von Bingen und Mechthild von Magdeburg" in

1989. Finally, in Mariologisches Margot Schmidt published "Maria-die 'weibliche Gestalt der

Schonheit des Allerhochsten. "' 11

The earliest articles on Hildegard's Mary were translations of three of her songs. Maura

Bockeler OSB translated 0 virga ac diadema into German and commented on the structure and

Biblical references. In her article she directs attention to the songs which are a primary source for

Hildegard's Mario logical thought. Additionally she references Hildegard's first visionary work

SCIVIAS, a German translation of which Bockeler published in 1928. 12

8 M. David Windstosser. Dr., "Sanct Hildegard von Bingen: Ihr Leben, ihr Sang an Maria, ihre Pfingstsequenz," An heiligen Que/len 5.21 (1928): pp. 146-52.

9 Maria Assumpta Honmann, "Das Marienlob der heiligen Hildegard und die gegenwartige Marienverehrung,"Die christliche Frau 64.4 (1975): pp. 97-102.

10 Peter Walter, "Virgo Filium Dei Portasti: Maria in den Gesangen der heiligen Hildegard von Bingen,'' Archiv fiir mitre/rheinische Kirchengeschichte 29 (1977).

11 Margot Schmidt, "Maria-- Die ·weibliche Gestalt der SchOnheit des AllerhOchsten '." Mariologisches 21.8 (August 1991): pp. 398-407. See also Margot Schmidt, "Maria-- »materia Aurea .. in der Kirche Nach Hildegard von Bingen,''Miinchener theologische Zeitschrift 32.1 (1981) pp. 16-32. and Margot Schmidt, Maria fiir aile Frauen oder iiber allen Frauen? ed. Elisabeth Gossmann. and Dieter R. Gauen (Freiburg: Hinder Verlag, 1989) pp. 86-115 .

12 Hildegard of Bingen. Wisse die Wege--Scivias. 8th, trans. M. Bockeler (Berlin: St. Augustinus Verlag/Otto Milller Verlag, 19281954.1957). German translation of SCI VIAS with color plates of the illustrated Rupertsberg

4 Dr M. David-Windstosser published his "Sanct Hildegard von Bingen: Ihr Leben, ihr Sang

13 an Maria, ihre Pfingstsequenz" in An heiligen Quellen in 1928 . He references other works of

Hildegard in addition to SCIVIAS in a brief history of Hildegard's life. His contribution to Hildegard

scholarship was to bring to our attention other sources ofHildegard' s Mariology. Hildegard' s second

visionary work Liber vitae meritorum and her third visionary work Liber divinorum operum and two

of her medical works Liber simplicis medicinae and Causae et curae are mentioned in his article. He

published translations of 0 virga ac diadema and 0 ignis Spiritus Paracliti in this article. His gift to

searching out Hildegard' s Mario logical thought was to expand the search beyond the songs and

visionary works to her medical works which contain cosmological references in the commentary on

the treatment of various diseases. In doing this he points out the importance of seeing through the

eyes of this twelfth-century nun, whose visions and insights made the physical world just as much a

4 source of God' s as Scripture and formal theology I

In 1975, the year of the twenty-fifth anniversary of Pius XII' s promulgation of the

doctrine of the Assumption, and after the ofPope John XIII, with a eye to

the ecumenical implications of that jubilee, Maria Assumpta Honmann published her "Das Marienlob

der heiligen Hildegard und die gegenwartige Marienverehrung" in Die christliche Frau. 15 In this

manuscript,

13 M. David Windstosser, Dr.. "Sanct Hildegard von Bingen, ihr Leben, ihr Sang an Maria. ihre Pfingstsequenz;An heiligen Quellen 5.2 1 (1928): pp. 146-52 .

14 Die Natur in ihrer ganzen Mannigfaltigkeit und Grossartigkeit der Gestalten und Gestaltung erscheint ihr als das Symbol der gottlichen Dreifaltigkeit. Ihren Geheimnissen und offenbaren Wundem legt sie mystische Beziehungen zugrunde, fur die sie Bewiese von erstaunlicher Tiefe und Oberzeugungskraft zu bringen vermag. Windstosser p. 150.

15 Maria Assumpta Honmann, '·Das Marienlob der heiligen Hildegard und die Gegenwartige Marienverehrung,''Die christliche Frau 64.4 (1975): 97-102.

5 article she points out that Hildegard represents a time in which Christianity was not divided. Although one might protest that Christianity was indeed divided between the East and the West as of 1054, one

·must also accept that Hildegard's methodology and symbolic world were much more in accord with the time of an undivided Christianity. Hildegard is before much of the Western development in specific piety and doctrine concerning Mary. She falls right on the line between a largely Byzantine influenced Mariology in the West and that which would develop from the Western medieval mentality16 Honmann believes Hildegard's Mariology is a basis on which ecumenical dialog can take place. From sources such as Hildegard's songs and the SCIVIAS she shows how Mary is related to the and how her fiat is the harmonization of God and man which we shall see fully at the second coming ofChrist17 She also attempts to show how Hildegard's symbolic system was in accord with the Second Vatican Council's declaration on the Church. Mary is placed firmly within the context of the Church. Honmann discusses the symbolism of the two aurorae which Hildegard develops in her songs as representing the inner relationship of the Trinity (the first aurora) and the second aurora, the Church which Mary'sfiat made possible among men.18 Honmann's is the first

16 The transition to a specifically Western to Mariology took place over a considerable period of time. For a brief history of this see the various chapters in. Jaroslav Pelikan, Mary Through the Centuries: Her Place in the History of Culture (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996). For a more detailed treatment see my section on ·'Mariology in the Wesf" and also. Hilda Graef, Mary.· A History of Doctrine and Devotion, 3rd (Westminster, Maryland: Sheed & Ward, 1990) p. 531. Also see Henri Barre's contributions in Bulletin de Ia Societe Franr;aise d'Etudes Mariales: "Marie et l'Eglise I." 9 (1951): 3-1-+3: "Mariologie et CEcumenisme 1.""19 (1962) pp. 27-89; "La Nouvelle Eve. " 14 (1956) pp. l-26: "La Nouvelle Eve II.'· pp. 61-97 and "Prieres Mariales au xeSiecle" in Ephemerides Mariologicae 10 (1960).

17 See Honmann. Das Marienlob der heiligen Hildegard und die gegenwartige Marienverehrung, p. 100-0 l.

18 Honmann pp. 99- 100.

6 attempt to introduce Hildegard's Mariology into an ecumenical dialog. She uses not only Hildegard's own works but also refers to many contemporary theologians both Protestant and . 19

In 1977 Peter Walter published his "Virgo Filium Dei Portasti: Maria in den Gesangen der heiligen Hildegard von Bingen" inArchiv.fiir mittelrheinische Kirchengeschichte. Walter presented the first modern text critical work on Hildegard's poems. 20 He provides a wealth of biographical material in his footnotes which can be used to reconstruct some of the history of the early twentieth-century German research into the textual and aesthetic considerations of Hildegard's poetry. He takes the sixteen Marian poems and provides through his titles a commentary on each of the poems. Titles such as Maria als Arztin; Das Handeln Gottes an Maria; Die Segnung der

Frau in Maria; Maria an der Wende der Heilsgeschichte; and Maria als lebensspendendes Reis are combined with more expected titles such as Die Mittlerschaft Marias; Die Jungfriiulichkeit

21 Marias; and Maria u~d Eva •

Margot Schmidt contributed three articles about Hildegard's Mariology. In 1981 she published "Maria - »materia aurea~< in der K.irche nach Hildegard von Bingen" in the Munchener

19 See Honmann p. 102 for references to Max Thurian, Wilhelm Stahlin, Jiirgen Multmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg.

20 Walter, pp. 75-76.

21 Under these titles Walters places the sixteen Marian poems. ·'Maria und Eva": Ave, Maria, o auctix vitae (pp 77 -78); "Maria a1s Artzin" : 0 clarissima Mater sanctae medicinae (pp. 78-79), "Das Hande1n Gottes an Maria": 0 splendidissima gemma (pp. 80-81): "Maria, die jungfrauliche Mutter": Bodie aperuit nobis c/ausa porta (pp. 81- 82). Ave, generosa, gloriosa et intacta puella (pp. 87-88). 0 tu, suavissima virga (pp. 91-92), 0 tu illustrata de divina claritate (pp. 92-93); "Die Segnung der Frau in Maria": Quia ergo femina mortem instruxit (pp. 82-83), 0 quam magnum miraculum est (pp. 85-87): "Maria an der Wende der Hei1sgeschichte": Cum erubuerint infelices in progenie sua (p. 84); "Maria, die erhabene Helferin": 0 frondens virga (p. 84-85); "Maria in der Hei1sgeschichte": 0 Virga ac diadema purpurae Regis (pp. 88-91); .. Die Jungfraulichkeit Marias": 0 quam pretiosa est (p. 93): ·'Die Mittlerschaft Marias": Alleluia. 0 virga, mediatrix (p. 94); and "Maria a1s 1ebensspendes Reis": 0 viridissima virga, ave, (pp. 94-95).

7 theologische Zeitschrift. 22 As the title indicates she investigated Hildegard's use of the phrase materia aurea with regard to Mary. From her investigation she drew three conclusions about Mary in Hildegard. First, that Mary, although historically after Eve, is the of Eve and the beginning of salvation since she is the materia aurea, which is for Mary not only her entire person, but is also connected with the Cosmos and everything up to . 23 Second, she draws parallels between Mary and the Church. 24 And finally, she concludes that the connection of Marye and the Church is such that without Mary salvation would be unthinkable. 25 Mary's ecclesiological role has a cosmological dimension just as the role of the Church does.26

She continued her exploration of the special position of Mary in Hildegard's thought in her

1989 article "Maria, Spiegel der Schonheit"27 and her "Maria -Die 'weibliche Gestalt der Schonheit

28 des Allerhochsten, "' published in 1991. . Dr. Schmidt explored the three-fold aspect of Mary in

Hildegard's visions and writings: Mary's mystical, ethical and cosmological significance29 Schmidt

22 Margot Schmidt, "Maria-- ,materia Aurea" in der Kirche Nach Hildegard von Bingen," Munchener Theologische Zeitschrift 32.1 (1981): pp. 16-32.

23 So kennzeichnet der Begriff materia aurea fur Maria nicht allein ihre ganz vollendete Person, sondern offenbart neben dem urbildlichen Heii-Sein und der "Hingebungsgewalt des Kosmos" auch den geschichtlichen Zusammenhang vom Urstand des ersten Menschen bis zu Jesus. p. 20 .

24 Pp. 29-30

25 DaB die HeilsgewiBheit ohne Maria undenkbar ist, p. 31 .

26 Die von Maria ausgehende Hei1sgewillheit erfaBt nicht allein die Kirche und die ganze Menschheit, sondern ist bis ins Kosmische ausgedehnt p. 31 .

27 Margot Schmidt, "Maria, Spiegel der Schbnheit," Mariafiir aile Frauen oder iiber allen Frauen .? (Freiburg: Hinder Verlag. 1989) pp. 86-115.

28 Margot Schmidt. "Maria-- Die 'weibliche Gestalt der Schbnheit des Allerhochsten·," Mariologisches 21.8 (August 1991) pp. 398-407.

29 Bei Hildegard hat die Jungfraulichkeit fur das Heii-Werden und Heii-Sein einen dreifachen Aspekt: einen seinsmaBig-mystischen. einen moralisch-ethischen und einen kosmischen Schmidt 1989 p. 88.

8 is the primary source of investigation into beauty and Mary. She is not, however, the only one to deal

with beauty in Hildegard. Heinrich Schipperges contributed a more general treatment of beauty in

.1958. Schipperges' treatment does not deal with Mary in specific but only in passing30

Finally one must remember Margot Schmidt's contribution to the Marienlexikon in which she

collects a great deal of information concerning Hildegard's Mariology into one four-page

contribution31 Her treatment ofHildegard's Mariology is developed in three parts. First, Mary in the

salvation of , in which she deals with the Immaculate Conception and the virgo-mater32

Second, the Assumption ofMary.33 And finally, Mary-Church-Cosmos.34 Dr. Schmidt's contributions

to the study ofHildegard's Mariology and ecclesiology have provided a useful resource for all further

research into Hildegard's Mariology.

Mary in Hildegard in English

In English there is nothing specifically concerning the Mariology of Hildegard. However, one

must mention the contributions of Barbara Newman in both her dissertation and the book which

resulted from it. In her 1981 dissertation at Y ale35 she provides us with such chapters as "The

Feminine Divine" in which she explores Hildegard' s use of the visionary forms of Sapientia and

30 Heinrich Schipperges, "Das SchOne in der Welt Hildegards von Bingen," Jahrbuch fur Asthetik und a/lgemine Kunstwissenschaft 4 (1958/59): pp. 101-02.

31 Marienlexikon pp. 191-94.

32 Marienlexikon pp.l91-193.

33 lvlarienlexikon p. 193.

:>.~ Marien/exikon pp. 193-194.

35 Ne""man, 0 Feminea Forma: Hildegard does not teach the Immaculate Conception, either because she did not know the doctrine or because it struck her as irrelevant. Only Mary's own freedom from --not that of her parents--is essential for her redemptive childbearing. p. 249

9 Caritas together with the use of the wisdom tradition in Hildegard with references to the use of

wisdom literature in some of Hildegard's contemporaries.36 In the "Three Faces of Eve" she

investigates Eve in Hildegard and Hildegard's positive orientation to her in distinction to much of

Christian history.37 In "The Mother of God" she treats traditional Marian themes: New Eve,

38 ofMary, Mary's virginity, the Annunciation, Virgo-Mater, Mary and the Church .

In a much shorter chapter in her Sister of Wisdom : St. Hildegard's theology of the feminine published

in 1987 Dr. Newman returns to treat Mary in the chapter "The Mother of God," but this is largely

a rewriting of her dissertation which adds no new information.3 9

The Contribution of this Thesis

The burden of this thesis is to draw together what Mariological materials others have

published on Hildegard. To date no one has dealt specifically with Mary in Hildegard as a discrete

subject. With the exception ofMargot Schmidt's contribution in theMarienlexikon there is not one

source to which one can tum to access Hildegard's Mariology. I shall build on the work ofthese many German and English-speaking scholars who have preceded my effort. I shall be concerned with

Hildegard's Mariology from the point of view of the texts in which Mary appears (or is alluded to), the hyrnnography of Mary which Hildegard produced as part of her artistic corpus, and the names given to Mary by Hildegard. In order to have a full picture of the importance of Hildegard I shall look

at her own history and investigate her place in the history of German mysticism, and examine briefly

36 Newman pp. 56-1 28 .

r Newman pp. 121-1 93 .

38 Newman pp. 194-272.

39 Newman, Sister of Wisdom: pp. 156-95 .

10 medieval women mystics. After a brief review ofHildegard's Marian cosmology and ecclesiology,

I shall pay particular attention to Mary's role in the salvation of human beings, discuss the Virgo-

·Mater contrast, and look for the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption in Hildegard's writing.

I shall pay some attention to two texts of Hildegard's which are not widely quoted - her answers to the thirty-eight questions posed by Guibert and her commentary on the Athanasian creed 4 0

It is the contention of this thesis that Mary's place in Hildegard's thought is a unique develop- ment of one fertile mind, schooled in the theology taught in women's religious houses at that time, and influenced by what contact she had with the theological and philosophical currents. It is a vision ofMary with a strong cosmological and symbolic component which served Hildegard's image world.

Her marian thought remained largely influenced by pre-scholastic themes. Mary is a very important part of this image world, but not in the affective manner of some later Western Mariology. Mary represented for Hildegard the summit of the possibilities to which any woman, and most specifically a virgin nun, c~uld aspire. But beyond this she was also a feminine image which illustrated the relationship between God and man-the role in which Eve fell short. As such Mary is an image of the

Church while remaining the most exalted of the . I shall not try to establish a Mariology of

Hildegard ofBingen as a separate theological category, but shall point to the contextual place which

Hildegard gives to Mary in her visionary trilogy, her letters, poems, scientific and theological works.

40 PL 197 1037-1054 for the Triginta Octo Qull.'stionum and 1063 -1082 for the Explanatio Symboli Sancti Athanasii.

11 Hildegard's Life and Times

Hildegard ofBingen is not well known outside Germany. Until very recently, she has remained

a secret treasure of the Rhineland. The primary source for her life is her Vita. Hildegard's Vita has

no criticaf edition. It is handed down in an unedited version. Adelgundis Fuhrkotter's German

translation41 is based on two manuscripts. The first is the Riesenkodex42 found in the Hessian public

library in Wiesbaden. It dates from between 1180 and 1190. The second43 dates from the thirteenth

century. The Berlin Codex contains twenty-one glosses, marginal notes of texts Hildegard wrote in

her own hand, and which were added in the thirteenth century to the codex. 44 Both of these

manuscripts seem to have had a common source45 A less-than-error-free text can be found in

Migne.46 In German there is an 1854 translation47 and an 193 5 translation.48 In English there is a •

41 Gottfried and Theoderic, Das Leben der heiligen Hildegard von Bingen. Ein Bericht aus dem 12. Jahrhundert, 3rd ed, trans. Adelgundis Ftihrkotter, O.S.B (Salzburg, : Otto Muller Verlag, 1980).

42 Gottfried and Theoderic, Hildegard-Vita, Hildegard-Vita, Manuscript, Hs.2 (Wiesbaden: Llandesbiliothek, 1180-1190) pp. 317-27.

43 Gottfried and Theoderic, Hildegard-Vita, Manuscript, Lat 4° 674 (Berlin: Staatsbibliothek, Preuss. Kulturbesitz Foundation, thirteenth century) pp. 1-24.

44 Life pp.114-15 and footnote 49 p. 122.

45 Life p. 11·+

46 Hildegard of Bingen, Sanctae Hildegardis Abbatissae Opera Omnia. vol. 197 of Patrologiae Cursus Completus, ed. JP. Migne, Series Latina, vol. 197 (, 1855). Contains Vita S Hildegardis, 145 Episto/ae, Scivias, Liber di vinorum operum. Physica and several short works.

47 Gottfried and Theoderic, Leben und Schriften der heiligen Hildegard, trans. Ludwig Clams (, 1854) pp. 38-101. vita 38-101

48 Gottfried and Theoderic, Hildegard von Bingen und ihre Schwestern, trans. Karl Koch (Leipsig, 1935) pp. 115-72.

12 translation of Adelgundis Fiihrkotter's German translation Das Leben der heiligen Hildegard von

Bingen. Ein Bericht aus dem 12. Jahrhundert.4 9

The Vita itself is composed of three books. The first by the Gottfried, who was the

secretary to Hildegard, belonged to the Disibodenberg Cloister and was the of the Rupertsberg

Cloister. Gottfried died toward of 1175 or the beginning of 1176.50 Theoderic (who,

according to Fiihrkotter, is the same Theodoricus who authored the Chronicon Epternacense) wrote the second and third books51 and three forwards to the Vita. Theoderic's work on the Vita was done

at the request of two . Ludwig who was of St. in from 1168-1188 and

abbot ofEchternach from 1173-1181 was a close associate of Hildegard as we can see by the epilog in her Liber divinorum operum in which his loyal support is mentioned by the Abbess and from letters exchanged by the two. 52 Gottfried, the abbot ofEchtenach from 1181-1210 and of St. Eucharius from

1190-121 0 was a monk at St. Eucharius. He permitted Theoderic to bring the Hildegard-Vita to

completion. 53 The Vita was never intended to be a complete biography of Hildegard. The authors presented Hildegard as they saw her with the eyes of religious persons who loved and revered her.

To obtain a complete picture ofHildegard we must combine the Vita with her theological, artistic and

scientific productions, and know some of the history of her time.

49 Life p. 134.

50 M: Fiihrkotter Schrader, A.. Quellenkritische Untersuchungen (1 956): pp. 11 , 147ff. Die Echtheit des Schrifttum der hi. Hildegard von Bingen (Cologne and Graz: 1956).

51 Life. p. 115.

52 Schrader. Quellenkritische Untersuchungen, pp. 142-53. 157, 162-66.

53 Life p. 11 6.

13 She was born sometime during the summer of 1098 at Bickelheim, on the left bank of the

Nahe River-a tributary of the river in the beautiful province ofRheinhessen. Her family was part of the German nobility. Her father, , owned estates around Bermersheim. 54 She was the tenth, and youngest, child. As a member of the nobility Hildegard enjoyed, throughout her long life

(+ 1179), the advantages of wealth, high birth, membership in a large and well-connected family and easy access to the holders of political and ecclesiastical power. Hildegard was offered by her parents

(Hildebert and Mechthild) as a gift-a tithe to God, perhaps in thanksgiving for their good fortune.

Like many of the nobility, Hildegard's family chose to attach Hildegard to a woman who was already practicing the ethic ofworld-renouncing . Jutta ofSponheim was the daughter of the Count of Sponheim, and had been living the life of a recluse from 1106.55 Jutta took in the eight -year-old

Hildegard, who became Jutta' s handmaid and companion. Jutta, for her part, taught Hildegard to read the , particularly the Psalms, and to the monastic office.56 In time, as more women joined Jutta and Hildegard, the hermitage became a nunnery professing the Benedictine Rule (as would have been appropriate for the German nobility of the day). The hermitage was adjacent to the

54 On Hildegard's family see Marianna Schrader, Die Herkunft der hi. Hildegard, rev. ed. (Mainz, 1981).

55 Jutta is said to have rejected offers of in favor of enclosure in an anchoress' cell.

56 Jutta and Hildegard would have had ·· ... one or more servants, and would have been walled up in a couple of small, spartan rooms. The formal religious service which marked their enclosure echoed the rites of burial. The women were to be hidden from the world, for the good of their souls and for the greater glory of God. '' Hildegard of Bingen. An Anthology. Ed. and Introduction by Fiona Bowie & Oliver Da,ies. Trans by Robert Carver. London: SPCK (1990) pp. 8-9.

14 abbey church ofDisibodenberg, the site of an earlier Celtic monastery57 Hildegard's siblings also

8 boasted two cantors, and a sister who joined Hildegard's community. 5

As the hermitage grew into a convent its practice gradually changed into a cenobitic com- ponent of the Benedictine order. At fifteen Hildegard took the habit of a Benedictine nun. We hear nothing about her until the year 1136 when she is elected the leader of the community upon the death of Jutta. It would be five more years before she would receive the prophetic call that would cause her to write the SCIVIAS. 59

Hildegard's Life After 113 6

Hildegard's election as abbess at the death of Jutta marks her emergence' into the political world of the twelfth century. As with all members ofher society, she received into the monastery only women of wealth or noble birth. She accepted as axiomatic that class structure had been divinely

5 - See, Wolfgang Seibrich, "Zur Geschichte des Disbodenbergs," in Der Disibodenberg (1979), pp. 7-13. It is clear that Disibod was a Scotch-Irish monk who preached the in Hildegard's region in the seventh century. He might have settled in the region that is still known as Mount St. Disibode. Hildegard wrote lives of St. Disibode and St. Rupert (another Celtic monk). But Disibode's monastery was refounded by Ruthard of Mainz about 1105 in the wake of the Cluniac Benedictine reforms. The first abbot was installed in 1108, two years after Hildegard's arrival.

58 Hildegard's brothers Hugo and Roricus were priests and her elder sister, Clementia, became a nun at the Rupertsberg convent (Bowie and Davis p. 8).

59 SCJVIAS is an abbreviation for Scito vias Domini or Know the Trays of the Lord. Written between 1141 and 1151.

15 ordained. Maintaining class structure ensured good order in society and in a monastery.60 Within the

wall of that convent life was characterized by studious inquiry, prayer, art, music and work.

This Benedictine way of life made for a well-ordered, quiet, secure way of life. A balanced

rhythm of prayer, work, and study marked the day. A day was divided into seven periods. The first

began at 2:00a.m. with the chanting ofnoctum. After returning to sleep for a brief period, the sisters

arose before 6:00a.m. to chant lauds. Then some private time for reading or meditation in their cell

preceded a return to the chapel to recite prime. A simple breakfast followed; and then a brief period

of morning work, in the laundry or kitchen or in housekeeping chores, was followed by the recitation

of terce and the eucharistic liturgy, usually sung by the entire community. Fallowing liturgy the sisters

did manual labor in the herb garden, the vineyards, or the vestry. Before noon, they chanted sext, and

then ate lunch. A brief rest followed the midday meal, and about 3:00 p.m. they sang none, again

followed by work. Vespers was chanted after a light supper after which the read, studied, and

meditated before ending their day by chanting compline together. Within a day the sisters worked

about six hours, slept eight hours, and prayed together three or four hours; the rest of their time was

spent in personal spiritual reading, study, and meditation 6 1

60 Among the correspondence of Hildegard there is a letter from another abbess Tengswindis. Tengswindis is concerned about some stories she has received about the dress and manner of Hildegard· s nuns on feast days. She is also concerned about Hildegard's limiting her members to those women of high birth. Hildegard's answer can be found in a corrupted tex1 in Migne (197: 338A) which Dronke reconstructs: "It is God who holds the ·scrutiny (scrutinium)' of diverse classes, so that the lesser order does not mount above the higher, as did Satan and the first . man' . What farmer would put oxen, asses. sheep and goats in a single enclosure?-- they would all scatter. So there must be differentiation among people, 'lest those of diverse estates, herded into the same flock, scatter themselves in the pride of self-assertion and the ignominy of being different ... tearing one another with hate, when the higher rank sets upon the lower and the lower mounts above the higher. · God ranked his in nine hierarchies-and he loves them all .. Peter Dronke, Women Writers of the : A Critical Study ofTexts from Perpetua e-203) toMargarite Porete (-r13 10) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984) pp. 165-66.

61 Gloria Durka, Praying with Hildegard ofBingen . Companions for the Journey (Winona, Minnesota: St Mary's Press/Christian Brothers Publications, 1991) pp. 19-21.

16 A balanced, spiritual way oflife in harmony with God, other humans and themselves was the goal of the sisters' lives. Hildegard slightly altered the Benedictine way of life; as part of harmony, she advocated warm baths and nutritional food both as preventatives and as cures for common ailments.62 She was well known as a healer. People made pilgrimages to her for medical advice. In the first and second books of the Vita there are several comments concerning Hildegard's conduct of the business of her monasteries and about the manner in which she fulfilled the role of abbess. In the second book there is an alteration between her visions and her work as abbess. Both of her biographers clearly wished to emphasize her work as abbess as well as her visions. Chapter Four of the Vita serves as a good illustration of the environment of this twelfth-century monastery and its abbess:

In this way, streams of good works, like rivers of paradise, were spread not only in the neighborhood but also through the entire German kingdom. And from all sides, groups of people, men and women whose lives, by God's grace, she had touched, steadily made their way to her and she gave proper exhortations for their lives. For the salvation of their souls, she proposed questions taken from the Sacred Scripture and then solved them. Very many received recommendations from her for the physical ailments which they suffered. Not a few of them were freed of their sufferings through her blessings. However, since, because of her prophetic spirit, she also knew the thoughts and views of human beings, she rebuked some who came to her with perverted and frivolous hearts, out of curiosity. Since they could not resist the Spirit who spoke through her, having been admonished and corrected, they had to abandon their bad conduct. Indeed, by means of their own Law, she even refuted who came to her with questions and encouraged them with good words about belief in Christ. So she, in accordance with the words of the Apostle, "became all things to all people"( 1 Cor 9:22). Even to strangers who came to her, even to the

62 Hildegard· s knowledge of medicine and the care of the body was taught her by Jutta. Hildegard· s writings on medicine provide precious knowledge on twelfth centuf}· practices. much of which is as applicable today as it was in her life. Hildegard used the four-element system and the four-humor system, which date back at least to the time of the ancient Greeks. One of Hildegard's concerns was to integrate natural medicine with spiritual knowledge. See Hildegard ofBingen' s lvfedicine, edited and introduced by Dr. Wighard Strehlow & Gottfried Hertzka, M.D .. with a translation by Karin Anderson Strehlow (published by Bear & Company. Santa Fe, New Mexico 1988).

17 guilty, she spoke graciously and lovingly, in a way that seemed to her to be beneficial for them. She directed the nuns living with her in the convent with loving attention and motherly tenderness when resentment or dissension or worldly sadness, idleness, or laxity existed among them. She even saw through their desires, their views, and their thoughts so clearly that at divine worship she imparted to each of them a special blessing corresponding to the state of their heart. In the Spirit, she foresaw the life and the conduct ofhuman beings, and in many cases even the end of their lives and, also, in accordance with the condition of their lifestyle, the final , namely the glory or the punishment of their souls. However, she revealed the great secrets to no one except that man with whom she, as has been indicated, shared all the secrets [Volmar]. And just as she knew exactly when it was time to be silent, she also knew where and with whom, why, how, and when it was time to speak. And with all she held fast to the highest of all virtues, humility. Because she knew that God "is stem with the arrogant but to the humble he shows kindness" (1 Pet 5: 5), she always praised the omnipotent generosity of 63 . ·

Woven into the Second Book of her Vita are also the visions. From her early childhood,

Hildegard had a deep spiritual awareness. She reports in her declaration at the beginning of SCIVIAS:

". . . I had sensed in myself wonderfully the power and mystery of secret and admirable visions from my childhood-that is, from the age of five-up to that time, as now. This, however, I showed to no one except a few religious persons who were living in the same manner as I: but meanwhile, until the time when God by His grace wished it to be manifested, I concealed it in quiet silence." 64

It was to be decades before Hildegard would understand this Living Light.

