R102: Hildegard von Rupertsberg an Burgundische Äbte
A Call to Pastoral Awakening
Hildegard summons those in pastoral office to remember how God once called Adam back from hidden sin through the gift of incarnation.
Hildegard's response. O people, you who through the grace of God are in the Lord's pastoral calling of care! Learn the first calling, when God said to him: Where are you? When through disobedience he became a transgressor. Then his name was like a dark land. But God gave him a garment. Knowing that on his account he would take on the tunic of humanity.
The Strange Mercy That Restores
Through the image of the returning son and the father's embrace, Hildegard shows that God calls back sinners by mercy, not by the path they first fell.
In this, too, he was calling him back with the clear voice of mercy. when the wandering son came to his senses and said,✦ how many hired hands in my father's house have more than enough bread,✦ and yet here I am, starving!✦ and his father welcomed him with joy.✦ It is fitting for you, teachers, so that you may see with the first eye of clarity. that God called Adam back by a strange, unfamiliar way.
Ascent, Humility, and the Mountain of God
Hildegard urges the faithful to rise from repentance into long perseverance, climbing by humility as if upon a mountain.
namely through the kiss of humanity, in the fattened calf!✦ saying thus. Man had perished through disobedience. But I will lead him back through repentance. But go up onto the lofty mountain. And pitch tents in the valley. And remain in them for a long time. For when you look up to God, you ascend by following the mountain. And look deeply into profound humility, because the Son of God carried the whole human being in his humanity. And in all your works — that is, in yourselves and in others — practice humility! And persevere in it for a long time.
Guarding the Inner Forge
She warns against the dark forge of disordered thoughts and desires, calling God's soldiers to flee what corrupts and to seek the light they have already tasted.
So be on your guard. Don't let your mind be like a black mountain, where iron is forged in burning coals by craftsmen's arts.1 These are squalid manners in a bad custom. Sometimes by thinking. Sometimes by desiring. Sometimes in your work you produce things that are useless and that do not lead to holiness. But the things that cause the harm of wantonness — Flee these things, soldiers of God! And look to that light that you have already tasted in some measure. And rise up to holiness more quickly! Because you don't know when you may reach your end. For God gave rationality to man. For through the word of God —2
The Wings of Rationality
Hildegard contemplates the human person as rational, bearing two wings: knowledge of good and knowledge of evil, able as if to fly.
The human being is rational! But an irrational creature is like a sound. In this way, God established every creature in the human being. And to rationality he gave two wings. Of which the right wing is the knowledge of good. And the left signifies evil. In these things the human being is. As if it were something able to fly.
Soldiers of the Day
The faithful are urged to live as soldiers of Christ in the clear day of virtue, fleeing the night of clouded desire and restless excess.
And it's also like a day, and like a night it is. For when day overwhelms the night within a person, a good person is called a soldier, because in military strength they overcome evil. Therefore, you—O children of God—be soldiers for Christ through the day, and in the quiet of your mind flee the cloud which clouds the day! Also turn aside from the nightly ambushes that, through their own will, speak excess in the spreading of the heart. And be like a day touched by the falling dew in the morning.
Dwell in the Cleft of the Rock
Hildegard calls the community to dwell in the clefts of the rock with dove-like simplicity, that the living voice of praise may sound clearly.
And what is afterward tempered in a calm, balanced disposition. So that you may test all things with discernment, and so that you may rightly provide good things both for yourselves and for others. Therefore, dwell in the clefts of the rock with the pure simplicity of doves!3 So that you may have a voice of joy and salvation in the tents of the righteous.4 For God has placed the living voice, the breath of life, within the rational mind. That is, the voice of exultation, which with true knowledge sees and knows God in faith. And that same voice — — sounds forth in a trumpet that rings clear, accompanied by works of loving-kindness.5
The Voice of Love and Mercy
Love embraces the gentle, mercy anoints wounds, and the Holy Spirit's torrent waters the garden of humility and human need.
