R149: Propst G. an Hildegard von Rupertsberg
Salutation of a Prelate
The provost G. identifies himself and addresses Hildegard as a true sister of God from the monastery of Saint Rupert.
A certain provost to Hildegard. To Lady Hildegard, true sister of God, from the monastery of Saint Rupert. G. Holding the office of a prelate!
The Fountain That Heals
The writer offers his prayer as a poor sinner and likens the soul's rush to Christ, the true fountain, to a stag fleeing pestilential poison.
Whatever prayer avails from a poor person, even a sinner. Since everyone who is wounded by a pestilential poison hastens like a stag toward the true fountain, that is, Christ, it casts off the harmful things of poison from itself!
Lament for the Church
The provost confesses his hardship, seeks God's remedy, and grieves that religious life has perished while presumption and confusion have overtaken the church.
I am weighed down by hardships of this kind. I turn to the fountain that God has deigned to reveal to us through his Spirit, seeking a remedy. seeking a remedy. For I do not doubt to know you. how quickly almost every form of religious life held in the past has now perished.1 how shamelessly hateful presumption has seized its place. Therefore, since the church limps in apostolic dignity and name, and truly does not know to which head it should look.
Led by the Spirit
The writer contrasts those who abandon religious life with those driven by God's Spirit, then flees to Hildegard for refuge and asks her to judge what he has been taught.
Because each one, wandering from there, takes up an example. It shrinks from the religious life of good conduct! Those who are driven by the Spirit of God. They are not troubled in the least—who would doubt that their end ought to be in the will of God?2 For which reason, having entered upon a good plan, I flee to you for refuge. And at the same time I earnestly beg you that whatever I have been taught by the Spirit concerning this, or concerning myself, you may judge.
A Promise of Obedience
The provost asks Hildegard to write back, affirms his trust in her counsel, and pledges full obedience.
I'd be grateful if you'd write back to me. For I rely on your counsel! I'm prepared to obey in everything.
Read the original Latin
Quidam prepositus hildegardi. Dominę hildegardi uerę dei simistę de cenobio sancti Roberti. G. prelati officium habens! quicquid pauperis quamuis peccatoris ualet oratio. Quoniam omnis qui pestifero sauciatur ueneno. cerui more ad uerum fontem id est christum properans. ueneni a se reicit nocua!
ego huiusmodi incommodis oneratus. ad fontem quem deus spiritu suo nobis reuelare dignatus est recurro! remedium querens. Scire enim uos non ambigo. quam cursim iam interierit pene omnis ante habita religio! quam impudenter locum eius occupauerit odiosa presumptio. Igitur quoniam ęcclesia in apostolica dignitate et nomine claudicat. et ad quod caput suum respiciat ueraciter ignorat.
quia quisque uagus inde exemplum sumens. religionem bonę conuersationis abhorret! hij qui spiritu dei aguntur. non minime sollicitantur quis finis eorum in uoluntate dei esse debeat. Quapropter inito bono consilio ad uos confugio. simulque efflagito. ut quicquid spiritu edocta. de hoc uel de meipso sentiatis.
mihi rescribere uelitis. Uestris enim consilijs! in omnibus obedire paratus sum.
Notes
- 1 ↩religio rendered 'religious life' per lexeme policy (monastic/ordered devotional practice).
- 2 ↩The Latin is syntactically compressed: non minime sollicitantur ('they are not troubled in the least') followed by an interrogative quis clause ('who [would doubt] that...'). The rhetorical force is that those led by God's Spirit are untroubled about whether their end lies in God's will — it is self-evident.
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