Five years after she became abbess Hildegard had the visions that would led to her first visionary work, SCIVIAS. Hildegard described this event in the very beginning of her first work,

SCIVIAS:

"0 fragile human, ashes of ashes, and filth of filth t Say and write what you see and hear. But since you are timid in speaking, and simple in expounding, and untaught in writing, speak and write these things not by a human mouth, and not by the

63 Life pp. 53-54.

64 Hart & Bishop pp. 59 & 60.

18 understanding ofhuman invention, and not by the requirements of human composi­ tion, but as you see and hear them in such a way that the hearer, receiving the words ofhis instructor, may expound them in those words, according to that will, vision and instruction. Thus, therefore, 0 human, speak these things that you see and hear. And write them not by yourself or any other human being, but by the will of Him Who knows, sees and disposes all things in the secrets of His mysteries." And agai!) I heard the voice from Heaven saying to me, "Speak therefore of these wonders, and, being so taught, write them and speak." It happened that, in the eleven hundred and forty-first year of the Incarnation of the son of God, Jesus Christ, when I was forty-two years and seven months old, Heaven was opened and a fiery light of exceeding brilliance came and permeated my whole brain, and inflamed my whole heart and my whole breast, not like a burning but like a warming flame, as the sun warms anything its rays touch. And immediately I knew the meaning of the exposition of the Scriptures, namely the Psalter, the Gospel and the other catholic volumes ofboth the Old and the New Testaments, though I did not have the interpretation of the words of their texts or the division of the syllables or the knowledge of cases or tenses. But I had sensed in myself wonderfully the power and mystery of secret and admirable visions from my childhood-that is, from the age of five--up to that time, as I do now. This, however, I showed to no one except a few religious persons who were living in the same manner as I; but meanwhile, until the time when God by His grace wished it to be manifested, I concealed it in quiet silence. But the visions I saw I did not perceive in dreams, or sleep, or delirium, or by the eyes of the body, or by the ears of the outer self, or in hidden places; but I received them while awake and seeing with a pure mind and the eyes and ears of the inner self, in open places, as God willed it. How this might be is hard for mortal flesh to understand. But when I had passed out of childhood and had reached the age of full maturity mentioned above, I heard a voice from Heaven saying, "I am the Living Light, Who illuminates the darkness. The person [Hildegard] whom I have chosen and whom I have miraculously stricken as I willed, I have placed among great wonders, beyond the measure of the ancient people who saw in Me many secrets; but I have laid her low on the earth, that she might not set herself up in arrogance of mind. The world has had in her no joy or lewdness or use in worldly things, for I have withdrawn her from impudent boldness, and she feels fear and is timid in her works. For she suffers in her inmost being and in the veins of her flesh; she is distressed in mind and sense and endures great pain of body, because no security has dwelt in her, but in all her undertakings she has judged herself guilty. For I have closed up the cracks in her heart that her mind may not exalt itself in pride or vainglory, but may feel fear and grief rather than joy and wantonness. Hence in My love she searched in her mind as to where she could find someone who would run in the path of salvation. And she found such a one and loved him [the monk Volmar ofDisibodenberg, her confessor], knmving that he was a faithful man, working like herself on another part of the work that leads to Me. And, holding fast to him, she worked with him in great zeal so that

19 My hidden miracles might be revealed. And she did not seek to exalt herself above herself but with many sighs bowed to him whom she found in the ascent of humility and the intention of good will. "0 human, who receive these things meant to manifest what is hidden not in the disquiet of deception but in the purity of simplicity, write, therefore, the things you see and hear." But I, though I saw and heard these things, refused to write for a long time through doubt and bad opinion and the diversity of human words, not with stubbornness but in the exercise of humility, until, laid low by the scourge of God, I fell upon a bed of sickness; then, compelled at last by many illnesses, and by the witness of a certain noble maiden of good conduct [the nun Richardis of Stade] and of the man whom I had secretly sought and found, as mentioned above, I set my hand to the writing. While I was doing it, I sensed, as I mentioned before, the deep profundity of scriptural exposition; and, raising myself from illness by the strength I received, I brought this work to a close-though just barely-in ten years. These visions took place and these words were written in the days of Henry, Archbishop of Mainz, and of Conrad, King of the Romans, and of Kuno,' Abbot of Disibodenberg, under Pope Eugenius. And I spoke and wrote these things not by the invention of my heart or that of any other person, but as by the secret mysteries of God I heard and receive them in the heavenly places. And again I heard a voice from Heaven saying to me, "Cry out therefore, and write thus I " 65

Hildegard' s Public Ministry

Such a sought-after figure could not long stay solely within the walls of a convent. It was due to her visions and the need to prophesy, as well as her fame as a healer and a spiritual counselor, that

Hildegard entered the political arena. A public ministry, which brought her into contact and conflict with some major political and ecclesiastical figures ofher day. At first, she could not believe she was called to such work. After all, she was a woman. Didn't this violate deutero-Pauline strictures on female silence and submission?66 So she turned to the great reformer of the Benedictine monasteries,

65 Hart & Bishop pp. 59-61 .

66 See I Timothy 2:12.

20 Bernard of Clairvaux, for spiritual counsel. Hildegard's letter to Bernard, her earliest extant letter,

. dates from 114 7 and well expresses the difficulties which Hildegard faced

Most praiseworthy Father Bernard, through God' s power you stand wonderfully in highest honor. You are formidable against the indecent foolishness of this world. Full of lofty zeal and in ardent love for God's Son, . . . . I beseech you, father, by the living God, hear me in what I ask you. I am concerned about this vision (SCIVIAS) which opens before me in spirit as a mystery. I have never seen it with the outer eyes of the flesh. I am wretched and more than wretched in my existence as a woman. And yet, already as a child, I saw great things of wonder which my tongue could never have given expression to, if God's spirit hadn't taught me to believe. I know in Latin text the meaning of the interpretation of the psalms, the , and the other books which are shown to me through this vision. It stirs my heart and soul like a burning flame and teaches me the depth of interpretation. And yet this vision doesn't teach me writings in the ; these I don't know I can simply read them but have no ability to analyze them ... . It is only within my soul, that I have been trained. And that is why I speak with such doubt. ... I have not talked about this to anyone else, because, as I hear it said, there is so much divisiveness among people. There is just one person with whom I have shared this, a monk [Volmar] whom I have tested and whom I have found reliable in his cloistered way of life. I have revealed all of my secrets to him and he has consoled me with the assurance that they are sublime and awe-inspiring. I beg you, father, for God's sake, that you comfort me 67

Bernard's reply is much shorter but very positive towards Hildegard:

If you consider our littleness quite differently from how we ourselves judge it in our conscience, we believe we must impute this exclusively to your humility. Therefore I have not hesitated to reply to your affectionate letter, although the multitude of matters I have on my hands obliges me to answer you much more briefly than I would wish. We are happy to know ofthe grace of God which is within you. And, as far as it behooves us, we exhort you and beg you to consider it as a grace and to make every effort to respond to this gift with sentiments of deep humility and devotion, knowing that "God resists the proud and bestows His grace upon the humble"( 1 Pet 5:5) Besides, when inner instruction and the unction which teaches everything already exists, what need is there for us to teach or to warn?68

67 Miller pp. 271-73 .

68 Bernard's reply can be found in M. Fiihrkotter Schrader. A. , Quellenkritische [Jntersuchungen (1956) : pp. 105-08Die Echtheit Des Schriftrum der hi Hildegard von Bingen (Cologne and Graz. translation taken from

21 Hildegard did not perceive her age as a time of spiritual fervor and renewal; on the contrary, she saw it as an "effeminate age"69 which is inferior to both the paradisal age of "virginal " and the apostolic age of "masculine strength. "70 She considered it an age in which the Scriptures were neglected, the clergy "lukewarm and sluggish," and the Christian people ill-informed. 71 Clearly, she understood her mission in the same terms as the prophets. The precise dating of her visions (as you saw above) follows a literary convention established by the Hebrew prophets and continued by the seer John ofPatmos.

Hildegard's evaluation of her age was on the basis of her visions of the paradisical age and the age of the . But her age, in retrospect, can not be considered so harshly. It was an age of great reforms in the church. Bernard of Clairvaux (1 090-115 3) and his reform of the

Benedictine order, which became known as the Cluniac reform, produced the -a stricter observance of the rules of St Benedict. 72 Bernard was at the center of much of the twelfth century's ecclesiastical life. Indeed, Hildegard's life spanned eighty percent of this remarkable century

(1 098-11 79)-a century that saw Chartres Cathedral rise from the grain fields of with its beautiful stained glass and remarkable sculpture. 73 Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122?-1204)74 and Thomas

Emilie Zum Brunn and Georgette Epiney-Burgard, Women Mystics in Medieval Europe. 1st American, trans. Sheila Hughes (New York: Paragon House, 1988) p. 21.

69 See the Letter to Conrad III, written about 1150/51 Ep. 26, PL 197: 185C; Ep. 13 , PL 197:167B.

70 See PL 197:1005ab, DOD III.l0.7.

7 1 Hildegard castigated the priest of the church on numerous ocassions. See, DOD III 10.11; SCIVIAS II.l.

72 See "Bernard of Clairvaux" in New Catholic vol. II pp. 335-338; "Cistercians" NCE vol. III pp. 882-890.

73 See "Chartres" NCEvol III pp. 513-515. Also Civilization by Sir Kenneth Clark pp. 48-56.

74 See "Eleanor of Aquitaine" in New vol. VI .

22 a Becket (118?-1170) strode the political stage. Frederick Barbarossa (1123-1190) frightened peasant and pope alike.75 The ofParis was evolving into the University ofParis.

Suger consecrated St Denis;76 and Heloise and Abelard (1079-1140) met, fell in love and left their tragic story for generations to ponder. 77 Hildegard dressed down Frederick Barbarossa, 78carried her book SCIVIAS to Paris and received its faculty's approval,79 participated in the reforms of the

80 81 , and wrote to Bernard of Clairvaux for assurance.

After overcoming her initial hesitation about writing, Hildegard took some ten years to complete her first visionary work, SCIVIAS. To do this she enlisted the help ofVolmar as editor, and depended on the assistance and moral support of her friend, the nun Richardis von Stade.82 During those ten years two major events took place in Hildegard's life. First, her fame grew by the efforts of Volmar and her bishop, Henry of Mainz. Eventually Pope Eugenius III, who happened to be

75 1152-1190, King of Germany 1152-1190, King of 1155-1190.

76 See Abbot & Saint-Denis NY: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1987. This is a full history of St Denis and Suger's work there, on the basis of archaeological evidence.

n See "Abelard" in NCE vol. I pp. 15-17. Also "Heloise" in NCE vol. VI p. 1014.

78 Hildegard had at least one meeting with Barbarossa in her life. She seems to be unafraid of him. Miller pp. 289-292.

79 Hildegard traveled to Paris in her mid-seventies with her book under her arm.

80 Among Hildegard's conntribution was a commentary on the rule of St Benedict. PL 197

81 See Miller pp. 271-3 .

82 See Ildefons Herwegen, "Les collaborateurs de Ste. Hildegarde," Revue benedictine 21 (1904 ): 192-203, 303- 315, 381-403. According to Barbara Newman in SCJVIAS (The Classics of Western Spirituality). "Recent research has indicated that Volmar's role was limited to copy editor and scribe; he did no significant stylistic revision." p. 48 note 7.

23 83 presiding over a synod ofbishops at Trier in the winter of 1147--48, heard ofher . On the advice of

84 Bernard of Clairvaux, whom Hildegard had written shortly before the synod , the Pope secured a copy of SCIVIAS and had it publicly read to the assembled . Eugenius III then gave it official endorsement by sending the seer a letter of apostolic greeting and to continue her work. 85

Second, at the same time as the synod, Hildegard had a vision in which she was instructed to leave

St. Disibod, the male community to which she and her nuns were attached, and found a new convent on the site of a ruined Carolingian monastery near Bingen. Hildegard's vision did not meet with acceptance from many of her nuns or the abbot of St Disibod. Richardis left to become abbess of another monastery, and the local nobility ridiculed her move.86 The abbot Kuno and the of

Disibode fought her all the way. Her presence attracted increasing numbers of pilgrims, with their donations, to the monastery. Hildegard in a letter to the abbot comparedhis style with that of"a grumbling bear, a glum and bungling ass, and birds who fly neither high or low." 87 Nevertheless, she persevered, using her family connections to secure the land and a miraculous "charismatic illness" 88 to persuade the abbot that her departure was the will of God. In 1148 Hildegard and eighteen of the

83See Life pp. 38-39. also see footnote 17 for a brief history of Pope Eugene III and Hildegard's correspondence. English translations of Hildegard's correspondence with Pope Euguene III can be found on pages 103-105.

84 SeeHildegard of Bingen, Hildegard of Bingen's Book of Divine Works with Letters and Songs, p. pp. 271-73 . and Bernard's reply. Schrader, Quellenkritische Untersuchungen, p. pp. 105-08.

85 See Ep I PL 197: l.t3ab. Also, Marianna Schrader and Adelgundis Fiihrkotter, Die Echtheit des Schrifttums der hi. Hildegard von Bingen (Cologne, 1956) pp.ll-19.

86 See Hildegard's letter to her daughters. PL 197: 1065s-67A. Also, Maria Brede. "Die Kloster der hi. Hildegard Rupertsberg und Eibingen," in Hildegard von Bingen, 1179-1979, Anton Bruck (Mainz. 1979) pp. 77- 94.(Mariam Schmitt, ·'Saint Hildegard of Bingen: Leaven of God's Justice," Cistercian Studies, vol24, p.76).

87 Miriam Schmitt, "Saint Hildegard of Bingen: Leaven of God's Justice," Cistercian Studies 24: p. 76. also Vita 1.7 and.Gottfried and Theoderic, The Life of Holy Hildegard, p. pp.42-44.

88 Life pp . .t0-41.

24 nuns left Disibodenberg and founded a new abbey for women at Rupertsberg. Her new monastic church of St. Rupert was formally consecrated in 1152.

Hildegard devoted the to securing the welfare of her monastery8 9 She established monastic discipline by teaching and preaching, supervised construction of the new buildings, obtained gifts and bequests to make her community financially secure, fought for a charter of independence from St. Disibod, and wrote the vita of St. Rupert. 90 The community blossomed. In 1165 Hildegard founded another abbey at Eibingen. For Hildegard, the move to Rupertsberg marks the beginning of her most creative period. To this period belong a commentary on the Athanasian creed, as well as a collection of liturgical songs that were eventually gathered into her Symphonia.91 Perhaps she also completed the final version of her music , the (Play of Virtues), and the mysterious , which she seems to have created as a kind of secret language to instill a sense of mystical solidarity among her nuns 92 She also composed two scientific works: The Book of

Simple Medicine and the Book of Composite Medicine or Causes and Cures.93 These books, unlike her three visionary writings, make no claim to divine inspiration. They were produced either for the

89 Life pp. 44-46.

90 The te:x.1 in Pitra'sAnalecta sacra entitiled "Epilogus ad Vitam Ruperti" (pp. 358-68) is actually a compilation of several songs. . letters and dramatic material. Only the first three songs have anything to do with St. Rupert. In the Riesnkodex Hildegard's Vita S Ruperti appears in fols 404'--407"

91 See Symphonia.

92 This work is still unedited. see J.P. PitraAna/ecta sacra. vol VIII pp. 496-502 for fragments. and also Wilhelm Grimm, "Wiesbader Glossen.'· in Zeitschriftfur deutsches Alterthum 6 (1848) pp. 334-40.

93 See lrmgard Muller, Die pjlanzlichen Heilmittel bei Hildegard von Bingen (Salzburg, 1981): Karl-Heinz Reger, Hildegard-Medizin.

25 teaching of her nuns or for her own use in healing those who came to her94 From the evidence we

have it seems likely that she, like many monastics, practiced medicine informally, and that she used

both natural and means in this healing.95

Hildegard's health was always fragile. Her illnesses often proved to be the prelude to major

96 decisions . In 1158, her monastery at Rupertsberg received a charter that regulated the relationship

between Disibodenberg and Rubertsberg's finances. It also established the principle that the monks would supply the nuns with a provost of their choice to oversee their spiritual welfare. Hildegard

again had a prolonged illness. This was the prelude to three preaching missions over the next five years. This was no small decision for someone who was around 60 years of age, and had been a

cloistered nun for over fifty years. Hildegard traveled along the Rhine and the Main rivers. She

preached at monasteries and gave fiery apocalyptic in the cathedral towns of Cologne and

Trier. She preached in Bamberg, Wurzberg, Ingelsheim, and throughout Lorraine. Hildegard went as far south as Constanz on the Swiss border as well as to Siegberg, Bonn, Anderbach, Metz,

Bavaria, and the Black Forest. To civil rulers, Hildegard preached justice in the exercise of their authority. To clergy, she urged faithfulness to their vocation as spiritual leaders and models of virtue.

She was particularly concerned with , clerical celibacy, and the subservience that church

94 It is interesting to note that these books were never disseminated, nor were they included in the huge manuscript of her collected works prepared at the Rupertsberg shortly after her death.

95 See Vita, Book III: Acta inquisitionis de virtutibus et miraculis sanctae Hildegardis, PL 197: 131-140.

96 See T-'ita 1.3 , I.5.1 .6.I.7,Il.5.Il.7.ll.10.II.l1,III.23 , III.24 .

26 prelates paid to secular powers. 97 Some of her sermons are preserved because she was asked to send her text in letters. 98

The most famous of Hildegard's encounters with the secular powers was with Frederick

Barbarossa. Hildegard opposed Frederick's support of an antipope, Victor IV. When, in 1164, Victor

IV died, Barbarossa did not seek reconciliation with the legitimate pope, but instead appointed a successor to Victor. This outraged the prelates and Hildegard joined her voice to theirs. She continued to oppose Frederick when he appointed a third antipope in 1168. 99 Less well known, but very interesting, is Hildegard's objection to the Cathars that she wrote at the request of the canons ofMainz.100

Hildegard also began her final visionary work, the Liber divinomm operum or Book ofDivine

Works (also called De operatione Dei or On the Activity of God). 101 Before she could complete the

97 See especially Ep. 48, PL 197: 244-53 (Cologne) and E. 49, PL 197: 254-258 (Trier).

98 See Hildegard's letters in Matthew Fox, Hildegard ofBingen's Book ofDivine Works- with Letters and Songs.

99 See Heinrich Buttner, "Die Beziehungen der hl . Hildegard zur Kurie, Erzbishofund Kaiser," in Universitas: Festschrift fur Bischof Stohr 2 (Mainz. 1960). On the schism seeM. G. Cheney, "The Recognition of Pope Alexander III Some Neglected Evidence," English Historical Review 84 (1969): 474-97; Robert Somerville, Pope Alexander III and the Council of Tours (1163): A Study ofEcclesiastical and Institutions in the Twelfth Century (Berkeley, 1977).

100 See '·De Catharis," Pitra, 348-51: Raoul Manselli, ·'Amicizia spirituale ed azione pastorale nella Germania del sec. XII Ildegard de Bingen, Elisabetta ed Ecberto di SchOnau contro l'eresia catara," Studi e materiali di storia delle religioni 38 (1967): fasc. 1-2. 302-313 ; Gerhard Muller. "Diehl. Hildegard im Kampf mit Haresien ihrer Zeit Zur Auseinandersetzung mit den Katharem." in Bruck. Hildegard von Bingen, 171-188.

10 1 Heinrich Schipperges used the title De operatione Dei in his German translation (Ghent. Universiteitsbibliotheek, Cod. 241). It is also the title on the oldest and best of the MS of this work, the Genter Kodex which is believed to have been prepared under Hildegard's supervision at the Rupertsberg some time between 1170 and 1173-but it appears to be a scribal addition. Liber divinorum operum is a name in contemporary lists of Hildegard· s work. Robert Cunningham gives a fuller account of Schipperges' usage of manuscripts in his ·translator's notes ' to the Book of Divine Works p. 2 found in. Hildegard of Bingen. Hildegard ofBingen 's Book of Divine Works with Letters and Songs. ed. Matthew Fox, trans. Robert Cunningham ( Santa Fe. New Mexico Bear & Company. 1987) 408.

27 Book of Divine Works, her secretary, Volmar, died (1173). He was replaced by Gottfried of St.

Disibod and subsequently by Guibert (or Wibert) ofGembloux, a Belgian mon1c

A final conflict led Hildegard and her community to be placed under interdict by the

Archbishop ofMainz. Hildegard, then in her eighties, refused to dig up the body of a young man who was buried in the monastery .·Hildegard insisted that the youth had confessed, been anointed, and received communion before dying-and, therefore, should remain. The interdict prohibited the members of the community from singing the Divine Office (they had to say it), from receiving communion, or celebrating the Mass, and from having a Christian burial. To prevent the chapter from corning to dig up the body, Hildegard went to the cemetery herself and rem.oved all traces of the burial. Finally, after six months, the interdict was lifted-Hildegard had outlasted the prelate's antagonism. As always Hildegard wrote letters, and in one she gives an apologia for music and its role in the spiritual life. Hildegard laments how by the interdict the Archbishop has silenced the most wonderful music on the Rhine. 102 She died on 17 September 11 79. According to legend, two streams of light appeared in the skies and crossed over the room in which she lay dying. So Hildegard of

Bingen was at last silent. 103

A Synopsis ofHildegard's Writings

Hildegard's literary production can be conveniently divided into four parts: first, the three visionary works; second, her scientific/medical works; and third, her letters and artistic productions which include songs, poems, a , and the illuminations made for her writings. In all we have nearly three hundred letters, dozens of poems, nine books and a play, as well as songs.

102 See EP 47. PL 197: 218-221.

103 See Life pp. 99-100.

28 The Visionary Works

The three visionary works of Hildegard are also her three theological works. SCIVIAS, the

first one to be written, took ten years to complete (1141-1151) 104 In the first part of SCIVIAS

Hildegard has six visions of the Creator and the creation105 The second book, in seven visions, is

concerned with the Savior, the Church, its hierarchy and -especially Baptism,

Confirmation and the Eucharist-and the theme of continuing temptation and evil 106 The third book

explores the work of the in building up the Kingdom of God through the virtues, the day

107 108 ofjudgment and the New Earth The final part is concerned with the theme of victory and praise .

This final vision was later developed by Hildegard into her play Ordo virtutum 'Play of Virtues.'

Her second visionary work, The Book of Life's Merits (Liber vitae meritorum) was written

between 1158 and 1163. It consists of six visions. In each the figure of a man looks towards different

points of the compass. The first five visions present thirty-five pairs ofvirtues and vices. The vices

are examined in more detail than the virtues, and the commentary includes penances for their

expiation. The vices also appear in graphic form (unlike the virtues), and Hildegard presents a

104 For the description of the visionary works I have relied heavily on Fiona Bowie & Oliver Davies' Hildegard ofBingen: An Anthology, an SPCK book which features new translations by Robert Carver and is edited by Bowie and Davies (published in 1990).

105 SCJl/fAS I. 1-6 the best translation into English for all of the SCJVIAS is. Hildegard of Bingen, Hildegard of Bingen's SCJT 7AS, Hildegard of Bingen's SCJT,7AS, trans. C. Hart, and T Bishop (Paulist Press, 1990) pp. 63-143 . In German Maura Bockeler's Hildegard of Bingen, Wisse die Wege--Scivias, 8th, trans. M. Bockeler (Berlin: St. Augustinus Verlag/Otto Muller Verlag, 19281954.1957). German translation of SCJl/fAS with color plates of the illustrated Rupertsberg manuscript, taken from the illuminated Rupertsberg Kodex.

106 SC!li7.4SIL 1-7. Hart&Bishop. pp. 145-303.

107 SCIVJ.4S III. Hart & Bishop pp. 305-522.

108 SC!l/fAS III. Hart & Bishop pp. 523-36.

29 powerful and expressive representation of purgatory and hell. The final vision turns to more general themes such as judgment and the promise for the blessed of glory in heaven109

Her third visionary work, The Book of Divine Works (De operatione Dei) was written between 1163 and 1173/4.110 It is the most mature ofher visionary works. Like SCIVIAS, it is divided into three books. Ten visions are presented in this work which addresses the Christian mystery in its full cosmological depth. The first book, consisting of four visions, deals with the creation of the world by love and the special place of humanity in God's creation. The second book develops the theme of humanity as the moral center of the world and the ultimate judgment of God upon humanity's conduct. The third book is a christological document concerned with salvation history, the Incarna- tion and the end of time. The Book of Divine Works is Hildegard's christological reflection based upon the Prologue to the Gospel of John and the creation story in the first chapter of Genesis. It is a document in which women and men are themselves seen as the 'work' of God. All humanity is called to cooperate actively with God in the of his creation.

Hildegard's Scientific Works

Her two scientific/medical" works were both composed in that remarkable period of creativity which began with her move to Rupertsberg. The Natural History (Physica) describes the healing power of plants, elements, trees, jewels, animals, and metals, and gives an account of their origins.

Causes and Cures (Causae et curae), written about the same time, is a medical compendium that

109 The only English translation is. Hildegard of Bingen, Hildegard of Bingen.· The Book of the Rewards of Life [Liber Vitae Meritorum], ed. James J. Wilhelm, and Lowry Nelson, Jr. , trans. Bruce W. Hozeski, The Garland Library ofMedieYal Literature, vol. 89 Series B (New York & London: Garland Publishing. Inc, 1994) 290.

11 0 There is no complete English translation of The Book ~f Divine Works_ See. Cunningham p. 408.

30 deals with the constitution of the human body, its illnesses and their remedies111 Originally both books were in a single volume called The Subtleties of the Diverse Nature of Created Things (Liber subtilitatum diversarum naturarum creaturarum). 112

111 See Hildegard of Bingen, Hildegardis Causae et Curae, ed. Paul Kaiser, Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana (Lipsiae: B. G. Teubner, 1868) 254. for the Latin tex1 of Causae et curae. This volumn includes information on the manuscripts containing Causae et curae. In English see, Holistic Healing

112 For a book concerning Hildegard's medicine, see Hildegard of Bingen's Medicine a translation by Karin Anderson Strehlow of Handbuch der Hildegard-Medizin by Dr. Wighard Strehlow, a research chemist, and Gottfied Hertzka, MD (published by Bear & Co. Santa Fe, NM 1988). This book contains paritial translations of C &C

31 Hildegard's Other Works

During her long life Hildegard wrote about three hundred letters113 These letters give us insight into her private thoughts and personal struggles. She corresponded with a great variety of people, including four (Eugenius ill, Anastasius IV, Hadrian IV, and Alexander III), numerous local rulers (including Henry II, King ofEngland), the Holy Roman Emperor, Frederick I Barbarossa, abbots, , , bishops, spiritual leaders (including Bernard of Clairvaux and Elisabeth of Schonau), many priests and lay persons.

She also has left some seventy-seven songs for which she composed the music. Their language is particularly beautiful and their accompaniment is strikingly original. Such themes as the Holy

Trinity, the Virgin Mary, angels, and prophets, apostles and , as well as saints are treated in them. Her corpus of songs, known collectively as Symphonia, is believed to have been completed about 1158114

Hildegard's writings also include a selection of readings from the Gospels, with an allegorical commentary (Expositiones evangeliorum), a commentary on the rule of St. Benedict (Explanatio

Regulae S. Benedicti), and on the Athanasian Creed (Explanatio Symboli S. Athanasii). She wrote two biographies: the Life ofSt Disibod (Vita Sancti Disibodi), and the Life of St Rupert (Vita Sancti

Ruperti) . She also produced the Solutions to Thirty-eight Questions (Solutiones triginta octo

113 The Latin text of Hildegard· s letter can be found in PL 197 . A German translation can be found in. Hildegard of Bingen, Briefwechsel. trans. Adelgundis Fiihrkotter, O.S.B (Salzburg, 1965). In English there are several sources including.Hildegard of Bingen, Hildegard of Bingen's Book of Divine Works with Letters and Songs, p. pp. 269-362. Gottfried and Theoderic, The Life of Holy Hildegard, p. pp. 100-05.andPeter Dronke. Poetic Individuality in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Claredon Press. 1970) pp.

114 The critical edition is. Hildegard of Bingen, Saint Hildegard of Bingen's Symphonia. A Critical Editon of the Symphonia Armonie Celestium Revelationum (Symphony of the Harmony of Celestial Revelations), trans. Barbara Newman (Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 1988)

32 quaestionum), in which she attempted to solve theological problems put to her by the monks of

Villers and Guibert of Gembloux, and two short pieces called Unknown Language (Lingua ignota) and Unknown Writing (Litterae ignotae)115

Hildegard's life and work presents us with a fascinating picture of a twelfth-century

Benedictine nun. Dronke says: "Hildegard ofBingen still confronts us, after eight centuries, as an overpowering, electrifying presence -- and in many ways an enigmatic one. Compared with what

·earlier and later women writers have left us, the volume of her work is vast. In its range that work is unique. In the Middle Ages only is in some ways comparable: cosmology, ethics, medicine and mystical poetry were among the fields conquered by both the eleventh-century Persian master and the twelfth-century 'Rhenish sibyl' .116

115 See PL 197 for the texts.

116 Peter Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages: A Critical Study o[Textsfrom Perpetua (+203) to Margarite Porete (+ 131 0) (Cambridge: Cambridge Uiiiversity Press, 198-1-) 144.

33 Mysticism

Hildegard of Bingen was a mystic. A woman. A Benedictine nun. And a German. Each of these categories is important to being able to understand who she was. In order to understand her we shall need to investigate briefly mysticism and also visionaries. We need to appreciate the contri- butions of a renewed Benedictine spirituality to the religious climate of twelfth-century Europe and to the women in those communities. We shall also need to understand something of the German mystical tradition of which Hildegard is a major representative.

The Character of Mysticism

The literature on mysticism is voluminous. Elizabeth Petroff points out that:

There is no identifiable mystical type, although scholars at times have tried to identify one: mystics may be women or men, they may be educated or uneducated, they may come from wealthy or deprived backgrounds. Mystical experiences may be primarily visual or auditory, or they may be so abstract as to elude any verbal formulation; the mystical path toward enlightenment may be based either on developing love or on the growth of the intellect; it focus may be what the theologians term Christocentric or theocentric. 117

Andrew Weeks says that there are two "models" under which one can approach the study of mysticism. 118 First, one can assume that the mystic is the subject of a psychological affectation.

The result of this affectation is only coincidentally related to any other authority than the

Scriptures or Tradition. The language used by the mystic merely patterns itself on the stored knowledge from sacred books and confessional doctrines. Second, one can approach mysticism from the point of view of religious literature, confessional doctrine and tradition. Out of the richness of the literature and the religious doctrine of the tradition in which the mystic has been

117.Elizabeth Alvilda Petroff, "Women and Mysticism in the Medieval World," Body and Soul (New York: . 1994) p. 5.

11 8 Weeks p. 3.

34 immersed the mystic derives the words, written or spoken, which communicate the mystical experience. This second approach makes no judgement as to the source or validity of the mystical experience. The literature is accepted as literature, qua literature, and judged in the same manner as all literature. The pros and cons of this debate would likely require several volumes. Too narrow a definition of mysticism would exclude Hildegard from the category of mystic because she had no affective experiences of union with God. 119 Or she might be rejected by another kind of narrow definition, one which seeks to defend the Church as the Fathers did "(as a reaction to

Montanism), and in particular since Augustine, whereby everything having to do with the senses and the imagination in mystical experiences is held to be fundamentally questionable in the extreme. 11120 Too wide a definition would be of no use in distinguishing mysticism from hallucinations and psychological aberrations. cautioned us, "In terms of practical psychology, it is understandable that every precaution must be taken in view of the great caused by the opposite extreme of a naive acceptance of all charisms. 11121 Weeks laments,

"In scholarly debates over mysticism, the postulate of the mystical experience curtails the discussion in the same way that confessionalism and the doctrine of verbal inspiration once impeded biblical scholarship. It is perhaps ironic that scholars of all persuasions can now carry

119 Wayne Proudfoot, "Mysticism," Religious Experience (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985) pp.

120 Hans Urs von Balthasar, Seeing the Form , ed. Fessio. SJ. and John Riches, trans. Erasmo Leiva-Merikalis, The Glory of God: A Theological Aesthetics. vol. I (San Francisco: Ignatius Press. 1989) 410.

121 Balthasar, Seeing the Form. p. 411.

35 on productive discussion of the Bible as literature, while mystical literature still occasions blanket

declarations of faith and doubt. "122

St Paul attempted to convince the Corinthians (I Cor 12) that within the Church all gifts

are for the use of the whole body. As his first point about mysticism, Von Balthasar asserts, it is

within the Church, as opposed to merely personal mysticism, that the

' mystically' (charismatically) endowed member of the Church will be able and will have to make his special mission known and accepted, in the Church precisely the measure that he does not stand opposed to the Church (in the sense of the Biblical archetypes), but rather demonstrates that he is vitally integrated into the commu­ nion of love of all the members, this communion constituting the total ecclesial archetype. 123

Mystical vision is also proleptic and eschatological with regard to the whole Church-it is "an

experiential realization of the Jerusalem above, whose citizens we are and which will appear on

the Last Day. "124 The Church accepts that mysticism is not only spiritual, but also sensory. The

eschatological vision for which the mystic provides a conduit to the Church as a whole, "is not a

naked and abstract celestial world, but the world of the Resurrection, a world that penetrates

redeemed creation through and through with the power of the resurrected Son and brings it to rise

up together with him. "125 The Kingdom of God remains a mystery even to those who live within · the Church. The resurrected Body of Christ was an objective experience for the Apostles; even if they did not perceive the fullness of his glory, it does not follow that his appearance was not

122 Weeks p.4.

123Balthasar. Seeing the Form, p. 409-410.

124Balthasar, Seeing the Form. p. 414.

125Balthasar. Seeing the Form. p. 415 .

36 objectively real. So too the mystic may not perceive the fullness of the revelation which God

communicates with him.

