St. Hildegard (1098-1179), founder and first abbess of the Benedictine community at Bingen, is one of the most
fascinating spiritual figures of the twelfth century. The bearer of a unique and elusive visionary charism, she
was also a prophet in the Old Testament tradition - the first in a long line of prophetically and politically active
women - yet at the same time a representative of the german Benedictine aristocracy in its heyday. Proudly aware
of belonging to a social and spiritual elite, she was profoundly humble before God, awed by the audacity of her
own mission, and by turns diffident and strident about her gifts. Measured in purely external terms her achievements
are staggering. Although she did not begin to write until her forty-third year, Hildegard was the author of a massive
trilogy that combines Christian doctrine and ethics with cosmology; a compendious encyclopedia of medicine and
natural science; a correspondence comprising several hundred letters to people in every stratum of society; two
saints' lives; several occasional writings; and, not least, a body of exquisite music that includes seventy liturgical
songs and the first known morality play. Although other women had written before her, their works had fallen back
into silence; the names of Perpetua, Egeria, Baudonivia, Dhuoda and Hrotsvitha were unknown to her. Nor was she
aware of her great French contemporary, Heloise. We must not underestimate the courage she needed as the first
woman, to the best of her knowledge, to take up wax tablets and stylus in the name of God. Even greater, perhaps,
was the daring required to embark on her career as a public preacher of monastic and clerical reform. This mission
led her to undertake four prolonged preaching tours, beginning at the age of sixty; she spoke mainly to monastic
communities, but on occasion addressed clergy and laity together in the public squares. In the meantime she continued
to guide and administer the two nunneries she had founded, the first despite strong opposition from her abbot.
Its daughter house,located in the Rhineland village of Eibingen, is still thriving today. To her contemporaries
Hildegard was "the Sibyl of the Rhine," an oracle they sought out for advice on everything from marital
problems and health troubles to the ultimate fate of their souls. Often she gave her advice unsought - most notably
to her patron, the emperor Frederick Barbarossa, whom she rebuked fiercely for his role in the German papal schism.
Her books enjoyed a modest circulation and a widespread notoriety. By later medieval generations she was remembered
primarily as an apocalyptic prophet. Her fiery but enigmatic writings aabout the Antichrist and the last stages
of world history were collected by a Cistercian monk in 1220 and continued to circulate until the Reformation,
when she was perversely hailed as a proto-Protestant because she had prophesied the confiscation of ecclesiastical
wealth by princes and the dissolution of monasteries. In our own day the voice that Hildegard had called "a
small sound of the trumpet from the living Light" is resounding once more. In Germany she still enjoys a wide
popular cult, and the abbey at Eibingen has become a center of scholarship and pilgrimage. Herbalists have rediscovered
some of her prescriptions and begun to experiment with their use in modern homeopathic practice. Musicians have
performed her liturgical songs and her drama, the Ordo virtutum, to great acclaim. To students of spirituality
Hildegard remains of compelling interest, not only as a rare feminine voice soaring above the patriarchal choirs,
but also as a perfect embodiment of the integrated, holistic approach to God and humanaity for which our fragmented
era longs. While the movement for creation-centered spirituality has exaggerated certain elements of her teachaing
and denied its more ascetic and dualaistic aspects, it remains true that Hildegard unites vision with doctrine,
religion with science, charismatic jubilation with prophetic indignation, and the longing for social order with
the quest for social justice in ways that continue to challenge and inspire. Hildegard's Life and Works Hildegard's
life, which is well-known from her own writings as well as a variety of contemporary documents, presents a mixed
image of oppression and privilege.(1) Born into a noble family of Bermersheim near Alzey, she enjoyed the inestimable
advantages of wealth, high birth, membership in a large and well-connected family and easy access to the holders
of political and ecclesiastical power.(2) At the time of her birth the Cistercian order was in its infancy and
