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Hildegard of Bingen: Visions and Validation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Barbara Newman
Barbara Newman
Affiliation:
Assistant professor of English in Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois.
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Extract

Some years ago, wrote the Flemish monk Guibert to his friend Radulfus, strange and incredible rumors reached his ears at the Benedictine monastery of Gembloux. They concerned an old woman, abbess of the Benedictine foundation at Bingen-am-Rhein, who had gained such fame that multitudes flocked to her convent, from curiosity or devotion, to seek her prophecies and prayers. All who returned thence astonished their hearers, but none could give a plausible account of the woman, save only that her soul was “said to be illumined by an invisible splendor known to her alone.” Finally he, Guibert, impatient with rumor and zealous for the truth, resolved to find out for himself. In the year 1175 he wrote to this famed seer, Hildegard, with mingled curiosity and awe. Surely she had received “rare gifts, till now practically unheard of throughout all ages”; in prophecy she excelled Miriam, Deborah, and Judith; but let her recall that great trees are uprooted sooner than reeds, and let her keep herself humble.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 54 , Issue 2 , June 1985 , pp. 163 - 175
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1985

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References

1. Guibert of Gembloux, Ep. 164, in Analecta Sacra, vol. 8, ed. Pitra, J.-B. (Monte Cassino, 1882), p. 576Google Scholar (hereafter cited as Pitra). All translations in this article are the author's.

2. Ibid., Ep. 1, pp. 328–331.

3. Ibid., Ep. 14, pp. 378–379.

4. Ibid., Ep. 16, p. 386.

5. Although the standard medieval Latin glossaries do not give the meaning “reflection” for umbra, Hildegard uses this word to denote images reflected in the fons vitae, literally a shining pool or fountain. The umbra viventis lucis is a “shadow” with respect to the lux vivens itself, but because it is brighter than the light of common day, “reflection” (with its emanationist overtones) is the better translation.

6. Hildegard of Bingen, Ep. 2 in Pitra, pp. 332–333.

7. Gottfried of Saint Disibod and Dieter of Echternach, Vita Sanctae Hildegardis 2.16 (hereafter cited as Vita), in Patrologiae cursus completus: series latina, ed. Migne, J.-P., 221 vols. (Paris, 1841-1864), 197Google Scholar: col. 103AB (hereafter cited as PL).

8. Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, ed. Adelgundis Führkötter (hereafter cited as Sciuias) in Corpus Christianorum: Continuatio Mediaevalis, vol. 43–43a (Turnhout, Belgium, 1966–)Google Scholar (hereafter cited as CCCM), pp. 3–4.

9. Vita 2.17 in PL 197: col. 104A, as emended by Peter Dronke from Berlin Ms. lat. 674, fol. 7v2, in “Problemata Hildegardiana,” Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 16 (1981): 107.Google Scholar

10. According to Javelet, Robert, “L'extase chez les spirituels du XIIIc siècle,” Dictionnaire de spiritualité, vol. 4, Pt. 2,Google Scholar col. 2113–2120, the word extasis used in this text is fairly rare in twelfth-century usage; excessus mentis was the preferred term. Hildegard's pejorative understanding of ecstasy is also rare for her period.

11. Singer, Charles, “The Scientific Views and Visions of Saint Hildegard,” in Studies in the History and Method of Science, vol. 1 (Oxford, 1917), pp. 1–55;Google Scholar reprinted in From Magic to Science: Essays on the Scientific Twilight (New York, 1958), pp. 199–239.Google Scholar See especially p. 232.

12. Hildegard of Bingen, Liber divinorum operum 3.10.38, in PL 197: col. 1038A. Hildegard may have suffered from rheumatism or from special sensitivity to the Föhn, the German south wind thought to cause a variety of physical and mental ills.

13. Ibid. 1.4.8, col. 810D.

14. For a thorough treatment of this complex subject see Hedwig, Klaus, Sphaera Lucis: Studien zur Intelligibilität des Seienden im Kontext der mittelalterlichen Lichtspekulation (Münster, 1980);Google Scholar on Hildegard, pp. 65–69.

15. Augustine, , De Genesi ad litteram 12.30–31Google Scholar, Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum latinorum (Vienna, 1866–), vol. 28, pt. 1, P. 425.Google Scholar For the analysis of Hildegard's visions in Augustinian terms I am indebted to Kraft, Kent, “The Eye Sees More than the Heart Knows: The Visionary Cosmology of Hildegard of Bingen” (Ph.D. diss., Univ. of Wisconsin, 1977),Google Scholar chap. 2.