The Character of Mysticism in the Twelfth Century

During the lifetime of Hildegard there were efforts to define mysticism. One important

attempt was made by Richard of St. Victor ( + 1173), a mystic from Scotland, and also prior of

the Chapter of St. Victor, 126 a school just outside of Paris that was famous as a theological and

spiritual center, distinguished four kind of visions in his commentary on the Apocalypse of

John. 127 Of the four types two are physical and two spiritual; two outer and two inner.

The least of the four, physical sight (1) , contains no hidden significance; a second kind of vision, though physical, also contains a force of hidden meaning (2). It was in this mode, for instance, that beheld the burning bush ( 3: 2-4). Of the two modes of spiritual vision, one is that of the eyes of the heart, when the human spirit, illuminated by the Holy Ghost, is led through the likenesses of visible things, and through images presented as figures and signs, to the knowledge of invisible ones. This is what Dionysius had called symbolic vision. The second, which Dionysius had called anagogic vision, occurs when the human spirit, through inner aspiration, is raised to the contemplation of the celestial without the mediation of any visible figures. 128

The time of Hildegard and Richard was one in which there was a great deal of mystical activity.

Valerie Lagorio, following Evelyn Underhill, agrees that, "The great periods of mystical activity

tend to correspond with the great periods of artistic, material, and intellectual civilization . .. It

126 For the history of the school of St. Victor see Jean Leclercq, Vandenbroucke Fran9ois and Louis Bouyer. The Spirituality of the Middle Ages. History of Christian Spirituality Series, vol. 2 (New York: Seabury Press, 1982) pp. 229-42.

127 PL 196 686ff.

128.Peter Dronke, Wom en Writers of th e :\diddle Ages: .4 Critical Study of Texts from Perpetua (+ 203) to .Margarite Porete (+1310) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984) p. 146.

37 is always as if [the mystics] were humanity's finest flower; the product at which each great creative period of the race had aimed. "129 Their age was one such age as Petroff states:

One such richly creative period was the in Europe (1100- 1450), a time of great art and great social change, as the feudal system gave way to capitalism, cities, and a new middle class. We think of the Middle Ages as the age of faith, . and so it was, but it was also an age of crisis. In such a context, mysticism was not a retreat from the negative aspects of reality but a creative marshaling of energy in order to transform reality and the perception of it. 130

A German-The Character of the German Mystical Tradition

Andrew Weeks clearly believes Hildegard to be among the German mystics. His criterion is based on literary categories. She is an important enough contributor to the German mystical tradition to be classified by Weeks as the primary representative of the visionary form of German mysticism. This places Hildegard in a long line of mystics and philosophers which now begins with her and includes , Heinrich Seuse, , Paracelsus,

Boehme, , the Pietists of the German , Novalis and Schopenhauer,

Nietzsche, and many others among the philosophers. Karl Rosenkranz, a of Hegel, is credited with coining the phrase deutsche Mystik. Rosenkranz intended the term "German mysticism" to place the achievement of German philosophy in a line going back to medieval religious mysticism. 131 Others have contended, "What is remarkable, however, is not the number or prominence of the German mystics, but rather the degree to which their influence channels into the German tradition as a whole, shaping even those achievements not commonly associated with

129 Valerie Lagorio, "The Medieval Continental Women Mystics: An Introduction," An Introduction to the Medieval Mystics ofEurope (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984) p. 161 .

130 E. Petroff, Medieval Women's Visionary Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986) pp. 5-6.

131 Weeks, p. 1.

38 mysticism. "132 Still others point to Luther and Kant as examples of those who at one stage or another in their life opposed mysticism. As in all living cultures, several contrary intellectual pathways are followed.

Not only is there little agreement in recent scholarship with regard to 'mysticism,' but there is controversy concerning what constitutes the 'German' character of German mysticism.

Emil Brunner argued that, as a revealed religion, Christianity was incompatible with mysticism. 133

Brunner's argument must be understood in the context of his polemic against the theology of

Schleiermacher. The Germanist Friedrich-Wilhelm Wentzlaff-Eggebert approached German mysticism from a philological and non-confessional point of view. In his Deutsche Mystik zwischen Mittelalter und Neuzeit 134 he follows a thematic approach and defines German mysticism as speculative as well as the experience of mystical union between the mystic and God. Weeks points out, "The criterion of the unification experience is oddly inappropriate for the German mystics."135 German mysticism's speculative and mystagogical orientation does not reject a unitive character, but it does in one particular way transform it. Josef Quint expanded the unio mystica from the union of persons to a union of "worlds." By doing so Quint has pointed to the cosmo- logical dimensions of German mysticism. It is a cosmos in which there is a union of the divine world with the created world. It is a cosmos in which the microcosm of the individual and the

132 Weeks. p. 1.

133 Emil Brunner, Die Mystik und das Wort. Der Gegensatz zwischen moderner Religionsauffassung und christlichem G!auben dargestellt an der Theologie Schleiermachers (Tiibingen: Mohr, 1928).

134 Friedrich-Wilhelm Wentzlaff-Eggebert, Deutsche Mystik zwischen Mittela/ter und Neuzeit. Einheit und Wandlung ihrer Erscheinungs.formen (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1969).

135 Weeks, pp.4-6.

39 macrocosm of the world and creation are united. The intelligibility of the ultimate unity of all

things is a recurrent motif in much of German mysticalliterature. 136

German mystics unfailingly believed that they had received a God-given knowledge of

God, a divinely inspired knowledge of things divine. Human knowledge is devalued in order that

divine knowledge may take its rightful position. Hildegard makes this clear to her readers, in

SCIVIAS warning her hearers against placing their authority over that of God:

Now tell, me, o people: What do you think you were when you were not yet in body and soul? You truly do not know how you were created. But now, o people, you wish to examine heaven and earth and to decide the justice of those in the order of God and to distinguish the highest of things .. .. God who created you in the first man foresaw all of these things.

Here we see a correspondence between the microcosm of the human and the macrocosm of nature,

since each is a revelation of the divine nature. Hildegard clearly saw the natural world as

wondrous and revelatory of the hand of God. The invisible becomes visible:

God-who formed all things in the divine will-created those things for the under­ standing and honor of the divine name, not only showing by these things those things which are visible and temporal, but also manifesting by these things, those things which are invisible and eternal.

German mysticism is polyvocal. Frequently there is a counterpoint in which God and some

creature speak which serves to heighten the dramatic environment. In Hildegard it is the

counterpoint of God and woman, or in Eckhart the voices of all the "masters ."

German mysticism was until the Romantic period Christocentric. In Hildegard and Boehme

the Word is rendered visible by symbols drawn from nature. This Christocentrism conveys paradoxes

136 Josef Quint, "Mystik und Sprache," A ltdeutsche und altniederlandische Mystik (Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. 1964). Denn mystisches Erkennen ist auf das denkende Erfassen des All-Einen, in dem aile Unterschiede, aile Seinsbesoderungen, aile getrennten Denkinhalte aufgehoben sind, gerichtetet (p.l22)

40 and shatters literal representation. It is an encounter of the transcendent with the immanent. 137 And it is doctrinal. Hildegard had little use for lukewarm adherents to Catholic doctrine and life. Hildegard lived a very active political life. She was not slow to condemn emperors or Cathars, along with not a few fellow monastics, when they departed from the doctrines which she understood to be the road for salvation. She was a woman of , with beliefs which were not to be changed. For

Hildegard as for the majority of German mystics, authority, the traditional biblical authority, is decisive.

Although German mystics drew on many sources-Philo Judaeus, , Paul,

Plotinus, Dionysius the Areopagite, , and Augustine of Hippo138-the themes of German mysticism are almost all derived from passages of the canonical Bible. These texts have a long history of by the time that Hildegard responds to them. Jewish, Hellenistic, Gnostic, and Christian writers had all used at least some of them. For Hildegard and her environment the principal exegetes are the filtered through a number of generations.

The most prominent speculative theme in German mysticism is what Weeks calls the "union of worlds":

The preeminent speculative theme of German mysticism is what might be called the "union ofworlds." Its scriptural subtexts are two passages of the Bible that begin with the words, "In the beginning .. " : the first verse of Genesis and the pro log ofthe Gospel ofJohn. Behind the conflation of these "beginnings"lies a convergence of philosophical and religious traditions-Jewish, Hellenistic, Gnostic, and Christian­ a convergence first represented by Philo Judaeus of Alexandria, and many centuries of Platonizing Fathers of the Church. 139

137 Weeks, p. 11.

138 See, Weeks, "The Union of Worlds" pp. 15-37.

139 Weeks, p. 16 .

41 From this theme the German mystics developed a conception of the relationship of creation, the creature, and the creator.

The first of the two "beginnings" (Genesis 1) was utilized as the source of an anthropology of the human creature, who was created in the "image and likeness" of God (Genesis 1:27). The same passage served as "a source for the motif of creation as a form of imaging and of self- knowledge as mystical knowledge''140 By looking at creation with the eyes of Genesis 1:27, the mystic was able to see through creation the hand of the Creator of all. By knowing that man was created in the image and likeness of God the mystic believed that through the proper self-knowledge man could know something of God. Other sources that were fertile sources for the development of the "union of the worlds" were the Wisdom literature and St Paul (especially Romans 1:20 and Acts

17:28, as well as I Cor 12:6 and 15:28, Eph 1:23, and Col 3: 10-11). Paul's term for God as omnis in omnibus was interpreted as God being in all things (panentheism), and by extension "that all things are contained in all other things." 141 By Hildegard's time:

Immanence and transcendence, creation and Creator, visible and invisible, part and whole-these are the parameters of distinct, yet symbolically related spheres. The visible, external, finite, temporal, and natural world consists of an array of symbols and systems of symbols, expressing in time the eternal being of a transcendent deity.142

We'shall see that these themes are major contributors to Hildegard's mystical works SCIVIAS and the Book of Divine Works.

140 Weeks p. 16.

141 Weeks p. 16.

142 Weekspp. 16-17.

42 Genesis 1 was only one of the two beginnings. The prologue of John proposed a somewhat

different level ofbeginning. In the beginning is the Logos. Unlike the account in Genesis where each

day follows the other, in John 1 space, time, and nature have been replaced by timeless immediacy

and presence. In place of a sequence of events is aspect. In place of a sequence of events is a

"beginning" which is "an eternal present and the ground of all that comes into being''143 For John

Christ is the Logos; the term could also signify divine order or divine mind if one looks to the

Wisdom literature. 144 St Paul exhorted the idolatrous Romans to recognize the invisible things of the

Creator from the visible God's invisible qualities (Romans 1 :20). He tells the Athenians, who have built an altar "to the unknown god," that "in him we live and move and have our being. As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his "' (Acts 17:28). The prologue uses the paradox of immanence and transcendence. The Word acts in creation, yet remains apart, remains with God and is God. Hildegard developed The Book of Divine Works with John's prologue in mind, just as she used Genesis in SCIVIAS.

Another major contributor to German mysticism is Augustine ofHippo. To Augustine we must attribute the development of the "union of worlds." In the eleventh book of The God

Augustine deals with the destinies of the two cities. The two cities which are commingled in the present time had their individual foundations laid by the difference that arose among the angels of

Lucifer and those who remained loyal to God. Augustine's description of the turmoil and unrest faced by the City of God must have reminded Hildegard of the Church's situation as she perceived it in her

143 Weeks p. 19.

144 See Gerhard Kittel, Theological Dictionary of the , ed. Gerhard Kittel, trans. Geoffrey Bromiley. Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, vol. IV (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1967) 69-142. for a full treatment of Logos in pre-Christian, early Christian and Hellenistic thought.

43 day. Like Augustine, Hildegard found herself viewing the earthly world from the vantage point of heaven. Like him, she was guided by reflections on the two beginnings of Genesis and John. Her

Christology, like Augustine's, is set within a cosmic perspective. Hildegard drew on the intellectual climate of her day, a climate marked by a revived with its symbolic interpretation of the visible world in the Scholastic mysticism of Hugo of St Victor.145

For the German mystics there were several paths to divine knowledge. There was the upward path which Augustine wrote of in the eleventh chapter of the Confessions. There is the inward path ofthe mind that goes into itself to seek God, the path which Plotinus delineated as "to find ourselves is to know our source" (Ennead 6:9, 7). There is the speculative path of retrospective inquiry which looks back to the beginning ofthe world, as in Augustine's commentaries on Genesis. He also spoke of the rationes aeternae-the eternal seeds of the creation in time, much like the Stoic logoi spermatikoi. These come very close to what Hildegard calls the "greening" of things, as the work of the Word. There is the path of the illuminated intellect. This is the path which St Paul experienced as the indescribable rapture which he recounted in I Corinthians 12:3-4. Augustine divided the temporal and eternal aspects of creation into the sensory, the imaginative, and the intellectual. The third is the supersensible divine knowledge which he said was the "third heaven" into which Paul was transported. 146

German mysticism found more distinct stages in the ascent to God than the classical purgatio, illuminatio, and unio.147 Once again Augustine (and classical rhetorical education) can be pointed out

145 Weeks, p. 26.

146See Weeks pp. 24-37 for a fuller deYelopment of these paths.

14 ; See Petroff. Consolation of th e Blessed pp. 39-82 and Petroff Afedieval Women 's Visionary Literature pp. 6- 20 for a treatment of seven distinct stages.

44 as the source. All the traditional forms of -allegory, analogy, metaphor, typology, etc.-were prominent in German mysticism. Augustine's theory of signs as words meant "That beyond the sign, the symbol can betoken that which is transcendent and infinitely distinct."148 The German mystics seized on Augustine's pronouncement that everywhere in nature there are traces of the Trinity and from it developed their perceptions. Hildegard in the first vision of the second book in SCIVIAS gives her account of creation. In Hildegard's vision we see the creation, the fall, the incarnation, and explanations of these events paralleling them with the three forces of the stone, the flame, and the word. In this vision Hildegard demonstrates her unique interpretation of the Fall. We can also see the influence ofAugustine's use of numerical symbols149 and the passage in the Book of Wisdom (2:20) which states that divine Wisdom "ordered all things in number, and measure, and weight." The divine

Wisdom is synonymous with the Creator Logos, and order and number in nature therefore attest, as do the visible properties of things, to the transcendent being of God. 150 Among the German mystics, including Hildegard, these elements of symbolic interpretation and the use of color symbolism figured prominently in mystical writings. 151

A final influence, though more distant in time, on the German mystic's symbolic interpreta- tions must be attributed to Dionysus the Areopagite. The obscure author of The Divine Names was believed to be the Athenian disciple of St Paul. He is considered the founder of , the propagator of the via negativa and the via affirmativa, and the via triplex which we mentioned

148 Weeks, p. 33.

149 CD 11.30

150 Weeks pp. 34-35.

151 Christel Meier, "Die Bedeutung der Farben im Werk Hildegards von Bingen," Friihmittelalterliche Studien VI (1972): 245-355.

45 earlier. In The Dionysius contends that the very enormity of divine transcendence appears as if reflected back onto the created world (plants, animals, minerals, humans) in such a way as to highlight in all names the unnameable One.152 All things were contained in the ineffable Creator before time. All of creation is therefore a theophany of God. 153 Geometrical symbols became pro- minent in , , and Angelus Silesius. 154 Hildegard and many others would be engaged in investigating the correspondences of macrocosm and microcosm and the many symbolic codes ofthe Book ofNature.155

All these motifs merge in the Logosmystik. Clearly for Hildegard the Incarnation of the Logos is the instrument of the immanence and transcendence of God and God's relationship with human beings. This relationship in its cosmological and theological dimensions could not have been accom-

156 plished were it not for the Virgin Mary, whom Hildegard calls Virga viridissima .

Hildegard the Benedictine

When Hildegard entered the monastic life she was placed with Jutta of Sponheim.

Disibodenberg was a Benedictine monastery in the Rhine valley. It was a self-sufficient community, protected by high walls, within which were gardens and orchards, a bakery, granary, dormitory,

152 Dionysus the Areopagite, The Mystical Theology, trans. C.E. Rolt (London: SPCK, 1940) 62-63 .

153 Dionysus the Areopagite, The Mystical Theology, p. 98

154 Ernst Robert Curtius, European Literature and the Middle Ages. trans. Willard R. Trask (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1973) 319-26.

155 Weeks, p. 36.

156 In her song 0 viridissima Virga. For a translation and commentary see Symphonia pp. 126-127 (te:-..1 and translations) and pp. 276-277 (commentary).

46 refectory, guest house, and church. 157 The female part of the monastery had only recently been

opened when Hildegard arrived in 1106.158 Jutta's reputation for holiness seems to have attracted

other young women, who tended to be from aristocratic families and normally brought money with

them. By comparison with the education of women who were to marry they had a good education.

The convents, according to Beer, seemed to have been havens for women who were intellectually

inclined. 159 Despite her claims of being 'uneducated' Hildegard received training in Latin, Scripture,

and the use of service books. 160

Double houses-monasteries which enclosed both men and women-were not unusual during the monastic revival of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Within the monastery the monks and nuns were separated by distance and interposing structures. Despite the separation they were jurisdiction-

ally the same. The authority, for the most part, rested with the abbot. In return the nuns received

protection, instruction, and leadership. Although they were enclosed communities, the rules of claustration varied a great deal. Hildegard, as we can see from her life, had a great deal of freedom to move about outside the walls ofthe monastery.

By Hildegard's time there was a new spiritual emphasis within the Benedictine movement.

St Anselm (1 033-11 09) had inspired an ideal of spiritual development, of inner growth. This inner

157 For a fuller account of Benedictine monasticism see J. Daly Lowrie, Benedictine Monasticism, Its Formation and Development Through the 12th Century (New York, 1965). and . Cuthbert Butler, Benedictine Monachism. 2nd (London. 1924).

158 Frances Beer, Women and Mystical Experience in the }.fiddle Ages (Woodbridge: The Boydel Press, 1992) p. 17.

159 .Beer, Women and Mystical Experience in the Middle Ages, p. 17 .

160 There has been some speculation concerning Hildegard· s designation of herself as "uneducated". One does not need to read very far to discover that Hildegard is only "uneducated" by the standards that prevailed for male religious. See.Petroff, Medieval Women's Visionary Literature. p. p. 27 and foot note and p. 29 on "learned Latin".

47 growth would insulate the mind of the monastic from the confusions of the world, just as the walls of the monastery protected the community from outside distractions and entanglements. Anselm' s emphasis was not seen to be in conflict with the old Rule161 which assumed that the personal relation- ship between God and the soul would progress naturally if the requisite humility and obedience were adhered to. Anselm's contribution encouraged a more explicit and intense personal relationship with

God. From this emphasis there developed individual meditations, which could lead to visionary experiences.162 Beer comments:

It is not surprising that Hildegard would have been satisfied with this life; for someone who had been buffeted by spiritual and physical extremes since earliest childhood, the security and regularity of the Benedictine system would have been profoundly reassuring. The disci­ pline too must have been welcome, providing the structure necessary to develop the con­ fidence and personal strength upon which she would so frequently have to rely in her later career. And for someone as extraordinarily intelligent as Hildegard, who as a woman might otherwise have had no access to formal education, the scholarly opportunities would have been irresistible. 163

Certainly for Hildegard the Benedictine environment provided a stable life in which she was freer to develop her talents.

Hildegard a Woman-The Character of Female Mysticism

Even though mysticism is difficult to define and scholarship regarding German mystical tradition is not in complete agreement as to what mysticism is, yet there is enough agreement that we can recognize the existence of a German mystical tradition-at least as long as we accept both illumination and union as two forms of mystical experience. In addition, Weeks points out that

161 Rule of St Benedict. PL . Hildegard herself wrote an Explanatio on the Rule of St Benedict PL 197. I 05 3- 1066.

162 R.W. Southern, The Making of the Middle Ages (London: Century Hutchinson, 1967) pp. 226 and ff.

163 Beer, Women and A1ystica/ Experience in the Middle Ages, p. 19.

48 there is a definite category of female visionary mysticism. 164 When female mysticism is compared with male mysticism we become aware of the positions which men and women occupied; and how their respective positions in medieval society also affected their mysticism. The great female mystics of medieval Germany were either visionary nuns or Beguines. The men were Dominican masters and preachers whose gift was a reflective, inward mysticism, while the women often sought more outward expression such as works, sacraments, and the liturgy. Female mysticism seems to have been richer in sounds and images and more manifest in action than in contempla- tion. The very richness of the women's mysticism produced plays, music, literature, and works of art in response to experiences. The men produced transcripts of sermons and mystical tracts.

The men possessed authority in consequence of their office, while the women had to achieve their authority by virtue of their exceptional achievements. Ernst Benz suggested that the content of female visionary mysticism (and its expression) was a compensation for the absence of institutional authorization to be visionaries. 165 Others such as Peter Dinzelbacher have attributed some of the difference to the discovery of romantic love in the twelfth century. 166 Dronke also includes

Hildegard among the love poets:

Though Hildegard is one of the most brilliant and original minds of the entire Middle Ages, she has not often been given her due of recognition, ... While, for instance, the writings of everyone from Augustine to Bernard have been ransacked for reminiscences of the language of courtoisie, however tenuous and however far from the intentions of their authors these might be, no one to my knowledge who

164 Weeks, p. 40.

165 Ernst Benz, Die Vision. Erjahrungsjormen und Bilderwelt (Stuttgart: Klett Verlag, 1969) 253ff., 452ff.

166 See.Peter Dinzelbacher, "Koperliche und seelische Vorbedingungen reliigioser Traume und Visionen." I Sogni Nel Medioevo. Seminario Internzionale, Roma. a Curadi Tullio Gregory. Lessico Intellettuale Europeo (Rome: Edizione dell'Ateno, 1985) pp. 57-86.

49 has dealt with the ideas of amour courtois shows any sign of having read Hildegard. She, however, was as convinced as any of the love-poets of the unity of human and divine love, and recorded this conviction with freshness and with splendour, in a way that is unparalleled in theological writing before or since. I am aware that in indicating this briefly here I am stressing only one aspect of an immensely fertile mind, isolating a few moments out of a system. Yet it is undeniable that the unity of love, its fulfilment divine-in-human and human-in- . divine, is one of Hildegard's most important the recurrent themes. 167

And both Dinzelbacher and Johanna Lanczk:owski believe Bernard of Clairvaux to be a major contributor to the changing twelfth century religious expectations. 168 Bernard taught that God was not to be seen as the rex tremendae maiestatis. With a growing perception of God as more human, expectation of spiritual experiences arose among the men and women of the twelfth century. As feeling became a more legitimate form of understanding, illness and physical suffering, hysteria, dreams, and sometimes markedly sexual visions and delusions became more prominent. Much of the visionary mysticism of the medieval nuns was of the sensory kind. In Hildegard sensory, allegorical, and philosophical elements were combined as she related at the beginning of SCIVIAS169 For

Hildegard, "The invisible has become visible to the inner spirit. The world she sees is symbolic. It does not appear before her like a Paradise or Hell to be entered into or fled from but in order to instruct and teach. What is seen and heard in Hildegard is to be made visible and audible to all." 170

Andrew Weeks in his German Mysticism from Hildegard of Bingen to Ludwig Wittgenstein:

A Literary and Intellectual History calls Hildegard the outstanding representative of German

167 Peter Dronke, Medieval Latin and the Rise of European Lyric(, 19??) pp. 66-67.

168 In addition to the above note see Johanna Lanczkowski, "Einfuhrung," Erhebe Dich, meine Seele (Stuttgart: Reclam, 1988) p. 9. see page 9

169 SC!l I4S I, Praefatio, in PLI97, 354B

170 Weeks. p. 41.

50 visionary mysticism.171 In the summer of 1175 Guibert of Gembloux wrote Hildegard seeking some

answers to a set of very specific questions concerning her visions. "After your visions have been written down, is it true that you no longer remember them?" "Do these visions speak to you in

Latin or German?" "Does your knowledge of the Bible come through study or only through the action of the Holy Spirit?" 172 Hildegard disregarded the first letter that Guibert sent but did answer the second one sent later that summer. In it the 77-year-old replied:

At last in the time that followed I saw a mystic and wondrous vision, such that all my womb was convulsed and my body's sensory powers were extinguished, because my knowledge was transmuted into another mode, as if I no longer knew myself. And from God's inspiration as it were drops of gentle rain splashed into the knowledge of my soul. 173

Hildegard's status as a visionary provided the reasons that she was sought after and listened to unlike most women in religious life. In the first chapter of the first book of her Vita Gottfried quotes from the preface of SCIVIAS immediately after he gives the facts of Hildegard's birth, parentage, and monastic life. Her visions were what gave Hildegard a prominence in her twelfth- century world.

When I was twenty-four years and seven months old, I saw an extremely strong, sparkling, fiery light corning from the open heavens. It pierced my brain, my heart, and my breast through and through like a flame which did not burn;

171 Weeks, p.l7

172 See Hildegard of Bingen, Analecta S Hildegardis, ed. J.B . Pitra. Analecta Sacra, vol. VIII (Monte Cassino, 1882) pp. 328-31 , 378-79 (includes Expositiones evangeliorum. 145 Epistolae not contained in Migne, and fragments of other works), for Guibert's questions and pp. 332-333 for Hildegard's reply. This version is based on the Riesenkodex. Peter Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages: A Critical Study of Texts from Perpetua (+ 203) to Margarite Porete (+ 131 0) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984) pp. 250-56, for a version based on Hildegard of Bingen, (Brussels: Bibliotheque Royale, twelfth to thirteenth century). 5527-5534.

173 Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages : a critical study oftex'ts from Perpetua (+203) to Margarite Porete (+ 1310), p. 62. quoted from Elizabeth Alvilda Petroff, "Women and Mysticism in the Medieval World." Body and Soul (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994) p. 3.

51 however, it warmed me. It heated me up very much like the sun warms an object on which it is pouring out its rays. And suddenly I had an insight into the meaning and interpretation of the psalter, the Gospel, and the other Catholic writings of the Old and New Testament, but not into the meaning of the sentence structure and the hyphenation; also I had no understanding of the events and times. 174

The twentieth century has yielded much speculation about Hildegard's visions. Hans

Liebeschiitz compared Hildegard's visions with those of Johannes Miiller, a nineteenth-century

German physiologist. 175 Although Muller's vision are superficially similar to Hildegard's, Kent

Kraft in his dissertation The Eye Sees More than the Heart Knows: the visionary cosmology of

Hildegard of Bingen points out the similarities and the differences which are decisive in not

176 accepting that the two sets of visions are the same kind . Sabina Flanagan has attempted to explain Hildegard's visions by comparing the light that appeared to Hildegard with the findings of modern scientific research into migraines. 177 Flanagan, who is one of the most perceptive interpreters of Hildegard, does not suggest that Hildegard's visions are merely due to migraine.

Hildegard was a medieval woman and not a modern one.

Hildegard expressed one of the major difficulties that all mystical writers face: the direct experience of mysticism is not immediately transferable to language. Petroff refers to this problem

174 Vita U. Quoted from. Life p.36.

175Hans Liebeschiitz. Die Allegorische Weltbild der Heiligen Hildegard von Bingen, Studien der Bibliothek Warburg, vol. 16 (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1930) pp. 166-71. There is a reprint edition, with an Afterword by the author. Darmstadt: Wissenschauftliche Buchgesellsachaft, 1964.

176 Kraft, pp. 88-89.

177Susan Flanagan, Hildegard ofBingen: A Visionary Life (London and New York: Routledge, 1989) 199ff. Flanagan expands on the theory of Charles Singer and the research of Oliver Sacks on migraine disorders and claims that the light stars and castellated structures described in the \isions of SCJT/fAS or depicted in the manuscript illuminations correspond to the symptoms of "scintillating scotomata." The sequence of attack, resolution, and rebound -- inYolving increased metal and physical activity -- match the phases of Hildegard's e>..1ended visionary experiences.

52 when she says: "Mystical literature is an oxymoronic proposition, for how can we put into words what is beyond language, and how can we understand the language in which mystical experiences were often expressed?"178 Hildegard did manage it and that had piqued the interest of her contemporaries and Guibert as well.

Hildegard had come to the attention ofGuibert because of her writings and her fame. But why did women write? Most of the extant medieval religious literature that was written by women is devotional literature. In her anthology entitled Medieval Women's Visionary Literature Elizabeth

Petroff defines devotional literature as: " ... literature written for the faithful and intended to develop or heighten feelings of devotion toward God or the saints."179 She also restates a very important point about the reasons for writing and indicates the milieu for which it was intended:

It (devotional literature) takes for granted a basic knowledge of Christian belief and is not concerned with defining points of doctrine in a systematic way. The writers of devotional literature assumed that their readers and auditors already had some know­ ledge of the life of prayer as it was practiced in monasteries and convents and that they were interested in furthering their devotional practices. Moreover, devotional literature, though not specifically intended to present theological issues, is didactic in that it speaks about the proper Christian life and about the proper relationship between the individual soul and the divine. 180

For most women writers their intended auditors were likely to be other women. 181 Katharina Wilson points out that:

For medieval women as well as men, literary productivity goes hand in hand with the opportunity for education, at least a modicum of scholarly idleness, access to materials needed for her work, some financial independence, patronage in social,

178 Petroff, Women and Mysticism in the Afedieval World. p. 4.

179 E. Petroff, Medieval Women's Visionary Literature (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986) p. 3.

180 Petroff, Medieval Women's Visionary Literature, p. 3.

181 Petroff, Medieval Women's Visionary Literature, p. 4.

53 religious or financial form, and (sometimes in lieu of all the above) religious or political zeal. With women writers, an added prerequisite often entails the freedom from repeated pregnancies and childbearing. The combination of prerequisites was most likely to occur in the convents of the early and central middle ages.182

But even in convents women were not normally encouraged to write. Women tended to write because they felt that they had something to say, an experience or an idea. Peter Dronke characterizes women's writings in the medieval period as due to the urgency they felt.

The women's motivation for writing at all, for instance, seems rarely to be pre­ dominantly literary: it is more often urgently serious than is common among men writers; it is a response springing from inner needs, more than from an artistic, or didactic, inclination. . . . Hence the women . . . show excellingly a quality of immediacy: they look at themselves more concretely and more searchingly than many of the highly accomplished men writers who were their contemporaries. 183

Hildegard, like other women, wrote devotional literature based on her own experience. She wrote biographies of saints, 184 letters of spiritual encouragement, illustrating spiritual forces at work in a life of a religious commitment185 But most notably she wrote her trilogy of mystical visionary books. Wilson gives some of the reasons why women's visionary literature was accepted:

Mystics considered orthodox and to a monastic order, however, were re­ spected and highly acclaimed; their gifts of and clairvoyance were generously acknowledged; and the church made abundant use of their visions .. . [The female visionary] is depicted (and frequently describes herself) as a vessel of divine inspiration, not as a creative genius, and the scriptural injunction that God often elects the weak to confound the strong is frequently invoked to explain the phenomenon of lay and female mystical inspiration the beliefs in women's

182 K Wilson, "The German Visionary: Hildegard of Bingen," Medieval Women 1-Vriters (Athens Georgia. 1984) p. IX.

183 Dronke, Women Writers ofthe Middle Ages: a en tical study of texts from Perpetua (+203) to Margante Porete (+ 1310), p. p. X. quoted from Petroff. Medieval Women's Visionary Literature, p. p. 4.

184 Hildegard wrote the life of St Disibod (PL179.1081-l 093) and St. Rupert (PL 179.1093-1117).

185 Hildegard's play which appears in SCJ1,7A S III .l3 and separately as the Ordo virtu tum is an example of this.

54 mystical, prophetic, and oracular powers as well as in the female predilection for religious enthusiasm are as old as the record of human history186

A woman who was recognized as a visionary also exercised a certain amount of power in the world.