For this voice holds the embrace of love. so that it also gathers the gentle in humility. and mercy anoints wounds. Love also flows with a torrent of the water of the Holy Spirit, namely, with the peace of God's goodness. Humility also prepares a garden with all the fruit-bearing gifts of God's grace. and it holds a circle of all the greenness of God's gifts. Moreover, mercy exudes balsam for all the necessities that befall humanity.
Humility's Cry in the Tabernacles
Through humility the voice of love rises high, fights pride, gathers the poor, and resounds in the heavenly tabernacles.
This voice of love also resounds in the harmony of all praises of salvation. Through humility it rises to the heights, where it sees God and where it fights with victory against pride. For this voice cries out through mercy with a tearful and joyful sound, because it gathers to itself the poor and the lame and because in this way it seeks help from the Spirit, so that it may fulfill all these things with good works. For it resounds in the tabernacles.
Join the Voice of the Righteous
Hildegard exhorts the sons of God to unite themselves with the voice of the righteous, where God receives and grants life forever.
Where the saints, through those buildings, strike with lightning what they have prepared for themselves in this age. But you, O sons of God— join yourselves to the voice of good things, where the righteous are. And God will receive you, because he wants you to. And you will live forever. What you ask, however, is that a married woman be made fruitful with help. This is in God's will and power.
A Prayer for Fruitfulness
Hildegard closes by assuring the abbots that she will pray for the married woman's fruitfulness, leaving the outcome to God's merciful will.
because he himself knows where to grant offspring. and where to take it away. because not according to the sight of men. but by the inner judgment he judges. I myself, then, because you ask for her, will pray to God. But may he do what he has mercifully and piously arranged to be done from there.
Read the original Latin
Responsvm hildegardis. O personę quę per gratiam dei in dominica uocatione pastoralis curę estis! discite primam uocationem adę cum deus illi dixit. ubi es. quando per inobedientiam preuaricator extitit. Tunc nomen illi quasi tenebrosa terra erat. sed deus ipsi uestitum dedit. sciens quod propter eum tunicam humanitatis sumpturus esset.
In qua etiam clara uoce misericordię illum reuocabat. quando peregrinus filius in semetipso ad memoriam sui redijt cum dixit. quanti mercennarij in domo patris mei habundant panibus. ego autem hic fame pereo! et pater eius in gaudio ipsum suscepit. Vos magistros decet. ut in primo oculo claritatis uideatis. quod deus per alienam uiam adam reuocauit.
scilicet per osculum humanitatis in saginato uitulo! sic dicens. homo per inobedientiam perierat. sed eum per penitentiam reducam. Sed et in excelsum montem ascendite. et in ualle tabernacula facite. et in eis diu manete. Cum enim sursum aspicitis deum sequendo montem ascenditis.
et etiam in profundam humilitatem respicite quoniam filius dei in humanitate sua totum hominem portauit. et in omnibus operibus uestris scilicet in uobismetipsis et in alijs humilitatem attendite! et in ea diu perseuerate. Cauete ergo. ne mens uestra similis sit nigro monti ubi in ignitis carbonibus era fiunt per artes fabrorum. Hoc squalidi mores in mala consuetudine sunt. interdum cogitando. interdum desiderando.
interdum operando quę inutilia sunt et quę sanctitatem non parant. sed quę lesionem lasciuię faciunt. Ista milites dei fugite. et lucem illam inspicite quam aliquantulum gustastis. et ad sanctitatem citius surgite! quia nescitis quando finem accipiatis. Deus enim racionalitatem homini dedit. Nam per uerbum dei.
homo racionalis est! sed irracionalis creatura uelut sonus est. Sic deus omnem creaturam in homine constituit. Racionalitati autem duas alas dedit. quarum dextra ala bonam scientiam. sinistra autem malam significat. In his homo est! quasi uolatilis sit.