the first stirrings of the apostolic poverty movement had barely begun. Benedictine monasticism, especially in
Germany, remained an option for the elite, and many communities had close connections with the houses of their
noble founders or patrons. On the other hand, the ethic of world-renouncing asceticism held a strong appeal for
these powerful families, so it was not unusual when the daughter of the Count of Sponheim, a woman named Jutta,
decided in 1106 to adopt the solitary life of a recluse. Jutta's family was closely connected withHildegard's,
and her conversion provided an ideal opportunity for Hildegard's parents, Hildebert and Mechthild, to perform a
pious deed. They offered their eight-year-old daughter, the last of ten children, to God as a tithe by placing
her in Jutta's hermitage.(3) As a handmaid and companion to the recluse, Hildegard was also her pupil: She learned
to read the Latin Bible, particularly the Psalms, and to chant the monastic Office. In time, other women joined
Jutta and Hildegard, and the hermitage became a nunnery professing the Benedictine Rule. As a teenager Hildegard
made her formal profession of virginity. We hear nothing more of her until 1136 when Jutta died and Hildegard was
elected abbess in her stead. Five years later she received the prophetic call that eventually led her to compose
the Scivias and embark on her public mission. Although the outward circumstances of Hildegard's life were in no
way remarkable until that date, her inner life had always been mysterious. In the personal memoirs that form part
of her official biography she reports not... (continued in the Introduction of the book).
Summary
"...these translations thus supersede former ones...if the introductions, translations, and other apparatus
of the rest of the series are of the same high quality, the series will be indispensable for most libraries."
Library Journal HILDEGARD OF BINGEN-SCIVIAS translated by Mother Columbia Hart and Jane Bishop introduced by Barbara
J. Newman prefaced by Caroline Walker Bynum I saw a great mountain the color of iron, and enthroned on it. One
of such great glory that it blinded my sight. On each side of him there extended a soft shadow, like a wing of
wondrous breadth and length. Before him, at the foot of the mountain, stood an image full of eyes on all sides,
in which, because of those eyes, I could discern no human form. Hildegard of Bingen(1098-1179) Hildegard of Bingen,
twelfth-century German nun, mystic, prophet and political moralist, was widely consulted as an oracle and wrote
prolifically on doctrinal matters, as well as on secular matters like medicine, She publicly preached monastic
reform, founded two nunneries, and was embroiled in the politics surrounding popes and anti-popes. Scivias, her
major religious work, consists of twenty-six visions, which are first se down literally as she saw them, and are
the explained exegetically. A few of the topic covered in the visions are the charity of Christ, the nature of
the universe, the kingdom of God, the fall of man, sanctification, and the end of the world. Special emphasis is
given to the sacraments of marriage and the Eucharist, in response to the Cathar heresy. As a group the visions
form a theological summa of Christian doctrine. At the end of the Scivias are hymns of praise and a short play,
probably an early draft of Ordo virtutum, the first known morality play. Hildegard is remarkable for being able
to unite " vision with doctrine, religion with science, charismatic jubilation with prophetic indignation,
and longing for social order with quest for social justice." This volume elucidates the life of medieval women,
and is a striking example of a special form of Christian spirituality.
Declaration: These are True Visions Flowing from God
Book One: The Creator and Creation
1. God enthroned shows Himself to Hildegard
2. Creation and the fall
3. The universe and its symbolism
4. Soul and body
5. The synagogue
6. The choirs of angels
Book Two: The Redeemer and Redemption
1. The Redeemer
2. The Trinity
3. The Church, bride of Christ and mother of the faithful
4. The confirmation.
5. The three orders in the church
6. Christ's sacrifice and the church
7. The devil
Book Three: The History of Salvation Symbolized by a Building
1. God and man
2. The edifice of salvation
3. The tower of anticipation of God's will
4. The pillar of the word of God
5. The jealousy of God
6. The stone wall of the old law
7. The pillar of the Trinity
8. The pillar of the humanity of the Savior
9. The tower of the church
10. The son of man.
11. The last days and the fall of the antichrist
12. The new heaven and the new earth
13. Symphony of the blessed