Visions led women to the acquisition of power in the world while affirming their knowledge of themselves as women. Visions were a socially sanctioned activity that freed a woman from conventional female roles by identifying her as a genuine religious figure. They brought her to the attention of others, giving her a public language she could use to teach and learn. Her visions gave her the strength to grow internally and to change the world, to build convents, found hospitals, preach, attack injustice and greed, even within the church. Visions also provided her with the content for teaching although education had been denied her. She could be an exemplar for other women, and out of her own experience she could lead them to fuller self­ development. Finally, visions allowed the medieval woman to be an artist, composing and refining her most profound experiences into a form that she could create and recreate for herselfthroughout her entire life 187

For medieval women the spiritual practices which were recommended for meditation encouraged the kind of growth and metal concentration that often lead to visions and mystical experiences. 188

In seventeen chapters of the second book of her Vita, which is concerned with the "Visions of the Holy Hildegard," Theodoric gives a taste of what Hildegard understood of her visions and

186 Wilson, The German Visionary: Hildegard of Bingen, p. >.:vii ..

187 See Elizabeth Alvilda Petroff, Consolation of the Blessed (Ph. D. Dissertation, New York: Alta Gaia Society, 1979 pp. 39-82. Part One: Saints and Saints' lives: the paradox of women; Part Two: Women and Religion in the 13th Century Italy; Part Three: Women's Visions, the Path to Power) for a development ofthese elements in 13th century Italy. Although she does not mention Hildegard in this book it is clear that much of it applies to Hildegard in the 12th century. Above quote from Petroff. Medieval Women's Visionary Literature, p. 6.

188 See Elizabeth Alvilda Petroff, Body and Soul. Essays on Medieval Women and Mysticism, Ph. D. Dissertation, New York: Oxford University Press. 1994 pp. 7-9. Although like Petroff much information on women's spiritual practices comes after Hildegard one should consult Rudolph Bell, Holy Anorexia (Chicago: Press, 1985). and . Ho~v Feast and Ho~v Fast. The Religious Significance ofFood to Medieval Women. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987) for details on later practices of medieval women.

55 'something of the process of her receiving those visions. In the first chapter of the second book

Hildegard gives a full account of her visions:

Wisdom teaches in the light of love, and bids me tell how I was brought into this my gift of vision ... 'Hear these words, human creature, and tell them not according to yourself but according to me, and, taught by me, speak of yourself like this. - In my first formation, when in my mother's womb God raised me up with the breath oflife, he fixed this vision in my soul. For, in the eleven hundredth year after Christ's incarna­ tion, the teaching of the apostles and the burning justice which he had set in Christians and spiritual people began to grow sluggish and irresolute. In that period I was born, and my parents, amid sighs, vowed me to God. And in the third year of my life I saw so great a brightness that my soul trembled; yet because of my infant condition I could express nothing of it. But in my eighth year I was offered to God, given over to a spi­ ritual way of life, and till my fifteenth I saw many things, speaking of a number of them in a simple way, so that those who heard me wondered from where they might have come or from whom they might be. Then I too grew amazed at myself, that whenever I saw these things deep in my soul I still retained outer sight, and that I heard this said of no other human being. And, as best I could, I concealed the vision I saw in my soul. I was ignorant of much in the outer world, because ofthe frequent illness that I suffered, from the time of my mother's milk right up to now: it wore my body out and made my powers fail. Exhausted by all this, I asked a nurse of mine if she saw anything save external objects. 'Nothing', she answered, for she saw none of those others. Then, seized with great fear, I did not dare reveal it to anyone; yet nonetheless, speaking or composing, I used to make many affirmations about future events, and when I was fully perfused by this vision I would say many things that were unfathomable (aliena) to those who listened. But ifthe force ofthe vision-in which I made an exhibition of myself more childish than befitted my age-subsided a little, I blushed profusely and often wept, and many times I should gladly have kept silent, had I been allowed. And still, because of the fear I had of other people, I did not tell anyone how I saw But a certain high-born woman, to whom I had been entrusted for education, noted this and disclosed it to a monk whom she knew After her death, I kept seeing in this way till my fortieth year. Then in that same vision I was forced by a great pressure (pressura) of pains to manifest what I had seen and heard. But I was very much afraid, and blushed to utter what I had so long kept silent. However, at that time my veins and marrow became full of that strength which I had always lacked in my infancy and youth. I intimated this to a monk who was my magister . .. Astonished, he bade me write these things down secretly, till he could see what they were and what their source might be. Then, realizing that they came from God, he indicated this to his abbot, and from that time on he worked at this [writing down] with me, with great eagerness.

56 In that same [experience of] vision I understood the writings of the prophets, the Gospels, the works of other holy men, and those of certain philosophers, without any human instruction, and I expounded certain things based on these, though I scarcely had literary understanding, inasmuch as a woman who was not learned had been my teacher. But I also brought forth songs with their melody, in praise of God and the saints, without being taught by anyone, and I sang them too, even though I had never learnt either musical notation or any kind of singing. When these occurrences were brought up and discussed at an audience in Mainz Cathedral, everyone said they stemmed from God, and from that gift of pro­ phecy which the prophets of old had proclaimed. Then my writings were brought to Pope Eugene, when he was in Trier. With joy he had them read out in the presence of many people, and read them for himself, and, with great trust in God's grace, sending me his blessing with a letter, he bade me commit whatever I saw or heard in my vision to writing, more comprehensively than hitherto. 189

For Hildegard as for the Church the final authority of any visionary or charismatic experience is the use to which it is put. Realizing the possibility of divine and evil origins for any revelation Hans Urs von Balthasar contends that ecclesial mysticism must be connected with the

Biblical archetypes and not separated from the Dona Spiritus Sancti. 19° For Hildegard, the imprimatur of Pope Eugenius was required before she could present her visions to the public.

Even though she received her revelation directly from God, she solicited the sanction of her superiors before she published them.

Conclusions

Much of what has been written about mysticism has debated whether there is such a thing, what it is, and how to classify it. Hildegard is a example of German visionary mysticism, while

Meister Eckhard is the. representative of a reflective mysticism and Boehme represents a natural mysticism. She is speculative and mystagogical. Some of the influences upon her were her gender,

189 Quoted from Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages: a critical study of texts from Perpetua (+203) to Margarite Porete (+ 1310), pp. 145-46. Latin tex1 PL 197. 102-104.

190 Balthasar, Seeing the Form , pp. 407-15.

57 her life as a Benedictine, and the theological and speculative environment of twelfth-century

Germany. As a woman Hildegard accepted the role which her society assigned to her. She also transcended that role by her status as a member of a religious order and as a recognized visionary.

Like other female mystics Hildegard produced devotional literature, images, plays and music. But she also produced studies of plants and medical studies. She was asked to answer questions from a large number of correspondents-even theological questions posed by monks. From her authority as a visionary she did not hesitate to correct emperors , abbots, or bishops. She encouraged many ordinary lay people as well as religious. She took advantage of the Benedictine way of life and the contact it provided with a growing theological world which was peopled by such men as Bernard of Clairvaux. She published her visions in a trilogy. As a German Hildegard was concerned to interpret the "two beginnings" and the micro-/macro-cosmological implications of these for humans. Her cosmos is biblically based. She drew her archetypes from the faith history of

Christians and Jews, but she has her own admixture in novel interpretations of some events such as the creation and fall. She interprets her visions under the influence of Augustine, with his heavy emphasis on sin. But Hildegard does not lay the primary blame for the Fall on Eve. Finally she was written about in the Vita which related much about her life, her works, and her miracles, and illustrates the high regard in which she was held by her contemporaries.

In many ways Hildegard is original for her time and unique for ours. Her purpose was to convince her age that God is in charge and that amendment of one's life is necessary in all religious and political matters.

58 Twelfth-Century Cosmology

Cosmology was a prominent element in the thought of the twelfth-century. Hildegard presents her cosmological thought by way of her visions and explains them by way of her commentary on those images. One direction in scholarly research into Hildegard's writing has been to investigate her images and the cosmological significance which she gave them. Among the earliest texts on the

subject is the still often mentioned Die allegorische Weltbild der heiligen Hildegard von Bingen by

Hans Liebeschi.itz191 This 193 0 text is mentioned by all subsequent commentators on Hildegard's cosmology.192

Among the sources of Hildegard's cosmology three are prominent: Augustine, Pseudo-

Dionysius, and contact with the cosmological schools of her day.193 Kent Kraft identifies five

191 Hans Liebeschiitz, Die allegorische Weltbild der heiligen Hildegard von Bingen, Studien der Bibliothek Warburg, vol. 16 (Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1930). There is a reprint edition, with an Afterword by the author, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1964 Liebeschiitz earlier work set the ground work for this work. See Hans Liebeschiitz, "Kosmologische Motive in der Bildungswelt der Friischolastik," Vortrage der Bibliothek 1-Varburg 3 (1923/24): 83-149.

192 Hildegard's cosmology has continued to be of scholarly interest. In addition to Liebeschiitz' book see Hildegard von Bingen, 1179-1979. Festschrift zum 800 Todestag der Heiligen , ed. Anton Bruck (Mainz, 1979), for a collection of writing about Hildegard which includes:Christe1 Meier, "Zum Verhaltnis von Te>-.1 und Illustration im iiberlieferten Werk Hildegards von Bingen," Hildegard von Bingen, 1179-1979. Festschrift Zum 800 Todestag der Heiligen (Mainz. 1979) 159-69; and in Elisabeth Gossmann · s collection, Hildegard von Bingen: Versuche einer Annaherung (Munich: Iudicium-Verlag, 1995) ··zirkuHires Denken und kosrnische Spekulationen im 12. Jahrhundert- ErHiutert an Hildegard von Bingen und Alanus von Lille," pp.124-39, and "Die Makro-Mikrokosrnik als Umfassendes Denkmodell Hi1degards von Bingen" pp. 182-202. Also see Karl Clausberg, Kosmische Visionnen, Mystische Weltbilder von Hildegard von Bingen bis Heute (Cologne, 1980)., Wiater Kranz, "Kosmos," Archiv fiir Begriffsgeschichte. Bausteine zu einem historischen Worterbuch der Philosophie 2 (1955). , Christel Meier. ··zwei Madelle von Allegorie im 12 . Jahrhundert: Das Allegorische Verfahren Hildegards von Bingen und Alans von Lille," Formen und Funktionen der Allegorie (70-89) and by the same author, "Die Bedeutung der Farben im Werk Hildegards von Bingen.·· Fruhmittelalterliche Studien VI (1972): 245-355.: and by Heinrich Schipperges. ·'Die Engel in Weltbild Hildegards von Bingen," Verbum et Signum II: 99-117., "Welt und Mensch bei Hildegard von Bingen: · Jahrbuchfur Psychologie 14 (1966): 293-308, "Das SchOne in der Welt Hildegards von Bingen," Jahrbuch fiir Asthetik und allgemeine Kunstwissenschaft 4 ( 1958/59): 83-13 9 and Adelgundis Fiihrkotter. Kosmos und .'vfensch aus der Sichr Hildegards von Bingen, Gesellschaft Fiir Mittelrheinische Kirchengeschichte (Mainz, 1987).

193 Although we have no evidence of direct contact between Hildegard and the cosmologists of her day. we may reasonably assume that the cosmological schools' speculations made their way, in some form or other, into the

59 elements in the allegorical world of the twelfth-century: Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius, a

complementary literary tradition of allegory, a neoplatonic commentary on Cicero's Somnium

Scipionis by Macrobius, and Macrobius himself 194 Dronke and others would also add the influence

of the Timaeus, in a recension from , through to the cosmologists of

Hildegard's day such as William of Conches. 195 Whatever the merits of debating the of twelfth-

century cosmology in the West, one must admit that Augustine's exegetical approach to Scripture

as developed in his De doctrina christiana was one of the most influential treatments of the topic to

196 enter the Middle Ages . The hierarchic world-view, transmitted by Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite

through Duns Scotus, believed that the Godhead or the One, beyond all forms, generates the world

by a process of diffusion or emanation, and that all creatures are at once the outflow of the Divinity

and manifestations ofHim seeking to return to their source. Pseudo-Dionysius also believed that all

created things are, as manifestations of the Deity, symbols of transcendent and invisible phenomena.

197 The entire cosmos thereby becomes a sacred text . Macrobius was influential through his

monastic environment. Peter Dronke includes Hildegard along with and Abelard as developers of the twelfth­ century's speculation on the cosmic egg: Peter Dronke. Fabula: Explorations into the Use ofMyth in Afedieval (Leiden, 1974) pp. 96-99.193

194 Kraft. pp. l-14.

195.Dronke, Fabula: Explorations into the Use of Myth in Medieval Platonism, pp. 13-77.

196 See Kraft. pp. 4-5

197 See Kraft, pp. 6-7. and especially the Mystical Theology in PG 3. 997-1064.

60 Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, 198 in which he points out that myth may hide sacred things

199 which are personified and revealed under a pious veil of allegory .

In any catalogue of the twelfth-century cosmologist we would find such men as Alan ofLille

(c. 1128-1203), John of Salisbury (c. 1115-1180), Hugh (c. 1096-1141) and Richard of St Victor(+

1173) and Abelard (1079-1142). These men did not necessarily hold common cosmological theories; indeed, there was a good deal of controversy about the limits of philosophy and the dangers

200 associated with its too-enthusiastic pursuit . What unites the cosmologists is their interest in the study of the natural universe as an avenue to philosophical and religious understanding. The cathedral school of Chartres is often viewed as the center of this activity. While many noted cosmologists were associated with Chartres, that school was not the only venue of cosmological activiti01

Peter Abelard is often mentioned as the most prominent figure in the development of the 'new logic' . Abelard's use of dialectic to explore the relations oflanguage, thought, and reality is the most original work in this period. Yet many recent scholars view his work as the culmination of a

198 See Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream ofScipio , trans. William Harris Stahl (New York: Press, 1952). for a translation.

199 Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis 1.2.11

200 See Marie-Domenique Chenu, Nature, Man, and Society in the Twelfth Century: Essays on New Theological Perspectives in the Latin West, trans. Taylor, and Lester K. Little (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968) p. 276. Translation of La Theologie au douzieme siecle or Lauge Olaf Nielsen, Theology and Philosophy in the Twelfth Century (Leiden: University ofLeiden Press. 1982) pp. 136-42, 362-70 for a fuller account of how the new, speculative theology and the traditional programme came to coexist

201 See Raymond Klibansky, "The School of Chartres," Twelfth Century Europe and the Foundations ofModern Society (Madison WI, 1961) 3-14. For a questioning of the importance of the school of Chartres read R. W. Southern, "Humanism and the School of Chartres," Medieval Humanism and Other Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970) 61-85, and R.W. Southern, "The Schools of Paris and the School of Chartres." Han>ard 1982 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982) 113-37. Also see, for responses to Southern, Peter Dronke. "New Approaches to the School of Chartres," Anuario de Estudios Medievales VI (1969): 117-40, and Nikolaus Haring, "Chartres and Paris Revisited," Essays in Honor ofAnton Charles Pegis (, 1974) 268-329.

61 movement which began in the eleventh century, and which is cut off from later developments by

202 limited access to the works of Aristotle . The early part of the twelfth century seems to have been a time which some scholars consider to be unique and short-lived. Wetherbee considers it as

"suspended between old and new, yet it is equally clear that an interest in new intellectual ventures

203 is one of the distinctive characteristics of the period" . Hunt comments that "Traditional terms and

204 schemata spring into new life" . It was a period in which the influence ofthe urban schools, with their magistri - teacher-scholars -rose tremendously. But it was also the time of Hugh of Saint-

Victor and his follower Richaro, whose thinking followed the tradition of Augustine. 205 In this tradition the types of knowledge are valued for their ability, due to their visible order - as seen through their ratio- to become sources of a knowledge which leads ultimately to God. So it is that

Hugh justifies the place of mechanica among the types of knowledge206 and Richard discovers in

207 agriculture and other practical arts 'the dignity of a divine gift' .

202 See Norman Kretzmann, "The Culmination of the Old Logic in ," ft4Biwi4 (1982): pp. 488-511. and Martin M. Tweedale,, CHLMP pp. 143-57. Also as a qualification of this view, Klaus Jacobi, "Peter Abelard's Investigations Into the Meaning and Functions of the Speech Sign 'Est'," The Logic ofBeing (Dordrecht, 1986) 170-71.

203.Winthrop Wetherbee, "Philosophy, Cosmology, and the Twelfth-Century ," A History of Twelfth-Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) p. 23.

204R.W. Hunt, ·The Introductions to the 'Artes' in the Twelfth Century," Collected Papers on the History of Grammar in the Middle Ages (Amsterdam, 1980) pp. 85-86.

205.See Franco Alessio, La Filosojia e le 'Artes Mechanicae " Nel Secolo XII, Studi Medievali, vol. 3, IV(, 1965) pp. 110-29. and Maurice de Gandillac, "Place et Signification de Ia Technique dans le Monde Medieval," Tecnica e Casistica (Rome, 1964) pp. 265-75.

206 Hugh of Saint-Victor, Didascalicon 11,20, Buttimer, C. H. (Washington. 1939).

207Guy Beaujouan, "Retlexions sur les Rapports Entre Theorie et Pratique Au Moyen Age," The Cultural Context ofMedieval Learning (Dordrecht-Boston, 1975) pp. 437-39.

62 The cosmologists of the early twelfth century, including Bernard(+ c. 1130) and Thierry of

Chartres ( + after 1151 ), William of Conches (c. 1080- c. 1154) and many anonymous others, show an interest in and his late-antique followers such as Macrobius, Martianus Capella, Calcidius

208 and Boethius (c. 480- c. 524) . Their study of Plato meant the Timaeus. Cosmologically that study meant seeing the visible universe as coherent. William of Conches says 'In the creation of things,

209 divine power, wisdom, and goodness are beheld' . The visible world could render God's activity accessible to reason. The universe was modeled on an ideal exemplar, and for William and his generation ' divine power, wisdom, and goodness' are a manifest expression ofthe Trinity.

Of equal importance in their reading of the Timaeus are the anthropological implications. Man is himself a universe. He is composed of elements and subject to the physical laws of the cosmos; he is endowed with a soul which reflects the divine wisdom and is by nature subject to its providential influence. To know nature is to know man. Such a knowledge leads to viewing nature and as a standard for regulating human society. This combined with an emphasis from Cicero and

Seneca and the idea of an ignis artifex- a vital force - which renews and sustains life at all levels, from mere vegetable existence to the level of cognition and intelligence completed by the concept of 'positive justice'.

Hildegard's Cosmology

Hildegard's cosmos encompasses God (the Trinity), the Angels (all nine ranks including the

Virtues), Lucifer (a fallen ), human beings (female and male), the elements, plants, animals, and

208 See Edouard Jeauneau, Note sur /'Ecole de Chartres, Studi Medievali, vol. ser 3, I(, 1964); with a reprint in Edouard Jeauneau, 'Lectio Philosophorum ': Recherches sur /'Ecole de Chartres (Amsterdam, 1973). and Edouard Jeauneau, Macrobe, Source Du Platonisme Chartrain, Studi MedieYali. vol. I, ser 3 (1960).

209 See William of Conches ...G1osae Super P1atonem'· (Paris, 1965) p. 60. Jeauneau 1960

63 minerals. For the moment we shall leave aside the human beings because they fall under the heading ofHildegard's anthropology, and pay close attention to her cosmology and how God is represented.

We shall also leave aside the primary question of this thesis: Mary. We shall see that Hildegard placed

Mary above the angels in her hierarchy of beings, but that topic is best left to the Mariology section.

Heinrich Schipperges states that there are two 'Leitbilder' which we can use to understand

Hildegard's cosmology: opus and verbum. "God's Word is at work in the world. The conduct of this world-what we call history-and what we see in Nature somehow mysteriously mesh. Both ways, the inner and the outer, enlighten human beings in their existence, and for both nature and history humans are responsible". 210 This world stretches far beyond our contemporary vision. Hildegard's cosmology can best be seen by looking at the tenth vision in the Book of Divine Works. This vision of the eschaton is the final vision in the third and final visionary work ofHildegard. Hildegard relates the history of the creation from before the earth was made to the final victory of God. From its end we are able to see the cosmos as it should be.

In SCIVIAS Hildegard gives us visions of the Creator and the creation. Vision One shows the

Creator and contains an appeal to her readers to act with humility before God. Vision Six of the first book concerns the of angels. All nine ranks are represented. Angels have two tasks: to surround God in perpetual praise and adoration, and to fly into the created world and contribute to human salvation. In this Hildegard is combining Revelation 7:11-12 and 7:10, and with regard to their human operation Hebrews 1: 14. In SCIVIAS I, 6, 1 Hildegard says, when speaking of how

God wonderfully formed and ordered His creation:

11 or!einrich Schipperges, ·'Welt und Mensch bei Hildegard von Bingen,'· Jahrbuchfiir Psycho/ogie 14 (1966): 298.

64 The Almighty and Ineffable God, Who was before all ages and had no beginning and will not cease to be when all ages are ended, marvelously by His will created every creature and marvelously by His will set it in its place. How? He destined some creatures to stay on the earth, but others to inhabit the celestial regions. He also set in place the blessed angels, both for human salvation and for the honor of His name. How? By assigning some to help humans in their need, and others to manifest to people the judgments of His secrets. Therefore you see in the secret places in the heights of Heaven two armies of heavenly spirits who shine with great brightness; thus, as is shown to you in the height of secret places that the bodily eye cannot penetrate but the inner sight can see, these two armies indicate that the human body and soul should serve God, since they are going to have the brightness of eternal blessedness with the citizens of Heaven. 211

Yet this phalanx of angels has not always remained faithful to God. Lucifer, who tried to achieve a position equal to God, was cast out of heaven for pride in his beauty and power.

But Lucifer, who because of his pride was cast forth from celestial glory, was so great at the moment of his creation that he felt no defect either in his beauty or in his strength. Hence when he contemplated his beauty, and when he considered in himself the power of his strength, he discovered pride, which promised him that he might begin what he wished, because he could achieve what he had begun. And, seeing a place where he thought he could live, wanting to display his beauty and power there, he spoke thus within himself about God: "I wish to shine there as He does here! " And all his army assented, saying, "What you wish we also wish." And when, elated with pride, he tried to achieve what he had conceived, the jealousy of the Lord, reaching out in fiery blackness, cast him down with all his retinue, so that they were made burning instead of shining and black instead of fair. Why did this happen?

If God had not cast down their presumption, He would have been unjust, since He would have cherished those who wished to divide the wholeness of divinity But He cast them down and reduced their impiety to nothing, as He removes from the sight of His glory all who try to oppose themselves to Him, (SCIVIAS I, 2, 3 & 4 )212

Among the ranks of angels are the ' Virtues'. Mary Ford-Grabowsky points out that most scholars have interpreted the 'Virtues' in Hildegard as being the moral qualities 213 She contends that

211 Hart & Bishop, pp.l39-40.

212 Hart & Bishop, p. 74.

213 Mary Ford-Grabowsky ... Angels and Archetypes: A Jungian Approach to Saint Hildegard." American Benedictine Review 41.1 (1990): 15 .

65 there is a double entendre with regard to 'Virtues.' There is ample reason to interpret them as

referring not only to the moral qualities but also to the third rank of angels. Christel Meier, in her

Zwei Madelle von Allegorie im 12. Jahrhundert: Das allegorische Verfahren Hildegards von Bingen

und Alans von Lille, points out that in SCIVIAS alone there are 32 individual personifications of

'Virtues' and in the Liber vitae meritorum there are 3 0. 214 In Hildegard's play Ordo Virtutum we are

treated to the following description ofthe opus ofthe 'Virtues':

We virtues are in God, and there abide; we wage war for the King of Kings, and separate evil from good. We appeared in the first battle, and conquered there, while the one who tried to fly above himself fell. So let us now wage war and help those who invoke us; let us tread underfoot the Devil's arts, and guide those who would imitate us to the blessed mansions. 215

The 'Virtues' were a common element in much medieval imagery. Newman points out that

"No element is more essential to Hildegard's symbolics than these Virtues."216 She demonstrates that,

although Hildegard's 'Virtues' seem at first view to be from the tradition of Prudentius'

Psychomachia, they do diverge often from his iconography. 217 These female forms are a" .. . brilliant

star given by God that shines forth in human deeds. For humanity is perfected by virtues, which are

the deeds of people working in God." 218 In SCIVIAS III, the edificium salutis, the Church in the

fullness of its divine and human natures, is depicted. Inside the walls and towers of this city dwell a

214 Christel Meier, "Zwei Modelle von Allegorie im 12. Jahrhundert: Das allegorische Verfahren Hi1degards von . Bingen und Alans von Lille," Formen und Funktionen der Allegorie (70-89) 71-72.

21 5 Hart & Bishop, p. 529.

216 Newman, 0 femineaforma pp. 56.

21 7 Christel Meier, "Zwei Modelle von Al1egorie im 12. Jahrhundert: Das Allegorische Verfahren Hi1degards von Bingen und Alans von Lille," Formen und Funktionen der Allegorie (70-89) 70-89.

218 Hart & Bishop, pp. 345-346.

66 host of women. These women are the 'virtues'. In her descriptions of each Hildegard makes use of their dress, attributes, speeches, and positions to express allegorically their meaning down to the finest detail. These 'virtues,' I believe, are (as Newman states) rightly interpreted by the German translators as Krdfte not Tugenden-as numinous forces who appear in human form because they empower human action. They are the fortissimi operarii Dei (SCIVIAS III, 8). Their moral significance is secondary to their divine, ontological power. Like Christ and the Church, they embody both divine grace and human perfection. 219

Hildegard does not always follow either the conventions of grammatical gender or the standard iconography when she portrays the 'virtues' and the 'vices'. In SCIVIAS III. 8 all the virtues appear as female figures, even though Caritas, Fortitudo, and Victoria (and in the Liber vitae meritorum Gratia Dei) are dressed in masculine attire. When she describes the 'vices' Hildegard freely departs from the conventions. In the Liber vitae meritorum the 'vices' are not women but grotesques whose components are part male, part female, and part bestial, for they lack the perfect ordo of the

'virtues.'

Caritas and Sapientia appear more often than the other Virtues, and usually as femineae formae. Both Sapientia Dei and Sciencia Dei appear in SCIVIAS III. 9. Sapientia Dei is also the

Sophia of the Old Testament. Her work is to exhort human beings to embark on the ways of God, promising help and comfort 220

21 ~ewman , 0 femineaforma p. 57.

220 In the Old Testament the figure of Wisdom, as God 's consort and assistant at the time of creation, appears in many books. Sophia has "delightful ways" for the man who follows her, for "her ways all lead to contentment. She is a tree of life for those who hold her fast, those who cling to her live happy lives." (Prov 3:16-17) The man who discovers Wisdom is happy, for he is a man who gains discernment; (3:1) and "By wisdom, Yahweh set the earth on its foundations , by discernment, he fixed the heavens firm. Through his knowledge the depths were carved out, and the clouds rain down the dew." (3: 19-20) She was also created by God "before the oldest of his

67 Although St Paul had declared to the Corinthians that Christ was the Wisdom of God, for

Hildegard she was feminine. Among the virtues is Sciencia Dei, the 'Virtue' who represents the knowledge of God. In SCIVIAS III, 4, 15 Hildegard describes Sciencia Dei, the mysterium tremendum et fascinans. She is such an overwhelming experience that without mediation no human could survive her visitation. In order to experience her she appears in a feminea forma. "To her

[Hildegard's] sensibility, the form of Woman conveys both the awesome beauty of divine things and the saving restraint-the 'veiled' quality-that makes epiphanies bearable."221

Mary and Wisdom

Hildegard's age had inherited the use of sapiential texts for the developing Marian liturgies,

222 and as a consequence it seemed only natural to emphasize the feminine character of Wisdom .

Hildegard's own diocese ofMainz had a popular Ordo composed about 950 which prescribed the readings of sapiential books during the month of August, on the Sundays before and after the principal Marian feast of the Assumption, and for the feast of the purification of Mary.223 By the twelfth century the incamational reading of Proverbs 9: 1-2-"Wisdom has built herself a house, she has erected her seven pillars, she has slaughtered her beasts, prepared her wine, she has laid her

works."(Prov 8:22). Wisdom "was by his side, a master craftsman, delighting him day after day, ever at play in his presence, at play everywhere in his world, delighting to be with the sons of men." (Prov 8:30-31). In the Wisdom of her praises are sung for "She is a breath of the power of God, pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty; hence nothing impure can find a way into her. She is a reflection of the eternal light, untarnished mirror of God's active power, image of his goodness." (Wisdom 7: 25-26) In the version of Ecclesiasticus 24: 5-7 & 14 she says: "I came forth from the mouth of the Most High, first born before all creatures. I made the Unfailing Light to arise in the heavens , and like a cloud I covered the whole earth, I have dwelt in the most high places. And my throne is in a pillar of cloud , ... From the beginning and before the ages I was created, and I shall not disappear before the age to come, and I have ministered in the holy habitation in his presence."

221 Newman, 0 femineaforma, p. 63 .

222 See Newman, 0 femineaforma pp.58 ffalso p. 249.

223Michel Andrieu, Les Ordines Romani du Haul Moyen Age (Lom·ain. 1961) 89, 357-58.

68 table"-had come to suggest a natural application to the Vrrgin Mary. St Bernard preached a

De domo divinae Sapientiae, id est Virgine Maria. 224 Although the feminine reading is seen here in

Hildegard, we can also hear the sapiential description of Christ found in Colossians 1: 17-18: "Before anything was created he existed, and he holds all things in unity. Now the Church is his body, he is its head." This passage would naturally have come to mind for Hildegard, since immediately before it Christ has been described as head of all creation and a short list of the angelic powers has been giVen.

Conclusion

During the twelfth-century there wa a great deal of cosmological speculation. This climate could not have been unknown to Hildegard. To judge from the contributions of Hans Liebeschiitz,

Christel Meir, Kent Kraft and many others, Hildegard rightly deserves a place aornng the cosmologists of her day. But her visions presupposed a cosmology, rather than provide a philosophical commentary on cosmology as her male contemporaries did. Yet, Peter Dronke credits her with helping to develop, along with Milo and Abelard, the twelfth-centuries speculation on the cosmic egi25 One does not need to look very far in Hildegard' s three visionary works to find her cosmology. Indeed, it becomes so familiar that one is likely to forget its implications. That we cannot do if we are to understand her Marian thought. And we shall have much more to say about these virtues and the Virgin Mary when we come to explore Hildegard's Mariology. But first we must look at her anthropology.

224Sermon 52, Opera 6. pp. 274-277.

225 See, above Dronke footnote 193

69 Hildegard's Anthropology: An Incamational Vision

Hildegard's cosmological vision, her cosmic history, is inhabited by angels both fallen and unfallen, virtues and human beings. In the third chapter of the first vision of her third visionary work,

The Book ofDivine Works, Hildegard reveals to us the place of man in her cosmological vision.

God, who created everything, made humanity according to His divine image and likeness, and marked in human beings both the higher and the lower creatures. God loved humanity so much that God designated for it the place from which the fallen angel was ejected, intending for human beings all the splendor and honor and blessedness which that angel .226

A human being appears as the central figure in three of the first four of her visions in the first part of this work. Hildegard's orientation to salvation is incarnational, and it is her view' of human beings and their role in life and cosmic history that forms her unique anthropology.227 She takes as her starting point the story ofthe loss ofParadise.

Genesis 2-3

Like most medieval Christians, Hildegard regards Genesis 2-3 as the touch-stone for an explanation of the purpose of "Man and Woman." From here she develops her anthropology.

Hildegard uses it to explain human origins, their end, their present situation, as well as their relationship with the Creator, his enemy, and one another. Although Hildegard nowhere gives a full- scale commentary on Paradise and the Fall, she does return time and again to the figures of Adam and

Eve: to their creation and marriage in paradise, to their transgression and exile. She first turns to this

226 PL 197.7 44C Also for the tenth rank of angels see Paul Salmon, "Der zehnte Engelchor in deutschen Dichtung und Predigten Des Mittelalters," Euphorion 57 (1963): pp. 321-30.