16. Richard, of Victor, Saint, Benjamin Minor, trans. Zinn, Grover, The Twelve Patriarchs (New York, 1979), p. 130.Google Scholar

17. Ep. 92 in PL 197: col. 313A; Ep. 9 in Pitra, p. 348; Ep. 1 in Pitra, p. 328.

18. Benz, Ernst, Die Vision: Erfahrungsformen und Bilderwelt (Stuttgart, 1969), p. 160.Google Scholar

19. To date, the best studies of Hildegard's sources are Liebeschütz, Hans, Das allegorische Welt bud der heiligen Hildegard von Bingen (Leipzig, 1930)Google Scholar; Widmer, Bertha, Heilsordnung und Zeitgeschehen in der Mystik Hildegards von Bingen (Basel, 1955)Google Scholar; Dronke, Peter, “Problemata Hildegardiana,” pp. 107–117.Google Scholar

20. Böckeler, Maura, “Der ‘einfältige’ Mensch–Hildegard von Bingen,” in Wisse die Wege, German translation of Scivias (Berlin, 1928; 5th ed., Salzburg, 1963), p. 386.Google Scholar

21. “Problemata,” p. 108.

22. Augustine, Soliloquies 1.1.3, PL 32; col. 870.

23. Baumgardt, David, “The Concept of Mysticism; Analysis of a Letter Written by Hildegard of Bingen to Guibert of Gembloux,” Review of Religion 12 (1948): 282–283.Google Scholar

24. See for instance Vuarnet, Jean-Noël, Extasesfëminines (Paris, 1980)Google Scholar.

25. Scivias 3.13.16, pp. 635–636.

26. Hildegard of Bingen, Liber vitae meritorum 6.68, in Pitra, p. 244.

27. Liber divinorum operum 3.10.38, in PL 197: cot. 1038C.

28. Vita 2.22, in ibid., cot. IO6CD.

29. “Em unveröffentlichtes Hildegard Fragment,” 4.28, ed. Schipperges, Heinrich, in Sudhoffs Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin 40 (1956): 71.Google Scholar For Criticism of Hildegard see Vita 2.34 in PL. 197: col. 115C–116D and Ep. 116 of Tengswich of Andernach in ibid., col. 336B-337A.

30. Rupert of Deutz, Commentariorom in Apocalypsim 1.1, in PL 169: col. 851C–852A.

31. Honorius of Regensburg [Augustodunensis], De luminaribus Ecclesiae 4.16, PL 172: col. 232A.

32. Rupert of Deutz, In Reguta Sancti Benedicti 1, PL 170: col. 480C.

33. Kuno, a friend of the archbishop of Cologne, offered Rupert a refuge in Siegburg in 1116, after his attacks on simony had aroused such hostility that he no longer dared to publish his works in Liège. For Rupert's biography see van Engen, John, Rupert of Deutz (Berkeley, 1983).Google Scholar

34. Rupert of Deutz, De Trinitate, dedicatory epistle, CCCM 21: 120.

35. Rupert of Deutz, De gloria et honore Filii hominis 12, CCCM 29: 383.

36. Annales Palidenses ad 1158, in Monumenta Gertnaniae Historica: Scriptores, vol. 16 (Berlin, 1826–) p. 90.Google Scholar

37. Elisabeth, of Schönau, , Liber visionum 1.1, in Die Visionen der heiligen Elisabeth und die Schriflen der Äbte Ekbert und Emecho von Schönau, ed. Roth, F.W.E. (Brünn, 1884), p. 1.Google Scholar

38. Ibid. 1.67, p. 32. Compare Ps. 26:14.

39. Ibid. 2.1, p.40.

40. Hildegard of Bingen, Fragment 4.28, p. 71; Ep. 13 in PL 197: col. 167B; Ep. 26 in ibid., col. 185C; Ep. 49 in ibid., col. 254CD; Liber divinorum operum 3.10.7, in ibid., col. 1005AB.

41. Elisabeth of Schönau, Liber visionum 3.4, pp. 60–61.

42. Ibid. 1.6, p. 6.

43. Hildegard of Bingen, Ep. 23 in PL 197: col. 180C-181A.

44. Elisabeth of Schönau, Liber visionum 3.19, pp.72–73.

45. Vita 2.7–8, in PL 197: col. 96–97.

46. For the feminine dimension of God see Hildegard, of Bingen, , Scivias 3.9.25, pp. 538–539;Google Scholar Ep. 30 in PL 197: col. 192D; Liber divinorum operum 1.1, in ibid., col. 743–744, and 3.8, col. 979–981. I discuss this subject at length in my forthcoming book, Sister of Wisdom: St. Hildegard's Theology of the Feminine.