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Chapter 134HildE.1.134

R134: Hildegard von Rupertsberg an Propst S. in Koblenz

A Call to Humility and Prayer

Hildegard urges correction of restless behavior, acknowledges God's foreknowledge and just judgments, and clarifies that her role is to pronounce God's judgments but to pray for her addressee.

Hildegard's reply. O you who are the workmanship of God's finger.✦ Correct the shifting pattern of your behavior, and don't stretch yourself out into the restless wandering of your mind—a wandering you won't be able to excuse! Because God foresees all things. God doesn't command me to lay out His judgments against you. But only that I might pray for you. Since certain deeds done long ago by your forebears now have their eyes turned toward vengeance.✦ Because God sometimes extends His scourges even to the third and fourth generation.✦

Trust in God for the Soul's Salvation

Hildegard exhorts trust in the Lord for deliverance, clarifies that she speaks of salvation rather than worldly fortune, notes that the Holy Spirit withholds revelation amid sin, and prays that God may place the addressee in eternal life.

Trust, nevertheless, in the Lord. that he may deliver you from the power of the sword of your enemies. But I'm speaking about the salvation of souls rather than about the fortunes of human beings. And so I often keep silent about these things. because the Holy Spirit doesn't pour out his revelation amid the confusion of the sins of the peoples! but only with righteous judgment. May God place you in the inheritance of life! so that you may live forever.

The Weight of God's Ordained Times

Hildegard declares that no weight, month, year, or ordained time can compare with certain days, and insists that the just and living God must be entreated earnestly so that sinners may be absolved through prayers sought in God.

And I say this: There is no weight among weights that can be set against those days.1 Nor among months.2 Nor among years.3 Or at any other times ordained by God. For the living God, who is the King of kings and whose judgments are just, must be entreated with deep earnestness.✦✦4 So that he may absolve the sins of sinners5 through those prayers that have been sought out in God.6

Foolishness and Idolatrous Derision

Hildegard laments that many occasions have turned to foolishness, as idols desired through unbelief, leading the peoples into derision.

because many occasions have plucked themselves away into foolishness. just as idols wanted it, through the clamor of unbelief. in that they led the peoples out into derision.

Read the original Latin

Responsum hildegardis. O qui factura digiti dei es. corrige uicissitudinem morum tuorum et non extende te in uentilationem mentis tuę de qua te non possis excusare! quia deus omnia preuidet. Deus enim non iubet ut iudicia sua super te edisseram. sed ut pro te orem. quoniam quędam ante peracta opera parentum tuorum nunc habent oculos ad uindictam. quia deus etiam flagella sua aliquando extendit ad terciam et quartam generationem.

Confide tamen in domino. quod te liberet de manu gladij inimicorum tuorum. De salute autem animarum magis loquor quam de casibus hominum. et ideo multociens de his sileo. quia spiritus sanctus non effundit manifestationem in confusione criminum populorum! sed iustum iudicium. Deus te ponat in predium uitę! ut in eternum uiuas.

Et dico. Nullum pondus in ponderibus ad equandum est diebus. mensibus. annis. uel alijs temporibus quę a deo ordinata sunt. Deus enim uiuus qui rex regum est et cuius iudicia iusta sunt intime exorandus est. ut peccata peccatorum absoluat. per orationes illas quę in deo exquisitę sunt.

quia multę occasiones seipsas in stulticia decerpserunt. sicut idola per strepitum incredulitatis uoluerunt. quod in irrisionem populos eduxerunt.

Scripture echoes

  1. ↩Ps.8.3 — From the mouth of infants and nursing babes you have established strength, because of your adversaries, to silence the enemy and the avenger.
  2. ↩Exod.20.5 — You shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children, to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me.
  3. ↩Exod.34.7;Num.14.18 — keeping steadfast love for thousands, bearing iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and upon the children's children, to the third and to the fourth generation. Num.14.18 — The LORD is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, yet by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and on the fourth generation.
  4. ↩1Tim.6.15 — which he will display in his own time—the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of those who reign and Lord of those who rule.
  5. ↩Rev.19.16 — And on his robe and on his thigh he has a name written: King of kings and Lord of lords.

Notes

  1. 1 ↩The phrase 'pondus...ad equandum' uses a gerundive of purpose ('to be balanced/equated'). The sense is that no earthly measure of weight or suffering can be set alongside the significance of the days in question — likely days of judgment or trial. The metaphor is compressed and Hildegardian in style.
  2. 2 ↩This is a fragmentary sentence — a continuation of the previous comparison. The full sense is: 'There is no weight among months [that can be balanced against them].' The ellipsis is rhetorical, matching Hildegard's compressed prophetic style.
  3. 3 ↩Another fragmentary continuation of the comparison begun in s2. Full sense: 'Nor among years [can anything be balanced against them].'
  4. 4 ↩'intime exorandus est' — the adverb 'intime' (inwardly, deeply, earnestly) modifies the gerundive 'exorandus' (to be entreated/besought). The combination intensifies the call to prayer: God is not merely to be asked but to be sought with the whole interior person. 'Rex regum' echoes the traditional title (cf. 1 Tim 6:15, Rev 19:16).
  5. 5 ↩Purpose clause (ut + subjunctive). The antecedent of 'he' (God) is carried over from s6. 'peccata peccatorum' — the sins of sinners — is a pleonastic but rhetorically forceful construction, emphasizing the weight of sin committed by those who sin.
  6. 6 ↩'orationes...quae in deo exquisitae sunt' — 'prayers that have been sought out/refined in God.' The participle 'exquisitae' (from exquirere) suggests prayers that have been carefully sought, tested, or refined in the presence of God. The phrase is characteristically Hildegardian: prayers are not merely spoken but are drawn out and shaped in the encounter with God.

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