22 7 In her witness to the Incarnation Hildegard was not alone. Gerhart Ladner in Ad Imaginem Dei stressed the growing witness of this period to the "incamational," as opposed to the spiritual, image of man (pp. 42, 10 8-109)

70 theme in the second chapter of SCIVIAS and deals with it for the last time on her deathbed in a response to the monks of Villers.2 28

The importance of the figures of Adam and Eve to Hildegard is well expressed by Barbara

Newman when she states:

The first parents wander throughout Hildegard's oeuvre, in visions and allusions, in narrative, exhortation and song. Their story occupies a fixed place in the saga of cosmic history: it provides a sequel to the fall of Lucifer and a prologue to the Incarnation, for these three events are inseparable in the seer's eye. But the Fall also comprises a tragic and pathetic narrative in its own right, which she retells with mythopoeic grandeur and poignancy. In addition, it offers her a paradigm of sexual relations; a focal point for the doctrine of marriage; an etiology of all moral and physical ills; and a prophecy of the Redemption.22 9

In the first chapter of the first book of The Book ofDivine Works Hildegard gives an account

of the origin of life.

And I saw within the mystery of God, in the midst of the southern breezes, a wondrously beautiful image. It had a human form, and its countenance was of such beauty and radiance that I could have more easily gazed at the sun than at that face. A broad golden ring circled its head. In this ring above the head there appeared a second countenance, like that of an elderly man, its chin and beard resting on the crown of the first head. On both sides of the figure a wing grew out of the shoulders. The wings rose above the above-mentioned ring and were joined there. At the topmost part ofthe right wing's curve appeared and eagle's head. Its eyes were like fire, and in them the brilliance of angels streamed forth as in a mirror. On the topmost part of the left wing's curve was a human head, which shone like the gleaming of the stars. Both faces were turned toward the East. From the shoulders of the figure a wing extended to its knees. The figure was wrapped in a garment that shone like the sun. Its hands carried a lamb, which shone like a brilliant day. The figure' s feet trod upon a monster of dreadful appearance, poisonous and black, and a serpent which had fastened its teeth onto the monster's right ear. Its body was wound obliquely across the monster' s head; its tail extended on the left side as far as the feet 2 30

228 Solutiones Questions IV, V and VI PL 197. 10-UB -- 1042C

229 Newman, 0 femineaforma p. 129.

23° Cunningham, p.8.

71 Hildegard's interpretation of this vision provides her most mature statement on the origins of life.

The figure in the vision declares:

I, the highest and fiery power, have kindled every spark of life, and I emit nothing that is deadly. I decided on all reality. With my lofty wings I fly above the globe: With wisdom I have rightly put the universe in order. I, the fiery life of divine essence, am aflame beyond the beauty of the meadows, I gleam in the waters, and I burn in the sun, moon, and stars .. .. I awaken everything to life. I am life, whole and entire (vita integra) -- not struck from stones, not blooming out of twigs, not rooted in a man's power to beget children. Rather all life has its roots in me. Reason is the root, the resounding Word blooms out of it. Since God is Reason, how could it be that God, who causes all divine actions to come to fiuition through human beings, is not active? God created man and woman in the divine image and likeness, and marked each of these creatures according to a fixed standard in human beings. From it was in the mind of God to wish to create humanity, God's own handiwork And when God completed this action, God gave over to act with it just as God had formed the divine handiwork, humanity. And thus I serve by helping. For all life lights up out of me. I am life that remains ever the same, without beginning and without end. For this life is God, who is always in motion and constantly in action, and yet this life is manifest in a threefold power. For eternity is called the "Father," the Word is called the "Son," and the breath that binds both of them together is called the "Holy Spirit." And God has likewise marked humanity; in human beings there are body, soul, and reason. The fact that I am aglow above the beauty of earthly realms has the following meaning: The Earth is the material out of which God forms human beings. The fact that I am illuminated in the water signifies the soul, which permeates the entire body just as water flows through the entire Earth. The fact that I am afire in the sun and moon signifies reason; for the stars are countess words of reason. And the fact that I awaken the universe with a breath of air as with the invisible life that contains everything, has the following significance: Through air and wind whatever is growing toward maturity is enlivened and supported, and in no way does it diverge from its inner being. 231

In the third part of the first vision a voice from heaven says

For what you see as a marvelously beautiful figure in God's mystery and in the midst of southern breezes -- a figure similar to a human being -- signifies the Love of our heavenly Father. It is Love -- in the power of the everlasting Godhead, full of exquisite beauty, marvelous in its mysterious gifts. Love appears in a human form because God 's Son, when he put on flesh, redeemed our lost humanity in the service of Love. On this account the countenance is of such beauty and splendor that you can

23 1 Cunningham. pp. 8, 10-11.

72 form because God's Son, when he put on flesh, redeemed our lost humanity in the service of Love. On this account the countenance is of such beauty and splendor that you can more easily gaze at the sun than at it. For the abundance of Love gleams and shines in the sublime lightning flash of its gifts in such a way that it surpasses every insight of human understanding by which we can otherwise know in our should the most varied things. As a result, none of us can grasp this abundance with our minds. But this fact will be shown here in an allegory so that we can know in faith what we cannot see with our outward eyes. 232

In Hildegard's mature vision God is first, then followed by the principle of proportion and the creation of the universe. As she states in the vision above: "With wisdom I have rightly put the universe in order." God who is reason has ordered all things according to his wisdom. That wisdom is a balance. This balance can be seen in the way in which the earth and its elements are put together.

So, too, is man. Hildegard draws many parallels with the human body and creation. One example of that can be found in the forth vision of The Book of Divine Works in which she describes the

233 parallels between God's Earth and "God's handiwork-- man." • This vision which is entitled "On the Articulation of the Body" draws many parallels between the balance seen in the way God created the Earth and the way in which He created human beings. In Causae et Curae Hildegard applies this principle to the healing ofhuman beings. Imbalance is seen as the cause of most illness:

The elements which are part ofthe Earth are also the fabric of the human body. And they are diffused and active throughout the human body so that the body is held together, and at the same time they are spread throughout the world and work upon it. For fire, air, water and earth are in human beings, and human beings are made from them." Thus from fire they derive heat; from air, breath; from water, blood; and from earth, flesh. Moreover, their sight comes from fire; their hearing from air; their movement from water; and their measured tread from earth. And the world prospers when the elements fulfill their roles in a well-ordered fashion, so that heat, dew, and

232 Cunningham, pp. 11-12.

233 See DOD 4. 2, 3, 8--14 especially see 14 for this.

73 rain, one by one and in moderation, apportion themselves in due season and come down to regulate the earth, bringing fruitful and abundant produce and health. But if they were to fall on the earth suddenly, all at once and unseasonably, the earth would cleave asunder and its produce and health would be ruined. Likewise, when the elements are properly at work in the body they preserve it and confer health; but when they are at odds in it they weaken and kill it. For the humors, coagulated from heat, moisture, blood, and flesh in the human body, when they penetrated and remain in it the work there peacefully and in due proportion, are healthy. If, on the other hand, they reach it all at once, rushing upon it too copiously, they will weaken and destroy it. For heat and moisture and blood and flesh have all been changed, because of Adam's sin, into antagonistic humors in mankind.234

Within SCIVIAS there are two interpretations of the fall. The first of these earlier visions

appears in 1.2. In it the fall is described from the point of view of Satan and Eve.

Then I saw as it were a great multitude of very bright living lamps, which received fiery brilliance and acquired an unclouded splendor. And behold! A pit of great breadth and depth appeared, with a mouth like the mouth of a well, emitting fiery smoke with great stench, from which a loathsome cloud spread out and touched a deceitful, vein-shaped form. And, in a region of brightness, it blew upon a white cloud that had come forth from a beautiful human form and contained within itself many and many stars, and so doing, cast out both the white cloud and the human form from that region. When this was done, a luminous splendor surrounded that region, and all the elements of the world, which before had existed in great calm, were turned to the greatest agitation and displayed horrible terrors.235

Hildegard's commentary on this vision views the fall of Satan as due to his wishing to "shine there as He [God] does." Lucifer was cast out into darkness because through pride he came to view his beauty and power to be equal with God's. In Lucifer's search to find a place where he could live he enlisted the aid of the serpent "who already bore within itself the crime of fraudulent intention, ..

."The Devil, seeing man in paradise, Adam and Eve walking with childlike innocence, understood

234 C&C 2.42 translation from Hildegard of Bingen, Secrets of God: Writings ofHildegard of Bingen, trans. Susan Flanagan (Boston: Shambhala, I 996) pp. I 08-09. Translations of parts of many of Hildegard's works. Lives of St Rupert; St Disibod. Letters to Bernard, Tengswich of Andemach, Richardis, Hartwig of , Elizabeth of SchOnau, Pope Eugenius, Luitgard ofKarlberg, Henry II of England, Abbess Hazzecha ofK.rauftal, Nuns at Rupertsberg, Hugo (Hildegard's ), Abbot of Himmerod, Pope Alexander III, Guibert.

235 SCIVIAS 2. I translation from Hart & Bishop p. 149. 74 that the tree bore forbidden fruit, because Adam and Eve turned away from it "in body and soul."

By his questioning and Eve's reply, the Devil formulated a plan for the seduction of the human race.

Eve is seen as innocent in soul, for "she had been raised out of innocent Adam, bearing in her body the whole multitude of the human race, shining with God's preordination ..." Eve was chosen as the target of Lucifer's intrigue "because he knew that the susceptibility of a woman would be more easily conquered than the strength of the man; and he saw that Adam burned so vehemently in his holy love for Eve that if he, the Devil, conquered Eve, Adam would do whatever she said to him." (!.2.1 0) The final scene in her commentary begins with the inability of man to understand the higher things, and squarely places the Incarnation as the foreseen response of God, the "gentle Father [who] sent His

Only-Begotten to die for the people, to deliver humanity from the power of the Devil." In the final scene humility is taught as the virtue which man must adopt, "For humility caused the Son of God to be born of the Virgin, in whom was found humility, not eager embraces or beauty of flesh or earthly riches or gold ornaments or earthly honors." (!.2.32)

The second version of the creation story is found in SCIVIAS 11.1. This time the story is told from the standpoint of Adam and God. This vision contains a veiled reference to Mary. The second book of SCJVIAS is concerned with Redemption and the Redeemer. Hildegard began this critical book with the creation of man and carried the vision through to the Fall and the harrowing ofhell, the Ascension and the establishment of the Bride of Christ (the Church). Both man and creation are shown to be redeemed. After witnessing the creation of the world Hildegard reports the of human beings. She then sees the Holy Trinity (symbolized by fire, flame, and a blast of wind) offer to Adam a flower, which he smells and refuses. Adam's disobedience is a sin of omission, not commiSSion.

75 In the Lucca manuscript the artist has illustrated the 'shining white flower' as the lily of the

Annunciation. Through this vision we can attribute to Hildegard, and most particularly the

illuminator of this manuscript, an understanding that Adam's act of disobedience is iconographically

the counterpart of Mary's act of obedience.236 The Annunciation, Mary's acceptance of the

Incarnation in her womb, and her purity are the necessary preconditions for the restoration of man

and of his ability to enter once again into the proper relationship with God, which Adam lost through

OmiSSIOn.

Man and Woman

Much of Western Christian theological speculation about men and women was derived from

the writings of St. Augustine. However, much of it was misogynistic in tone. Western patristic

writers followed Augustine in maintaining that the locus of the image was the rational mind. 237 But

in the twelfth century there was a growing awareness of the incarnational man as opposed to the

spiritual image in man. 238 Although the main purpose of this approach to the imago Dei was to underscore God's eternal purpose, it at the same time helped in the process of rehabilitating the much-despised body. Helinand of Froidmont (CA. 1190-1233) in his De cognitione sui said:

"Before the Incarnation the Image of the Word was merely interior, but after the Incarnation of the

239 Word even the outward form of man has become a form of God. " "

236 See later "Mary in Hildegard's Thought" for elucidation of these images in Hildegard's poetry.

237 See Augustine De Gen. ad /itt. III.20 (CSEL 28, 86); De animae ratione 5 (PL 101, 641A); , Comm. in Gen. 1.7 (PL 107, 460B) Angelomus ofLuxeuil, Comm. in Gen. I (PL 115, 122D); and Remigius of Auxerre, Comm. in Gen. I (PL 131 , 57 A). Also see Gerhart B. Ladner, Ad lmaginem Dei: The Image ofMan in (Latrobe, P.a. , 1965), pp. 86-87, n. 54. Cited from Newman, 0 feminea forma: God and woman in the works ofSt . Hildegard, note 9 p. 178.

238 Gerhart Ladner, Ad lmaginem Dei pp, 42 & 108-109.

239 PL 212, 729D

76 Gender differences in the Christian tradition have been principally constructed on the basis of the Platonic, Neoplatonic, and Aristotelian philosophical systems, which were read into the Bible.

·These systems, which presupposed that the male gender was normative and that the female gender was derived from it, were not questioned by the church fathers. The construct of 'woman' was essentially explained as a negation or a reduction of the construct 'man'. Much of the speculation on 'woman' derived from the Genesis account ofher creation from the side of Adam.

At the beginning of the high scholastic period (+ 1231) explained: ( 1) the man is directly created in the image of God, but the woman is created only indirectly, through the man immediate viro; (2) man is a clearer intellect and the woman must be subject to him in accordance with the natural order; (3) all human beings, including women, are to be derived from the one human being, just as all that is created comes from the one God. 240

Due to the order of creation, woman is not directly in the image of God. She was created indirectly, derivatively through the man. In accordance with I Corinthians 11 :7 she is subordinate to the male 'by nature,' which makes her dissimilar to God and puts her on the side of creation, since she cannot portray God as Creator in his creativity.241

The male tradition drew upon the account of the Fall in Genesis 2, Sirach 25 :23 (In woman was sin's beginning, and because ofher we all die) and I Timothy 2.13f. (For Adam was formed first, then Eve. Further, Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and transgressed. But she

240 See William of Auxerre, Aurea, ed. Pigouchet (Paris 1500), am Main 1964, fol 58v.

241 In the Summa Theologiae develops an analogy between God as Father and Adam as father of the human race. While in both men and women the image of God is reflected it is more perfectly reflected in men. See, Allen, Prudence. "Two Medieval Views on Woman's Identity: Hildegard of Bingen and Thomas Aquinas." Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 16.1 (1987): 21-36.

77 will be saved through motherhood, provided women persevere in faith and love and holiness, with self-control). Augustine dismissed Adam's transgression as a trivial failing, seeing Adam as having been sinful in disobedience, but making him an accomplice of Eve, who had already incurred guilt, out of sympathy with her, so that she would not be the only one to be lost. Such contemporaries of

Hildegard as spoke of the (cancerous) sore of arrogance in Eve's breast.242 Eve's sin was even more disastrous because she sinned against her neighbor, by leading him astray into sin.

Augustine and the Scholastics derived their claim that the male intellect had greater clarity on biological views from antiquity and natural philosophy, based on the theory of elements and humors. In the twelfth-century school of Chartres, which was influenced by Platonism, we are told that in creating woman God did not mix the elements as well as he did when creating man. 243 In this theory the elements of the cosmos (fire and air) are identified as 'masculine' and the inferior elements (water and earth) as 'feminine.' So man is more clever because ofthe heat and dryness of the elements of fire and air. Women, with a greater proportion of moistness and coldness, are a less favorable mixture of temperaments and consequently are intellectually weaker. Fire and air are active elements, while water and earth are passive elements. This was used to explain the activity of men and the passivity of women, as well as to confirm the biblical hierarchy of the sexes. As Aristotle

242 See Monika Leisch-Kiesl, Eva in Kunst und Theologie des Friihchristentums und Mittelalters. Zur Bedeutung 'Evas' for die Anthropologie der Frau, Theological Dissertation, Salzburg 1990.

243 See Hans Liebenschiitz, Kosmologische Motive in der Friihscholastik. Vortriige der Bibliothek Warburg 1923- 24, ed. F. Sax!, Leipzig and Berlin 1926, esp. p.128.

78 became more and more accepted as the philosopher upon whom theology depended, the attraction

44 of a harmony of the Bible and philosophy was overwhelming2 .

Hildegard's view of the body diverges from the contemporary debates which were occasioned by the question of whether Eve was formed ad imaginem Dei, like Adam, or merely ad simi- litudinem. 245 Hildegard works from a substantially different notion of the imago Dei.

Hildegard's approach to the image does not diminish the traditional allegory of man and woman as anima and corpus, but transposes it into a new key. She believed the imago Dei in Adam and Eve to be the tunica humanitati~46 which the Son of God intended to assume from the Virgin

244 For a comparison of Hildegard and Aquinas see, Allen, Prudence. "Two Medieval Views on Woman's Identity: Hildegard ofBingen and Thomas Aquinas." Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses 16.1 (1987): 21-36.

245 For the polemics of this debate see Rupert ofDeutz' statement: "Non magis masculum quam feminam fecit Deus ad imaginem suam." In Gen. 11 .7 (CCCM21, 191). Herve ofBourg-Dieu In Ep. I ad Cor. (PL 181, 927C); Peter ofCelle, De panibus 10 (PL 202, 975B); Gilbert de la Porree, Troyes Cod. lat. 626, f. 113v-114'. On the opposite side see Abelard, Exp. in Hexaem. (PL 178, 760D-761D); Ernaldus ofBonneval: "Secundum quod vir est, ad imaginem Dei factus est; secundum quod virago, ad similitudinem .. . secundum intensiorem plenitudinem spiritus, vir, secundum remissiorem contemplationis appetitum, femina." De operibus sex dierum (PL 189, 1534AB); and lvo of Chartres: "Mulier vero velat quia non est gloria aut imago Dei." Panormia VII.44 (PL 161 , 1291AB). Cited by Robert Javelet, Image et ressemblance au douzieme siec/e (Paris, 1967), II, 207, n. 540. Through Barbara Newman, 0 femineaforma: God and woman in the works ofSt . Hildegard, note 4 p. 178.

246 Within Hildegard's thought garments were a very important symbol. Many issues were concerned only with what was the proper garment as for her nuns. But the garment that woman gives to man 'his body' is a primary element in the complementarity of the sexes. Hildegard uses the term tunica humanitatis in Ep 47 where she states: Per hoc praesignavit quid in beneplacitio suo haberet, quia ipsum per tunicam humanitatis suae ex feminea forma assumendam, in the context of the encounter of God and Adam after the fall as found in Gen III. The assumptus homo Christology was mentioned in Peter Lombard's as one of three approaches. In Augustine man "was assumed [by the Word] that he might be changed fro the better and reformed by him, like a garment worn by a person, but in a fashion unspeakably more excellent and fitting . .. for he did not become human by changing himself into a man, but by clothing himself in man." De divers is quaestionibus 83, question 73 , PL 4). 84-85. Translation taken from Barbara Newman, Sister of Wisdom: St. Hildegard's Theology ofthe Feminine (Berkeley: Scholars Press, 1987a).

79 247 48 Mary • In the third of her visionary worh;1 Hildegard's imagery catches up with her visionary thought when she states: "Man . . . Signifies the divinity of the Son of God and woman his humanity."249 With this shift in emphasis Hildegard enhances the status of woman as a creature ad imaginem Dei and mankind (including woman) assumes a dignity by virtue of the incarnation. But

50 the relationship of man and woman is complementary2 • Hildegard celebrates this complementarity

~her fourth vision in the Book ofDivine Works. This very long vision is titled On the Articulation ofthe Body and forms the coda of the first part of her third, and most mature, theological work.

When God looked upon the human countenance, God was exceeding pleased. For had not God created humanity according to the tunic (tunica) of his image and likeness? (quoniarn secundum tunicarn imaginis sue et secundum similitudinern suam ilium creaverat) Human beings were to announce all God's wondrous works by means of their tongues that were endowed with reason. For humanity is God's complete work (homo enim plenum est). God is known to human beings, and for our sake God created all creatures. God has allowed us to glorify and praise God in the kiss of true love through our spirituality.

But the human species still needed a support that was a match for it. So God gave the first man a helper in the form of woman, who was man's mirror image, and in her the whole human race was present in a latent way. God did this with manifold creative power, just as God had produced in great power the first man. Man and woman are in this way so involved with each other that is the work of the other (opus alterurn per alterum ). Without woman, man could not be called man;

247 Ep. 47, PL 197.223A See also Hildegard's interpretation ofthe Wedding in Cana where she interprets the question Quid mihi et tibi est, mulier (John 2:4) as a inquiry about what God and woman share and gives the response: "Woman, what do you and I, the Creator of all, have in common? Humanity is mine, that I might create all things; and yours as well, that it might be my garment." From Expositiones evangeliorum, Pitra 261.

248 See B Scholz, "Hildegard of Bingen on the Nature of Woman," American Benedictine Review 31 ( 1984 ): p. 364. where he characterizes the DOD as" ... her most mature achievement, a cosmological and anthropological investigation of created beings in their relations with each other and with the divinity."

249 PL 197: 885.

250 In this perception of the complementarity of man and woman Hildegard is not alone. Godfrey of Admont in his Homiliae dominicales (PL 174, 360CD) remarks that, although a man can reflect inwardly on the divine image which he bears-immortality, wisdom, intelligence-yet he beholds it plenius et perfectius when he contemplates woman who was taken from him. Cited from Newman, 0 femineaforma, note 23 p.l79.

80 without man, woman could not be named woman. Thus woman is the work of man, while man is a sight full of consolation for woman. Neither of them could henceforth live without the other. Man is in this connection an indication of the Godhead while woman is an indication of the humanity of God's Son. And thus the human species sits on the judgment seat of the world. It rules over all creation. Each creature is under our control and in our service. We human beings are of greater value than all other creatures.251

This act of turning away from one's self to look at another, this anti-narcissistic relationality, is what immediately separates the unfallen angels from Lucifer who wished to be a lamp instead of a mirror.252 This aspicere in alio was the signal to the Serpent in the Garden that Eve was a special creation, for she "looks to another as the angels look to the Lord. "253 This movement toward the other is of cosmic dimensions. The cosmos is so ordered that superiora resplenduerunt ab inferioribus et inferiora a superioribus. This is the 'proper fit' that Hildegard calls "Justice," which is the prere- quisite for both knowledge and joy. It is this state that Adam and Eve image when Adam first looks upon his wife.

For when Adam looked on Eve, he was utterly filled with wisdom, for he saw the mother through whom he would beget children. But when Eve looked at Adam, she gazed at him as if she were seeing into heaven, as a soul which longs for heavenly things stretches upward, for she set her hope in the man.254

In this proper relationship Adam and Eve reflect not only each other but the harmonious relation of all of creation. In this relationship Eve is not only the speculativa forma but also the fons sapientiae.

251 DOD 1.4.100 (PL 885BC). Translation taken from Cunningham, pp. 122-123.

252 See SCIVIAS 1.2.2 and LVM Vl.15.

253 See SCI VIAS 11.1.6 Also in SCI VIAS III.1.16 we learn that "God preserved the splendor [of the fallen angel] for the clay that he formed into a human being, covering him with the lowly element of earth so that he would not exalt himself in the likeness of God; for the one he had created shining in great brightness, but not covered with so frail and wretched a form as man is, was unable to stand in his pride."

254 c & c p. 136.

81 In their mutuality she becomes for the man the fountain of wisdom. Just as a well reflects back a

tree's image, so too does Eve, as mother of the human race, reflect back (proleptically) all things

255 present and future in knowledge and faith .

Woman and Women in Hildegard

In the face of this contemporary speculation on the nature of 'woman' Hildegard's visions

present an alternative view. Hildegard modified this philosophical taxonomy. In her cosmic

anthropology she aligns man with fire and earth and woman with air and wate~ 56 • Consequently, she

understands that the sexes should be complementary to each other, and their activities are meant to

help their polar opposite. In SCIVIAS I.2 Hildegard makes an addition to Paul's statement that Eve

was created for Adam: misquoting him by adding as he was created for her.

Hildegard clearly considered that being female was a good thing. Perhaps the only

shortcoming to be found in her anthropology is that the philosophical construct of 'woman' did not

even begin to match the women in her visions. Hildegard did not reject the submission of women

to men, indeed she underlines it. She stands in the tradition of Augustine and his declaration that

"To be a woman is no [defect], but is natural."257 His declaration stands in contrast to much

of the earlier misogynistic literature such as was spawned by the apocryphal Gospel of Thomas

-where Peter seeks to send away from the disciples on the grounds that women are

not worthy of life, and in which Jesus replies that he will guide her so that she makes herself

255 See SCIVIAS III.2.9 for the use of the terms mentioned in this paragraph. It may be found in PL 197. 577-590.

256 In her work Causae et curae Hildegard gives a much more through treatment of the sexes than she does in her visionary works. C&C provides us with the down-to-earth Hildegard who judges on the basis of her own perceptions when the church has not spoken. See, C&C 60.87; 59.87

257 See De civitate Dei 22.17, 18: Non est autem vitium sexus femineus, sed natura.

82 masculine, so that she becomes a living spirit and thus can enter the kingdom of heaven258-or the

writings of Jerome and , who state: the wife who still serves husband and children and has

not yet arrived at full knowledge of faith is called 'woman,' but the one who abstains from

procreation or is advanced in the faith is called 'man'259-or stories of women who disguised themselves as males and lived as eunuchs in the wilderness. Augustine made it clear that in the resurrection, as transfigured corporeality which had left behind all libido and vitium (that is, its weakness conditioned by sin) no conflicts can arise any longer through the female form of humanity,

so it can be recognized in its creaturely beauty. Hildegard like most medieval women who wrote stressing their womanhood as virgines while also showing solidarity with the matres, leaves behind the symbol of becoming male. Instead, she combines the themes of feminine modesty and a strong consciousness of election.

Virginity

A recurrent theme in all of Hildegard's writing is virginity. To Hildegard with her cosmological view, virginity is a continuing image on earth of the paradisiacal state. This state is to be celebrated. In a letter to Hildegard, Tengswindis, the magistra of a foundation of canonesses on the Rhine, asks about rumors concerning the dress ofHildegard's nuns on feast days. It was reported that Hildegard's nuns wore rings, veils, and tiaras studded with symbolic images. Hildegard responded that one must distinguish between the roles of married women and virgins. A married woman should not flaunt herself; since the Fall, women have been exposed to danger, precisely

258 See especially Peter Brown, The Body and Society: Men, Women and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity, New York and London 1988, esp p. 113, with more literature.

259 See, Haye van der Meer, Priestertum der Frau? Eine theologiegeschichtliche Untersuchung, Freiburg 1969. p 97 . 83 because she is such a beautiful divine creation: "The form of woman flashed and radiated in the

primordial root ... both by being an artifact of the fmger of God and by her own sublime beauty. Oh

how wondrous a being you are, you who laid your foundations in the sun and who have conquered

the earth! 260 Only upon married women is St Paul's idea of the submission of women to their

husbands in modesty and fidelity incumbent. They, who have known winter (sexual activity) --

cannot proudly rise in the flower of perpetual spring (virginity). A married woman must not demand

the exaltation of a tiara or gold 'except at the wish of her husband, so that in harmonious measure

she may give him delight'. No so with a virgin. 'She remains in the simplicity and beautiful integrity

of paradise' and it is right for her 'by licence and by revelation of the mystic breath 'of God's finger' to have bridal splendor -- even after the Fall.

That continuing image on earth of the paradisiacal state which virginity represents is the goal

ofher community of virgins. Dronke says that Hildegard invested this notion with 'courtly'

significance.

If her community of virgins can be an image of paradise, if even on earth they are queens of the divine Bridegroom, then they must manifest joy as a permanent quality of their being. had spoken of joy in just this way, as a necessary condition of the true chivalric lover. In Hildegard's counterpart fantasy in the divine sphere, the black veil, suggestive of the servant-girl (ancilla), is replaced by the joyous white one, and by the tiara that betokens a domina. The imagery of the tiara itself reveals that her maidenly elite displays a convergence of the human, the angelic, and the divine. It is from the standpoint of this spiritualized courtly joy, also, that the cultivation on the Rupertsberg of lyric drama, vocal and .. . instrumental music becomes fully comprehensible.261

260 See, PL 197, 337-338. Quote from Peter Dronke, Women Writers ofthe Middle Ages: A Critical Study of Texts from Perpetua (+ 203) to Margarite Porete (+ 13 10) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984) 166.

261 Peter Dronke, Women Writers ofthe Middle Ages p. 169.

84 This woman, the radiant, half-celestial woman, whom Hildegard longs to see incarnate in the women of her convent is allegorized in a letter to Werner of Kirchheim, the priest in charge of a community which Hildegard addressed in 1170 .

. She was a woman if exquisite charm, so attractive in her loveliness and possessed of such beauty that the human spirit was unable to comprehend it. Her form towered above the Earth all the way up into the heavens. Her face sparkled with the most incredible brightness. Her eyes looked up to heaven. She was clothed in the brightly radiant robe of white silk and in a cloak decorated with costly jewels: emeralds, sapphires, and pearls both large and small. On her feet she wore shoes made of onyx. But her face was smudged with dust and her dress was tom on the right side. Her cloak, too, had lost its exquisite beauty and the tops of her shoes were soiled.262

This woman as we soon learn is the Church. On this occasion Hildegard uses the vision to encourage the priests to do as God wills. Once again there is a feminine image brought through a feminine voice proclaiming in an 'effeminate age' God's will. Clearly Hildegard felt that femininity and virginity were what her age required, and she and her virgins would be those who like Mary incarnated God.

Woman's Generative Role

But not all women were virgins. In SCIVIAS I.2 Adam and Eve are shown at the moment of the fall. This vision deserves some attention. The miniature of the Rubertsberg manuscript illustrates a naked Adam who is asleep with eyes wide open. His right hand cups his ear which listens to the flames rising from the mouth of hell which is seen below on the left and on the right are two trees illustrating the garden of Eden. Eve is represented by a cloud coming out of Adam's left side and containing numerous golden flower-like stars. Out of hell comes a dark cloud which has eight tongues, the lowest one is in the shape of a serpent and is attempting to spew its venom upon the

262 PL 179. 269 C. 85 golden flowers within Eve. The remaining seven spew their venom into heaven which contains a starry cloud with flowers similar to those within Eve. Heaven is located in the upper part of the illumination. At the four comers appear the emblems of earth, water, fire and air. In this vision

Hildegard recounts the fall and illustrates the cosmic situation of mankind. For our purposes the most important parts of this illumination are the role of Eve with regard to Adam and all their offspring, the tension of living between heaven and hell, and the four elements.

Adam and Eve and Ordinary Women and Men

Eve is represented in a more or less central position. She is according to the explanation given to us by Hildegard," ... an innocent spirit, taken from the innocent Adam and pregn_ant with the whole multitude of mankind in her body, shining in the foreordination of God. "263 These stars or flowers were the human beings intended by God to replace the fallen angels. 264

The four elements are also important in Hildegard's vision. In Causae et Curae Hildegard gives this explanation of her theory of the relation of the four elements and human kind.

Adam, was created out of the earth, was awakened with the elements and thereby transformed. Eve, however, having emerged from Adam' s rib was not transformed. Therefore Adam was manly and potent due to the powers of the earth and due to the elements. Eve, however, remained soft in her marrow and she had more of an airy character, a very artistic talent and a precious vitality for the burden of the earth did no press upon her. 265

263 Evam innocentem animum habentem (quae de innocente Adam omnem mulitudinem humani generis in praeordinatione Dei innocentem in suo corpore gestans sumpta fuerat)PL 197.591-592-

264 See also SCIVIAS III.1.16 where Hildegard's vision illustrates Lucifer and his angels as falling stars. For a development of the stars and there iconography as representing humans see Newman, Sister of Wisdom, P- 102-03.