et etiam uelut dies. et uelut nox est. Cum enim dies noctem in homine opprimit. homo bonus miles nominatur quoniam in militari uirtute malum superat. Vnde uos o filij dei christo per diem militemini et in quiete mentis nebulam fugite. quę diem obnubilat! et etiam nocturnas insidias quę per propriam uoluntatem in dilatatione cordis nimietatem loquntur declinate. et estote dies quę a cadente rore in mane tangitur.
et quę postea in placida temperie temperatur. ita ut omnia in discretione probetis et quod uobis et alijs bona recte prouideatis. In cauernis ergo columbę cum pura simplicitate habitate! ut uocem exultationis et salutis in tabernaculis iustorum habeatis. Nam deus uitalem uocem spiraculi uitę in racionalitatem posuit! uocem scilicet exultationis quę cum bona scientia deum in fide uidet et cognoscit. Et eadem uox. in bene sonante tuba cum operibus beniuolentię sonat.
Vox enim ista amplexionem caritatis habet. ita quod etiam humilitate mansuetos colligit. et misericordia uulnera unguit. Caritas etiam cum torrente aqua spiritus sancti fluit. uidelicet cum pace bonitatis dei. Humilitas quoque hortum cum omnibus pomiferis gratię dei parat. que circulum omnis uiriditatis donorum dei habet. Misericordia autem balsamum sudat ad omnes necessitates quę homini assunt.
Hęc etiam uox caritatis. in symphonia omnium laudum salutis sonat. Ipsa quoque per humilitatem in excelsum sonat. ubi deum uidet et ubi cum uictoria contra superbiam pugnat. Ista enim uox per misericordiam lacrimabili et iocunda uoce clamat. quia pauperes et claudos ad se colligit. et quia sic auxilium de spiritu petit ut hęc omnia bonis operibus impleat. Ipsa enim in tabernaculis sonat.
ubi sancti per edificia illa fulminant quę sibi in hoc seculo preparauerunt. Uos autem o filij dei. uoci bonorum uos adiungite. ubi iusti sunt. et deus suscipiet uos quoniam uos uult. et in eternum uiuetis. Quod uero matronam cum adiutorio fecundari petitis. hoc in dei uoluntate et potestate est.
quia ipse nouit ubi prolem concedat. et ubi prolem auferat. quoniam non secundum uisum hominum. sed secundum interius iudicium iudicat. Ego enim quoniam rogatis pro ipsa deum orabo. sed ipse faciat quod inde pie et misericorditer fieri disposuit.
Scripture echoes
- ↩Luke.15.17 — But when he came to himself, he said, 'How many of my father's hired workers have bread enough to spare, and here I am perishing of hunger!'
- ↩Luke.15.17 — But when he came to himself, he said, 'How many of my father's hired workers have bread enough to spare, and here I am perishing of hunger!'
- ↩Luke.15.17 — But when he came to himself, he said, 'How many of my father's hired workers have bread enough to spare, and here I am perishing of hunger!'
- ↩Luke.15.20 — And he got up and went to his own father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was moved with compassion, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him.
- ↩Luke.15.23 — And bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let us eat and celebrate.
Notes
- 1 ↩era is uncertain in this context; glossed as 'iron' (metal), but the precise sense is unclear. The image contrasts the dark, violent forge with the call to gentle humility.
- 2 ↩Sentence s8 is fragmentary in the source — a prepositional phrase without a main verb or completion. It likely continues the thought of s7 or introduces a clause that follows in the next section. Translated as-is to preserve the incomplete surface.
- 3 ↩cauernis (caverns/clefts) evokes the image of Song of Solomon 2:14 and possibly Psalm 104:18; the dove imagery is scriptural but the exact composite allusion is unresolved.
- 4 ↩uocem exultationis et salutis in tabernaculis iustorum echoes Psalm 118:15 (Vulgate 117:15) — uox exultationis et salutis in tabernaculis iustorum — a direct quotation candidate pending Moses resolution.
- 5 ↩beniuolentię rendered as 'loving-kindness' to capture the active goodwill toward others; could also be 'benevolence' or 'goodwill.'
Epistolae: Letters to Frederick Barbarossa and Henry II of England companion
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