265 C&C II. p.46.

86 God had always intended to create men and women. They were shaped from different materials and in different ways and so are distinctive.266 The relationship of men and women to God and to each other was radically altered by the fall. Before the fall they shown like rays of the sun and were

267 immune to disease • It was only after the fall that men and women discovered that they were able to conceive and bare children. In paradise men and women would have been united in the sexual union "in moderation" and "without the present sexual embrace. "268 And before the fall woman was like the primal earth, yielding its green without effort. After the fall she is like a barren field which must be plowed so that seed can be sown, her role can only be filled under painful labor and with much patience.269

The sexual partnership of Adam and Eve and that of the ordinary man and woman was of interest to Hildegard. The implications of that partnership provide the source of another of

Hildegard's divergences from much contemporary thought on the status of the sexes. She asserts the complete moral and spiritual equality of the sexes while she also insists on their essential

270 differences • Hildegard regards human sexuality "as a value not only in the marital act itself; but independent of all sexual activity, it forms the spiritual being of man, so that to each sex is given its own task in the human community at large." 271 It is through her interpretation of Genesis and her

266 See SCI VIAS !.2.11 for this: ab initio maculum et feminam ... constitui. Also see C&C II.42, 4 7 and 59 and in the Book ofDivine Works see: Creavit hominem, masculum, scilicet majoris fortitudinis, feminam vero mollioris robur. PL 197. 945BC.

267 C&C II. p.45.

268 SCIVIAS !.2.11; C&C II. p. 45 .

269 C&C II. pp. 33, 47, 60, 104; and SCIVJAS !.2 in PL 197.397AB, 398A.

270 SCJVJAS !.2.12

271 Urgrund pp. 38-39. English translation from Newman 0 femineaforma.

87 experience as a physician and observer of the world around her that Hildegard develops an anthropology and resolves the question of woman's position vis-a-vis man.

Hildegard says a great deal about the ordinary man or woman. As a physician, a gynecologist, Hildegard developed an appreciation of the complexities which men and women face.

In Hildegard's cosmography the role of men and women is that of producing the members of the

Church. In SCIVIAS II.5, Hildegard's vision the Church, another candida nubes appears which signifies the secularis vita. This vision deals with the Church and its people. The majority of the vision's interpretations is concerned with the monastic role of monks and nuns. It is a complex vision which uses references to Old and New Testament figures as well as · a good deal of interpretation which bolster ecclesiastical practices.272 Half way through the interpretation of the vision Hildegard deals with the 'seculars' --laity. Within the vision there has been included a white cloud (candida nubes) which extends from the navel of the maiden who is the Church down, "to the point at which it has not yet grown further."

This is the secular life, which with pure and calm purpose surrounds the Church with reverence and renders her just assistance, from the fullness of here growing strength until the point past which she has not yet developed in her children. How? Because what lies closest to the navel is the womb, from which the whole human race is procreated. Therefore this refers to the secular people in the Church, through whom she must be brought to the full number of her orders, for here are gathered kings and dukes, princes and rulers, and their subjects, rich and poor, and the destitute living among the others. And by all these the Church is exceedingly adorned, for when lay­ people faithfully observe the Law of God, which is laid down for them, they beautify the Church greatly; when they obey their superiors with sincere humility and devotion, and chastise their bodies for God's love by alms and vigils and continences and widowhood and other good works that are of God, they embrace God with many

272 See 1,3,4,10,13,15,17,19,20,21,22,26,27,39,4145,49 with regard to the practices ofthe church and its orders in Hildegard's time .See 2 , 8, 14, 16, 25, 28, 31, 32, 33, 40, 42, 44, 48, 50, 52, 54, 56, 57, 60 for references to Scripture. See 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, 15 for references to virginity. See 23, 24, 25 , 37, 38 for references to the laity.

88 embraces. Therefore they who keep the law appointed for them by My will are most lovable to Me. 273

Yet further on in the vision Hildegard gives us this set of analogies of what the orders in the Church represent.

Therefore have peace and and humility among you, as the souls of the just have with the angels with the . For the souls of the just do not envy the office of the angels, and angels are not angry at the glory of the archangels. Why is this? Archangels point out the greatest things in the greatest times of necessity, and the angels announce lesser things in the normal course of events, while the faithful people humbly obey. Therefore, let each fulfil his office faithfully. How? Let those who are vowed monks, like the archangels, renew their powerful assistance whenever there is a great occasion of necessity in the Church; and let those who have the office of clerics, like the angels, do their business in the daily life of their institution; and let people who want to attain to supreme beatitude faithfully receive their words. How? Because they who are vowed monks are like grain, which is the strong, dry food ofhumans; so this people of Mine is bitter and harsh to the taste of the world. And the clerics are like fruits, sweet to the taste, and show themselves sweet to people by the usefulness of their office. And the common laypeople are like meat, but meat comes partly from chaste birds; thus those who live in the world according to the flesh have children, but among them are found followers of chastity, such as 274 widows and the continent, who fly to heavenly desires by their appetite for virtue •

So Hildegard reveals to us that in her vision the cloud which is Eve in SCIVIAS 1.2 with all those golden stars is also the Church. Those golden stars are the people who will populate the

Church. Those people are the clerics, the monastics and the laity of SCIVIAS II.5. Mankind has no less a position in the cosmos than to be the tenth rank that worshiped God -- along with the nine ranks of angels. Mankind was not however and after thought to replace the fallen angels. Human

273 Hart & Bishop pp. 214-215 ( SCIVIASII.5.23).

274 Hart & Bishop p. 222.

89 275 beings are at the very center of God's creation • And the very symbol ofthe universe for homo continet omnid-76 God is delighted in what He created and that creation in turn looked up to him "as to a lover"277 Man remains throughout all of Hildegard's writing God's supreme achievement.278

Conclusion

For Hildegard salvation is incarnational. All of her anthropology revolves around two incarnations: that of the first parents and the Incarnation of Jesus. Hildegard reworks the creation story to place woman and man on an equal and complementary footing. In doing so she contrib- utes a unique interpretation of the Fall, and within her illuminations a possible reference to the

Virgin Mary and the Incarnation.

275 Tu enim prae ali is creaturis tuis magnas et mirandas dignitates homini iniunxisti, SCI VIAS I.3 .11; in structura mundi quasi in medio eius homo est. DOD 2.15 PL 197.761BC.

276 PL 197 .171A A Letter to Eberhard the Bishop of Baumberg and 813D, 839C, 862D, 876D all from the Book ofDivine Works.

277 PL 197. 169B the Letter to Eberhard; PL 197.3 70C a letter to Berhold of Zwiefalatern; and in the Book of Life's Merits (LVM) 5.34 in Pitra, p.195.

278 Homo enim plenum opus Dei est, quia Deus per eum cognoscitur, et quoniam Deus omnes creaturas propter ilium creavit. PL 197.885B from the DOD.

90 Hildegard's Ecclesiological Vision

Hildegard's vision of the Church is the reason for all of her writings. The Church's role is to be the Mother ofthe children of God. Even with the consequences ofthe Fall the Church is the locus of salvation. The Church is always a "woman of exquisite charm" and she is "so attractive in her loveliness and possessed of such beauty that the human spirit was unable to comprehend her,"

279 as Hildegard said in her letter to Werner of Kirchenheim • The life of the Church is the place in which God's love for human beings is manifested to mankind. The Church's cosmological dimension became Incarnate in God's own son, whose body the Church is. In her song 0 virga ac diadema, the preexisting, all-encompassing church is called the materia omnium rerum, while the concrete beginning of salvation history depends on Mary as the materia aurea who was chosen before creation. 280 In this event Mary played the premier human part in accepting the invitation from God to give human flesh to his Son. In her vision of the Church found in SCIVIAS 11.3, the Church in its virginity is associated with the archetypal beauty of women, with the sapiential theological perspective, with the paradisal Eve, and with the Virgin Mary. On another level the Church is also associated with the painful ascetic love which can lead directly to martyrdom. Ecclesia is not only a virgin and a bride but also a mother. Like any mother she is aware of the pain, the failings, and the short-comings of her offspring. But as a mother she must give birth and nurture. The physician of Eibingen never forgot the experiences of her patients, the biological women who bore and nurtured children, just as she never forgot that they too are images of the beauty of God.

279 PL 179.269C.

280 0 virga, floriditatem tuam/ Deus in prima die/ creature sue previderat. Translation and comments can be found in Symphonia pp. 128-29 and 277.

91 The Church as Virgin and Bride

On the cosmological level the Church is Quemadmodum materia omnium rerum. The

Church's cosmological role as the 'substance of all things' is paralleled in the Virgin Mary who is called materia virginalis, materia aurea, materia Lucida and materia sanctitatis. All of these J terms for the Virgin and the Church can be seen in the second part of SCIVIAS, in the third vision, where Hildegard develops her ecclesiology of the Mother Church. Her vivid imagery in this draws a picture of the Church as it fulfills its function in the cosmological plan of salvation.

After this I saw the image of a woman as large as a great city, with a wonderful crown on her head and arms from which a splendor hung like sleeves, shining from Heaven to earth. Her womb was pierced like a net with many openings, with a huge multitude of people running in and out. She had no legs or feet, but stood balanced on her womb in front of the altar that stands before the eyes of God, embracing it with her outstretched hands and gazing sharply with her eyes throughout all of Heaven. I could not make out her attire, except that she was arrayed in great splendor and gleamed with lucid serenity, and on her breast shone a red glow like the dawn; and I heard a sound of all kinds of music singing about her, like the dawn, greatly sparkling. And the image spreads out its splendor like a garment, saying, "I must conceive and give birth!" And at once, like lightning, there hastened. to her a multitude of angels, making steps and seats within her for people, by whom the image was to be perfected. Then I saw black children moving in the air near the ground like fishes in water, and they entered the womb of the image through the openings that pierced it. But she groaned, drawing them upward to her head, and they went out by her mouth, while she remained untouched. And behold, that serene light with the figure of a man in it, blazing with a flowing fire, which I had seen in my previous vision, again appeared to me, and stripped the black skin off each of them and threw it away; and it clothed each of them in a pure white garment and opened to them the serene light. 281

This 'serene light with the figure of a man in it, blazing with a flowing fire,' is " ... the true

Trinity in the true Unity . . . with the serene Father and His sweet Son who was in divinity before

281 SCI VIAS II .3 PL 197.4548-4558 translation fromHart & Bishop p.l69.

92 all time in the Father, conceived within time in the flesh by the Holy Spirit and born of the

Virgin." But this is not the only reference to Mary. Of the woman who appeared at the beginning of the vision it is said " ... on her breast shines a red glow like the dawn; for the virginity of the

Most Blessed Virgin when she brought forth the Son of God glows with the most ardent devotion in the hearts of the faithful." And the parallel with 'Mary/Ecclesia' is underscored once again:

"And you hear a sound of all kinds of music singing about her, 'Like the dawn, greatly sparkling;' for as you are now given to understand, all believers should join with their whole wills in celebrating the virginity of the spotless Virgin in the Church. "282

Mary and Ecclesia again appear in parallel when Hildegard speaks of·"black children moving in the air." These are "those foolish people who are not yet washed in the bath of salvation, but love earthly things and run about doing them, building their dwelling on their unsteadiness; they come at last to the mother by which they are snatched from the Devil and restored to God." The 'woman as large as a great city' "groans, drawing them upward to her head, and they go out by her mouth, while she remains untouched." As Hildegard thinks of the travail of childbirth, she remembers Mary's delivery of God's Son: "But in this that mother suffers no hurt, for she will remain forever in the wholeness of virginity, which is the Catholic faith; for she arose in the blood of the true Lamb, her intimate Bridegroom, Who was born of the untouched

Virgin without any corruption of integrity. So too that Bride will remain untouched, so that no schism can corrupt her. "283

282 SCIVIAS II.3.9.

283 SCIVIAS II .3.12.

93 The Church as the Bride of God is the repository of wisdom. In SCIV/AS 11!.4 we are presented with an image which represents Hildegard's vision of the revelation of God to the world.

Hildegard sees a three-sided pillar, crowned with a radiant dove. The three sides represent the

Word of God in the patriarchs and prophets; the apostles, martyrs and virgins; and the wisdom of the doctors of the Church. She is told: "What you see is divine," and she cannot look at it any further. It is at this point that the figure of Scientia Dei appears in a building that represents the heavenly city or the Church. The Knowledge of God turns her gaze now to the pillar of the Word, now to the people entering the building. These people are warned to remember their Creator.

Angels worship her with fear and love, while people who are identified as those "compelled to come in" (Luke 14:23) look on in fear. In the Rupertsberg manuscript, Scientia Dei appears as a veiled woman with one hand raised in a gesture of forbearance. She is colored entirely with gold leaf and set off by the backdrop of a starry sky. Angels surround her on both sides, with reverent people on her right and scoffers on her left. Many images have been layered here. Scientia Dei embodies the paradoxical union of tenderness, radiance, and terror. 284 Scientia Dei is veiled, for she conveys both the awesome beauty of divine things and the saving restraint that makes epiphanies bearable. Scientia Dei represents both the Transfigured Christ and Sophia in the

Wisdom of Solomon. 285

284See SCI VIAS III 4, 15, where Hildegard describes Scientia Dei.

285 For she is the splendor of the eternal light, And immaculate mirror of God's majesty, And image ofhis goodness .... For she is more beautiful than the sun, and above all the order of the stars: compared with the light, she is found before it. ... Therefore she reaches from end to end mightily and orders all things sweetly. (Wisd. 7:26-8:1)

94 In SCIVIAS m.9 .25 Hildegard sees a related image. This time she envisions Sapientia, who represents the activity of divine Wisdom in the Church and the cosmos. She appears with the usual iconography of the House of Wisdom (Prov. 9: 1). Sapientia is revealed as creatrix and ruler of the world. She is Queen Consort of the Most High, and "she is the display of great beauty gleaming in God . .. united with him in a most tender embrace, in a dance of blazing love."

Hildegard's imagery turns the 'play' of Sophia in Proverbs 8 into a dance, which expands to embrace all creation in the symphonia of the saints and angels. But her dance resembles not the wild leaping of a pagan orgy but rather a choral dance of heaven. 286

In other theophanies Hildegard describes Sapientia and Caritas as identical. Sapientia is called "a most loving mistress in [God's] lovely embrace, "287 Sapientia "pleased the heart of almighty and omnipotent God . . . for she was with him always and shall abide with him forever. "288 She is "the most loving consort of the throne of God, and God hides no counsel from her. She keeps the marriage bed, and all that is God's is hers as well. "289 And she "has given the

High King the kiss of peace," Hildegard exclaims in one of her songs with reference to a familiar liturgical act. 290 It is Hildegard's gift to be able to transpose from earth to heaven and from con- crete example to archetype. In one of her letters she turns a blessing into a visionary prose poem:

286 See Hildegard's sequence to St. Rupert, from which comes this comparison (Lieder no 37: 252-256). This image may also give us a glimpse of the dancing of Hildegard's nuns on feast days. See, the Letter from Tengswind. ·

287 See Explanatio Symboli S. Athanasii, PL 197: 1067BC; Book ofDivine Works Ill.10.4, PL 197:1001 B.

288 LVM 1.46 and IV.38, Pitra 23 and 160; translation from Newman, Sister of Wisdom p. 49.

289 See LVM III.8, Pitra 108.

290 See Lieder no 16:228.

95 May the Holy Spirit cleanse you from all faults of malice and win you the friendship of Love, most sweet, most tender, who captured the mighty unicorn and poured forth song above all heavens and entered the bridal chamber of all the King's mysteries and revealed herself in all her beauty in the mirror of the cherubim. 291

By presenting to her friend Love's grandeur, Hildegard attempted to lead him from a simple ethical directive to a hope of sharing in the everlasting wedding-a good example of what

Hildegard's vision did for her.

Synagoga and Ecclesia

Hildegard also had a vision of the . This image was also of a woman but she was and image bereft of the Incarnation. The image of the synagogue presents a counter image to the nurturing, feminine image of the Church empowered by the overshadowing of the Holy Spirit.

In SCNIAS 1.5 Synagoga appears. In this shortest of all the books in SCWIAS, the synagogue is imaged as a woman. Hildegard reports her vision:

After this, I saw the image of a woman, pale from her head to her navel and black from her navel to her feet; her feet were red, and around her feet was a cloud of purest whiteness. She had no eyes, and had put her hands in her armpits; she stood next to the altar that is before the eyes of God, but she did not touch it. And in her heart stood , and in her breast Moses, and in her womb the rest of the prophets, each displaying his symbols and admiring the beauty of the Church. She was of great size, like the tower of a city, and had on her head a circlet like the dawn.292

In this vision Hildegard develops the natures of the women Synagog a and Ecclesia. The image is pale from her head to her navel because as the Synagogue she is:

the mother of the Incarnation of the Son of God. From the time her children began to be born until their full strength she foresaw in the shadows the secrets of God, but did not fully reveal them. For she was not the glowing dawn who speaks

291 Ep. 142, Pitra 567.

292 SCJVIAS 1.5 .1, Hart & Bishop p. 133.

96 openly, but gazed on the latter from afar with great admiration and alluded to her thus in the Song of Songs: "Who is this who comes up from the desert, flowing with delights and leaning upon her beloved?" (Song of Songs 3:6, 8:5). 293

The vision is explained with references to Solomon, , , Saul and David. Synagoga had the Law and the Prophets, but she did not follow the Law and she killed the Prophets. She was, like Eve, seduced by the Devil. In time Synagoga preceded the Ecclesia. Like Eve and Mary their similarities and differences are developed. What separates the two is the Holy Spirit, or, fmally, the Incarnation. For it was a matter of choice, just as Adam chose not to pick the flower offered to him at the Creation (SCIVIAS 1.2), so too did the Jews not choose to acknowledge the

Son of God.

And so it is to Ecclesia and her choosing rightly, as did Mary, that Hildegard turned as the salvation of both Mankind and Synagoga. Ecclesia appears, as a virginal woman, in SCIVIAS 11.5:

After this I saw that a splendor white as snow and translucent as crystal had shone around the image of that woman from the top of her head to her throat. And from her throat to her navel another splendor, red in color, had encircled her, glowing like the dawn from her throat to her breasts and shining from her breasts to her navel mixed with purple and blue. And where it glowed like the dawn, its brightness shone forth as high as the secret places of Heaven; and in this brightness appeared a most beautiful image of a maiden, with bare head and black hair, wearing a red tunic, which flowed down about her feet. 294

Hildegard's lyrical vision of Ecclesia in SCIVIAS 11 .5 uses the symbolism of the Virgin Mary.

Virginitas is hymned as music, flowers, the blush of dawn. Like the Mother of God, Virginitas stands symbolically at the heart of the Church. But this virginity is the freely chosen virginity of

293 Hart & Bishop p. 133 .

294 Hart & Bishop p. 133.

97 monks and nuns. It is the virginal life, especially chosen by nuns, as a imitatio Ecclesiae, not as an imitation of the Virgin Mary. 295

Ecclesia appears five times in SCIV/AS; Ecclesia's life, with her attendant problems, provided the reason for Hildegard's visions. Typologically both Mary and Eve are recapitulated in Ecclesia. Both Mary and Ecclesia are envisioned as the second Eve. Just as Eve was born from the side of sleeping Adam, so too was the Church born from the side of Christ, the second Adam.

Like Mary, Ecclesia is Virgin and Mother (Mary, however, alone is mother and virgin in her unique personal being). Both Eve and Ecclesia are collective personalities. Eve represents all women, in terms of both their fruitfulness and their sinfulness. Ecclesia has as her daughters all consecrated virgins. Ecclesia also shares the victimization of Eve, for the Devil continually assaults the bride of Christ. Ecclesia suffers from rapacious clergy and the Antichrist. She can lose her children, whom she bears in baptism, through schism and heresy. The pure virgin who comes down from heaven to marry Christ on the cross, who through the of baptism bears his children and nourishes them in the Eucharist, is also the beleaguered bride.

Ecclesia is a sapiential figure . Like Christ and Mary, she is predestined. Ecclesia has an eternal dimension. She is the heavenly Jerusalem which appeared with the divine architect before the creation of the world. Ecclesia is both bride and city. Hildegard uses the imagery of the apocalyptic city for the Church (Apoc. 21 :2). Through the Virtues the City will be built. She is paradoxical in her eternal and future existence. Hildegard affirmed her preexistence in a letter in

295 Newman states: "Nevertheless, imitation of Mary plays a relatively minor role in Hildegard's doctrine of virginity. More often she envisioned the virginal life, especially that of nuns, as a privileged imitatio Ecclesiae" (Sister of Wisdom p. 220). For more on this subject see Matthlius Bernards, Speculum Virginum. Geistigkeit und See/en/eben der Frau im Hochmittelalter (Cologne and Graz, 1955), and John Bugge, Virginitas: An Essay in the History ofa Medieval Ideal (The Hague, 1975).

70 which she followed I Peter 2:5 in seeing the purpose of Ecclesia to praise the Humanity of Christ.

Human beings are the living stones. Ecclesia shares in the same materia with Caritas and Mary:

The heavenly Jerusalem, who was to be adorned by the supreme architect, almighty God, appeared in his presence as the matrix (materia) of all things before the creation of the world ... For God wished Jerusalem, which is built from the holy works of human beings and appears as a bride adorned for her husband, to exist for the praise of his humanity, even as he created the angels for the praise and honor of his divinity. 296

This is no small calling. In SCIVIAS I.6 Hildegard has described the choirs of angels. The Church is the earthly counterpart of the angelic choirs, although human beings do not always recognize this. If human beings are to dance to the music of sanctity, then the place where that music can be heard should be Ecclesia. In chapters 11 and 12 Hildegard explains the connection between the armies of angels, their praise, and God's saints.

"But all these armies, as you hear, are singing with marvelous voices all kinds of music about the wonders that God works in blessed souls, by which God is magnificently glorified." For spirits blessed in the power of God make known in the heavenly places by indescribable sounds their great joy in the works of wonder that God perfects in His saints; by which the latter gloriously magnify God, seeking Him in the depth of sanctity and rejoicing in the joy of salvation; as My servant David, the observer of celestial secrets, testifies when he says: "The voice of rejoicing and of salvation in the tabernacles of the just" (Psalm 117: 15). Which is to say: The song of the gladness and joy of those who tread the flesh underfoot and lift up the spirit is known, with unfailing salvation, in the dwellings of those who reject injustice and do the works of justice; they might do evil at the Devil' s temptation, but by divine inspiration they do good. What does this mean? Man often has inappropriate exultation at committing an improperly desired sin; but in that state he does not have salvation, for he has gone against the divine command. He, however, who strongly does the good he ardently desires shall dance in the true exultation of the joy of salvation, for while in the body he yet loves the mansion of those who run in the way of truth and tum aside from lying error. 297

296 Ep 47, PL 197: 227D-228A; translation taken from Newman, Sister of Wisdom, p. 200.

297 Hart & Bishop p. 143.

99 298 Hildegard developed the imagery of the building in the third book of SCIVIAS , but in this paper we cannot follow her further. However, we can look at the instruments which Ecclesia uses to connect God with man, namely the Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist.

The Church -- Baptism and Eucharist

The Sacraments of Baptism and the Eucharist are birthing and nurturing functions within the Church. These two functions of Motherhood are not applied by Hildegard to the role of women but rather to that of the male clergy. No doubt Hildegard regarded these sacramental acts as participating in the life of the church in a manner in which physical maleness or femaleness did not delimit that particular function. Newman states: "So what we see throughout the abbess's treatment of Mother Church is a consistent feminizing of ecclesiastical and clerical acts, . .. "299

In SCIVIAS II. 3 Hildegard gave us a vision of the Church's maternal work in Baptism:

After this I saw the image of a woman as large as a great city, with a wonderful crown on her head and arms from which a splendor hung like sleeves, shining from Heaven to earth. Her womb was pierced like a net with many openings, with a huge multitude of people running in and out. She had no legs or feet but stood balanced on her womb in front of the altar that stands before the eyes of God, embracing it with her outstretched hands and gazing sharply with her eyes throughout all of Heaven. I could not make out her attire, except that she was arrayed in great splendor and gleamed with lucid serenity, and on her breast shone a red glow like the dawn; and I heard a sound of all kinds of music singing about her, "Like the dawn, greatly sparkling." And that image spreads out its splendor like a garment, saying, "I must conceive and give birth!" And at once, like lightning, then hastened to her a multitude of angels, making steps and seats within her for people, by whom the image was to be perfected. Then I saw black children moving in the air near the ground like fishes in water, and they entered the womb of the image through the openings that pierced it. But she groaned, drawing them upward to her head, and they went out by her mouth, while she remained untouched. And behold, that serene light with the figure

~ 98 SCIVIAS III. 2.3.4.6.7.8.

299 Newman. Sister of Wisdom p. 229.

100 of a man in it, blazing with a glowing fire, which I had seen in my previous vision, again appeared to me, and stripped the black skin off each of them and threw it away; and it clothed each of them in a pure white garment and opened to them the serene light. 300

This vision of baptism is a collage of symbols. In it we have vintage Hildegard. She blends in a unique fashion the elements of maternal and masculine. 301 Her verbal iconography draws on some unique interpretations as well as using some much older images. The black infants are catechumens, stained with , searching for salvation, who "enter her womb" by preparing for baptism (John 3:4). Her sighing and invoking of the Holy Trinity is reminiscent of

Matthew 28: 19. And from St Paul comes the image of their being drawn up to her head (Eph.

5:23). She gives birth through the Word and the Spirit-through the mouth. The Church's virginity remains intact. Christ clothes the neophytes in His light (Gal 3:27, Col. 3:9-1 0) . 302 The motif of the catechumens as fish and the womb of Ecclesia as a fishnet, draws together the ancient cryptic anagram of Christ as Fish (1X8Y:E), the baptismal font as a fish pond (piscina), the neophytes as Peter's miraculous catch of fish (Luke 5: 1-11), the preaching of the Apostles as

Christ's net, and the world or the Church as the sea. 303

300 PL 197 453B C 454 B Hart & Bishop p. 169.

301 See The Book ofDivine Works II.5.46, where Hildegard wrote that the Creator established male and female in the soul as well as the body: strength, fortitude, and justice are masculine qualities, while mercy, compassion, and repentance are feminine. PL 197: 952A.

302 The iconographer of the Eibingen Mss combined these three ancient baptismal motifs: The womb of Mother Church, the invocation of the Holy Trinity (represented by the tricolored sphere), and the new garment of immortal­ ity.

303 See Franz Dolger, IX8Y~. Das Fisch-Symbol infriihchristlicher Zeit, 2nd edition. (MUnster, 1928), I: 68-87; Hugo Rahner, Symbole der Kirche. Die Ekklesiologie der Vater (Salzburg, 1964): 475-490.

101 Hildegard's vision of the Eucharist is equally unique. While Hildegard does not develop specifically many of the parallels between the Virgin Mary and the Church, 304 Mary does figure in her ecclesiology as a type of the Church. Both are virgins and mothers; both have been over- shadowed by the Holy Spirit. In Hildegard's iconography Mary is the model of both the maternal

Church and the celebrating priest. The Incarnation is not a past event. In the Eucharist, since

Christ is made present by a new descent of the Holy Spirit, Hildegard images the epiklesis as a type of the Annunciation, and each priest as an instrument or a type of the Virgin Mary. In

SCIVIAS II.6.15, in a vision of the Church and Christ's , Hildegard combines with the

Annunciation the virginity and faithfulness of Mary and the model of the virginity of the Church and the faithfulness of the priests.

But the Blessed Virgin heard true words of consolation from the angel in secret, and believed; she uplifted the sighs of her soul and said, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to your word"[Luke 1:38]. Thus she conceived the Only-Begotten of God. This indicates that the priest who is performing this office must invoke with his words Almighty God, faithfully believing in Him, offering Him in devotion of heart a pure oblation and speaking the words of salvation in the service of humility; then the Supernal Majesty will receive this oblation and transmute it with miraculous power into the body and blood of the Holy Redeemer. How? As My Son miraculously received humanity in the Virgin, so now this oblation miraculously becomes His body and blood on the altar. Therefore this sacrament is wholly perfect, being invisible and visible, as My Only-Begotten is wholly perfect, Who is invisible as to His Divinity and visible on earth as to His Humanity. 305

In a further development of the image, some thirty years later in a letter to the prelates of Mainz,

Hildegard stated her conviction that both and Mary are archetypes of the priest:

304Newman states: "Despite her fondness for the traditional comparison of Eve and Mary, Hildegard dwells less on the corresponding parallels between the Virgin and the Church. She barely hints that the Mother of Christ is mother of the faithful, and as she does not develop the theme of Mary as sponsa Christi, the Church alone enjoys this time-honored role." 0 femineaforma: God and Woman in the Works ofSt Hildegard, p. 239.

305PL 197 516 D- 517 A. Hart & Bishop p. 246.

102 You are angels of the Lord of hosts. For as God was incarnate of the Virgin Mary at the words of the angel Gabriel, that by His birth, passion, and ascension lost man might be delivered and saved, so at your words the same body and blood of the Son of God are formed as His birth, passion, resurrection and ascension become present again for our salvation and that of all the faithful, both living and dead .... When the priest repeats the words of God, the body of the incarnate Word of God is again confected. Through that Word all creatures, which formerly had not appeared, came into being; and the same Word was incarnate of the Virgin Mary as in the twinkling of an eye, when she said with humility, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord." And the flesh of the selfsame Word of God blossoms forth at the words of the priest, and remains unaltered flesh. 306

Hildegard has skillfully combined the archetypal role of the priest with the reasons for which his virtue should be like those of the instrument of the Incarnation. She has made it clear that the clergy are to have a role within the Church on a similar level to the ranks of angels. It would not be an overstatement to say that the clergy, in Hildegard's view, should be of equal virtue and position to that "bride adorned for her husband" of whom Hildegard wrote in one of

307 308 her letters. Nowhere does she claim that Mary is a priest • But she does claim, in no uncertain terms, that a priest should be like Mary. Just as the Virgin was overshadowed by the Holy Spirit, so too is the virgin Church overshadowed at Baptism and the Eucharist. Ecclesia imitates Mary

309 and so should her priests. A priest's role is to be always ready to be overshadowed by God •

Conclusion

Hildegard's ecclesiology is cosmological. Time\eternity heaven\earth virtues\humans angels\the church are all related and interrelated. Time and eternity are the two spheres in which

306 Ep. 47 PL 224D-225B.

307 Ep 47, PL 197, 227D-228A.

308 Elizabeth of SchOnau saw Mary dressed in the vestments of a priest. Liber visionum 1.5

309 SCIVIAS 11.6.15 & 36 also Ep 47, PL 197, 224D-225B.

103 Ecclesia is present. Earth and Heaven are joined by Ecclesia, who is a type of Mary while the

Synagoga is a type of Eve. The Church occupies a role similar to the angels in praising God except the Church in its human incarnation is on earth. Like Mary Ecclesia is to Incarnate Christ in the world. She is the materia of Christ. Ecclesia is a virgin, a bride and a mother. She is a sapiential figure containing the Scientia Dei. As a mother she gives birth and nurtures her infants and raises her children. In Baptism she gives birth, in the Eucharist she nurtures her children. Finally

Hildegard argues that the priest are instruments of the Incarnation at Mass. In this role she sees that they must be as holy a vessels of the Incarnation as was Mary at the Annunciation. They must be as attractive to God as His bride.

104 Pre-Scholastic Medieval Mariology in the West

As Henri Barre demonstrates in his "Mariologie et CEcumenisme I. Eglise Orthodoxe:

Doctrine mariale et influence sur !'occident", the Western Church was greatly in debt to the Eastern

Church for much of its early mario logy. 310 By the tenth century the Byzantines, who had developed a theology based on the Incarnation in which Mary was the major human player, had in the first seven Ecumenical councils defined and purified their theology of God-Incarnate, and developed a great deal of liturgical (homiletical and hymnographical) elucidation of their theology as well as much popular piety. In the West Marian piety was developing. 311 Wenger mentions a compilation of various Byzantine homilies on the Assumption of the Theotokos by Andrew of Crete (c. 660-

740), (c. 675-749), Germanos of Constantinople (c. 634-733), and Cosmas

Vestitor (c. 950-1050).312 A manuscript of this work dating from the end of the tenth century belonged to the monastery of Reichenau, an island in Lake Constance. The document known as the

Mariale of Reichenau, which was to have much influence in the development of the theology of the

Assumption, was passed around in copied form for reading in the religious houses of twelfth-century

310.Henri Barre, "Mariologie et CEcumenisme I. Eglise Orthododoxe: Doctrine mariale et influence sur !'occident." Bulletin de Ia Societe Fran9aise d'Etudes Mariales 19 (1962): 27-89. Much ofBarre's article is concerned with the indluence of the Byzantines on the marian climate in the West. He believes that such doctrines as the Immaculate conception and the Assumption were made more possible by the influence of the Byzantines and especially the epithets for the Theotokos which they employed. Also see, Hilda Graef, Mary: A History ofDoctrine and Devotion, 3rd (Westminster, Maryland: Sheed & Ward, 1990) 202.

311 See C.S.Sp. O'Carroll, Theotokos: A Theological Encyclopedia ofthe Blessed Virgin Mary (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1982) pp. 126-27 "Eastern Influence on the West". Barre's "Marie et I'Eglise. Du Venerable a Saint Albert Ie Grand" in Bulletin de Ia Societe Fran9aise d' Etudes Mariales 9 ( 1951 ): 2-88 gives a very full listing of sources for the development of Marian from the eighth through the thirteenth centuries.

312 A. Wenger, L 'Assomption de Ia Tres-Sainte Vierge dans Ia Tradition Byzantine Du VI" au X" siecle, Archives de !'Orient Chretien, vol. 5 (Paris, 1955).

105 Germany. As such it is a good indication of the Marian environment in which Hildegard's convent participated. 313

During the tenth century John of Salerno (c. 945) tells of Mary's role in healings and her appearances in his Vita of Odilo (d. 942), the famous Abbot of Cluny under whom the monastery of Cluny began to exercise its great influence on Western momisticism. Odilo, in Serm. 3 on the

Purification, singles out Mary's virtues and attributes which are relevant to monastic life. She led an active life yet was helpful to others, as seen in the Visitation. At the Annunciation she was seen as being contemplative. At the Presentation of the Lord Odilo viewed Mary as having chosen perpetual virginity and poverty.314 The title 'Mary Mother ofMercy'315 was attributed to Odilo; this title, as well as the pattern of a beautiful unknown lady appearing and revealing a name under which she wishes to be known in the future, spread from this time through Lourdes to today. 316 In 972

Mary is reported to have appeared to the ailing Bishop of Utrecht, telling him that he would regain his health. According to the report, she left behind a cloud of exquisite perfume, and the bishop was cured immediately.317 The tenth century German Christian poetess Hrosvitha of Gandersheim, a

Benedictine ancestor of Hildegard, called Mary the one hope of the world, the glorious mistress of

313 For a fuller account of the Mariale see, Barre pp. 78-89. "It is hardly probable that the monks should not have used it for their preaching and instructions; indeed, in the twelfth century Gerhoh of Reichersberg (1 093-1169), well known for his zeal in introducing the reforms of Gregory VII in Germany, copied the sermon for the use of nuns on the feast of the Assumption." Graef, Mary, p. 202.

314 PL 142 Serm. 3, De Purific ..

315 PL 132, 72A,B.

316 John of Salerno, Vita, PL, 72 A, B.

317 S. Beissel, Die Geschichte der Verehrung Marias in Deutschland wahrend des Mittelalters (Freiburg, 1909), p.90.

106 heaven, who restores to the world the life that the virgin Eve had lost.318 Her words are redolent of the Greek hymns to the Theotokos. Hrosvitha, like the Greeks, treats in poetic terms of the Virgin's sojourn in the Temple, her betrothal to Joseph, and the weaving of the curtain for the temple.319 Mary is also presented as the powerful Queen of Heaven, who alone reconciles sinners by her intercession, consoles all Christians and takes them into her motherly arms;320 and she promises never to cease imploring her son "until I compel his tender mercy to spare you and forgive such great sins."321

Anselm of Canterbury

With Anselm of Canterbury (I 033-11 09), the "Father of ," twelfth-century

Marian thought began to flower. Anselm did not teach the Immaculate Conception. "For though the conception of the Man himself was pure and without any sin of carnal pleasure, nevertheless the

Virgin from whom he was assumed was conceived in iniquity and her mother conceived her in sin, and she was born with original sin, since she sinned in Adam 'in whom all have sinned. "'322 In a passage which sounds like Hildegard Anselm says:

Nothing is equal to Mary, nothing but God is greater than Mary ... Every nature is created by God and God is born ofMary. God created all things and Mary gave birth to God. God who made all things made himself from Mary and thus he remade everything he had made ... God is the Father of created things and Mary is the Mother of recreated things. God is therefore the Father of the constitution of all things and Mary is the Mother of the restoration of all things. God begot him through

318 Hrosvitha ofGandersheim, PL, 134, 856 ff.

319 Hrosvitha of Gandersheim, PL, 13 7 I 064 ff.

320 Hrosvitha ofGandersheim, PL, 137 1101-10.

321 Hrosvitha ofGandersheim, PL, 137 1108C.

322 Anselm, Anselmi Opera Omnia, photo lithograph edition, Stuttgart-Bad Castatt, 1968, ed. F. S. Schmitt (Edinburgh, 1946) II, 16, vol. 2, 116.

107 whom all things were made and Mary brought forth him through whom all things were saved. 323

Anselm also taught the mediation of Mary in terms reminiscent of many Byzantine homilies:

For there is no reconciliation save what you the chaste one conceived; there is no justification save what you intact in the womb fostered, there is no salvation save what you as a virgin brought forth. Therefore, 0 Lady, you are the Mother of justification and of the justified, Mother of reconciliation and the reconciled, parent of salvation and the saved. 324

Anselm expressed courtly devotion and love to Mary: "Merciful Lord, spare the slave of your

Mother. Merciful Lady, spare the slave of your Son. Let this slave of yours be kept under your protection until the end. "325

Anselm's influence was widely spread, especially in the monasteries. No doubt his influence even reached to Disibodenberg, either directly or as part of the monastic environment of the twelfth century. Graef points out that:

In Anselm some of the principal trends of medieval Marian doctrine and devotion are already united: a scholastic argumentation working out the consequences of Mary's divine motherhood in a strict parallelism between it and the fatherhood of God, which leads necessarily to her share in Christ's work of redemption ("both salvation and damnation depend on the will of the good Brother and the merciful Mother"), and so to her being also the mother of men, whose prayers are as necessary to our salvation as the Incarnation itself. Besides, Mary appears not only as the Mother of God, but also as the beloved, beautiful Lady of her spiritual knight who places himself under her protection, because it is incredible that you should not have mercy on the miserable men who implore you. 326

323 III 21-22.

324 III 22-23.

325 Anselm, Anselmi Opera Omnia, IV 16.

326 Graef, Mary p. 215 .

108 Bernard of Clairvaux

Bernard was Hildegard's contemporary (1090-1153). There can be no mistaking his influence upon her. Recent assessments ofBernard's Mariology are summarized in Theotokos. 327 Among those judgments are the following: only about three-and-a-half percent of Bernard's output was on Marian subjects; he was opposed to the Immaculate Conception; he restricted his interest to homilies; he did not produce a treatise on Mary. He added very little to the imagery around Mary except for the image of the aqueduct, and the idea of an act of oblation by Mary and Joseph in the Presentation of the

Lord. He is silent with regard to her spiritual motherhood, says little about the bodily Assumption, and is restrained about interpreting the Song of Songs in a Marian sense. In all these matters he stands in stark contrast to Eadrner, another contemporary (1060/64-1130), who accompanied St

Anselm of Canterbury in his exile. Bernard's influence must been great on Hildegard. As we saw earlier, he reformed the Benedictine order and was instrumental in the papal validation of her

VISIOnS.

Eadrner

Eadrner (1060/64-1130), the most famous of Anselm's English disciples, is the author of two works on Mary: Tractatus de Conceptione sanctae Mariae, which served as an offset to St

Bernard's letter to the Canons of Lyons, and De Excellentia Virginis Mariae. Mary's majesty dominated Eadmer's thinking. Only God was above her, for she was the Mother of God. As such she is spotless and without sin. Linked closely with her maternal dignity were her universal queenly privileges. In his Tractatus he wrote: "He made you his unique Mother and at the same time constituted you mistress and empress of all things ... that you might be thus who you were

327 pp. 75-76.

109 from the initial moment of your conception in your mother's womb by the operation of the Holy

Spirit. "328 Mary is seated on high "presiding over angels and archangels, disposing all things with her Son. "329 Eadmer also confirms the mysterious interventions of the Mother of Mercy. 330

Abelard and Heloise

If Anselm was the "Father of Scholasticism," Abelard was the "Son of Scholasticism. "

Abelard is a very challenging figure who changed the course of higher education. However, he is best known for his love of Heloise, one of his students, and the events surrounding that love.

By Hildegard's time the monopoly on higher education had passed from the monasteries, through the cathedral schools, to the medieval universities. Abelard is a representative of that movement. As a scholar and teacher at Paris he represents the beginning of university education.

As a contemporary of Hildegard's he can illustrate two of her difficulties in his own life and writings. Abelard's life and accomplishments show the increasing ambivalence of both education and the male-dominated society towards women and their education.

Abelard and Heloise together represent the conundrum of their day with regard to women.

Abelard presents a puzzling set of values, especially when it concerns one woman in particular.

In his Historia calamitatum he says that he insinuated himself into the position of Heloise's tutor in order to seduce her. But it is also clear that he had a genuine respect for her mind and

328 Eadmer, Tractatus de Conceptione Sanctae Mariae, edd. H. Thurston and Theodore Slater (Freiburg in Breisgau, 1904) p.12.

329 Eadmer, Tractatus de Conceptione sanctae Mariae, pp. 32 &. 41.

330 PL 159, 579A

110 learning. 331 In his Letter 6 to Heloise he outlines his belief about women. Men are naturally stronger than women in mind and body (Sunt et viri naturaliter tam mente quam corpore feminis fortiores). He also believed that men were morally stronger. Speaking of where women's monasteries should be placed, he writes, "Solitude is indeed all the more necessary for your woman's frailty, since for our part we are less attacked by the conflicts of carnal temptations and less likely to stray towards bodily things through the senses. "332

Heloise, for her part, seems to have accepted the male view of women's inferiority almost completely. In her letter to Abelard from the convent of the Paraclete she took him to task for putting her name before his in the previous letter: "contrary to the conventions of letter writing, indeed to the natural order of things . . . a woman before a man, a wife before a husband, a servant before a master, a nun before a monk, a deaconess before a priest, an abbess before an abbot. "333 And Heloise suggested that it is the general lot of women to be the downfall of great men, citing Eve, Delilah, and the instances of Solomon, and . More examples can be given, but her low opinion of her own worth may partly explain why Heloise did not develop her talents.

If Heloise, an upper class woman, felt as she said, how much more most have women of lower status!

Abelard's Mariology is found in the sixth chapter of his Sic et Non, in his hymns and sequences, and in four sermons: one on Christmas Day, and one each on the Assumption, the

331 See Historia calamitatum in J. T. Muckle and T. P. McLaughlin (eds.) Medieval Studies, vols 12, 15, 17, 18, Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, Toronto, 1950, 1953, 1955, 1956. Also see M.M. McLaughlin, 'Peter Abelard and the dignity of women: twelfth-century "feminism" in theory and practice' in Pierre Abelard, Pierre le Venerable: Les courants . . ., Paris, 1975, 287-333. Reference taken from Sabina Flanagan, Hildegard of Bingen: A Visionary Life. pp. 46-48.

332 Letter 6 to Heloise

333 Letter 3

111 Purification and the Annunciation. 334 1n his sermon on Chrisnnas Day he said that the "conception by the Lord's Mother was the beginning of our redemption," and that Mary was "chosen from the whole mass of mankind that in her [God] should work the mystery of our restoration and achieve the most high secret of His plan. "335 Abelard also believed that "Adam was created outside paradise, Eve in paradise . . . Eve was created from the old Adam; the new Adam, the redeemer of the old, was born of Mary. "336 According to Abelard, Mary was purified by Christ; he does not teach the Immaculate Conception. 337 Abelard also presented a view on the Assumption. Thinking in the imagery of the apocryphal story of the Assumption, he believed the Lord gave the soul of

Mary to Michael immediately, without the three days' delay before it is united to' the body. 338 He also held a strong view of Mary's role as "our intercessor to the Son as he is to the Father. "339

Alan of Lille

Alan of Lille (d. 1203) was a metaphysician. He studied in post-Abelardean Paris and was engaged in combating the Catharist heresy , as was Hildegard. His Marian writings include a com­ mentary on the Song of Songs, for which his interpretation allows an ecclesiological sense. Like

334 Peter Abelard, PL, 178.

335 PL 178 , 396C

336 PL 178, 542CD and on Eve 545B

337 PL 178, 390B and 394A

338 PL 178 , 542-543

339 PL 178 , 544B and 540B

112 Hildegard he saw a similarity between Mary and the Church. 340 With Hildegard he saw that Mary and the Church are related through Mary's role in the Incarnation. Alan said:

The virgin Mary is like the Church of God in many ways. As the Church is the mother of Christ in his members through grace, the Virgin is the Mother of Christ the head through his human nature. And as the Church is without spot and wrinkle, so is the Virgin in glory. As the Church has in different persons universality of gifts, so the Virgin Mary has in herself the universality of charisms. 341

Hildegard's vision of Mary and Ecclesia is a very concrete one. In SCNIAS II. 3. 12-13, she writes:

And thus the Church is the virginal mother of all Christians, since by the mystery of the Holy Spirit she conceives and bears them, offering them to God so that they are called the children of God. And as the Holy Spirit overshadowed the Blessed Mother, so that she miraculously conceived and painlessly bore the Son of God and yet remained a virgin, so does the Holy Spirit illumine the Church, happy mother of believers, so that without any corruption she conceives and bears children naturally, yet remains a virgin. As balsam oozes from a tree, and powerful pour from an onyx vessel in which they are stored, and bright light streams without impediment from a diamond, so the Son of God, unopposed by corruption, was born of the Virgin; and so too the Church, His Bride, brings forth her children without being opposed by error, yet remains a virgin in the integrity of her faith. 342

As a physician, Hildegard found her images in the metaphors of healing, sweetness, and light.

Mary is indeed the model of the Church, but she is not herself the felix mater credentium. 343

Alan also shares in relating Mary to the Synagogue which ". . . is called the mother of the

Virgin, from which Christ too descended." Hildegard developed the rich imagery of the

340 See PL 210, 51-110. AlsoP. Glorieux, ", docteur de l'Assomption," in Melanges de Sc. Ref., 8(1951), 5-18; A. Garcia "Integritas carnis e virginitas mentis" in Marianum 16(1954), 125-149, and by the same author "La mediazione universa1e in Alano de !'Isle," in Ephemerides Mario/ogicae, 6(1956), 299-321.

341 PL 210, 60AB.

342 Hart & Bishop, pp.l73-174.

343 See Newman, 0 feminea forma, p.241.

113 Synagogue as precursor and opposite of Ecclesia. She placed Synagoga and Ecclesia in a

relationship analogous to that of Eve and Mary. 344 Alan also made use of the Eve-Mary parallel and contrast. The distinction between Allan the metaphysician and Hildegard the physician accounts for the differences between Hildegard and Alan. Alan serves as a foil to help us bring into sharper focus Hildegard's uniqueness. 345

The Immaculate Conception Debate

During the twelfth century one of the most important questions in Mariology, that of the

Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary, was beginning to take form. We have looked at

Anselm, Bernard, Eadmer, and others who were participants in the debate. Eadmer felt that the devotion of the faithful was a better guide than the wisdom of the learned who opposed the feast of the conception. And there were many of them even in England. Not only was there opposition to the Feast of the Conception of the Virgin Mary but also to the idea that she was herself conceived without original sin. Osbert of Clare in a letter to Anselm of Bury, the nephew of

Anselm of Canterbury, said that those who oppose the feast on the grounds that until then nothing had been heard about it, and bishops Roger of Salisbury and Bernard of St. David's who tried to prevent its celebration, are "followers of Satan." Others opposed it because it had not been authorized by Rome. But some such as Osbert kept it with great solemnity. 346 Osbert is reported to have said in his Sermo de Conceptione: "I do not dare to say what I think in my heart of this

344 See the development ofthese images above under "An Ecclesiological Vision." pp. 96-100. Also see Newman Sister of Wisdom for a short history of the development of these themes pp. 204-211.

345Christel Meier, "Zwei Modelle von Allegorie im 12. Jahrhundert: Das allegorische Verfahren Hildegards von Bingen und Alans von Lille," Formen und Funktionen der Allegorie pp.70-89.

346 Osbert of Clare, Letters of Osbert ofC/are, ed. E. W. Williamson (London, 1929) 65.

114 holy generation, because it is not lawful to cast the heavenly pearls before the multitude. "347

Others, such as Rupert of Deutz (1075-1130), who first applied the Song of Songs entirely to

Mary, did not support Mary's Immaculate Conception but believed that she was freed of original sin at the time of the Incarnation. 348 As we shall see, Hildegard did not enter into this particular debate even though her rhetorical language could be understood as support for the Immaculate

Conception.

Of equal importance to the Mariological climate of the twelfth century is the creation of new hymns to Mary, especially the Marian , which heavily influenced both lay and monastic circles. The most famous of these is the Salve Regina, at one time attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux, but apparently an earlier composition. 349 This hymn expresses the confidence that the exiled sons of Eve have in Mary their advocate with God and her mediation with Christ on their behalf. The Alma Redemptoris Mater, the Advent , which was inspired by the Ave

Maris Stella, also seems to have come from this period. 350 The Hail Mary also appeared at this time. From the beginning of the twelfth century rhythmic Marian greeting hymns ( Grusshymnen) also became very popular. Meersseman attributes their origin to the Greek Akathistos Hymnos. 351

These hymns, like the Salutatio Sanctae Mariae which originated in Paris between 1050 and 1075, were hymns of greeting to the Virgin Mary. They were so numerous that they are considered to

347 Eadmer, Tractatus de Conceptione Sanctae Mariae, ed. Thurston H., and Theodore Slater (Freiburg in Breisgau, 1904) 79.

348 Rupert ofDeutz, PL, 168, 1325C.

349 See O'Carroll, Theotokos: a theological encyclopedia of the blessed virgin Mary, p. pp 317-18.

350 See Hilda Graef, Mary: A History ofDoctrine and Devotion, 3rd (Westminster, Maryland: Sheed & Ward, 1990) pp. 229-30.

351 Meersseman G. G. OP, Der Hymnos Akathistos im Abendland (Fribourg, 1958) vol 1, 77 ff.

115 form a species of their own. They did, however, differ from the Akathistos Hymnos of the Greek tradition in that they were prayers for help and protection. Also influenced by the Akathistos

Hymnoswere the Marian litanies which developed out of the All Saints' Litany such as the Litany of Loreto, 352 and the Grusspsalter which developed from the paraliturgical recitation of the

Psalms, in which the antiphons were replaced by strophes applying some verse of the relevant psalms to the blessed Virgin. This latter through a complex history eventually became the

Rosary.353

Conclusion

Hildegard's time was the inheritor of much development of Mary's place in salvation.

Hymns, li~es, as well as theological speculation and debate centered much attention on Mary's role .. All of these events and movements formed the environment in which .Hildegard was trained as a Benedictine. While we shall see that Hildegard did not develop a Mariology in the way her male contemporaries did, I hope we shall come to appreciate her unique contributions to the imagery of salvation in which, for Hildlegard, Mary was a primary participant Hildegard as a daughter of her age was in contact with all these various influences. Such a creative an imaginative woman as Hildegard could not have helped but produce hymns and visions in which Mary played a major role. As a visionary Hildegard integrated all these various influences and produced some of the most original mystical literature of the period.

352 H. Barre, "Prieres Mariales au xe Siecle," Ephemerides Mariologicae I 0 (I 960).

353Meersseman G. G., OP, Der Hymnos Akathistos im Abendland, vol2, 12-25.

116 ----- ._- -·- -

·Mary in Hildegard's Thought

But what about Mary? Hildegard envisions Mary. Unlike her contemporary Bernard, she does

not have a systematically developed Mariology. Hildegard's Mary appears implicitly in her

cosmology and anthropology, and more explicitly in her ecclesiology. Mary is viewed in

relationship to God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit; to Adam and Eve; and to the Church.

She represents the virtues in human form. Only in the Annunciation and Incarnation does Mary play an individual role. And Hildegard says little or nothing about the Immaculate Conception,

the Assumption, or the Coronation of the Virgin. One must piece together Mary's role in

Hildegard and suspend the need for direct and logical development of Marian themes. But Mary is never very far away from the work of God. Just as earlier in her anthropology Hildegard allowed Adam and Eve to appear and disappear, so too Mary appears and disappears. Like Adam and Eve, Mary occupies a fixed place in Hildegard's thought- she is the human instrument of the

Incarnation. Hildegard celebrates Mary's role in visions, letters, sermons and most prominently in songs.

Marian Cosmology

Hildegard begins with God. In Causae et curae Hildegard tells us, "Within the wheel of the Godhead are time and eternity, cosmos and microcosm. "354 The Book of Divine Works depicts this same wheel, divided into quadrants:

Then I saw, near the mountain and in the midst of the eastern region, a wheel of wonderful size that resembled a dazzling white cloud. To the east I saw

354 Hildegard of Bingen, Holistic Healing (Causae et Curae), ed. Mary Palmquist, and John Kulas, O.S.B., trans. Manfred Pawlik, (Latin text), Patrick Madigan, S.J. (German text), and John O.S.B. Kulas, (Introduction) (Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1994) p. 2. and Peter Dronke, Women Writers ofthe Middle Ages: A Critical Study of Texts from Perpetua (+ 203) to Margarite Porete (+ 131 0) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984) 214 and 172.

117 a dark line on the left that extended obliquely to the right, looking like human breath. On the middle of the wheel and above this line another line appeared, as bright as the dawn. From the top of the wheel this line descended to the middle of the first line. The upper part of this half-wheel emitted a green glow from its left side to its midpoint while from its right side to its midpoint there was a reddish sheen. And this took place in such a way that both colors shared the same space. But the half of the wheel that lay obliquely under the line displayed a whitish color mixed with black. And behold! In the midst of this wheel I saw again on top of the aforemen­ tioned line the figure that at the outset was named to me as "Love." But now I saw her adorned differently from the way in which she had earlier appeared to me. Her countenance shone like the sun, her clothing was a flaming kind of scarlet, and about her neck she had a golden ribbon adorned with costly gems. She wore shoes as radiant as the lightning. Before the figure's face appeared a tablet that gleamed like crystal. And on it was the following inscription: "I shall display myself in beauty, shining like silver. For the Divinity, who is without any beginning, shines forth , in great splendor." But everything that has a beginning is contradictory in its fearful existence; it cannot completely grasp God's mysteries. 355

This figure at the center of the wheel remains motionless as the wheel begins to revolve.

Hildegard tells us she is Love (Charitas). In a letter to Adam ofEbrach, the abbot of the Cistercian abbey, Hildegard writes these words:

In a true vision of the spirit, with my body awake, I saw something like an extraordinarily beautiful young woman. I wasn't able to look her fully in the face because of the lightning-like brilliance radiating from her countenance. She wore a robe whiter than snow and more shining than purest gold. She held the sun and moon in her right hand and she embraced them tenderly. There was an ivory plaque on her breast and on it one could see the shape of a human person and the color of this image was sapphire-blue. And the whole creation called the young woman "Lady." And she spoke to the image which appeared on her breast: 'Dominion is yours on the day of your power in the radiance of the saints. I have brought you forth from my own womb before the morning star. ' 356

The letter goes on to report about creation, Adam and Eve, and the Incarnation, and to attribute to Caritas the role of Mary in the Incarnation:

355 DOD X.l . quotation from Cunningham, p.222.

356 Miller pp. 307-308.

118 It was out of love that God, for the sake of human beings, clothed the Divine in human nature. For as the whole creation was completed at God's command, when God said: 'Be fruitful and multiply and fill the Earth!' (Genesis 1 :28) so did the glow of the true sun rise like dew in the womb of the Virgin and from her flesh the new Adam, just as it had also formed the first Adam in flesh and blood from the clay of the Earth. But the Virgin bore this new man in innocence." (Letter 30).

This wheel of Hildegard's can be diagramed and labeled. "Its circumference is the fatherhood of

God; its center, the motherhood of Mary. "357 Hildegard's incamational theology makes Mary together with her son "the supreme theophany, the revelation of God's ultimate will; she is also the exemplar of a new creation, which unlike the one that perished, will be imbued with all virtues, strong to resist the serpent and pure in the face of his lust. "358 Not merely a human being,

Mary is for Hildegard 'woman,' par excellence. Mary is what women are called to be since she properly _performed the woman's role in the cosmos. By her choices Mary is the opposite of Eve; but in the mind of God she is the archetype of Eve and all women. And she is the paradigm of the second virgin mother, Ecclesia. In common they are overshadowed by the Holy Spirit and a model for every priest at the altar, who brings the body of Christ into the world. 359

The Two Virgin Mothers

Within Hildegard's cosmology there are two Virgin Mothers: Mary and Ecclesia. In the second part of SCIVIAS, in the third vision, Hildegard develops her image of the 'mother church.'

Hildegard's vision the Mary/Ecclesia parallels come alive when she speaks of the virginity of both and their child-bearing:

357 Newman, Sister of Wisdom p. 158.

358 Newman p.158.

359 Newman p. 158.

119 And thus the Church is the virginal mother of all Christians, since by the mystery of the Holy Spirit she conceives and bears them, offering them to God so that they are called the children of God. And as the Holy Spirit overshadowed the Blessed Mother, so that she miraculously conceived and painlessly bore the Son of God and yet remained a virgin, so does the Holy Spirit illumine the Church, happy mother of believers, so that without any .corruption she conceives and bears children naturally, yet remains a virgin. 360

Hildegard does not develop the parallels between the Virgin and the Church to the same

degree as many of her contemporaries. "She barely hints that the Mother of Christ is mother of

the faithful, and as she does not develop the theme of Mary as sponsa Christi, the Church alone

enjoys this time-honored role. "361 The two Virgin/Mothers are alike and yet distinct. Mary is a

type of the Church because they are both virginal mothers; both have been overshadowed by the

Holy Spirit. To Hildegard the Incarnation of Christ into the world is the common work of both

Mary and the Church. The Church bears Christ in the sacraments, but she also suffers because of

human sinfulness. "Mary is indeed the model of the Church, but she is not herself the felix mater

credentium."362 Mary is also the model of the Church in her virginity in partu, the Church

uncorrupted by heresy and error.363

Virginity and Mary's Virginity

Virginity features very prominently in Hildegard's thought. She sees Mary's virginity as a necessary condition of the Incarnation. It was, of course, an issue for her as the magistra of a convent full of women. It is clear from Hildegard's writing that she considered Mary to have been a virgin

360 SCIVIAS 11.3.12.

361 Newman, 0 Feminea Forma, p. 239.

362 Newman, 0 Feminea Forma, p. 241.

363 See the Berlin Fragment IV.?. p.68; also Newman, 0 Feminea Forma, pp. 228-229.

120 before, during, and after the Incarnation. In her sermon for Christmas day Hildegard elaborates on

John 1:14: Et Verbum caro factum est, et habitavit in nobis. She evokes a whole series of virgin births-Adam from the earth, Eve from Adam, Christ from Mary, the Church from Christ-and clearly relates sin with sexual birth and holiness with virginal birth.

And the Word became flesh. That is, the same Word which formed flesh from the earth with the breath of life clothed Himself in undefiled flesh, and slept as Adam had slept without sin, when flesh taken from him was made into a woman. Thus the Word became flesh and grew to be a man, and dwelt among us like the Adam before their sin, when they were still immutable and whole as God had created them, and evil had not yet entered into them. Thus the Word dwells among us, loving men in goodness anq truth. But when the serpent's cunning invaded the Adam, their blood was poisoned and began teeming with sin-from the blood, from the will of the flesh, and from the will of man. They stripped and destroyed themselves, so that afterwards no flesh could become righteous or just, except the Child whom the Virgin conceived from the heavenly wind which carne upon her, by which He grew and became strong. Therefore in Him there was neither , nor malicious pride, nor the taste of sexual desire, nor any evil. And this pure, chaste little girl, unshaken by the storms of desire, was clean flesh: therefore the Word entered into her and grew into a man. 364

In the Liber vitae meritorum Hildegard emphasizes Mary's purity by making the Word say: "I was incarnate of her flesh which had never secreted any filth, pure as the flesh of Adam in the beginning."365 Mary is free ofEve's curse of menstruation. And Mary's childbearing is also free of human intercourse since "the Virgin conceived from the heavenly wind which carne upon her."366

364 Latin text found in Hildegard of Bingen, Analecta S. Hildegardis, ed. J.B. Pitra, Analecta Sacra, vol. VIII (Monte Cassino, 1882) p. 251. Includes Expositiones evangeliorum, 145 Epistolae not contained in Migne, and fragments of other works. Also see for translation and commentary on textual problems Newman, 0 Feminea Forma pp. 207-08.

365 LVMVI.32.53. Quote from Newman, 0 Feminea Forma p. 208.

366 See Newman, 0 Feminea Forma, p. 208.

121 Virgin and Mother

For Hildegard Christ's _virgin birth combines two very profound events which have cosmological importance. Mary's maternity and virginity signify her strength and her fruitfulness in the plan of God. Hildegard's cosmological imagination finds an apt expression in the concept of viriditas. This image of'greening,' taken from the vernal burgeoning which is such a marked event in the Rhine valley, expressed the activity of God in the life of the cosmos and of mankind. When it is applied to Mary's virginity (and that of other virgins for that matter), it becomes a principle of boundless creativity. Green is much more than just a color for Hildegard-it is the symbol of life, growth, and fertility flowing from the life-creating power of God.367 In the illumination for SCIVIAS

I. 2 the artist departs from the text in which Hildegard views Eve as a bright, starry cloud, by drawing the cloud in the form of a green leaf or a wing. The theme of viriditas reoccurs in Hildegard's Marian songs. 368 In her song Ave generosa Mary is exalted as viriditas itself.

Yes your flesh held joy like the grass when the dew falls, when heaven freshens its green: 0 Mother of gladness, verdure of spring!369

In SCIVIAS II.6.26, a vision COI).cerning Christ's sacrifice and the Church, Hildegard explains in this careful analogy that Mary is both the new earth and the new heaven for she is the green, fruitful vitality of a nature so purified that in it the Bread of heaven ripens on earth.

And because it was from the pure Virgin that My Son took on flesh without sin, it is fitting that His flesh should now be made from that fruit which is without the

367 Newman, 0 Feminea Forma, p. 149.

368 See the songs entitled: 0 frondens virga, 0 virga ac diadem a, 0 tu suavissima virga, 0 virga mediatrix, 0 viridissima virga with translation and commentary in Newman, Symphonia.

369 Translation from Newman's Symphonia p. 123 .

122 sap of bitterness. How? The grain of wheat is the strongest and best of all the fruits there are; it has in its stalk no sap or pith like other trees, but its stem rises to a spike that leads to the fruit, and it never produces bitter juice either in heat or in cold, but yields dry flour. So too the flesh of My Son was dry, with no filth of the human pollution that produces the human race through the lustful embraces of a man and a woman. Not so was My Only-Begotten born, for He came forth in verdant integrity as the stalk brings forth the clustered grains of wheat. For as a stalk of wheat, flourishing without pith, produces dry grain at the end of its pure spike, so too the Blessed Virgin, conceiving without male power, brought forth her most holy Son in simple innocence. He drew from His mother no sap of sin, because she conceived Him without the pith of a man; as the stalk gives no sap to the grain, because it flourishes not by the pith of a tree but by the sun and rain and gentle breeze. So the pure Virgin brought forth her Only-Begotten in sweet chastity, not because of a man but because she was overshadowed by the power of the Most High and imbued by the outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, though the Virgin herself originated in the will of a man and a woman, she did not thus bring forth her Son, but without the will of a man bore in her wholeness Him Who came from Heaven, true God and purest Man. As she bore Him in her virginity to be pure and stainless, now the bread that is truly consecrated as His flesh and is pure in its integrity should be received by the faithful in purity of heart and without any element of contradiction. 370

In 0 viridissima virga, Hildegard blends Mary as the flowering branch, the source of greenness, the dewy grass, the womb of earth, the tree of heaven, and the eucharistic bread. In so doing Hildegard makes use of several Old Testament images, particularly those from the Song of Songs.371

Mary, as virgin mother, is also the source of all the activity of the 'virtues' operation in humans,372 as well as the basis for the cosmic energy, since she is the fulfillment of the entire

370 Hart & Bishop,. pp. 253-254.

371 For a fuller exposition see Newman Symphonia pp. 276-277.

372From 0 splendidissima gemma: et ob hoc es tu ilia Iucida materia per quem hoc ipsum Verbum exspiravit ornnes virtutes, ut eduxit in prima materia ornnes creaturas.

123 73 374 universe as the destructio mortii and the reaedificatio salutis. • In her song Ave Maria Hildegard

expressed Mary's role as the 'author oflife':

Hail Mary, 0 author of life, through rebuilding salvation, you confounded death and crushed the serpent whom stiff-necked Eve courted swollen with her own importance. You trampled on him when you bore the Son of God from heaven.375

The phrase materia aurea expresses well the grace-bearing, powerful archetypal figure ofMary.376

This grace and power, envisioned in Mary's beauty and purity, passes on to all women through her.

Hildegard's songs to Mary develop the theme of the feminine role in God's cosmos. From Hodie aperuit, which through the use of Ezekiel's vision of the closed gate celebrates Mary's perpetual virginity, and its sequel Quia ergo femina, 371 in which Eve and Mary are compared as the builder and destroyer of death, the relationship of the two women is developed on a cosmic level. And in 0 quam magnum miraculum, in which Eve and Mary are grammatically the same femina, 318 as well as in 0 virga ac diadema where Mary's childbearing is contrasted with natural generation, especially

Adam's, the two women seem to be one in sharing theformafemina. For Hildegard the comparison

373 Both theme are prominent in Hildegard's hymns to the Virgin. See, Ave Maria and 0 clarissima mater.

374 See Ave Maria: Ave Maria, o auctrix vite, reedificando salutem, ... .

375 Symphonia, p. 110-11.

376See Margot Schmidt's, "Maria- Omateria Aurea= in der Kirche nach Hildegard von Bingen," Munchener theologische Zeitschrift 32.1 ( 1981 ): 16-32. for a thorough look at the term materia aurea.

377Quia ergo femina mortem instruxit, clara virgo illam interemit, et ideo est summa benedictio in feminea forma pre ornni creatura, quia Deus factus est homo in dulcissirna et beata virgine.

378See Newman, Symphonia, pp. 274-275, for a commentary on and the felix culpa allusion of Hildegard.

124 of Mary and Eve appears to evoke the felix culpa aspect of the Fall. As a consequence all women in some manner participate in the good work of Mary. Mary is addressed in queenly fashion at the beginning of the sequence 0 virga ac diadema and called salvatrix at the end. In the central portion of 0 virga ac diadema Mary appears as the foreordained bride of God. Also in the central portion

Eve and Mary are conflated in theformafeminea which God has blessed in the one and the other, making it the centerpiece of the cosmos.379 Hildegard has a very positive vision of woman, who participates in the salvation of the world on a cosmological and natural level, all because of the sharedfemineaforma which God so loves.

From what we have seen so far, it is evident that Hildegard's visions clearly show Mary to be a virgin both before she conceived and during Jesus' conception. Furthermore, Hildegard's visions also present a Mary who remains a virgin in partu. Among the Berlin fragments is this account of the birth of Jesus:

When the blessed Virgin was a little weakened as if drowsy with sleep, the infant came forth from her side-not from the vagina -without her knowledge and without pain, corruption, or filth, just as Eve was born from Adam's side. He did not enter through the vagina, for if He had been born through it there would have been corruption; but because the mother was intact there, the infant was not born that way. And no placenta surrounded the infant in the Virgin Mother's womb, after the fashion of other infants, because He was not conceived from virile seed.380

In the second vision of the third part of the Book ofDivine Works, Hildegard uses the concept of the resting place of God:

When God wished to demonstrate the power of divine virtue, God gazed upon the womb of the Virgin. Just as God rested from all divine deeds on the seventh day, and just as we humans were meant to conduct ourselves in accord with the divine

379 See Newman, Symphonia, p. 277, for a commentary on 0 virga ac diadema.

380 Hart & Bishop pp. 229-30.

125 ordinances, God caused the Son to rest in the Virgin's womb while the entire divine achievement was entrusted to the Son. 381

Many contemporaries had used the term. ,382 Raoul Ardent,383 and Rupert ofDeutz384

preached that the Wisdom of God sought rest in all creatures before finding it at last in the humble

Virgin. Therefore, she is his Sabbath, the place of his repose. In this they were possibly following

a development in the imagery inspired by a Jewish legend that God created woman to be the Sabbath

rest ofman.385 The parallel between the two 'restings' marks the beginning of a new era. Before the

Incarnation God worked alone, but now he will work collaboratively with human beings.

Hildegard also uses the term 'tabernacle' for Mary. This term had a long history in reference to Mary, stretching from Byzantine times down to Hildegard's day. Hildegard's contemporary

Godfrey of Admont used the term, saying:

In that bridal chamber, the womb of the most blessed Virgin, the Son of God became alike Bridegroom and Bride: Bridegroom in His divinity, Bride in His humanity .. . The tabernacle of the Son of God was His holy humanity, in which He fought for God the Father for the salvation of mankind. The sun in which he set this tabernacle was His most blessed Mother, the Virgin Mary who, luminous and bright as the sun in body and soul, could perceive no cloud or taint of sin in herself after the overshadowing ofthe Holy Spirit.386

There are some differences between the imagery of Hildegard and that of Godfrey. Hildegard reverses the imagery of Godfrey and makes God the sun and Mary the tabernacle:

381 Cunningham, pp. 213-14.

382 Senno 11 de Annunt. PL 144, 5578

383 Senno 30 in Assumpt. PL 155, 1421D.

384 In Cant. I. Found in Corpus Christianorum: continuatio mediaeualis 26,31.

385 See Newman, 0 Feminea Forma p. 266 for references.

386 See "Hom. 28 in Annunc." PL 174,760BC

126 ... the Son of God with the brightness of his divinity took on flesh from the Virgin who existed like a tabernacle for ano~er life for the salvation of the human race. For God is called the burning sun that illuminated everything at the time of creation; from the heat of the sun, the flesh of the Virgin, like a tabernacle, grew warm so that a man with the brighter faith and with a more burning charity came from it in the same way that God joined Eve to Adam before the fall. God also had created a strong man and a weak woman, from whose weakness the fall came about. Similarly, the divinity of the Son of God is strong, but his flesh is not, although the world was restored to its earlier life through it. The flesh truly came from the womb of the Virgin immaculate and inviolate for God made it that way. In the same way, the bridegroom receives his bride in the promise of marriage with joy in the marriage bed of his heart when he gives her all his riches and honor with attentiveness.387

Mary's status as 'tabernacle' of Christ also reminded Hildegard of the role of Eve, and naturally this brought up the relationship of Mary and Eve.

The Immaculate Conception

In Hildegard's time the Immaculate Conception was just beginning to arouse debate.

Hildegard does not comment on the subject. Yet in her images and the words she uses to describe

Mary we perceive a hint of Hildegard's undeveloped vision. Dr Margot Schmidt in the Marien- lexikon twice makes the point that Hildegard comes very close to the concept of the Immaculate

Conception. Dr. Schmidt points out that terms such as virgo clara, illaesa, integerrima, purissima, intacta puella, mater integra, materia virginalis, integritas suavissima, pupilla castitatis all are consistent with the Immaculate Conception.388

Once again we must return to Hildegard's cosmology and anthropology. In the song Quia ergo femina Hildegard calls Mary "a shining girl (clara virgo) who tore down the house of death which Eve built," and informs the congregation that "the supreme blessing is in feminine form

387 Hozeski, pp. 187-88.

388 Marienlexikon pp. 192-93.

127 beyond all creation, because God became man in the most sweet and blessed Virgin." What do we know of Mary's beginnings? In the song 0 virgo ac diadema Hildegard treats us to a glimpse of

Mary's origins:

0 flower, you did not spring from dew nor from drops of rain, nor did the air fly over you, but the divine radiance brought you forth on a most noble branch. 0 branch, God had foreseen your flowering on the first day of his creation. And he made you for his Word as a golden matrix, 0 praiseworthy Virgin. 389

In the Ave generosa we see some ofHildegard's imaginative account of Mary's existence with God:

You are the shining white lily upon which God gazed before the creation. 0 most beautiful and most tender one, how greatly did God delight in you when you being warmed by his embrace gave your breast to his child.390

Both Sophia~ with whom Mary is paired, and Caritas, who in the Ordo Virtutum represents Mary, also have songs of creation. In Karitas habundat "love abounds toward all," she is most exalted from the depths and from above the stars, for she has given the supreme king the kiss of peace.

All these merely hint at Mary's origins. They are so intimately related to the cosmology of

Hildegard that, like everything else in that wonderful world, the edges become blurred in the vision and the spectacle of the cosmos admits no speculation on newer theological or Mario logical issues.

I agree with Barbara Newman that:

Hildegard speaks frequently of the purity of Mary, but she does not use the phrase "original sin" and never mentions her conception. Every text which could be construed as a reference to the Immaculate Conception deals with Mary's personal freedom from concupiscence .... The point of these texts is not to prove that Mary enjoyed any special privilege at her conception, nor even that she was free of personal sin, but that the flesh she provided for the Son of God was pure-"without spot of sin or fluid of human filth, without lust for the deed done in sinful desires."391

389 0 virgo ac diadema 2b and 3ab.

390 Ave generosa 3 and 4.

391 See, DOD III.7.3 and Newman, 0 Feminea Forma p. 221.

128 Barbara Newman points out that in a fragment of Hildegard found in Berlin mention is made of the spuma humane delectationis from which the Virgin needed to be cleansed. She says this is the only passage in which Hildegard openly contradicts the Immaculate Conception.392 I believe the force of

Hildegard's visionary experience was so overwhelming to her that any specific Mariological interpretation beyond Mary's role in the Incarnation simply never became a element of her Marian thought. Hildegard sees Mary as a cosmological personage and the Immaculate Conception does not enter into her thought. But no definite conclusion can be drawn from what she does or does not say, nor can we assume that phrases which later were to become specifically related to the Immaculate

Conception are in fact proof of Hildegard's position.

The Assumption

Hildegard did not treat of the Assumption as such. Cardinal Pitra in his collection393 includes the song called De Assumptione sanctae Mariae (Pitra 466) which celebrates Mary's Assumption and power. She receives the crown and a scepter of Joy, along with dominion over all the living.

Mary appears as the highest being among men, quae omne genus humanum coronavit (Pitra 492), and she is called Mater singularis cui totus triumphalis titulus ascribitur (Pitra 467). However, this hymn is considered spurious. Just as in reference to the Immaculate Conception, we should not draw any conclusion from Hildegard's omission of the Assumption. The Assumption did not enter into her symbolic world; she was far more concerned with the Incarnation and the implications of Mary's virginity for the salvation of human beings.

392Newman, 0 Feminea Forma p. 226.

393 Hildegard of Bingen, Analecta S. Hildegardis, ed. J. B. Pitra, Analecta Sacra, vol. VIII (Monte Cassino, 1882). Includes Expositiones evangeliorum, 145 Epistolae not contained in Migne, and fragments of other works.

129 Mary/Eve

The Mary/Eve parallelism appears many times in Hildegard. In the song Ave Maria which

we looked at earlier, we are given one of the most imaginative comparisons of the actions of Mary

and Eve. Materia aurea becomes in Hildegard's hands an expression for the intercourse between

heaven and earth in the birth of the Word. The meaning of materia aurea for Mary not only denotes

her complete person, but also refers to the original holy state of the cosmos, along with the historical

connection between Adam and Jesus.394 The sequence 0 virga ac diadema illustrates in poetic terms

Hildegard's vision of Mary and Eve, and could serve as the primier Marian text in Hildegard's

oeuvre.

1a 0 branch and diadem of the king's purple, you are in your enclosure like a breastplate.

1b Burgeoning, you blossomed after another fashion than Adam gave rise to the whole human race.

2a Hail, hail! from your womb came another life of which Adam had stripped his sons.

2b 0 flower, you did not spring from dew nor from drops of rain, nor did the air fly over you, but the divine radiance brought you forth on a most noble branch.

394Margot Schmidt, "Maria- Dmateria Aurea= in der Kirche nach Hildegard von Bingen," Miinchener theologische Zeitschrift 32.1 (1981): 20.

130 3a 0 branch, God had foreseen you flowering on the first day of his creation.

3b And he made you for his Word as a golden matrix, 0 praiseworthy Virgin.

4a 0 how great in its power is the side of man from which God brought forth the form of woman, which he made the mirror of all his beauty and the embrace of his whole creation.

4b Thence celestial voices chime in harmony and the whole earth marvels, 0 praiseworthy Mary, for God had greatly loved you.

5a 0 how greatly we must lament and mourn because sadness flowed in guilt through the serpent's counsel into woman.

5b For the very woman whom God made to be mother of all plucked at her womb with the wounds of ignorance and brought forth consummate pain for her kind.

6a But, 0 dawn, from your womb a new sun has come forth, which has cleansed all the guilt of Eve and through you brought a greater blessing than the harm Eve did to mankind.

6b Hence, 0 saving Lady, you who bore the new light for human kind: gather the members of your Son into celestial harmony.

Eve in 4a is the prima materia which was the 'mirror of God's beauty' and the 'mother of all living beings,' for '0 how great/ in its powers is the side of man/ from which God brought forth the form ofwomanj which he made the mirror/ of all his beauty/ and the embrace/ of his whole creation.' But

131 in 5a and 5b '0 how greatly we must lament and mourn/ because sadness flowed in guilt I through the serpent's counsel I into woman. For the very woman I whom God made to be mother of all I plucked at her womb I with the wounds of ignorance I and brought forth consummate pain I for her kind.' It is fmally Mary who redeems Eve. The song begins ( 1ab) with praises to Mary: 0 branch and diadem I of the king's purple, I you who are in your enclosure I like a breastplate: Burgeoning, you blossomed I after another fashion I than Adam gave rise I to the whole human race. She underlines (2a) the comparison: Hail, hail! From your womb I came another life I of which Adam

I had stripped his sons. And Mary is addressed (2b) as '0 flower' and retells the pre-existence of

Mary (3a) who is the 'golden matrix' (3b: auream materiam) in which the Son of God was Incarnate.

The creation and beauty of woman is praised on the cosmological level ( 4b ): 'Thence celestial voices chime in harmony I and the whole earth marvels, I 0 praiseworthy Mary, I for God has greatly loved you.' In ( 5ab) Eve's seduction by the serpent is lamented and the consequent penalty of pain in child­ bearing is remembered. But then Mary's role in Eve's redemption follows (6ab): But, 0 dawn, I from your womb I a new sun has come forth, I which has cleansed all the guilt of Eve I and through you brought a blessing greater I than the harm Eve did to mankind. Hence, 0 saving Lady, I you who bore the new light I for humankind: I gather the members of your Son I into celestial harmony [that is, into the ecclesia].

Mary, Eve, and Ecclesia relate intimately to one another in Hildegard's world. In her song to the Creator 0 vis eternitatis, the figures of Mary and Eve telescope together "into a single formatio, as if the Virgin herself had been taken directly from Adam."395 Eve and Ecclesia both

395 See Newman, 0 Feminea Forma, p. 235.

132 suffer the consequences of the Fall (Ecclesia from the state of humanity), but Mary does not. Herein lies the distinction between these three figures in Hildegard's imagery.

The Annunciation and the Incarnation

At the Annunciation Mary as a particular woman represents in her Fiat the proper operation of the virtues. In SCIVIAS II.6 we are told:

But the Blessed Virgin heard true words of consolation from the angel .in secret, and believed; she uplifted the sighs of her soul and said, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to your word" [Luke 1;38. Thus she conceived the Only-Begotten of God.

At the words of the Fiat 'her mind was marvelously illumined. ' 396 When Hil~egard treats the

Annunciation, she is concerned with a demonstration of humility, chastity, obedience and faith. She based her understanding of the Annunciation on her cosmology and the primary role of the

Incarnation of the Word. In her song 0 quam magnum miraculum Hildegard celebrates the

Annunciation. Once again the Mary/Eve comparison occurs, and her cosmological orientation forms the basis of the setting for the celebration of the event.

0 what a great miracle it is that into a submissive feminine form entered the king. This God did because humility ascends over all.

And 0 what great felicity is in this form, for malice, which flowed from woman (Eve) -woman (Mary) thereafter rubbed it out, and built all the sweetest fragrance of the virtues, and embellished heaven more than she formerly troubled earth.

396 See Newman, 0 Femin·ea Forma, p. 221 and footnote 105.

133 On the cosmological level Mary's purity guarantes the efficacy of Christ's work. In her

second visionary work, Liber vitae meritorum, Hildegard places the Incarnation in the perspective

of God's creation.

After [creating man] I rested, until I had seen how man was deceived by the serpent's counsel. Then I came like a flaming fire, kindled the Virgin's womb and rested in it, ... became incarnate, and came forth like a great giant in power beyond all men (Ps. 18:6). For man had not sown that seed with which the serpent mocked the first man, shaking his blood with the motions of carnal pleasure. The devil stripped man of his glory and drew him away from me. Therefore I wounded him by circumcision, and with the precepts of the Law I confounded every suggestion ofhis treachery. But after I was born of the Virgin's womb, I sought man who was plunged in the waters, and in these same waters I purified the seed of man, as fire casts out water. In this way I purified all things. 397

In this unusual, though very characteristic, statement Hildegard associates redemption with Christ's birth. The Devil's counsel is overcome by the three stages of the circumcision, the virgin birth, and the extension of Christ's purity to all men through rebirth in baptism.

In Hildegard's treatment of Christ's conception, she seems to have combined several traditions from the past. How was it that Mary conceived? The 's mysterious promise Et virtus Altissimi obumbrabit tibi (Lk 1 :35) can be interpreted (as by John of Damascus) that the Holy

Spirit purified Mary and gave her power to conceive the Word, who then 'overshadowed' her and fashioned his flesh from her blood.398 Godfrey of Admont wrote that just as sunlight illumines, warms, and dries whatever it touches, so Christ the true Sun illumined the mind of Mary with the ardent love of God drying up the moisture oflust.399 Hugh ofSt Victor said that a women conceived a man by the semen of a man in love, because only the presence of love can make her fertile. In the

397 LVM VI. 53-54, see Newman, 0 Feminea Fonna, p. 223.

398 De orthodoxa fide III.2.

399 Hom. 23 in Annucia. in PL 174, 762D-763A.

134 case of Mary the love of the Holy Spirit was so powerful that she was able to conceive without a

man.400 Rupert ofDeutz gave a interpretation of Mary's conception of Christ as if Mary also felt the

pleasures of carnallove.401 In a very stark contrast defended Mary' s spotless

virginity by saying the overshadowing power protected her like a sunshade from the heat of lust, at

. 402 the moment o f conceptiOn.

In one of her letters Hildegard gives this explanation:

For the Holy Spirit visited her in a manner far surpassing all human knowledge, pouring Himself into her in a new way by which He had never made any woman fruitful before. And the power of the Most High overshadowed her, for He so caressed her in His warmth that in His tender overshadowing, He utterly cleansed her from all the heat of sin - as a person seeks shade from the heat of the sun. (Letter 43)403

While Hildegard accepted the Aristotelian idea that maternal blood provides the matter of the fetus,

in Mary's case she viewed the loving warmth of the Holy Spirit as the fructifying power which replaced the touch of a man.404 In SCIVIAS 11.6.14 she also makes a comparison between the

Incarnation and the paradox of the Body and Blood of Christ being visibly bread and wine.

But you, 0 human, cannot take this spiritual gift visibly, as if eating visible flesh and drinking visible blood; for you are filth of filth. But, as the living spirit in you is invisible, so also the living sacrament in that oblation is invisible and rriust be received invisibly by you. For as the body of My Son came about in the womb of the Virgin, so now the body of My Only-Begotten arises from the of the altar. What does this mean? The human soul, which is invisible, invisibly receives the sacrament, which exists invisibly in that oblation, while the human body, which

400 De sacramentis II.1.8 PL 176, 3938-D.

401 In Cant. I. Corpus Christianorum: continuatio mediaeualis 26,1 0.

402 De partu virginis, PL 120, 1368C

403 . Ep. 43, PL 213A translation from Newman, 0 Feminea Forma pp. 225-26.

404 Ep 45 PL 213A For translation see Newman, 0 Feminea Forma p. 226.

135 is visible, visibly receives the oblation that visibly embodies that sacrament. But the two are one, just as Christ is God and Man, and the rational soul and the mortal flesh make up one human being, and so a person who contemplates Me in right faith receives the sacrament faithfully to make him holy. What does this mean? My Son was miraculously born from the m9st pure Virgin, whose body was untouched and never burned in the sweetness of lust, for the virginal vessel in which I willed My Only-Begotten to be incarnate was the purest possible. Thus I did not permit this sweet Virgin's vessel to melt in fiery ardor, since in it My Son miracu­ lously took on a human body.405

In the first vision in the third part of SCIVIAS, a vision entitled 'God and man,' Hildegard links the Incarnation, Mary, Christ, and beauty.

"Beautiful of form above the children of men" [Psalm 44:3]. This is to say: In Him shines forth beauty beyond beauty, the noblest form free from any spot of sin, without a splash of human corruption, and lacking all desire for the sinful works demanded by fleshly human weakness. None of these ever touched this Man. And the body of the Son of Man was born more purely than other people, for the stainless Virgin bore her Son in ignorance of sin, and thus ignorant of the sorrow of childbirth. How? She never felt any stubborn urge to sin, and therefore the pains of childbirth were unknown to her; but the wholeness of her body rejoiced within her. Oh, how beautiful then His body! But you see that 'from the One seated upon the throne extends a great circle colored gold like the dawn, whose width you cannot take in.' This means that from the Almighty Father there extends a supremely strong power and action, whose might encircles all things; and He works it through His Son, Who is always with Him in the majesty of Divinity, ordaining and perfecting all His works through Him before all worlds and in the world from its start. His Son glows with the brilliant beauty of the dawn; for He was incarnate in the wisest Virgin, whom the dawn signifies, by the hand of God Which is the Holy Spirit, in Whom also each work of the Father is done. You can never comprehend the full extent of His glory, for no creature has, will have or should have a standard of goodness or power with which to measure His power or His deeds; God's power is inestimable and incomprehensible, and His works are invincible and marvelous.406

405 Hart & Bishop, p.245.

406 Hart & Bishop, p. 315-16.

136 Mary's role in the Incarnation is to reweave the gannents which humankind wears. Adam and

Eve's original garment of holiness is restored to humans in place of the sheepskins.407 In her song

0 vis eternitatis Hildegard combines the imagery of the garments, the incarnation, and the

consequences of the Fall.

0 strength of eternity, you who ordered all things in your heart, by your Word all were created as you wished, And your Word himself put on flesh in that form which was taken from Adam. And thus his garments were cleansed from the greatest pain.

0 how great is the kindness of the Savior who set all things free through his incarnation, which divinity breathed forth without chain of sin. And thus his gannents were cleansed from the greatest pain. •>40s

Conclusion

For Hildegard Mary is always present as a cosmological rather than a psychological entity. She participates in the work of the virtues. She is clearly higher than the angels and yet a human being. She is the celebration of the work of one human being, the exemplar for all human beings (both female and male), and the one who has redeemed Eve and consequently all women.

She is the woman who accomplishes by her life what all women are called to do - to reveal God to human beings. Hildegard sings and writes so often about her that Mary forms a theme which is at times formulaic and at times evidences creative thought within the visual environment of

Hildegard's cosmos. Her Marian thought is implicit in her cosmology, anthropology, and

407 See Newman, 0 Feminea Forma p. I 66, for the development of Hildegard's use of the tunica Christi or assumptus homo with respect to Eve.

408 Symphonia, pp. 98-99.

137 ecclesiology. Mary is present in all ofthem because she is the source of Christ's humanity. His

Church is both his bride and his body, both of them female images. In Liber divino rum operum

Hildegard makes it clear that "Man ... signifies the divinity of the Son of God and woman his humanity." (DOD 1.4.100) For Hildegard Christ's humanity is to his divinity as woman is to man, and mulier represents humankind, once fallen in Eve, but restored in ecclesia and Maria.409

Hildegard's marian thought is not contained within the same forms as her more formal, male contemportaries. Mary is not confined to a formal theological world. This should not be a surprise to anyone. Hildegard, herself claims no formal theological education. It was from within the spiritual and educational enviornment available to women and laymen that Hildegard's thought was formulated. Her visions served to be the vehicle by which she gain both authority and acceptance in her age. She was a unique woman, a religious and very definitely the product of twelfth-century Benedictine spirituality in Germany.

Hildegard's Mary is not, in my opinion, so much a theological person as a cosmological one. Hildgard uses Mary to illustrate all that is the best in women. She is at once the exemplar and the goal of a woman's life. I believe that Mary was for Hildegard the example after which a nun should strive, while accepting the role of married women. Yet much of what she did was unobtainable to a woman. When Hildegard sings praises to Mary she is singing to the wonderous possiblities of woman's role in the salvation of the world. But there is nothing in the normal course of woman's life, neither biological nor spiritual, which is foreign to Mary.~ am impressed with how accepting ofthe role of a woman Hildegard is. Whenever she speaks ofbirth or nurture

409 Caroline Walker Bynwn, Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion (New York: Zone Books, 1991) 171-72.

138 1 Hildegard is confirming the biological and spiritual role of women. In fact, gender is not a limitation in the spiritual life. One only needs to see that Hildegard views the spiritual role of a priest at Mass to be that of Mary to begin to understand that Hildegard envisioned the femine role to be necessary for the salvation of the world. She is the auctrix vite on every level. She is the one who 'greens' the world, the one in whom justice is manifested. This vision was so difficult to come to that Hildegard was ill (shall we say in labor) before each she wrote each of her theological works.

Hildegard was in fact an unusal woman. However, her visions would not be available to us if she had not been highly placed in her·society. I have little doubt that there were other women who had visions which are not recorded for us. Yet I am thankful that Hildegard's vision is available to us however in formal its marian thought is.

139 Appendix

List of the sources of the most important Marian texts in Hildegard

Hildegard's Letters The oldest of Hildegard's letters is from 114 7 and is to Bernard of Clairvaux. The last of her letters is to Archbishop Christian of Mainz and was written during the Third Lateran Council, which took place between March 3 and March 19 1179. There is as of this date no critical edition of all of her letters. PL 197 and Fuhrkotter' s Brief wechel are the most available. Pitra also givesus 145 letters not found in PL.

Texts: Epistle 30 found in Adelgundis Fuhrkotter's Hildegard von Bingen, Briefwechsel Epistle 43 PL 197 213A Epistle 47 PL197 224D--228A Epistle 142 Pitra 567

SCIVIAS written between 1141-1151 The critcal edition is: Hildegard of Bingen, Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Mediaevales(CCCM), Vol. 43/43A: Hildegardis-- Scivias, edited by A. C. Fiihrkotter, Angela (Tumhout Belgium, Brepols, 1978). The best texts can be found in: Hildegard of Bingen, Wisse die Wege--Scivias, 8th (Berlin, St. Augustinus Verlag/Otto Muller Verlag, 19281954, 1957), translated by M. Bockeler. (German) Hildegard of Bingen, The Classics of Western Spirituality (Paulist Press, 1990), translated by C. Hart and T. Bishop. (English)

Texts: SCIVIAS I.2; II.1,3,6,12,14 and 26; ,III.l.

Liber vitae meritorum written between 1158-1163 At this time there is no critical edition. The best texts can be found in: PL 179 Hildegard of Bingen, Analecta S. Hildegardis, edited by J. Pitra, Analecta sacra, vol. VIII (Monte Cassino, 1882). (Latin) Hildegard of Bingen, Hildegard ofBingen: The Book ofthe Rewards ofLife [Liber Vitae Meritorum}, edited by J. J. Wilhelm and L. Nelson, Jr., The Garland Library of , vol. 89 Series B (New York & London, Garland Publishing, Inc, 1994 ), p. 290, translated by B. W. Hozeski. Hildegard of Bingen, Der Mensch in der Verantwortung -- Liber Vitae Meritorum (Salzburg, Otto Muller Verlag, 1972), translated by H. Schipperges. (German)

Texts: LVM VI.32.53

140 De operatione Dei 1161-1173/4 There is no critical edition. The best sources are: PL 197 (Latin) Hildegard of Bingen, Hildegard ofBingen's Book ofDivine Works with Letters and Songs, edited by M. Fox ( Santa Fe, New Mexico, Bear & Company, 1987), p. 408, translated by R. Cunningham. (English) H. Schipperges, "Welt und Mensch bein Hildegard von Bingen," Jahrbuchfur Psychologie 14, 293-308 (1966). (German)

Texts: DOD II.3; III.7; and X. I

Cause et curae completed about 1165 There is no critical edition. The best texts can be found in: Hildegard of Bingen, Hildegardis Causae et Curae, edited by P. Kaiser, Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana (Lipsiae, B.G. Teubner, 1868), (Latin) H. Schipperges, Heilkunde: Das Buch von dem Grund und Wesen und der Heilung der Krank­ heiten -- Causae et Curae (Salzburg, Otto Muller Verlag, 1957). (German) Hildegard of Bingen, Holistic Healing (Causae et Curae), edited by M. Palmquist and J. Kulas, O.S.B. (Collegeville, Minnesota, The Liturgical Press, 1994), p. 223, translated by M. Pawlik, (Latin text), P. Madigan, S.J. (German text), and J. 0. Kulas, (Introduction). (English).

Texts: C&C 1.1.

Symphonia armonia celestium revelationum compiled about 1165 The critical text and best English translation is in: Hildegard of Bingen, Saint Hildegard ofBingen's Symphonia: A Critical Editon ofthe Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum (Symphony ofthe Harmony ofCelestial Revelations) (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1988), translated by B. Newman. Hildegard of Bingen, Hildegard von Bingen: Lieder, edited by P. Barth, M. Ritscher, and Schmidt-Gorg (Salzberg, 1969). (German)

Texts: Poems 1 and 8-23 and 0 Fili delectissime, 0 jactura Dei, and 0 magna res.

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